“I’ll tell you why if you can keep a secret.” He brought his face down close to hers so she could see the flecks of gold in his blue eyes in the soft light spilling out from inside.
Amelia cocked her head at him, doing her best to remain levelheaded. “I work for the Windsors.”
Robert chuckled at her frank answer. “Ambassador Kennedy told Ambassador Bullitt he won’t let Mrs. Kennedy dine with the Duchess because”—he changed his voice to mimic Ambassador Kennedy’s Massachusetts accent—“‘my position doesn’t obligate my wife to dine with a tart.’”
Amelia burst out laughing. “That’s awful but it’s a riot. Who told you that?”
“I never reveal my sources.”
“Then I can trust you with my secrets?” She adjusted the wide strap of her deep burgundy velvet evening gown with the gold trim along the scooped neck, noting the flick of his glance to her chest before he met her eyes again.
“You shouldn’t trust anyone in Europe.” He slid her a sly smile and she trilled her fingers on the railing, enjoying this flirting even if she shouldn’t. There was danger in the rich tones of his voice and their easy conversation, and how wonderful it was to speak to someone without all the curtseys and sirs and everything else.
“Do you trust Susan?” She surprised herself as much as him with that question, but she had to know before she got too carried away.
“We’re simply friends. She has a fiancé in medical school in Georgia, so while he’s there, she’s here getting a Parisian polish. She’s having too much fun to leave but she’ll have to go home if war breaks out. Most of us will. It won’t be safe to stay.”
“Hopefully, it won’t come.” The brisk fall air whipped up the wide avenue of similarly styled buildings and made her shiver. She wanted more time to make friends, to enjoy nights like this where she felt she belonged and no one judged her. It was something she hadn’t experienced in a long time. “Europe suffered so much from the last war. It’s awful to think it could happen again.”
“Then let’s hope for the best.” He laid his arm over her shoulders and drew her into the warm curve of his body. He was a foot taller than her and she fit perfectly against him. She shouldn’t be this close to him but it felt so comfortable she couldn’t pull away. “I understand the Windsors are going to the South of France for Christmas.”
“How did you . . . Oh, that’s right, it’s your job to know what’s going on.”
“It is.” He didn’t apologize for it. There was a lesson. She should never apologize for what she did or who she worked for either.
“We’ll be there well into the new year.”
“That’s too bad.” He drew her against his wide chest and as he pressed his lips to hers she forgot everything except the strength of his embrace. As a widow, she knew what she was missing, a warm body against hers, the nighttime pleasures of caresses and kisses. She might live a sheltered life right now but it didn’t mean she wanted to become a nun. She was tempted to lead him into a dark and quiet corner and forget about tomorrow or next week and follow this passion wherever it led, but she knew better than to toss consequences to the wind. There were only so many second chances a woman could expect. She couldn’t ruin this one by losing her head again over a man she barely knew.
“I’m sorry, I shouldn’t.” She stepped out of his arms, missing the heat of him the moment the chill bit her exposed shoulders. “I, well, it’s been quite a year, quite the last few years.”
“Don’t apologize for being cautious. I know what it’s like to be burned.” He rested his elbows on the railing and peered at the bright city. “My last year of college, I was engaged to a girl I’d known for years. I thought I had it all figured out, graduation, marriage, a position with a congressman in Washington, D.C. It was perfect, until six weeks before the wedding when she told me she didn’t love me, she never had. I was simply an old friend. She married a fellow classmate a month later. It’s how I ended up in Europe. I wanted to get as far away from her and everything that might have been as possible.”
“I know the feeling.” Through a window across the street, Amelia watched a family sit down to dinner. The happy scene tugged at her heart. “I’m sorry you had to go through that.”
“In the end, it was for the best. If she hadn’t broken it off, we might have been miserable and I wouldn’t have come to Paris or met the Duchess of Windsor’s secretary.”
“A dubious honor, I’m sure.” She studied him, wondering if someday she’d thank Jackson for having ripped the scales from her eyes, and be glad for what he’d done because of where it had led her. She hoped so.
“Don’t sell yourself short. You have a great deal to offer anyone who’s smart enough to see it, but you have to appreciate it first.”
She nearly said that wasn’t true then closed her mouth, taking Wallis’s advice not to argue with a compliment. “Thank you for your confidence in me.”
“Don’t thank me. I’m buttering you up so you’ll meet me for breakfast at Café Capucines. I can’t manage a week of work without at least one café Viennese and croissant.”
“I’d love to join you. Perhaps we can make it a regular event?”
“I think that can be arranged.”
Chapter Twelve
Paris, March 1938
Germany Invades Austria! the Daily News headline proclaimed from the corner newsstand rack. The London paper hadn’t arrived with the morning post and Amelia had walked here to buy it and take a break from the flurry of activity at Boulevard Suchet. The crowd of workmen and movers there was nothing compared to the people nervously reading the reports here.
A nearby church bell rang and Amelia tucked the newspaper under her arm and hurried down the street, oblivious to anything but the awful news, when a familiar voice stopped her.
“Amelia?”
She turned to face the man, hoping she was wrong about who it was but she wasn’t. “Theodore?”
“I thought it was you.” Theodore Miller examined her from head to toe, taking note of her gray suit and silk shirt. It was one of the suits she’d had run up from a bolt of fine Bucol wool. After a lifetime in the garment and clothing manufacturing industry, her stepfather could spot quality fabric from a mile away.
“What are you doing in Paris?” It was the last place she’d expected to see him. He hadn’t dealt with European markets or manufacturers when she’d known him.
“The threat of war is making the smart businesses stock up, and they’re looking for suppliers from everywhere. I don’t need to ask why you’re here.” He sneered at her as he had the one time they’d met after her marriage. “I’m not surprised you’ve thrown your lot in with Wallis. You were always a terrible judge of character.”
“Just like my mother.”
That wiped the sneer off his flat face. “She had the good sense to protect her reputation and honor while you’ve done everything you can to throw yours away.”
“How dare you thumb your nose at me when you pay your workers a pittance to slave away in your horrible sweatshops. I read about the strikes at your factories.”
“Yes, the Windsors are quite the crusaders for laborers, aren’t they? I bet they haven’t given the working man a second thought since they left Herr Hitler.”
She couldn’t argue with that. The Duke had forgotten about the working poor the moment the American tour had been canceled. He’d returned to Paris and fallen into his old habits of golfing and following Wallis around while she shopped. However, she wasn’t going to crumble under that bit of truth. “You helped cancel the American trip, didn’t you?”
“It wasn’t just me.” Theodore straightened his tie. “The New York Clothing Manufacturers’ Exchange didn’t want the Windsors ginning up workers with their champagne socialism. Besides, the idea of that awful woman meeting the president is as sickening as you having no shame in working for her.”
“She stood by me when you and everyone else wouldn’t give me the time of day.”
“A woman with that much scandal hasn’t got anyone else to stand beside except a fellow guttersnipe. Tell me, was Jackson worth throwing it all away for?”
Theodore wanted her to admit he’d been right but she wouldn’t give him the satisfaction. “If by it all you mean my oh so caring and attentive mother and your sad respect, then yes, it was worth it.”
“You poor fool. If you think Wallis is going to stick by you then you have another thing coming. She’s betrayed or driven away everyone who’s ever tried to help her, including your mother and most of her old Washington, D.C., friends. Someday, when it suits her, she’ll discard you too, like a wilted bunch of roses. Mark my words, she doesn’t care about anyone but herself, her social standing, and money, and you have none of that.”
“I don’t have to listen to this.” She whirled to leave but he dashed around her, blocking the way, just as he’d done in his office the morning she’d said she’d marry Jackson with or without his permission.
“Degrade yourself as much as you want but be discreet about it for once. I won’t have you dragging my family name in the mud along with your own.”
“You abandoned me when I needed my family the most. Don’t think for a moment I’ll worry about how anything I do reflects on you.” She stepped around him and hurried away.
“You’ll regret this. Wallis will ruin you the way she ruined the King,” he yelled.
She didn’t look back but kept walking until she reached Boulevard Suchet. She leaned against one of the large trees dotting the sidewalk, struggling to see through the tears stinging her eyes.
He’s wrong about Wallis. He didn’t know her like she did. Wallis had been there for her when others hadn’t, and she’d taught her more in the past few months, given her more confidence and hope in the future and herself, in a year than Mother had in a decade. Theodore simply hated her for the same reason he hated Amelia: because she hadn’t followed his or society’s rules. Instead, Wallis had done what she’d needed to do to survive, they both had, and made something of herself despite all of his dire warnings. She’d looked at his and society’s scorn and thrown it right back in their faces and he despised her for it.
