“He must also have a position when he returns,” Wallis demanded, having recovered her composure now that she wasn’t forced to fly. “David won’t sit around knitting in some castle while everyone else is doing something for the war effort.”
“I’ve been authorized by His Majesty to offer Your Royal Highness one of two positions. Deputy Regional Commissioner in Wales, where you’ll oversee civil defense efforts, or Liaison Officer with the British Military Mission in Paris, where you’ll inspect the strength and security of the Maginot Line on behalf of His Majesty’s Government.”
“He’ll take the Welsh position,” Wallis answered before the Duke could even open his mouth. “At least in Wales he won’t risk getting his head shot off in this foolish war, and we’ll finally be able to return to England.”
“I’ll tour the British regiments and commands, visit the troops, and buck up the men’s spirits as I did in the Great War. Her Royal Highness will accompany me.” The Duke paused, waiting for Sir Walter to react to his use of the HRH title, but Sir Walter had the most impressive poker face Amelia had ever seen. “She’ll live at Fort Belvedere.”
“Fort Belvedere hasn’t been maintained since you left,” Sir Walter said. “I suggest you make arrangements for other lodgings when you return.”
“If my family wants us home then they can make proper lodgings for us,” the Duke thundered.
“I’ll convey your wishes to His Majesty via phone this evening. I’m staying at the Hotel du Cap. I’ll return in the morning to discuss various arrangements.” Sir Walter bowed then left.
Amelia was surprised he didn’t sprint back to the car and the hotel. He’d taken a beating from the Duke and there’d be another in the morning or when he called His Majesty. The poor man was being batted between the Windsors and Buckingham Palace like a badminton birdie.
“Sir, might I advise accepting Sir Walter’s plane and seeing to the details of titles, housing, and positions when you’re safely in England?” Mr. Metcalf entreated.
“And lose our bargaining power?” Wallis answered for him, rising and forcing the Duke to his feet. She eyed Mr. Metcalf as she would a maid who’d dared to question her. “David failed to secure his income and my title before he surrendered his crown. He won’t make the same mistake twice. So long as we’re here they must pay attention to our demands. Come, David, we have things to discuss.”
“Yes, darling.”
She walked out the door, the Duke, Detto, Prisie, and Pookie trotting after her.
“They’re bickering over titles when we could be bombed by the Italians at any moment.” Mr. Metcalf ran his hand through his hair in frustration. “One would think the abdication would’ve taught them the cost of being stubborn but they haven’t learned a thing. At least he wants the Welsh position. It’ll get him away from the likes of that Bedaux fellow.”
“The Bedaux aren’t that bad. At least Mrs. Bedaux isn’t.” She didn’t see Mr. Bedaux enough to know much about him but Mrs. Bedaux had been nothing but kind to her. She wouldn’t have gotten as far as she had with Wallis if it hadn’t been for her.
“Mrs. Bedaux is a gem but that husband of hers is too close to the Germans. I’ve been with His Royal Highness since 1922 and I’ve never seen him shy away from being influenced by the worst sort, neither does Her Grace. I wonder sometimes if I’ve been a fool for being so loyal.”
“Someone has to help them or they’ll get into even more trouble.” Amelia loved Wallis but she wasn’t blind to her lack of judgment sometimes, and the Duke wasn’t much better.
“Very true, Mrs. Montague, very true.”
Chapter Sixteen
Fort des Ayvelles, Belgium–French Border, February 1940
“Buckingham Palace shouldn’t have worried about us returning to England. We’ll die of boredom before we die from bombs,” Wallis complained as she brushed the mud from her khaki French Red Cross uniform skirt. Amelia nodded her agreement. Nothing had happened since war had been declared. The Drôle de Guerre, the French called it; the Phony War, the British and Americans named it, as everyone went about their usual lives while waiting for something they prayed would never come. “But we must do our part, mustn’t we?”
“We must.” Mrs. Bedaux closed the Buick’s now empty trunk, the chocolates, cigarettes, and knitted socks they delivered twice a week to the French troops stationed along the Maginot Line near Fort des Ayvelles gone. The three of them were part of the Section Sanitaire and when they weren’t handing out care packages, they spent the better part of the week with French society women in the Ritz ballroom assembling treats for the bored soldiers guarding the border between Belgium and France at the far end of the Ardennes Forest. “It’d be unpatriotic for us not to help.”
“And to think I tried to join the British Red Cross but those snooty tarts wouldn’t have me.” Wallis slid into the front seat beside Amelia, took a compact out of the glove box, and touched up her lipstick.
“They don’t deserve your help, not with the ghastly way they’ve treated you.” Mrs. Bedaux sat in the back seat and straightened her garrison cap over her finely curled hair. They might be in the mud-strewn wilds of France but they still insisted on looking their best.
Amelia didn’t have time to freshen up as she started the car and maneuvered it over the wet and narrow streets and past the low-slung buildings of the medieval lanes toward the Duke’s barracks outside of town. Whenever they finished delivering packages, they always met him for tea and coffee in his quarters before returning to Paris, the three of them splitting the driving on the long trip back.
“Where is Charles these days?” Wallis asked Mrs. Bedaux as the car bounced over the muddy and undulating ground beneath the tall and thin bare trees.
“Still in The Hague overseeing his businesses.”
“It must be nice to have a husband with a real job, not just busywork.” Sir Walter had returned to la Croë the morning after his September visit and told the Duke the Welsh offer had been rescinded and only the French posting was available. It’d thwarted their plans to have the upper hand in negotiating for Wallis’s title, and after wrangling about ranks, uniforms, and other meaningless things, the Duke had finally traveled to Vincennes to take up his duties while Wallis and Amelia had gone back to Boulevard Suchet. “Here we are, darlings. Smile, we have to make the little man feel important.”
“Isn’t she wonderful?” the Duke asked Mr. Metcalf at the end of lunch when Wallis had finished telling him about their work in Paris, making it sound much more interesting than it really was. “What happened to the newspaper stories on Wallis’s war work? I want people to see her in uniform, to know she’s doing her part.”
“I contacted Lord Beaverbrook about running a story but it hasn’t happened,” Mr. Metcalf explained as he checked the coffeepot. At the Duke’s request, Mr. Metcalf had been made the Duke’s Aide-de-Camp. “I’ll write to him again.”
“We’ll try the American newspapers too, darling,” the Duke assured Wallis. “We’ll show everyone you’re a model volunteer.”
Mr. Metcalf returned the lid to the coffeepot with a frown. “We’re out of coffee. I’ll walk to the canteen and fetch more.”
“I’ll go with you,” Mrs. Bedaux offered. “I want to stretch my legs before the drive back.”
They stepped out into the dreary gray day, leaving Amelia to finish her lukewarm coffee with Wallis and His Royal Highness. She took another fresh-baked donut from the china tray in front of her, enjoying the warm food while she could. There was little civilization between here and Paris, with most villagers and farmers wary of strangers, especially at night.
A large boom echoed through the barracks, making the old stone walls with their small framed windows rattle.
“What was that?” Wallis jumped to her feet, ready to run to the car and back to Paris.
“Artillery fire, nothing to worry about, they practice every day.” The Duke settled Wallis in her chair then sat down in his. He removed a pipe from his shirt pocket along with a pouch of tobacco and packed the bowl. “A waste of artillery if you ask me. I’ve seen the fortifications and defenses. They aren’t worth a damn.”
“But the Maginot Line is supposed to be impregnable,” Wallis said, still uneasy about the cannon fire.
“The Maginot Line is like Swiss cheese through the Ardennes. Bloody French fools think tanks can’t get through the trees but they’re wrong. If Herr Hitler wants to invade, he should do it through there. He wouldn’t meet any resistance, not with the French refusing to keep reserves. When the Maginot Line breaks, there won’t be any troops to plug it back up.”
Amelia paused in sipping her coffee, wondering what the devil she’d just overheard. The Duke was discussing confidential military matters as if they were cricket results.
“The British aren’t much brighter.” The Duke lit his pipe and shook out his match. “I was at Dunkirk last week. Our flying boys are run ragged and in no shape to fight or defend anything. I’m constantly pointing out flaws in the French defenses but no one listens. You’d think someone in Britain would at least acknowledge my reports but they haven’t. All they do is deny my request to tour the British lines. I want to see our defenses and compare them to the French ones.”
“It’s your brother’s doing. He hates you, he always has, he was simply better at hiding it when you were on the throne. If he weren’t so shortsighted, he’d read what you’ve written and know the line and army is in trouble. They dismiss it as they do your talents, except this time they’ll regret it,” Wallis grumbled, as if the Germans invading France would be nothing more than a minor social cut and not a disaster for Europe and Britain.
The door swung open, and Mrs. Bedaux hurried in with a gust of cold air before Mr. Metcalf closed the door behind them, the empty coffeepot dangling from one hand. “My apologies, everyone, the canteen had nothing prepared, as usual.”
“The French Army is the most disorganized I’ve ever seen,” the Duke complained. “If they had a brain they’d be dangerous, but there isn’t one to be found among any of them. For all the bragging about being strong enough to fight, they’ll be hopeless if the Germans invade.”
Wallis straightened her garrison cap over her hair in the small mirror tacked up above the Duke’s wash table. “We must be going if we hope to get back to Paris at something resembling a reasonable hour.”
“I’ll drive down to see you next week, darling.” The Duke picked up Wallis’s heavy wool coat and helped her into it.
“Sir, you were in Paris last week,” Mr. Metcalf tersely reminded him. “It might be more prudent to remain here and attend to your duties.”
“What duties? I haven’t a thing to do. They’ll probably be glad to be rid of me for a day or two.”
“I’ll be expecting you,” Wallis said as she pulled on her gloves.
