“Washington wants Ambassador Bullitt home but he won’t leave. America is a neutral country and we’re working like hell to get out anyone at risk, especially Jews. We’re bending a lot of rules to do it but once we go, there won’t be anyone left to help them.”
She admired his bravery and his reasons for staying and feared what might happen to her and many others when he was finally forced to leave. “How bad is it?”
“The Germans are pushing through the Ardennes and it’ll only be a matter of days before they’re in Paris.”
A chill raced through Amelia. The Ardennes was the weak point the Duke had told Wallis about and she’d told Mrs. Bedaux. Who had Mrs. Bedaux told? No, there were thousands stationed there. If the Duke saw the weakness, a hundred others must have seen it too and some of them were sure to be spies. “What about the French Army?”
“There isn’t one, and the British forces were evacuated at Dunkirk. Paris has been declared an open city and the French government is gone. Ambassador Bullitt is the highest-ranking official left and he’s doing everything he can to make sure the Germans don’t bomb the city when they enter it. Try and get the Windsors to leave while they still can, before there isn’t anyone left to help you.”
“They won’t do anything to the Duke.”
“You don’t know that. Prince Ernst of Hohenberg and his American wife were arrested after the fall of Vienna and no one has heard from them since. Her parents are frantically trying to find her but she’s disappeared. The same could happen to you. Once you’re in the Germans’ hands, God help you. Staying is part of my job, but I know damn well it’s not what you signed up for.”
“Yes, it is. If I don’t help Wallis have better sense than to stick around and be captured by the Germans, who will?”
He paused before he finally answered. “I understand.” Urgent voices sounded in the background. “I have to go. I love you, Amelia.”
She closed her eyes, the phone warm against her ear, his voice rough with emotion that echoed inside her. “I love you too.”
This wasn’t how she’d wanted to tell him, or admit it to herself, but with the Germans bearing down on France, it was possible
she might never see or speak to him again. The world had gone insane.
Chapter Eighteen
La Croë, June 1940
“Thank heavens you’re safe.” Wallis embraced the Duke the moment he stepped out of his car. “I told you not to go back to Paris. You could’ve been hurt or killed if you hadn’t left before the Germans marched into France.”
“Where’s Mr. Metcalf?” Amelia didn’t see him among the trunks and items from Boulevard Suchet being carried into the house by the local men under Mr. Phillips’s direction.
“How the devil should I know?” the Duke tossed at her with an indifferent shrug.
“You left him in Paris?”
He eyed her with a reprimanding stare. “He’s resourceful, he’ll find his way back to England. Besides, that’s not important now. This madness has to be stopped before the politicians get millions killed. Mr. Phillips, come, we have work to do.” They marched inside.
Wallis narrowed her eyes at Amelia. “Watch your tone when you speak to David. He isn’t one of the servants.”
“He left Mr. Metcalf in Paris to fend for himself.”
“He doesn’t matter. What matters is how you treat David in front of the servants. They won’t help us if they don’t respect us, and we might need them to get our things to a port if we have to leave.” She spun on her heel and marched into the house to be with the Duke.
Amelia stared after her, unable to believe what she’d just heard. Mr. Metcalf had served the Duke for years, been the best man at their wedding, and after all that, they’d simply discarded him like a dirty tissue when it’d suited them. If they could cast off an old friend this easily, who else might they abandon when it was convenient?
Wallis wouldn’t treat me like that. I’m like a daughter to her, and she needs me.
Amelia watched the footmen carrying the Duke’s things inside. They eyed Amelia with unease and she felt the vulnerability of the Windsors’ position and hers.
Tensions remained high in the house after that. The Duke and Mr. Phillips locked themselves in the Belvedere to compose telegrams to everyone from Mr. Churchill to the Italian king, whom the Duke encouraged to plead with Il Duce for peace. Amelia and Mr. Phillips had a devil of a time getting the cables sent without being censored, with Amelia forced to explain to the telegram operator that these were personal wires from the Duke of Windsor. It hadn’t moved him. When Mr. Phillips came to her, red-faced, asking for help in sending a telegram to Herr Hitler, she’d flatly refused. She wanted no part of that.
She spent the rest of her time arranging for many of Wallis and the Duke’s valuable and difficult-to-pack items to be sent to a monastery deep in the hills. Mr. Maugham had recommended it before he and Syrie had sailed away on their yacht, their generous offer to take the Duke and Duchess with them refused, much to Amelia and everyone’s irritation. Hiding the Windsors’ things had cost the Duke a whopping twelve thousand francs, and it was the first time Amelia had ever seen him willingly pay so much for anything. Heaven knew if they were really safe but she’d fought with the bank about the wire transfer, passing on their concerns that if the Germans invaded, the Windsors’ French funds might be frozen. Wallis and the Duke hadn’t done anything with that information but Amelia had wired her savings to an account Aunt Bessie had opened for her in America to keep her money safe from the Germans.
Wallis spent her days locked in her room talking to people on her private telephone line. Amelia didn’t know who Wallis was calling but figured she was probably fretting over some piece of frippery at Boulevard Suchet. Amelia almost wished a bomber would hit the house and burn it to pieces so the stubborn people would stop worrying about their things and leave.
In between securing rationed petrol reserves for the cars, acquiring food for the house, and soothing crying and nervous maids and belligerent footmen, Amelia had cabled Lady Metcalf, eager for any news about her husband, but she had no idea where he was. No one had seen or heard from him in days and Wallis and the Duke hadn’t given him another thought. When the postman finally handed Amelia a telegram from Mr. Metcalf, she tore it open with relief.
He left me without a word or a car or any way to get back to France. When I saw him the night before, he wished me goodnight as he did every night and I returned to my lodging, only to learn the next morning that he’d absconded with both cars and the rationed petrol and left Paris at 6am without one word to me. After all my years of loyal service, to be treated worse than one of his dogs is beyond comparison. By sheer luck I made it to Cherbourg, hitchhiking and walking for miles, and secured passage on one of the few remaining ships leaving for England.
After twenty years I am through. I utterly despise him. He deserted his job in 1936; well he’s deserted his country now, at a time when everyone is trying to do what he can. It is the end. I have had not one word from him and I can only surmise that he intends to stay where he is now. I am out of his service and I feel sure it is the only thing to do. I am through with the Windsors. Stay safe and be cautious Mrs. Montague, and look out for yourself. In these trying times you cannot count on anyone else.
Amelia folded the telegram. Mr. Metcalf had every right to curse the Duke. She hoped she never had a reason to do the same.
“You dance divinely,” Maurice Chevalier complimented the Duchess in his heavily accented English as he swung her about the terrace in time to the radio. The Duke watched his wife and the famous French singer from where he lounged on one of the chaises, a martini in one hand, his pipe in the other.
“Enchanté, madame. Livin’ in the sunlight,” Monsieur Chevalier sang along to the orchestral version of his song, his rich voice as soothing as the warm sunshine and bright sky.
Wallis had invited Mr. Chevalier to lunch, hoping to lighten the cloud of doom hanging over the house. The Duke tapped his fingers against the chair’s arm in time with the music, thoroughly enjoying himself.
Mr. Chevalier twirled Wallis off and with a laugh she planted herself in the chair beside the Duke. “No more for me.”
“Madame?” Mr. Chevalier leaned over in his white linen suit, a wicked smile curling his lips beneath his pencil mustache as he held out his hand to Amelia.
She didn’t want to dance and pretend everything was wonderful but she couldn’t ruin the mood and risk another dressing down from Wallis. She didn’t want to wake up in the morning to find everyone gone and her left to fend for herself.
Mr. Chevalier took her in his arms, his hand very low on her back while he guided her in a waltz beneath the shade of the columned roof. At any other time, in any other place she would’ve written Aunt Bessie about it. It was too absurd to write about now.
A breaking bulletin interrupted the song. “In a speech from Venice Square in Rome, addressing the Italian people, Dictator Mussolini has declared war on the United Kingdom and France.”
Mr. Chevalier let go of her, picked up his hat from the side table, and set it over his black hair. “Excusez-moi, Son Altesse Royale. I have enjoyed my time here and thank you, but my wife is Jewish and we must hurry to consider our next move. I wish you both well. Until we meet again, hopefully under happier circumstances. Au revoir.”
He bolted inside, imploring Mr. Hale to call for his car.
“I’ll make arrangements to close up the house,” Amelia said, still standing in the center of the terrace.
“No need to run around like chickens with our heads cut off.” The Duke sipped his martini. “There’s nothing to worry about.”
“Except the Italian border is only forty miles from here, and the French Army hasn’t done a thing to stop the Germans up north.”
Wallis threw her a warning glance but she ignored it, as short-tempered with their stubbornness as Mr. Metcalf. The Duke and Wallis weren’t taking this seriously and she couldn’t understand why.
Inside, the phone rang and Mr. Hale answered it, then came out and announced, “Mr. Rogers is on the line. He says it’s urgent.”
“I’ll speak to him.” The Duke rose from the chair with a huff, annoyed anyone should be worried when he clearly wasn’t. The Duke was no sooner done assuring Mr. Rogers that he and Wallis were safe when the phone rang again. Amelia could tell by his reaction it was someone else calling with the same advice. After the fourth phone call, the Duke stopped picking up.
