“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.
Amelia rested in the back seat while Wallis took her turn driving. It was near sunset, the sky red above the brown fields. In the distance, a light here and there from a farmhouse or château twinkled in the cold air. The long length of muddy roads crisscrossed by rivulets of water from patches of melting snow was broken by small groups of refugees in tattered and dirty clothes struggling to push carts and bicycles weighed down with their belongings. They’d come from conquered Poland, walking hundreds of miles to escape the brutal Germans and their ironfisted rule. She had no idea what they’d do once they reached Paris. The city’s charitable organizations were already bursting with refugees.
“We should stop and give them something to eat. They must be hungry and cold,” Amelia suggested.
“We can’t.” Wallis swerved around a peasant man leading a sad-looking and tired donkey. A young woman in a thin coat and mud-covered shoes followed him. “We don’t have any care packages left.”
“We could give them our blankets and donuts.”
“We might need those. The roads are so bad, we could have a flat and be stranded all night and freeze to death.” Wallis jerked the wheel right to avoid a large ditch and Amelia steadied herself against the back seat. “Besides, if you hand out food, they’ll swarm us like pigeons. We might be robbed, or worse. I swear, Amelia, sometimes you are so naive.”
“I’m not naive, I simply hate to see people suffer,” Amelia snapped, irritated by Wallis’s callousness.
Wallis threw her a hard look in the rearview mirror. Amelia instantly regretted making Wallis look like a heartless witch but she couldn’t help it. She was tired from the long day of driving, the long months of waiting for the other shoe to drop, and horrified by the misery surrounding them.
“We’ll bring some extra care packages to hand out next time,” Mrs. Bedaux suggested, the polite compromise easing the tension between the cousins. “It’s the least we can do to help these poor people.”
“That’s a splendid idea,” Wallis agreed with little enthusiasm.
Amelia rested her head against the back of the seat and closed her eyes. The hum of the engine lulled her into a light sleep.
“You remember what King Carol said about war and opportunities. Charles’s business is booming. There could be opportunities for you and His Royal Highness too.” Mrs. Bedaux’s low, melodious voice melded into the soothing engine noise.
“I hadn’t thought so until David told me about the Ardennes.” Wallis’s carrying voice, even in a whisper, jolted Amelia into full consciousness but she pretended to be asleep, curious to hear where this was going. She listened in shock as Wallis told Mrs. Bedaux what the Duke had said about the weakness in the Maginot Line, the lack of reserve troops, and how the Germans could come through the forest.
Having heard enough, Amelia sat up and pretended to yawn, stopping Wallis from saying more. “Are we there yet?”
“Not far. Another half hour or so.” Wallis opened and closed her gloved fingers on the steering wheel and focused on the road. Mrs. Bedaux said nothing but stared out the windshield at the tall and leafless trees lining the road.
Amelia didn’t fall asleep again, afraid of what Wallis might say if she did. Amelia appreciated everything Mrs. Bedaux had done for her but there was no ignoring her husband’s Nazi friends. If she were as indiscreet with her husband as the Duke was with Wallis, there was no telling what damage it might do.
Amelia walked into the Chancery and was stunned by the change. She expected the sandbags out front, the taped-up windows, and the double guards; those were everywhere in Paris these days. It was the spacious foyer crammed with desks and chairs filled by Embassy officers helping desperate families get out of France that shocked her. Nothing was normal anymore and it deepened the unease already draping her.
She made her way past the line of people, her Red Cross uniform giving her some status. She wasn’t trying to cut the line but to reach Susan and find Robert.
“Amelia, I don’t suppose you’re here to lend a hand?” Susan half-jokingly asked, somehow managing to not look disheveled in the midst of the controlled chaos. She directed a young couple to the chairs along the wall where numerous other tired and anxious men and women waited.
“I wish I could.” Amelia spied Lisa and many other Embassy friends delivering or fetching papers from the desks. “Is Robert here?”
