“We won’t go to England,” the Duke insisted. “We’ll go to la Croë.”
“I would strongly advise against it, sir.” Mr. Metcalf tried to reason with him and Wallis as they sat in their room surrounded by Louis Vuitton trunks. They’d gone round and round about it for the past half hour and gotten nowhere. “We have to find passage to England before the situation in France turns dire.”
“Nonsense. Sir Walter paraded in here last year carrying on about risks and nothing came of it. It’s the same this time. I refuse to run like a scared rabbit back to England only to be treated with the same disdain as before. I’m a prince, I have my pride.”
“Your pride,” Mr. Metcalf scoffed. “France is falling, women and children are being shot on the roads, and all you care about is yourself and your pride. Stop being so selfish and start seeing what’s around you. Europe is at war.”
“Amelia, where are you?” Robert’s sturdy voice sounded over the crackling phone line. She’d risked the long-distance charges to call him, willing to pay for them out of her own salary to hear his voice. She wanted his opinion so she could tell Wallis the situation, gain more ammo, as it were, to convince them to leave France before it was too late. What she wouldn’t give to be in his arms and indulging in the strength of him instead of here, but she couldn’t fall to pieces.
“La Croë.” Through the open gatehouse windows, she could see the sloping lawn leading down to the cobalt-blue ocean. With the crashing waves and seagulls calling to each other, she could almost pretend the world hadn’t gone mad, but it had.
“What are you doing there? You should be in England or on the next ship to America.”
“Good luck convincing them of that. The Duke went back to his regiment but only because Mr. Metcalf guilted him into doing it. I doubt he’ll stay there. No one can stop him from doing what he wants and he wants to be with Wallis. What about you?”
“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.
