The Widows of Champagne Page 7

  The chaos was nothing like she’d ever experienced. She couldn’t seem to find a single coherent thread in the complicated mess of her thoughts.

  German soldiers were everywhere, gleefully laying claim to the fire. They ignored the chaos they’d started and became like uniformed ants swarming in and out of buildings. With cold-eyed stares, they filled their arms and then their vehicles with treasures that did not belong to them.

  A little boy watched the destruction with wide, terrified eyes. “Make them stop,” he wailed. “Please, Maman. Make them stop.”

  The woman pulled the child against her, tears filling her eyes, her words of comfort lost in the confusion. Her curses on the Germans came through much clearer. The fire was loud, and it was hot, and Gabrielle could not get close enough to help. All she could do was watch the sparks fly from a distance and feel the oppressive heat on her face.

  She wanted to pray. The words would not come. In her heart, she knew the Lord had already made His decision against her country, her city, her home. Her family.

  They would suffer hunger, fear and loss. They’d felt the fangs of all three before. They’d survived and would do so again. That’s what Gabrielle told herself. That’s what she believed, what she had to believe. But then the soldiers began stacking crates of champagne along the base of the Fontaine Jean-Godinot, and she knew this war would be different than before, worse. The enemy would act without honor this time.

  They would not get what belonged to her family. Not without a fight. She wiped the ash off her face and took off for the château at a dead run.

  Chapter Ten

  Josephine

  Josephine refused to hide in the wine cellar. No amount of badgering by Marta could change her mind. “This is my home. I will not surrender it to German marauders.”

  Marta squeezed her hand. “This is your pride speaking. Pride will not protect you from the savagery of these men.”

  It was not a matter of pride. It was the memory of another war. Forced underground, huddled with her neighbors among the racks of fermenting wine, quaking in terror. This time, this war, Josephine would not be sent to cower in fear when the rest of her family was...

  Where was the rest of her family?

  In the moments she’d spent arguing with Marta she’d lost them. This was not the time for her mind to play its tricks. She took in her surroundings in an attempt to gather her wits. How had she ended up in the parlor, the one Hélène considered her own personal sanctuary, as sacred to her as the cathedral was to other Frenchwomen?

  The wireless, perhaps? Yes, yes. Josephine remembered now. She’d come to listen for news of her beloved France. “Why am I, and you,” she added when her eyes landed on Marta, “the only ones in this room? Where are the others?”

  “I do not know.”

  Josephine had other questions. Why could she not make her mind form the thoughts she needed to speak? The harder she tried to shape the words into sentences, the stronger the ache pounded behind her eyes. It was as if she’d sipped too much champagne and had come away with a sore head. “Where is Gabrielle? Hélène? And...” There was another in the home. A girl. Her name... “Paulette?”

  Marta shrugged.

  That girl, always disappearing, doing what she wished, when she wished it. Hélène should not encourage such rebellion. To be a mother meant not always making the easy choices. Josephine understood why her daughter-in-law hid certain secrets from Paulette, but that didn’t mean the girl should be allowed to run free.

  Static from the wireless cleared, and the voice of a Frenchman reported the news with uneasy desperation. “The Germans have overtaken Paris completely. Nazi flags drape our buildings. Soldiers swarm like insects to every part of the city. They have spread to the outskirts, setting fires to buildings. They loot, and now they—”

  “We waste time with things we cannot change.” Marta turned a knob on the wireless and the room went silent. “Come, Josephine. The Germans are invading. We will hide—”

  “We will not hide,” she said, cutting the other woman off. “We will stand strong.”

  Bold words, and yet...

  For a paralyzing moment, Josephine had no idea what to do next. She looked down at her hands, clenching and unclenching at her waist. She was suddenly very cold. Reaching up, she rubbed at her arms to warm herself. The clamor in her head had taken on a frantic spinning of voices upon voices. She would not let the whispers win.

  With a tug on her hand, Marta attempted to pull her out of the room. Josephine allowed the housekeeper brief success. One step, another, then she dug in her heels at the sound of the brass knocker slapping at the front door.

  “The Germans.” Marta made a strangled noise deep in her throat. “They have come.”

  A chill ran down Josephine’s spine. I will not surrender. I will not willingly give what belongs to me and mine. They will have to take it, but I will not give.

  Slowly, as though she might disturb her own fragile hold on restraint, she looked to Marta. The housekeeper’s gaze chased around the room, landing nowhere. Another woman grappling for control.

  The knocking turned more insistent. “We must answer the door,” Josephine said, thinking of her family first, praying they were somewhere safe.

  Why could she not remember where they had gone?

  Marta drew herself up. “I will do it.”

  “Non.” Josephine set a steadying hand on the other woman’s arm. “I must be the one to face the wolves at my door. You will stay out of the way.”

  Marta did not argue, but she did not obey fully. She followed Josephine, only stopping when they reached the edge of the foyer. Josephine continued on her own. With her chin lifted at a haughty angle, she braved the journey with purposeful strides. Each step restored her strength, even as time seemed to bend and shift in her mind, taking her back to another war when the Germans had shown up on her doorstep.

  She pulled open the door and flinched. The light of the stark, afternoon sun shone too brightly. Her hand immediately went to cover her eyes.

  “Madame Fouché-LeBlanc.” The masculine voice spoke her name in perfectly accented French. Not a native speaker, but close.

  Josephine lowered her hand, only to press it to her throat as she experienced a viselike tightening of her breath. That face. She knew it. The sight brought both shock and fury. Not because of the hard angles and sharp planes, but because of its familiarity. This man was no stranger to her. He had roots in Reims. A German wine importer she’d invited into her champagne house, now draped in the uniform of the enemy.

  He wasn’t alone. He’d brought along two hard-eyed soldiers to add to his look of importance.

  “I know you,” she said. His hair was lighter. Threads of silver now glinted in the pale blond strands that were shorn shorter than when she’d last stood in his presence.

  “I’m pleased you remember me.”

  “It would be hard to forget a man such as you.” Josephine had never liked Helmut von Schmidt. Her aversion had started from their first meeting nearly a decade ago. It was his eyes. There was no light in them. Pale, icy, not quite blue, not quite gray, they’d always made Josephine uneasy, especially when he looked straight at her. As he was doing now. She felt the chill of his stare, like a breath of frost on her face.

  Her stomach roiled. Then her mind cleared, becoming so free of confusion that she could remember each of their encounters in stark relief.

  She wished for the fog to return.

  His eyes went to the interior of the house behind her, a quick, thorough inventory that brought a hint of satisfaction to his bearing. “You are alone, Madame?”

  “Non.” She did not expand.

  He spent another moment considering her. Then, he stuck out his hand but must have seen something in her face and let it fall away. “You know why I am here?”

  “You have c
ome for my champagne.”

  “Oui, but perhaps not in the way you assume.”

  Something there, in his eyes. An ugly greed she’d noted in the past, when he was a younger man not quite able to reach the heights in his career he thought he deserved. In a flash of memory, she recalled the way he signed off on a number of cases, while writing on the bill-of-sale a different one that benefited his own pocket. Her insides shook a little. “I trust you will enlighten me, Herr von Schmidt.”

  “It is Hauptmann von Schmidt,” he corrected, snapping to attention and clicking his heels smartly for emphasis. “I have been given the rank of captain in the Wehrmacht.”

  She said nothing, not even when he shot out his arm and expressed his allegiance to his führer. Heil Hitler, indeed. The vile autocrat did not deserve such loyalty, not even from a man with his own questionable character.

  “I have been commissioned into a special corps of the Wehrmacht to oversee the purchase of champagne for the Third Reich.”

  Purchase. That was what the Nazis were calling their theft? Josephine stared at von Schmidt hard, daring him to continue along this ridiculous vein of lies. “Go on. Finish what it is you have come to say.”

  “I have been assigned to Champagne because of my connections to the region. I serve second only to Otto Klaebisch.”

  Another German with connections to Champagne. Both men were once wine merchants, now turned soldiers meant to purchase champagne for their führer. The Nazis had thought to organize their pillaging. She had not expected such forethought. Or that Hitler would be so smart as to assign men familiar with the region to do his dirty work. “You have come to tell me of your new career, or is there another reason for your arrival on my doorstep?”

  “This, I’m afraid, is not an attempt to reignite our friendship.”

  At last, they were getting to the purpose of his visit. No matter how pleasant his manner, this man—this German—had come to rob her. How much of her champagne would he take? Whatever the amount, it would be too much. The stony-faced, broad-backed soldiers flanking von Schmidt were proof enough of that.

  She would not make it easy for them to steal from her.

  Josephine held her enemy’s stare. It was time to form a defense. Her mind worked quickly, quicker than it had in months. And that reminder of her frailty was the strategy she would take. “I am an old woman. My mind is not what it once was. These pleasantries only make me confused. Please, Herr—” She paused. “Herr Hauptmann von Schmidt, I beg you to speak plainly. How much of my champagne do you want?”

  With an apologetic incline of his head, he said, “Your champagne is safe. For now.”

  For now. Two words that took every ounce of control out of her hands and placed it firmly into his. She understood this game he played. He would toy with her, until he tired of the theatrics. Then, he would loot her wine cellar down to the limestone blocks.

  Von Schmidt appeared to be waiting for her to respond to his remark. Did he expect gratitude from her? Of course he did. “Thank you.”

  “You are most welcome.”

  He would leave now. He should be leaving. Why was he not leaving? “If you have something else to say, Herr Hauptmann,” she prompted once again, “please say it.”

  “Very well. I am requisitioning your home for my lodgings while I am in the region. Here is the paperwork.” He made a flicking gesture with his fingers and one of the soldiers pressed a document into her hand.

  Josephine blinked at the paper stamped with the official seal of the Third Reich. Her mouth would not work. Her throat had compressed to the size of a pipe stem.

  “I see I have shocked you.”

  Of course he had shocked her. He was stealing her home.

  She attempted to tamp down her panic, even as she watched his gaze take in the elaborate foyer behind her again, lust and greed filling his eyes. “I will, of course, allow you and your family to remain in your home for as long as you choose to cooperate.”

  She nearly laughed at the threat uttered within that seemingly magnanimous offer. What was she to say to such conceit?

  “You will thank me now.”

  “Thank you.” She had to force the words past her clenched jaw.

  Von Schmidt didn’t seem to notice her difficulty. Speaking in hard, rapid-fire German, he gave the soldiers their orders. Josephine didn’t understand most of what he said, but she caught enough to know that he was the highest-ranking soldier. And he enjoyed the privilege of ordering his subordinates around.

  This was not wholly unexpected.

  Taking it as a given his demands would be obeyed, he turned on his heel and gave Josephine his full attention once more. “You will move aside and let me in now.”

  He removed his hat, secured it under his arm, then stepped across the threshold. Once inside the château, all signs of pleasantness vanished. He wore the face of a conqueror.

  Josephine was quivering now, with a mix of fear and rage. She could not set aside the messy stew of her thoughts to move, to speak. To react at all. Where was her resolve to fight?

  “You may begin my tour of the property.”

  The way he said the words...

  Josephine didn’t remember offering to show him around. Another slip within her mind? Or was this man—this German—issuing her orders as he had the soldiers, as though her obedience was a given? She thought maybe the latter.

  She felt herself drawing away from reality, as if she dwelled under a glass dome and couldn’t quite reach the world beyond her isolated bubble. The sensation was really quite lovely. And so very tempting. A seductive call she desperately wished to answer.

  Her eyes fluttered shut, then snapped open again when someone touched her arm. “Grandmère.”

  Gabrielle stood by her side, breathing hard, her presence wrenching Josephine out of her confusion. Her granddaughter smelled of smoke and French outrage. Her eyes narrowed over von Schmidt, contempt dripping from her every pore. “What is the meaning of this intrusion?”

  Chapter Eleven

  Gabrielle

  Gabrielle held the soldier’s stare, refusing to recoil under the severe slice of cheekbones and rigid set of his jaw. He seemed very German. But also, somehow, familiar. They’d met before, though she couldn’t quite place the face.

  She was too agitated to make more than a cursory attempt to recall their past connection. The images from Reims were still fresh in her mind, the smoke still in her nose, the feel of her neighbors’ fear still humming in her blood.

  Now, the horror stood in her home, wearing an immaculately pressed officer’s uniform. She disliked him and his proprietary manner and, she feared, her derision had sounded in her voice. All of a sudden, she realized her mistake. She’d made demands of her oppressor. That had not been wise.

  “Gabrielle.” Her grandmother touched her arm, waited for her to glance in her direction before performing the necessary introductions. “This is Herr Helmut von Schmidt, or rather...Hauptmann von Schmidt.”

  Von Schmidt. The name did not bring up a memory.

  “Herr Hauptmann, this is my granddaughter Gabrielle LeBlanc Dupree.”

  “A pleasure, Madame Dupree.”

  Gabrielle did not offer a response. She gave him no hand to clasp, only a slight frown to convey her mood. She dared not show more defiance. She wasn’t supposed to be facing the enemy with only her grandmother. If Benoit were alive—

  He would be fighting in the French army. And Gabrielle would still be confronting this soldier without him. For some reason, that made her all the more furious over his intrusion.

  Von Schmidt didn’t seem to notice her hostility. Or perhaps, he simply didn’t care what she thought of him. For a long moment, he did not speak. He simply held her stare with an arrogant one of his own. She wanted to shout at him to get out of her home. To get out of her country. He didn’t belong. Bu
t that wasn’t true anymore. France had fallen into German hands. The government had rolled over and shown its jugular to the dogs.

  The truth of that still hadn’t fully settled.

  Gabrielle glanced at her grandmother. Josephine’s shoulders were hunched and most of her color had left her skin. It was as if she were shriveling away right before her very eyes.

  Von Schmidt broke his silence at last, and Gabrielle was struck by the faultless French accent. “I have long desired to meet you, Madame Dupree.” His eyes gave a contradictory message. “My business was always with your grandmother in the champagne house while, as I understood it, you tended the vines.”

  A wine merchant, yes. She remembered now. Helmut von Schmidt worked for an import company from the Rhineland. Her grandmother had not enjoyed their association, but he’d been employed by one of her most important accounts.

  Now, he was a soldier. An officer. Standing in their home. A ten-minute walk away from the wine cellar. He’d come for the champagne. Would he see the wall? Would he know it was fake?

  And now, she couldn’t get enough air in her lungs. Fear wanted to overwhelm her. She thrust the useless emotion aside. The images of the looting she’d just witnessed were not so easily dismissed. The soldiers’ faces were the same as the one staring at her now. Hard, indomitable, full of arrogance and entitlement.

  The comparison only made her dislike this man more.

  What was he doing in her home? And why this pretense of civility? Gabrielle turned to her grandmother for answers, putting all her questions into a single word. “Grandmère?”

  “Herr Hauptmann has requisitioned our home for the duration of his stay in the region.”

  Gabrielle’s entire world crumbled at her feet. She opened her mouth to resist such an impossibility, but the man himself transferred the paper in Josephine’s hand to Gabrielle’s. “As this document explains, you will not be put out on the streets, if that is your concern.”

  It was one of many concerns. She wanted to ask about the champagne. She knew not to give him ideas.