They were all better than they had been. But there was no denying, they had suffered enormous losses … of time … of hope … of people they loved … sweet Lizzie lost to all of them. William gone for so long and almost lost forever…. Joachim come and gone from their lives…. The losses and the sorrows had taken their toll, and they were recovering now. But at times, Sarah wondered if the hardest hit of all had been Phillip. He had lost a father he’d never known for the first six years of his life, and now he had to get to know him and build a relationship with him, which wasn’t easy for him. He had lost a friend in Joachim when he left … and a sister he would never forget, and still mourned for.
“You miss her, don’t you?” she asked him softly when they were walking in the woods, and he nodded, lifting his eyes to hers painfully as he always did when they talked about his sister. “I do, too, sweetheart.” She held tightly to his hand as they walked on, and Phillip looked away from her and said nothing. But his eyes said something William had already understood, and Sarah hadn’t. He blamed his mother for his sister’s death. It was her fault Lizzie had died for lack of medicine … just as it was her fault Joachim had gone. … He wasn’t quite sure what she’d done to make these calamities fall into his life, but he knew she’d done something … or at least she hadn’t stopped them. But he was happy at Whitfield anyway. He rode, he walked in the woods, he enjoyed his grandmother, and little by little, he began to know William.
Chapter 17
William cried when they got back to the château. It looked so exactly the way he’d remembered it, the way he dreamed it would be if he ever came home again, that all he could do was hold Sarah and sob like a child. Everything looked beautiful when they arrived. Emanuelle and her mother had everything ready. Sarah had left Emanuelle in charge for almost a year, and she had run the place to perfection. There were no longer signs of armies of any kind, not in the château, or on the grounds, or even in the stables. Emanuelle had employed scores of men to clean everything up and get it ready for the Whitfields.
“It looks beautiful,” Sarah complimented her when they returned, and Emanuelle was pleased. She was very mature for a girl of her years. She was only twenty-three, but she ran things well, and she had an eye for detail and precision.
Sarah took William to Lizzie’s grave the afternoon they arrived, and he cried when he saw the small grave, they both did. And on their way back to the house, he asked Sarah again about the Germans.
“They were here for an awfully long time,” he said casually. “It’s amazing they didn’t do more damage.”
“The commandant was very good. He was a nice man, and he kept his men under control. He didn’t like the war any better than we did.” William raised an eyebrow as she said it.
“Did he ever say that to you?”
“Several times,” she answered quietly, not sure why he was asking these questions, but there was something in his voice that told her he was worried.
“Were you good friends with him?” he asked offhandedly, knowing how often Phillip had mentioned him. There were times when he worried that his son preferred the German officer to his own father. It was a blow to him, of course, but he understood it. And as Sarah looked at him now, she understood his questions. She turned so that she could see William in his wheelchair.
“We were only friends, William. Nothing more. He lived here for a long time, and a lot of things happened to us…. Elizabeth was born.” She decided to be honest with him, she had to be, she always had been. “He delivered her, he saved her life, she would have died at birth if he hadn’t saved her.” But she had died anyway, so maybe it no longer mattered. “We survived for four years here through all that. It’s hard to ignore that. But if you’re asking me what I think you are … no, nothing ever happened.”
He startled her then with his next words, and a little shiver of shock ran through her.
“Phillip says you kissed him when he left.” It was wrong of him to tell his father, or in just that way, but maybe he didn’t understand what he was doing, or perhaps he did. Sometimes she wasn’t sure she understood him. He had been so angry at her ever since Lizzie died … and Joachim left … and William came home … and now he often seemed withdrawn. He had a lot to absorb and understand. They all did.
“He’s right. I did,” Sarah said quietly. She had nothing to hide from William, and she wanted him to know that. “He became my friend. Joachim hated what Hitler was doing as much as we did. And he helped keep us safe. When Joachim left, I knew I’d never see him again. I don’t know if he lived or died after that, but I wish him well. I kissed him good-bye, but I did not betray you.” There were tears rolling slowly down her cheeks as she said it. And what she said was true, she had been faithful to him, and it had been wrong of Phillip to make him jealous. She had known at the time that he was angry at her for kissing Joachim, and also for letting him go. He was angry about a lot of things, but she had never expected him to do anything about it. She was only glad now that she could tell William honestly, she hadn’t betrayed him. It was the only thing that made all those lonely nights worth it.
“I’m sorry I asked,” he said guiltfly, but she knelt next to him and took his face in her hands.
“Don’t be. There’s nothing you can’t ask me. I love you. I always did. I never gave up on you. Never. I never stopped loving you. And I always believed you’d come home.” It was true, and he could see it in her eyes—that, and how much she loved him.
He sighed then, relieved by what she had said, and he believed her. He had been terrified when Phillip told him. But he also knew that in his own way Phillip was also punishing him for having left them “I never thought I’d come back. I kept telling myself I would, just so I could survive another hour, another night, another day … but I never thought I’d make it. So many didn’t.” He had seen so many men die, tortured to death by the Germans.
“They’re a nation of monsters,” he told her as they went back to the house, but she didn’t dare tell him again that Joachim was different. As he had said, war was an ugly thing. But thank God, it was over.
They had been back at the château for a mere three weeks when Emanuelle and Sarah were making bread in the kitchen. They talked about many things and then Emanuelle began to ask questions.
“You must be very glad to have Monsieur le Duc back,” she began, which was certainly obvious to anyone who saw them. Sarah hadn’t been this happy in years, and they were slowly making new discoveries about their sex life. Some of the alterations were unfortunate, but very little seemed to have changed, much to William’s delight now that he had a chance to try it.