“Stepmothers have an evil reputation.”

“Not this one. I love her. And she makes my father happy.”

“I’m glad to hear it.”

“I have another question. I noticed a picture when I came in. It looked a bit like you.”

“It does, doesn’t it? That’s just a coincidence, though. I bought it from a dealer because it came with two preparatory sketches, which you don’t often find.”

Louise stood up and went to the window. It was an October afternoon. The sky was clear; the sun was still shining over Paris. She loved the autumn season, yet she often felt a strange melancholy on Sunday afternoons.

“Would you like to go for a walk?” she suddenly said.

They walked down the old rue du Renard, crossed the big open space in front of the Hôtel de Ville and then crossed the Seine to the Île de la Cité. The sun was in the west, the light on the Seine was golden, but there was a certain coldness in the air over the water that made her shiver. They paused in front of Notre Dame.

“It’s too early to eat, but I’m hungry,” she said.

They found a bistro nearby. There were only a few tourists there, and the place was quiet. They ate a light meal and talked of all sorts of things. She could see that he was becoming even more intrigued by her than he had been before. Then she said that she wanted to go home, and he insisted on walking her back, as she knew he would.

Their affair began that evening. It was conducted, usually, on a Sunday. Sometimes he would drive her somewhere in the Voisin. Sometimes they would stay in and she would cook for him. They always found things to talk about.

By the end of the year, they had made love in every room in the house.

They were not seen together socially. She suspected that he had not told his father and stepmother about her existence. She didn’t mind in the least. She had her own plan for the relationship.

And the plan worked very well. Before Easter 1938, she told him she was pregnant.

“It must have been the Wild West room,” she said.

Chapter Twenty-six

•  1940  •

When Marie looked back, she wished that she could have done more herself, but she understood that she could not. And she wished that Charlie had not hurt his father—though she knew he never meant to.

But what was the use of wishing? It was a time of trial, when everything was changed.

It was not that the French had been unprepared for war. The huge Maginot Line of fortified defenses along France’s eastern front was virtually impregnable. Six years ago, whatever Hitler’s grandiose plans, the French army had outnumbered and outgunned him. Had he attacked even three years ago, she thought, he might still have been crushed.