She did her best to think forward as well. She was convinced that what had happened between herself and Victor was meant to be, and everything she had ever done had led her to him. But who could depend on fate? She had loved him while she worked in his parents’ house, first as a sister or friend might, and then in the months before she’d left as something much more. It had happened slowly, and then, shockingly, she knew she had fallen in love with him. Perhaps that was part of the reason she’d gone without any goodbyes. Back then, Victor was nearly eighteen and she was twenty-three and the five years that separated them was not so much. Although lately, when she looked in a mirror, she saw that she looked older than her age; she was weathered, her skin damaged from so much time spent outside, especially in winter. Not that it mattered. She paid little attention to her looks, simply braiding her hair or piling it atop her head to keep it out of the way. She had never worn lipstick or mascara or high heels, though in Paris she had sometimes envied the women who did, but it was not in her nature to do so. She had been born plain and had remained that way. Yet Victor had told her she was the most beautiful woman in the world. She had laughed, but she saw in his eyes that he believed this, and later, when they were apart, she’d wept, grateful to know he thought so.

Her father, a traditional, old-fashioned man, would not have been happy to know she slept with Victor here in his house, and that she did so with fierce abandon, even though they were unmarried. There was never enough time. She could count how often they had been together, twelve times, that was all. But twelve occasions could be a world.

It was strange to be at Beehive House now that her father was gone, and even stranger when she was here with Victor, and stranger still to be so happy whenever she was with him. In this terrible time they had managed to find joy. They had made a pact that each would live life without fearing for the other while they were in the Resistance; each had their work to do, and that meant being away from the farm and one another. Yet secretly Marianne worried. Victor was young and brash and fearless, an unpredictable combination.

Still, she would never tell him how to live his life. She hadn’t when he was a boy, and she wasn’t about to do so now. What they both did was dangerous, but living was dangerous. Her father had been at his own farm, taking care of his bees, breathing in the blue air, when they’d come to murder him. All Marianne could do was live her life, and let Victor live his.