Books by Sarah Sundin

  When Twilight Breaks

  WINGS OF GLORY

  A Distant Melody

  A Memory Between Us

  Blue Skies Tomorrow

  WINGS OF THE NIGHTINGALE

  With Every Letter

  On Distant Shores

  In Perfect Time

  WAVES OF FREEDOM

  Through Waters Deep

  Anchor in the Storm

  When Tides Turn

  SUNRISE AT NORMANDY

  The Sea Before Us

  The Sky Above Us

  The Land Beneath Us

  © 2022 by Sarah Sundin

  Published by Revell

  a division of Baker Publishing Group

  PO Box 6287, Grand Rapids, MI 49516-6287

  www.revellbooks.com

  Ebook edition created 2022

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—for example, electronic, photocopy, recording—without the prior written permission of the publisher. The only exception is brief quotations in printed reviews.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is on file at the Library of Congress, Washington, DC.

  ISBN 978-1-4934-3415-2

  This is a work of historical reconstruction; the appearances of certain historical figures are therefore inevitable. All other characters, however, are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

  Published in association with Books & Such Literary Management, 52 Mission Circle, Suite 122, PMB 170, Santa Rosa, CA 95409-5370, www.booksandsuch.com

  Baker Publishing Group publications use paper produced from sustainable forestry practices and post-consumer waste whenever possible.

  In fond memory of Lucille McClure

  and the Lucille McClure School of Ballet.

  I still feel that invisible string.

  Contents

  Cover

  Half Title Page

  Books by Sarah Sundin

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  1940

  1

  2

  1941

  3

  4

  5

  6

  7

  8

  9

  10

  11

  12

  13

  14

  15

  16

  17

  18

  19

  20

  21

  22

  23

  24

  25

  26

  27

  28

  29

  30

  31

  32

  33

  34

  35

  36

  37

  38

  39

  40

  41

  42

  43

  44

  45

  46

  47

  48

  49

  50

  51

  Sneak Peek from Sarah’s Next Captivating Story

  Excerpt from The Master Craftsman

  To the Reader

  Acknowledgments

  Discussion Questions

  About the Author

  Back Ads

  Back Cover

  1

  PARIS, FRANCE

  WEDNESDAY, MAY 29, 1940

  As long as she kept dancing, Lucille Girard could pretend the world wasn’t falling apart.

  In the practice room at the Palais Garnier, Lucie and the others in the corps de ballet curtsied to Serge Lifar, the ballet master, as the piano played the tune for the grande révérance.

  Lifar dismissed the ballerinas, and they headed to the dressing room, their pointe shoes softly thudding on the wooden floor, but more softly than ever. Since Germany had invaded the Netherlands and Belgium and France earlier in the month, dancers were fleeing Paris.

  “Mademoiselle Girard?” the ballet master called in Ukrainian-accented French.

  Lucie’s breath caught. He rarely singled her out. She turned back with a light smile full of expectation and a tight chest full of dread. “Oui, maître?”

  Serge Lifar stood with the erect bearing of a dancer in his prime and the authority of the choreographer who had returned the Paris Opéra Ballet to glory. “I am surprised you are still in Paris. You are American. You should go home.”

  Lucie had read the notice from US Ambassador William Bullitt in Le Matin that morning. Yes, she could sail with the other expatriates on the SS Washington from Bordeaux on June 4, but she wouldn’t. “This is my home. I won’t let the Germans scare me.”

  He glanced away, and a muscle twitched in his sharp-angled cheek. “The French girls would gladly take your place.”

  “Thank you for your concern for my safety.” Lucie dropped a small révérance and scurried off, across boards graced by ballerinas for over sixty years and immortalized in Edgar Degas’s paintings.

  In the dressing room for the quadrille, the fifth and lowest rank of dancers, she squeezed onto a crowded bench. After she untied the ribbons of her pointe shoes, she eased the shoes off, wound the ribbons around the insteps, and inspected the toes for spots that needed darning.

  Somber faces filled the dressing room, so Lucie gave the girls reassuring words as she shimmied out of her skirted leotard and into her street dress.

  Lucie blew the girls a kiss and stepped into the hallway to wait for her friends in the coryphée and the sujet, the fourth and third ranks.

  She leaned against the wall as dancers breezed down the hall. After six years at the Paris Opéra Ballet School, Lucie had been admitted to the corps de ballet at the age of sixteen. For ten years since, she’d felt the sting of not advancing to the next rank, tempered by the joy of continuing to dance in one of the four best ballets in the world.

  “Lucie!” Véronique Baudin and Marie-Claude Desjardins bussed her on the cheek, and the three roommates made their way out of the building made famous by the novel The Phantom of the Opera.

  Out on avenue de l’Opéra, Lucie inserted herself between her friends to create a pleasing tableau of Véronique’s golden tresses, Lucie’s light brown waves, and Marie-Claude’s raven curls.

  Not that the refugees on the avenue would care about tableaux, and Lucie ached for their plight. A stoop-shouldered man in peasant’s garb pulled a cart loaded with children, furniture, and baggage, and his wife trudged beside him, leading a dozen goats.

  “What beasts the Germans are,” Marie-Claude said. “Frightening these people out of their homes.”

  “Did you hear?” Véronique stepped around an abandoned crate on the sidewalk. “The Nazis cut off our boys in Belgium, and now they’re driving north to finish them off.”

  Marie-Claude wrinkled her pretty little nose. “British beasts. Running away at Dunkirk and leaving us French to fend for ourselves.”

  “Let’s go this way.” Lucie turned down a less-crowded side street. “It’s such a lovely spring day. Let’s not talk of the war.”

  “What else can we talk about?” Véronique frowned up at the sky in the new Parisian mode, watching for Luftwaffe bombers.

  At the intersection ahead, a blue-caped policeman carrying a rifle—still a jarring sight—checked a young man’s identity card.

  “I wonder if he’s a German spy,” Véronique whispered, her green eyes enormous. “I heard a parachutist landed in the Tuileries yesterday.”

  Lucie smiled at her friend. “If every report of a parachutist were true, the Germans would outnumber the French in Paris. We mustn’t be disheartened by rumors.”

  In the next block, a middle-aged couple in expensive suits barked orders at servants who loaded a fancy automobile with boxes.

  Marie-Claude brushed past, forcing the wife to step to the side. “Bourgeois beasts.”

  Lucie’s mouth went tight. Typical businessman who lobbied for war to get rich and fled when war threatened those riches.

  The ladies passed the Louvre, crossed the Seine, and entered the Latin Quarter on the Left Bank, home of artists and writers and others of like mind.

  They turned down rue Casimir-Delavigne, and the cheery green façade of Green Leaf Books quickened Lucie’s steps. She’d always thought a street named after a French poet was a lovely location for a bookstore.

  “We’ll see you upstairs.” Véronique blew Lucie a kiss.

  Lucie blew a kiss back and entered the English-language bookstore, a home for American and British and French literati since Hal and Erma Greenblatt founded it after the Great War. When Lucie’s parents moved to Paris in 1923, they’d become fast friends with the Greenblatts.

  Bernadette Martel, the store assistant, stood behind the cash register, and Lucie greeted her.

  “Hello, Lucie.” Hal peeked out of the back office. “Come join us.”

  “Okay.” She flipped back to English. Why was he in the office? Hal liked to greet customers and help them choose books, while Erma did the bookkeeping and other tasks.

  Lucie made her way through the store, past the delightfully jumbled bookshelves and the tables which fostered conversation about art and theater and the important things in life.

  Boxes were piled outside the office door, and inside the office Hal and Erma stood in front o f the desk, faces wan.

  “What—what’s wrong?” Lucie asked.

  Hal set his hand on Lucie’s shoulder, his brown eyes sad. “We’re leaving tomorrow.”

  “Leaving? But you can’t.”

  “We must.” Erma lifted her thin shoulders as she did when her decisions were etched in stone. “In Germany, the Nazis don’t allow Jews to run businesses. I doubt it’ll be different here.”

  “They won’t come to Paris.” Lucie gestured to the north where French soldiers lined the Somme and Aisne Rivers. “Besides, you’re American citizens. They won’t do anything to you. Our country is neutral.”

  “We can’t take any chances,” Erma said. “We’re going to Bordeaux and sailing home. You should come too.”

  Lucie had already told them she’d never leave. But as a Christian, she could afford to remain in Paris, come what may. She could never forgive herself if she persuaded the Greenblatts to stay and they ended up impoverished—or worse.

  An ache grew in her chest, but she gave them an understanding look. “You’re taking the SS Washington.”

  Erma stepped behind the desk and opened a drawer. “If we can.”

  “Hush, Erma. Don’t worry the girl.”

  “If you can?” Lucie glanced back and forth between the couple.

  “We don’t have money for the passage.” Erma pulled out folders. “It’s tied up in the store.”

  Lucie’s hand rolled around the strap of her ballet bag. “You can sell the store, right?”

  Hal chuckled and ran his hand through black hair threaded with silver. “Who would buy it? All the British and American expatriates are fleeing.”

  “What will you do?” Lucie’s voice came out small.

  “We have friends.” Hal spread his hands wide as if to embrace all those he had welcomed. “Lots of friends.”

  Erma thumped a stack of folders on the desk. “I refuse to beg.”

  Hal dropped Lucie a wink. He’d beg his friends.

  What if those friends didn’t have the means or the heart to help? What if the Germans did conquer France, including Bordeaux?

  A shiver ran through her. Lucie couldn’t let anything happen to them, not when she had both the means and the heart. “I’ll give you the money.”

  “What?” Erma’s gaze skewered her. “We can’t take your money.”

  “Why not?” She entreated Hal with her eyes, as if she were thirteen again and asking him to dip into the allowance from her parents for new pointe shoes. “I’m practically family. I lived with you for three years. Because of you, I could stay in the ballet school when my parents returned to New York. You’ve always said I’m like the daughter you never had.”

  “You’ll need your money to get home.” Erma flipped through a folder. “When the bombs start falling, you’ll change your mind about staying here. Look what Hitler did to Warsaw and Rotterdam.”

  It wouldn’t happen to Paris. It couldn’t. “I’ll be fine. I want you to have my money.”

  Hal turned Lucie to the door. “Don’t worry about us. Now, I know you’re hungry after practice. Go. Eat. We’ll talk to you tonight.”

  Out into the warmth of the store, her home, but it was all falling away, falling apart. The Greenblatts—leaving. The store—closing.

  Green Leaf Books was their dream, their life, and they were giving it up.

  Ballet was Lucie’s dream. Her life. Could she give it up? If she did, what would she have? Who would she be?

  She rose to demi-pointe and turned, taking in the shelves and tomes and the rich scent, and she knew what she’d have, who she’d be.

  Lucie whirled back into the office. “I’ll buy the store.”

  Erma looked up from the box she was packing. “Pardon?”

  “I’ll buy the store. Not a gift. A business transaction.”

  Hal’s chin dropped. “Sweet Lucie. You are so kind. But you—you’re a ballerina.”

  “Not anymore.” Although she did stand in fifth position. She breathed a prayer for forgiveness for lying. “Lifar plans to cut me. I need a job. I’ll run the bookstore.”

  After twenty-five years of marriage, Hal and Erma could speak volumes to each other with a glance. And they did. Then Erma sighed. “But Lucie, you’re a ballerina.”

  Lucie’s cheeks warmed. True, she wasn’t terribly smart, especially with numbers, but at least she’d read all the books the Greenblatts had recommended. “I’m good with people, with customers—I can do Hal’s job. And Madame Martel helps with the business end of things. She can do your job. She and I—we can run the store.”

  “Lucie . . .” Hal’s voice roughened.

  Her eyes stung. Her lashes felt heavy. “And when we kick the Germans back to where they belong, this store will be here waiting for you. I promise.”

  Erma stared at the folder in her hands, her chin wagging back and forth. Wavering.

  “I want to do this.” Lucie swiped moisture from her eyes. “I need to do this. Please. Please trust me with your store.”

  Erma set down the folder and came to Lucie, ever the stern one, the practical one, the one to say no. She gripped Lucie’s shoulders and pressed her forehead to Lucie’s. “It’s yours. You dear, dear girl.”

  Lucie fumbled for Erma’s beloved hands and tried to say thank you, but she could only nod. Then she broke away and ran out, ran upstairs to her apartment.

  Now she couldn’t change her mind about leaving Paris. Now she had to resign from the ballet.

  And she had to figure out how to run a bookstore.

  2

  PARIS

  MONDAY, JUNE 24, 1940

  With every sense dull, every movement mired in liquid lead, Paul Aubrey led the German officer along the walkway overlooking his factory floor, all so he could negotiate another loss.

  “This is a fine factory,” Oberst Gerhard Schiller said in excellent English.

  “Thank you.” Never could Paul have imagined these circumstances. After the fall of Dunkirk, the German army had turned south and driven for Paris. On June 5. The day of Simone’s accident.

  Paul’s eyelids succumbed to the molten lead, and he gripped the handrail.

  “Given Aubrey Automobile’s reputation for excellence,” Schiller said, “I’m surprised to see assembly lines.”

  Fighting the heaviness, Paul lifted his gaze to his unwanted guest, one of the commissioners sent to each automaker. “My father used to handcraft each car, but it limits production. That’s one reason I opened a subsidiary of his company here in Paris—so I’d be free to employ modern techniques. My success convinced my father to follow suit at the main plant in Massachusetts.”

  The fine lines around Schiller’s light blue eyes deepened. “For a son to change his father’s mind is no small feat.”

  Paul tried to smile, but he didn’t have it in him.

  The colonel’s mouth drew up apologetically. “Of course, you’ll have to convert the factory to another use. Germany can’t allocate resources for civilian autos.”

  “I’m not staying. I’m selling the factory.”

  Schiller tugged down the sleeve of his gray uniform jacket. “The Militärbefehlshaber in Frankreich isn’t in the habit of buying factories.”

  Paul’s mouth stiffened. “The military command would requisition my factory?”

  “No, no.” He waved his hand as if to wipe out Paul’s words. “This is an American company. Your country is neutral. Germany is not America’s enemy.”

  They weren’t America’s friend either. Paul turned back toward his office. “Whether I sell to a French company or German, I have no preference.”

  Either way, the factory he’d built would churn out German military equipment. But what choice did he have?

  “Can we not convince you to stay? The armistice has been signed in Compiègne, and we have been in Paris over a week. Have we not behaved well?”

  “You have.” When the French government fled, they’d declared Paris an open city. The Germans had honored the French decision not to defend the capital and had entered without a shot fired.

  “Please stay.” Schiller opened his palms and raised a slight smile. “It would be good for relations between our nations.”

  “My company makes automobiles, the finest automobiles, the gold standard.”

  Schiller paused before Paul’s office door, emblazoned with the logo for Aubrey Automobiles, a golden “Au” on a black shield. “The chemical symbol for gold. A clever motto.”

  “It’s more than a motto.” Paul headed to the stairs. “It’s how we conduct business at every level. If I can’t make cars here, I’ll go to the States and make them there, help my father expand.”

 

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34