Danielle Steel - Jewels

“I had nothing else to do.” She smiled. “With you gone, there isn’t much to do here.”

William glanced at his son with a rueful smile. “Wait till he starts getting into things. I have a feeling you’ll be kept extremely busy.”

“And what about you?” she asked sadly, as they walked back toward the château. Their three days had already passed, and he was leaving her in the morning. “When will you be home again? How does it look out in the big, bad world?”

“Pretty ugly.” He told her what they knew, or some of it, of what had happened in Warsaw. The ghetto, the pogroms, the mountains of bodies, even those of children who had fought and lost. It made her cry when he told her. There were tales from Germany that were pretty ugly too. There were fears that Hitler might make a move on the Low Countries, top, but he hadn’t so far, and they were keeping him at bay as best they could, but it wasn’t easy. “I’d like to think it’ll be over soon, but I just don’t know. Perhaps if we scare the little bastard enough, he’ll back off. But he seems pretty gutsy.”

“I don’t want anything to happen to you,” she said, looking anguished.

“Darling, nothing will, it would be such a dreadful embarrassment to them if anything happened to me. Believe me, the War Office will keep me wrapped up in cotton wool. It just gives the men a bit of heart to see someone like me dressed up in a uniform and playing the same games they are.” He was thirty-seven years old, and they were hardly going to use him in the front lines at this point.

“I hope you’re right.”

“I am. And I’ll be back over to see you before Christmas.” He was beginning to like the idea of her staying in France. Things seemed so frenzied and so frightening in England. And here, everything seemed so peaceful by comparison. It almost looked as though nothing had happened at all, except that there were no men visible anywhere, or at least no young ones, only children.

They spent their last night together in bed, and eventually Sarah slept in his arms. And William had to wake her when the baby cried for her. She had been in a deep, happy sleep. And after she fed the baby, they made love again. And William had to drag himself out of bed in the morning.

“I’ll be back soon, my love,” he promised as he left, and this time his leaving didn’t seem quite so desperate. He was well and safe, and he didn’t seem to be in any real danger.

And true to his word, he came back to see her a month later, two days before Christmas. He spent Christmas Day quietly with her, and he noticed something he’d seen before, but couldn’t quite fathom this time.

“You’ve gained weight,” he commented. She wasn’t sure if it was a compliment or a complaint. She had gained it around her waist, and her hips, and her breasts seemed fuller. It was only a month since he’d been gone, but her body had changed, and it made him wonder. “Could you be pregnant again?”

“I don’t know.” She looked a little vague, she had wondered the same thing once or twice. She was feeling vaguely nauseated from time to time, and all she wanted to do was sleep. “I didn’t think so.”

“I think you are.” He smiled, and then suddenly he began to worry. He didn’t like leaving her alone here again, particularly if she was pregnant. He said something about it that night, and asked if she would be willing to go to Whitfield.

’“That’s silly, William. We don’t even know if I am.” She didn’t want to leave France, pregnant or not. She wanted to be here, at their château, hammering and banging away until it was fully restored, and taking care of her child.

“You think you are, too, don’t you?”

“I think I might be.”

“Oh, you wicked girl!” But all it did was excite him again, and after they made love, he gave her the only Christmas present he’d been able to bring, a beautiful emerald bracelet of his mother’s. It was made of large cabochon stones surrounded by very old diamonds, and had been commissioned years before at Garrard’s by a maharaja. It was hardly something she could wear every day, but when he came home, and they went out again, it would be splendid. “You’re not disappointed I don’t have more for you?” He felt guilty not to have brought her anything else, but he really couldn’t. He had grabbed that out of the safe at Whitfield, with his mother’s blessing, the last time he’d seen her.

“This is awful,” she teased. “What I really wanted was a set of plumber’s tools. I’ve been trying to fix some of these damn toilets they started to install last summer.”

“I love you.” He laughed. She gave him a beautiful painting they had found hidden in the barn, and an old, well-worn watch that she loved, that had been her father’s. She had brought it to Europe with her, as a souvenir of him, and now she gave it to William to carry with him. And he genuinely seemed to love it.

The Duke and the Duchess of Windsor spent their Christmas in Paris, busy with social events, while the Whitfields worked side by side, reinforcing beams in their barn, and cleaning out the stables.

“Hell of a way to spend Boxing Day, my dear,” William said as they stood side by side, covered in dirt and dried manure, holding their hammers and shovels.

“I know,” she said, grinning, “but think how great this place will look when we’re finished.” He had given up trying to talk her into going to Whitfield. She loved this place too much, and she was at home here.

He left her again on New Year’s Eve, and Sarah saw the New Year in alone, in their bed at the château, as she held their baby. She hoped that it would be a better year, and the men would all soon be home again. And she crooned “Auld Lang Syne” to Phillip as she held him.

By January, she was certain that she was pregnant again. And she managed to find an ancient doctor in Chambord, who confirmed it. He told her that the old wives’ tale that you couldn’t get pregnant while you were nursing was sometimes true, but not always. But she was very happy about it. Phillip’s baby brother or sister was due to arrive in August. Emanuelle was still helping her, and she was excited about the baby too. She promised to do everything she could to help the duchess with the new baby. But Sarah also hoped that William would be home again by then. She wasn’t afraid. She was pleased. She wrote William and told him the news, and he wrote back and urged her to take care of herself, and said he’d try to come over as soon as he could, but instead they sent him to Watton in Norfolk with the 82 Squadron Bomber Command, and he wrote her again that there would be no hope of his coming to France for several months now. He did mention that he wanted her in Paris by July, and she could stay with the Windsors if she had to. But he didn’t want her having the baby at the château again, particularly if he wasn’t there, which he hoped he would be.

In March, she received another letter from Jane, who had another little baby girl, and they named this one Helen. But Sarah felt strangely distant from her family now, as though they were no longer intimately a part of her life, as they once had been. She tried to stay abreast of their news, but letters came so late, and so many of the names they referred to were unfamiliar. For the past year and a half, her life had been totally removed from them. They all seemed so far away now. She was totally involved in her own life with her son, restoring the château and listening to the news in Europe.

She listened to every broadcast she could hear, read every newspaper, listened to every bit of gossip. But the news was never very good, or very hopeful. Only in his letters, William kept promising that he would be home soon. Hitler seemed to be stalling for time in the spring of 1940, and William and some of his friends began to wonder if he wasn’t going to back off. In the States, they were calling it the Phony War, but to the people in the countries Hitler had occupied, it was very real and far from phony.