Oui.
Epilogue
TWO YEARS LATER
19 SEPTEMBER 1944
MARSEILLE, FRANCE
“Are you sure about this?” Marcel paused, hammer poised above the nail, and glanced over his shoulder.
Zelie stood on the pavement, one hand on the small of her back, one on her stomach, and determination on her beautiful face. For the first time in nearly two years, her hair was its natural color again and the identification she carried had her real name—Zelie Laurent. She nodded. “We’ve been hiding long enough.”
He hammered in the nail in the center first, to anchor the sign, then moved on to the corners. Once it was secure, he set down the hammer and stepped to her side to survey his work.
Alliance—Intelligence Service, the sign read. There, for all to see. Because the only soldiers in Marseille now were the Allies—France was free again. Finally, finally, the oppressors were gone. And the Allies, British and American both, were constantly seeking out Alliance, needing more information before they advanced on a remaining pocket of Nazis being pushed back toward Germany.He and Zelie were traveling continuously between Marseille and Paris, Verdun and Vichy—the government from which had fled to Germany—gathering and dispensing the intelligence so vital to the surging forces. The war wasn’t over yet, not completely.
But the tide had turned. The Nazis’ days were numbered. The rest of Europe would soon reclaim its freedom as well, he knew. He could feel it in his bones, see it in the faces of the Allied armies flooding in, read it in the reports of the panicked, desperate German forces.
A victory not just because of what it meant to every single Frenchman, but for them. For their family, which would soon grow by one. Marcel slid an arm around Zelie’s waist and rested his other hand on the bulge that was their coming child. A few more weeks, the doctor said, and the little one would join them.
And he or she would be born in a free nation.
All those months of fear and prayer as the joy of a new baby was tarnished by the uncertainty of their life on the run—over. The nights Zelie had spent weeping in his arms, wondering if they’d have to send their baby to Switzerland with Elise and Blaise—redeemed.
The Lord had been faithful. Zelie had been tireless. And finally, they could reclaim their lives.
She checked her watch for the tenth time in the last twenty minutes. “They’re late.”
His lips twitched into a smile. “They’ll be here soon. You know how the roads are.”
“Hence why I’m worried.” But she rubbed her hands over where the baby pressed and moved, sighing even as she smiled.
“Come on. Let’s get inside before the rain hits.” He urged her to and through the door, into the rooms still packed with files, unfamiliar.
But they’d make the offices their own, just as they would the flat above them. Like they’d done with so many other places as theykept one step ahead of Von Eberstein, the Gestapo, the whole Nazi army. The last two years, they’d moved almost constantly, gone to London, come back, never in one place more than a week or two... a tour schedule unlike any he ever intended to keep again.
But the symphony they’d conducted had been worth it.Freedom.They had freedom again, the chance to settle in one place, to work openly, to be a family, and it was sweet indeed.
Zelie was up to her elbows in a box of dispatches when car doors finally slammed outside, a hopefulstaccato. Their gazes met, hers so filled with joy and grief that he couldn’t help but hear Rachmaninoff in his mind. With a grin, he made a shooing motion.
All the impetus she needed. She tore from the room, making it only into the foyer before the door crashed open. Marcel kept himself a step behind when he wanted to launch himself forward.
She deserved this moment to herself first though. She’d earned it.
“Maman!” The voices were both familiar and not. Theirs, but older. The faces wreathed in smiles and streaked with tears; the precious ones he knew she’d seen every night in the stars, but grown, changed.
Marcel hovered in the office doorway. Blaise was taller than Zelie by several inches, if still a few shorter than Marcel. He held his mother fiercely, eyes squeezed shut. Thirteen now. Elise, not quite ten, had wrapped her arms around Zelie’s rounded stomach and was laughing or crying or some combination, rubbing at the movement of her little brother or sister, who clearly wanted to say hello too. Behind them, Lizette squeezed inside, a smile on her face.
They’d managed to get word to them about their marriage a few weeks after they escaped from prison, and then, six months ago, about the coming baby. Henri and Marguerite had played messenger for them while they were about other Alliance business thatrequired a trip into the neutral country. They’d brought back her family’s joy and well-wishes, but part of Marcel had wondered, all this time, if their friends had perhaps exaggerated the acceptance.
A fear at least partially put to rest when Lizette edged around the trio and made her way to his side. When she pressed a kiss to each of his cheeks and then drew him in for a long embrace. When she whispered into his ear, “I am so glad to call you my son, Marcel. So glad Zelie opened her heart to you. I knew from the day I met you that I could trust you with that heart. With my girl.”
He gave his mother-in-law a squeeze. “I’ll treasure and guard her heart all my days. I promise you.”
“I know.” She pulled back, sniffling but smiling still. “I know you will. You are the answer to so many prayers I prayed for her after Jacques died.”
Marcel’s chest went beautifully tight.
