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“No. It’s not wise.” I let my head slump forwards and gulp down the lies and the truth. Keeping them from my expression, I turn to Jacques. “It’s far from wise. It’s dangerous. But the work I do has benefitted from it.”
“I’m sure whoever you work for would agree you have to stop this madness. You’re in love with the man. And he’s in love with you. Nothing good can come from it. For either of you.”
His words surprise me. I didn’t think it was obvious how Johann and I felt deeply for each other. I can only hope no one in the village has noticed. Because Jacques is partly right. Nothing good can come from it. Nothing good can come from people knowing about it either.
“My work knows about him,” I inform Jacques.
“Do they know you’re in love with him?” His expression says he knows the answer.
“I’m loyal to London and the resistance effort. Nothing will change that. No matter what I feel for him, England is my home. England and France are where my loyalties lie.”
“My daughter fell in love with the wrong man, and it almost broke her.” Jacques’s tone slices to the bone, and he slams his palm on the table. I startle at the anger and raw pain in his words. “I don’t want the same to happen to you.”
“What are you talking about?”
Jacques hasn’t spoken much about his daughter. I only know she died during childbirth, as did his grandson.
He opens his mouth to say something but is hit with another round of coughing.
“I’m going to speak with Dr. Deschamps this morning about your cough,” I tell him once the coughing fit subsides.
“I don’t like doctors.”
“That doesn’t matter.”
I busy myself around the farmhouse for the next hour and then cycle into the village. I park my bike and go into the bookshop first.
“Bonjour,” I say to Monsieur Joubert, who is stepping out of his office at the sound of the bell above the door. I close the door behind me.
“Bonjour, Angelique.” He gives me a small nod, the movement a mix of weary and wary and relieved. His eyes do not hold any warning of a threat waiting inside the shop.
I meander to the drop box in the bookshelf and place the coded message for Allaire inside it. I slip the book back on the shelf, walk to another aisle, and remove a random book from a shelf. I pay for it and head to Dr. Deschamps’s home.
His wife opens the door and lets me inside. The waiting area only has a few people sitting on the wooden chairs.
“My papa has a cough that hasn’t been getting better,” I tell Roselina.
“And you can’t convince him to come to my husband’s office?” She offers a kind smile, knowing Jacques’s stubbornness when it comes to doctors. “I’ll see what he can do after he is finished for the day.”
I return her smile. “Thank you. That’s all I can ask.”
I’m in the farmhouse kitchen, cleaning the stove, when the sound of approaching engines cuts off my conversation with Jacques. He’s seated at the table, taking a short break from his chores.
Two shiny black cars with swastika flags flapping in the wind stop in front of the farmhouse. Neither car is the same vehicle that was here earlier to collect Johann.
My heartbeat accelerates. My brain screams run.
The engines cut off, and the driver climbs out of the first vehicle. But he’s not Wehrmacht or SS.
Several other men in grey uniforms join him—and my heart screeches to a halt.
“Gestapo.” The hushed word, thick with fear, comes from Jacques. “You need to get out of here.”
But the warning’s too late. One man walks to the front door. The others move towards the sides of the farmhouse. One agent will continue to the back. If I so much as attempt to escape out of a window, I’m dead.
You’re dead either way.
Loud knocking disrupts my thoughts of what to do.
