Never Leave Me Read online

  ‘Yes,’ said Lisette bleakly, determined to see Paul Gilles at the first opportunity. ‘I’m sure we can.’

  When Elise left the room she swung her legs from the bed and determinedly tried to stand. Elise’s scheme was just the kind of careless operation Paul had been so insistent they avoid. The stakes were too high to allow for failure. If their suspicions were right, and it was the Allies’plan for an invasion of Europe that was being discussed by Rommel and Dieter, then it was imperative that London should know the extent of German information. If German intelligence knew when and where the invasion was planned, then it would be doomed to failure. Thousands of Allied troops would die needlessly, and France would be lost.

  Sweat broke out on her forehead as she took first one step and then another. And if the Germans didn’t know the Allies’plans, that information, too, would be vital to London. Her thigh throbbed, the blood pounding, and she reached the window with relief. Somehow she had to walk or ride into the village and speak to Paul. A young corporal was wheeling a motorcycle away into one of the disused stables; Dieter’s staff car was parked on the cobbles, gleaming and polished and frustratingly inaccessible. Elise had said that she planned to act soon. But how soon? Surely the best time would be immediately after one of Rommel’s visits, and there was no telling when his next flying visit would be. The feeling of foreboding she had felt when Elise entered her room with the tea tray deepened into fear. Had Elise told her of her plans because she intended acting almost immediately? Was there going to be no time to speak to Paul? No opportunity of thinking of a safer, surer way?

  There was a firm rap on her door and she flew round to face it, her eyes wide, half-expecting to meet the news that Valmy was on fire.

  ‘What are you doing out of bed?’ he asked peremptorily, his dark, rich voice smoking across her senses. ‘Auge told you not to walk on it yet.’

  ‘I needed to walk on it,’ she said unsteadily. ‘I was getting so stiff I could hardly move.’

  His presence seemed to fill the room. He was in uniform, his cap and gloves held correctly in the crook of his arm, the decoration for valour that Hitler had placed around his neck gleaming dully in the late afternoon sunlight. He closed the door behind him, placed his cap and gloves on a chair, and walked towards her.

  ‘I tried to visit you earlier, but your mother was insistent that you needed rest.’

  She tried to speak and could not. He was going to touch her and her mental capitulation would become physical reality. The blood drummed in her ears and she pressed herself backwards against the chill coldness of the window pane.

  He stood mere inches away from her and then slowly reached out, tilting her face to his, tracing the pure outline of her cheek-bone and jaw with his forefinger. ‘Don’t be afraid,’ he said, drawing her towards him, his voice thickening. ‘I’m not going to hurt you, Lisette. Not now. Not ever.’

  A shudder ran through her and she gave a low, soft moan as his arms closed around her and his mouth came down on hers in swift, unfumbled contact. For one brief, vain moment she tried to resist and to pull away but he held her easily and as his lips burned hers, hard and sweet, her body moulded itself to his of its own volition. Her hands moved up and around his neck, her lips parting as she lost her breath in the passion of his mouth.

  Nothing mattered any more. Not the uniform that he wore; not the language that he spoke. Not even Valmy. All that mattered was that she knew, with an instinct ages old, that she had found the other half of her being. The one person without whom she would never again feel whole.

  ‘I love you,’ she whispered helplessly as his hot, urgent mouth moved to her throat and her shoulders and he slipped the strap of her nightdress free, his fingers caressing the soft warm flesh of her breast.

  The silk fall of her hair brushed his hand and tenderness, terrible in its intensity, trembled within him. He wanted to plunder her body, to assuage his deep, driving need of her with ferocious love-making, yet when he lifted her in his arms and turned with her towards the bed, it was with passion tightly reined.

  She was still pale from the blood she had lost. It would be days before her stitches were removed. Days before he could make love to her without inflicting pain. With a gentleness he had never before experienced, he laid her down on the bed, stunned by the knowledge that he would wait – and wait willingly.

  He took hold of her hands, drawing her fingertips up and pressing them against his lips. All of his adult life he had had as many women as he had chosen to reach out for. Sophisticated, clever, beautiful women that he had taken and discarded with practised ease. Not one of them had possessed her vibrancy, her allure. Just looking at her sent his pulse pounding and his heart racing.

  A smile crooked the corner of his mouth. His family would be outraged. His friends would think he had taken leave of his senses. A Frenchwoman. He could almost hear their remarks; see their disbelief. His shoulders lifted in an imperceptible shrug. He was not a man who cared what others thought of him. He was thirty-two, a hardened man of the world who knew what he wanted. And what he wanted was Lisette de Valmy.

  ‘It won’t be easy for you,’ he said, reaching out and sliding the strap of her nightdress chastely up and on to her shoulder, fighting the urge to cup the perfect weight of her breast in his palm, knowing that if he did so all restraint would be lost.

  There was ownership in his fingers and a shiver ran down her spine. ‘What won’t be easy?’ she asked, noticing for the first time the small scar that ran through his left eyebrow, the tiny lines at the corner of his eyes and mouth.

  ‘Marrying a German.’

  She gazed up at him, her mouth rounding on a gasp of incredulity. ‘Marrying?’

  His eyes gleamed. ‘Of course. What other alternative is there?’

  They were legion and they both knew it. German officers did not many French girls. They took them as spoils of war. Sometimes they seduced them. Sometimes they even loved them. But they did not marry them.

  ‘But how … where?’

  He hooked a finger under her chin, lowering his head, kissing her long and deeply. ‘Don’t you worry about that,’ he said at last. ‘Leave it all to me.’

  She grasped hold of his hand. ‘No!’ she cried in sudden fear. ‘My parents… The villagers …’

  His smile faded. ‘There’s no need for you to concern yourself about retribution from the villagers,’ he said tightly. ‘As for your parents … they won’t like it any more than mine will. But they’ll accept it. They’ll have no choice.’

  She shook her head and the late afternoon sunlight danced in her hair. ‘I don’t care what the villagers think of me, or what they might say or do. But I do care about my parents. They will be regarded as collaborators. You may be able to protect them now, but you won’t be able to protect them when the war is over.’

  Her words hung between them. When the war was over. To both of them it meant different things. For Dieter, it meant the subjection of the British. The surrender of the Americans. A France permanently under German control. A France where no retribution could be taken by the populace against those who had bowed to the inevitable and had joined forces with their oppressors.

  To Lisette it meant a France that was free. A France no longer under the heel of Nazi domination. A France where those who had collaborated would be seen as traitors and treated as such.

  They stared at each other, French and German, and the war rose up between them like a high, bloody wall, separating and dividing. At the expression in her eyes Dieter’s jaw clenched. ‘Oh no,’ he said savagely, reaching out for her and pulling her against him. ‘We’re not going to fall into that trap, Lisette. Let the war take care of itself. It has nothing to do with you and me and we must never allow it to do so. I shall tell your parents that we are going to marry, but there is no need for anyone else to know. Not yet. Perhaps not ever.’ He pressed his mouth against her hair. He would take her to Berlin. There would be difficulties but none that he could not overcom
e.

  His voice was the voice of a man accustomed to making decisions and not having those decisions questioned. She leaned against him, sliding her arms around the lean tautness of his waist, resting her head against his chest, the sense of refuge that she had felt when his arms had closed around her in the rear of the Horch returning in full force. His lips brushed her temples, her cheeks, and then closed hungrily on her willing mouth, and she knew that no power on earth would ever separate them. Not family. Not country. Nothing.

  ‘Love me,’ she begged in hungry, hoarse tones she scarcely recognised. ‘Please love me!’

  His muscles tensed as he exerted every last vestige of his iron-strong self-control. ‘No,’ he said, pressing her back against the pillows, his strong hands cupping her breasts, his mouth a mere fraction from hers. ‘Not while you’re so weak that you can hardly stand.’

  ‘Then when?’ Her shamelessness devastated her.

  A grin tugged at the comers of his mouth. ‘When Auge says you no longer need his services. We’ll go out for the day, far from Valmy. We’ll have lunch and champagne and …’ his voice thickened and she trembled against him, ‘we’ll make love. There’ll be no going back. Not ever.’

  She had bent her head and kissed his hands, and he had stroked the satin-soft fall of her hair and had left her, not trusting himself to remain.

  A faint frown furrowed his brow as he ran lightly down the stairs and crossed the flagged hall towards the grand dining-room. His interview with Henri de Valmy would not be pleasant, and his interview with Field Marshal Rommel would take nearly as much courage as a straight run into cannon fire. German Army regulations forbade marriage between serving men and subject races. He shrugged dismissively. The German ambassador to France had married a Frenchwoman, and what was good enough for a pot-bellied ambassador was good enough for him.

  The sentry on duty clicked his heels and saluted smartly as he strode past him and into the tapestried dining-room. With a wry grin he seated himself at the twenty-foot table, wondering who would be most appalled at his news – the Comte or the Field Marshal.

  A report to Rommel lay on the table waiting for completion. It was his personal estimate of the Allies’intentions. When it had been evaluated by Rommel it would be sent with Army Group B’s weekly report to Oberfehlshaber West, Field Marshal von Runstedt’s headquarters, and from there, suitably embroidered, it would become part of the overall theatre report and would be forwarded to Oberkommando der Wehrmacht, Hitler’s headquarters. God alone knew what would happen to it then. There were times when he believed that everything sent to OKW was destroyed unseen. Certainly no notice was taken of Rommel’s repeated requests.

  His face was grim as he picked up his pen. Rommel needed panzer divisions. No matter how many mines and booby-traps were planted, the coastline could not be rendered safe without the back-up of panzers. But the panzer divisions were being held in reserve far from the coast and the Fuhrer insisted on retaining them there under his personal authority. Von Runstedt could not move them and Rommel, who had fought with such success with panzers in North Africa, could not move them.

  Dieter’s frown deepened. They needed at least five panzer divisions to counter-attack an invasion. In the first few hours of an assault their presence would be vital. He worked steadily for three hours, forgetting all about Lisette and his personal difficulties, concentrating on the problem of when and where the Allies would attack, and how they would best be repelled.

  Rommel had been tense and edgy when he had descended on Valmy. The gruelling hours that he worked and the nightmare suspense of constantly watching and waiting for moves from across the Channel were obvious.

  ‘There’s still no sign of an attack,’ he had said, pacing the dining-room fretfully. ‘I’m beginning to think the Anglo-Americans have lost confidence in their cause, Meyer.’

  Dieter had not agreed with him. The Allies had not lost confidence. They were simply waiting. And when the moment was right, they would strike. But where? He clenched his hands into fists of frustration. Hitler had made it known that he thought it would be Normandy and for once Dieter was in agreement with his Fuhrer. Rommel and the other chiefs of staff still favoured the Pas de Calais.

  He leaned back in his chair, ringing for coffee, studying for the thousandth time the aerial reconnaissance photographs spread out before him. Wherever the Allies invaded, they would need air cover and the effective range of their Spitfires was 150 miles. That effectively ruled out anywhere west of Cherbourg. It would be impossible to unload an army beneath steep cliffs and that therefore ruled out further vast sections of the coast. And the sea crossing would, of necessity, have to be short. All of which indicated the Pas de Calais. And yet…

  His eyes narrowed. The Pas de Calais was too easy. Too obvious. It was the Normandy beaches that would make an ideal landing site. They were not as heavily defended as the Pas de Calais and the Allies would be well aware of the fact. Certainty, cold and hard, settled deep in his gut and he knew, beyond any doubt, that Normandy would be where the invasion would take place.

  But when and where?

  In January German intelligence had informed the chiefs of staff that they knew of a two-part signal that would be used to alert the Resistance immediately prior to an invasion. Rommel had treated the information with contempt, but General Canaris had been adamant that the information was correct and that all radio messages by the Allies be monitored with scrupulous care. Dieter had thought it a strange message to indicate the invasion of a continent. The first signal was to be the first line of ‘Song of Autumn’by the nineteenth-century French poet, Paul Verlaine. ‘The long sobs of the violins of autumn’and the second signal was to be the second line, ‘Wound my heart with a monotonous languor.’

  He had found a book containing Verlaine’s poems in the chateau’s library and had flicked through them with mild enjoyment. But he did not believe that Verlaine’s words would herald the decisive battle for the German Reich. Grimly, ignoring the lateness of the hour, he picked up his pen once more and continued with his report.

  At hourly intervals Lisette walked gingerly from the bed to the window and back again, spurred on by the urgent necessity of being able to walk or to ride into the village and speak to Paul. Elise had to be prevented from acting carelessly. If she did so, she would be caught. No information from Valmy would reach the Allies and there would be no future for any of them. She leaned her forehead against the coolness of the window pane, knowing that by serving her country she was betraying Dieter. ‘But not to death,’ she whispered fiercely. ‘Please God, never that.’ The information would be passed in the hope that it would help an Allied victory. Only with such a victory could they ever hope to live freely and openly together.

  At Valmy? Could she ever live freely and openly with a German at Valmy? Knowing the answer she turned, sick at heart, and walked slowly back to her bed. The Rembrandt gleamed palely in the moonlight. Elise, when she had brought up her supper tray, had remarked savagely that all Germans were thieves and barbarians. She had remained silent, knowing too well that treasures that had been stripped and looted from France, and knowing that, while Dieter Meyer was in residence, Valmy’s treasures were safe.

  The word ‘collaborator’seemed to whisper in the air around her and her eyes blazed. She was not a collaborator. She was not working with the enemy for her country’s defeat. She knew that she would die and never do so. And she would die, still loving Dieter. The knowledge came calmly and certainly, filling her with inner strength.

  She turned to the books that he had left on the bedside table: Zola’s Nana; a collection of poems by Paul Verlaine; Turgenov’s Father and Sons. It was a strange collection for a soldier. She picked up the leather-bound copy of Verlaine’s poems, noting the feint pencil mark at the side of ‘Song of Autumn’, wondering why a poem of unrequited love had so appealed to him, reading until she fell asleep.

  Elise woke early. As she moved quietly and efficiently about the kitchen,
preparing breakfast, she could hear the faint chime of the church bell in Sainte-Marie-des-Ponts, ringing the Angelus. Another night of curfew was over and it was the 1363rd day of Occupation. She knew that Lisette thought her scheme rash and yet she could think of no alternative. Somehow, some way, she had to gain entrance to the grand dining-room. She removed a baguette from the oven, filling the kitchen with the fragrant aroma of newly baked bread. It had to be done in Meyer’s absence. He was far too sharp to fall for any diversion, however skilfully planned. And if Meyer was absent it meant that the ornately carved doors would be not only guarded, but locked.

  She reached into a cupboard for a jar of honey. Only Meyer had a key and she had not even toyed with the idea of removing it from his possession to imprint. The lock, when the door was left unguarded, would have to be picked, and picked quickly.

  She made herself a cup of chicory and leaned against the stone sink, sipping it thoughtfully. Her ability with her fingers was the reason she had been detailed to Valmy. Her father had been a locksmith and he had taught her his trade. It was a skill that, in her Resistance work, she had put to good use. She wondered how many computations and permutations the lock had. If it was a five-lever lock, it would take perhaps ten minutes to profile, maybe fifteen. Fifteen minutes that she did not have. From the far side of the chateau there came the sound of running feet and motorcycles being blasted into life. She emptied the remains of her chicory down the sink and lifted a heavy, cast-iron omelette pan from the shelf above the stove.

  No diversion that she could stage would keep the grand dining-room unattended for fifteen minutes. Lisette’s horror had been justified. Yet the alternative would mean the de Valmy’s death warrant, as well as her own. The sentry would have to be killed. There would be no disguising that the dining-room had been entered, and spiriting the undeveloped film out of Valmy and out of the district would be a near impossibility.