And just as the commandant had said, the château itself became a hospital for wounded men, a kind of convalescent home, with wards in each room, and a few of the smaller rooms reserved for high-ranking officers who had been wounded. The commandant lived at the château, in one of the smaller rooms. Sarah had seen a few female nurses there, but most of the attendants seemed to be orderlies and male nurses, and she had heard that there were two doctors, but she had never seen them.

She had very little to do with any of them. She kept to herself, and stayed with Emanuelle and the baby at the cottage. She chafed to get back to her own work again, and worried at the damage they would do during their occupation. But there was nothing she could do now. She went for long walks with Emanuelle, and chatted with the farmer’s wife whenever she could get to the farm, to make sure that she was well. She seemed in good spirits, and said they had been decent to her. They took everything she grew, but they hadn’t touched her. So far, they seemed to be behaving. But it was Emanuelle who worried Sarah. She was a pretty girl, and she was young, she had just turned eighteen that spring, and it was dangerous for her to be living in such close proximity to three hundred German soldiers. More than once, Sarah had told her to go back to the hotel, but Emanuelle always insisted that she didn’t want to leave her. In some ways, they had become good friends, and yet there was always a chasm of respect between them. And Emanuelle had taken to heart her promise to William, not to leave the duchess or Lord Phillip.

Sarah was out walking one day, on her way back from the farm, a month after they had come, when she saw a cluster of soldiers shouting and hooting on an old dirt path near the stables. She wondered what was going on, but knew enough never to go near them. They were all potentially dangerous men, and in spite of her neutral American citizenship, she was the enemy to them, and they were the forces of the Occupation. She could see them laughing at something, and she was about to continue on her route home, when she saw a basket full of berries overturned by the roadside. The basket was one of hers, and the berries were the ones Emanuelle always picked for Phillip because he loved them. And then she knew. They were like cats with a small mouse, a tiny prey they were taunting and torturing in the bushes. And without thinking, she hurried to where they stood, her old faded yellow dress making her look even larger in the bright sunlight. She was wearing her hair in a long braid, and as she approached the group, she tossed it back over her shoulder, and then gasped as she saw her. Emanuelle was standing there, her blouse torn off, her breasts bare, her skirt torn and sliding down on her hips as they taunted and jeered and teased her. Two men held her arms, and another teased her nipples as he kissed her.

“Stop that!” she shouted at all of them, outraged by what he was doing. She was a child, a girl, and Sarah knew from their conversations in the past month that she was still a virgin. “Stop that immediately!” she shouted at them and they laughed at her, as she grabbed at one man’s gun and he pushed her roughly away, shouting at her in German.

Sarah walked immediately to where Emanuelle stood, her face streaked with tears, humiliated and ashamed and frightened. She picked up the shreds of Emanuelle’s blouse and tried to cover her with it, and as she did, one of the men reached out and pulled Sarah close to him, grinding himself into her buttocks. She tried to turn on him, but he held her there, fondling her breast with one hand, while holding her vast belly painfully tight with the other. She fought to free herself from him, as he ground suggestively against her, and she could feel him become aroused and wondered in horror if he would rape her. Her eyes found Emanuelle’s, and the look in Sarah’s eyes tried to reassure the younger girl, but it was obvious that the child was desperately frightened. Even more now for her employer, as one of the man held Sarah’s arms, and another put a hand between her legs as Emanuelle screamed at what she thought was about to happen, but as she did, within seconds, there was an explosion of gunshot. Emanuelle jumped, and Sarah used the moment to pull free of the men, tearing herself away from them, as one of them held to her old yellow dress and tore it. Her long shapely legs were visible, and her enormous pregnant stomach. But she went quickly to Emanuelle, and walked her away from them, and it was only then that she realized the commandant was standing there, his eyes blazing, his shouted orders an avalanche of fury in German. He still held the gun aloft in his hand and shot it off again so that they knew he meant it. He then lowered it at each of them, took aim, and said something more in German, before he lowered his hand, put the gun back in its holster and dismissed them. He ordered each of them to be put in the jail they had fashioned in the back of the stables for the next week. As soon as they left, he moved quickly toward Emanuelle and Sarah. His eyes were filled with pain, and he spoke in hurried German to an orderly standing near, who reappeared instantly with two blankets. Sarah covered Emanuelle first, and then wrapped the other blanket around her middle. She saw that it was one of hers, one of the few she had forgotten when they moved to the cottage.

“I promise you, this will never happen again. These men are pigs. They have grown up in barnyards, most of them, and they have absolutely no idea how to behave. The next time I see one of them do something like that, I will shoot him.” He was white with rage as he spoke, and Emanuelle was still shaking. Sarah felt nothing except fury for what had happened, and she turned to him with her eyes blazing just before they reached the cottage, where Henri was in the garden, playing with the baby. They had warned him to stay away for fear that the soldiers might go after him, but he had come anyway, to see his sister, and she had asked him to stay with the baby, while she went to pick berries.

“Do you realize what they could have done?” Sarah waved Emanuelle away, back to the house. She faced the commandant alone and addressed him. “They could have killed my unborn child,” she screamed at him, and his eyes didn’t waver.

“I realize very well, and I sincerely beg your pardon.” He looked as though he meant it, but his good manners did nothing to mollify her. As far as Sarah was concerned they should never have been there.

“And she’s a young girl! How dare they do a thing like that to her!” She was suddenly shaking from head to foot and she wanted to beat him with her fists, but she had the good sense not to.

The commandant felt bad about Emanuelle, but he was most upset by what they had almost done to Sarah. “I apologize, Your Grace, from the bottom of my heart. I realize only too well what could have happened.” She was right. They might very well have killed her baby. “We will keep a tighter watch on the men. I give you my word as an officer and a gentleman. I assure you, it won’t happen again.”

“Then see that it doesn’t.” She stormed at him, and then marched into the cottage, somehow managing to look both beautiful and regal in her blanket as he watched her. She was an extraordinary woman, and he had wondered more than once how she had come to be the Duchess of Whitfield. He had found photographs of her in William’s study, which was his room now, and of both of them, and they looked remarkably handsome and happy. He envied them. He had been divorced since before the war, and he scarcely ever saw his children. They were two boys, seven and twelve, and his wife had remarried and moved to the Rhineland. He knew her husband had been killed in Poznan in the first days of the war, but he hadn’t seen her again, and the truth was that he didn’t really want to. The divorce had been extremely painful. They had married when they were very young, and they had always been very different. It had taken him two years to recover from the blow, and then the war had come, and now he had his hands full. He had been pleased with the assignment to France. He had always liked it there. He had studied for a year at the Sorbonne, and he had finished his studies at Oxford. And through all of it, in all of his travels, in all his forty years, he had never met anyone like Sarah. She was so beautiful, so strong, so decent. He wished they had met in other circumstances, at another time. Perhaps then things might have been different.

The administration of his convalescent hospital kept him busy enough, but in the evenings, he liked to go for long walks. He had come to know the property well, even the far reaches of it, and he was coming back one evening at dusk from a little river he had found in the forest, when he saw her. She was walking slowly, by herself, awkwardly now, and she seemed very pensive. He didn’t want to frighten her, but he thought he should say something to her, lest his unexpected presence surprise her. She turned her face toward him then, as though she sensed someone near her. She stopped walking and looked at him, not sure if his presence was a threat, but he was quick to reassure her.

“May I assist you, Your Grace?” She was climbing bravely over logs, and little stone walls, and she could easily have fallen, but she knew the terrain well. She and William had come here often.

“I’m fine,” she said quietly, every inch the duchess. And yet she looked so young and so lovely. She seemed less angry than she usually was when she saw him. She was still upset over what had happened to Emanuelle the week before, but she had heard that the men were truly jailed to punish them for it, and she was impressed by his sense of justice.

“Are you well?” he asked, walking along with her. She looked pretty, in a white embroidered dress made by the locals.