“They’re taking it seriously here too,” she explained. “There’s no one left except Henri and his friends and a bunch of old men, who are too weak to work. I’ve been doing everything myself, with Emanuelle and Henri. But I’ve almost finished the stables. Wait till you see them!” He had wanted half of them set up for the horses they would buy, and a few he wanted to bring over from England, and the rest of it was set up in small rooms for their staff, and bunks for some of the hands they might hire on a temporary basis. It was an excellent system, and the way they’d done it there was room for about forty or fifty men, and at least as many horses.

“It sounds like you don’t need me here at all.” He pretended to sound miffed. “Perhaps I should stay in England.”

“Don’t you dare!” She reached up and kissed him again, and as they entered their bedroom, he spun her around and kissed her so hard that she knew exactly how much he’d missed her.

He locked the door behind them and looked at her adoringly, as she began unbuttoning the jacket of his uniform, and he pulled off her heavy sweater. It was one of his own, and he tossed it halfway across the room as he looked at the full breasts and the waist that was so small again. It was difficult to believe she had ever had a baby.

“Sarah… you’re so beautiful…” He was almost speechless, and almost out of control. He had never wanted her as much, even on their first night together. They almost didn’t make it to the bed, but as they lay together there, they found each other quickly and well, and their longings exploded almost instantly as they gave in to their hunger.

“I’ve missed you so much …” she confessed. It had been so lonely without him.

“Not half as much as I’ve missed you,” he confided.

“How long can you stay?”

He hesitated, it seemed so little to him now, and at first it had seemed such a gift. “Three days. It’s not much, but it’ll have to do. I’m hoping to get back again around Christmas.” That was only a month away, and at least it would give her something to look forward to when he left. But right now, she couldn’t bear to think of him leaving.

They lay together on the bed for a long time, and then they heard Emanuelle with the baby outside their room, and Sarah put on a dressing gown and went to get him.

She brought Phillip back into the room, loudly demanding his dinner. And William smiled at him as he watched him eat hungrily, choking on the milk he was so anxious for, and making all kinds of funny little noises.

“His table manners are appalling, aren’t they?” William grinned.

“We’ll have to work on that,” Sarah said, switching him to the other breast. “He’s a terrible little pig. He wants to eat all the time.”

“It looks to me like he does. He’s three times the size he was when he was born, and I thought he was enormous then.”

“So did I,” Sarah said ruefully, and then William thought of something he had never thought of before, and he looked at her gently.

“Do you want me to be careful?” She shook her head as she smiled at him. She wanted to have lots more of his babies.

“Of course not, but I don’t think we need to worry about that yet anyway. I don’t think I can get pregnant while I’m nursing.”

“Then all the more fun,” he teased. They spent the next three days as they had their honeymoon, in bed most of the time. And in between times, she took him around the property to show him what she’d done in his absence. She had worked on a number of things, and he was very impressed when he saw the stables.

“You really are quite remarkable!” he praised. “I couldn’t have done this myself, certainly not without help from anyone. I don’t know how you did it!” She had spent many, many nights, hammering and sawing and pounding nails well after midnight, with little Phillip in a cradle next to her, bundled up in his blankets.

“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.

The Windsors invited her to a dinner party in Paris at the end of April, but she didn’t go. She didn’t want to leave Phillip at the château, even though she trusted Emanuelle. Also she was five months pregnant, and she didn’t think it proper to go out without William. She sent them a polite note instead, and in early May she caught a terrible cold, and she was in bed on the fifteenth, when the Germans invaded the Low Countries. Emanuelle came rushing upstairs to tell her. Hitler was on the move again, and Sarah came downstairs to the kitchen to listen to their radio, and see if she could pick up a broadcast.

She listened to what news she could find all afternoon, and the next day she tried to call Wallis and David, but she was told by the servants there that they had left for Biarritz the previous morning. The duke had taken the duchess to the South for her safety.

Sarah went back to bed, and a week later she had a raging case of bronchitis. And then the baby caught it from her, and she was so busy taking care of him that she scarcely understood what it meant when she heard the broadcast about the evacuation of Dunkirk. What had happened to them? How had they been driven back?