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Mrs. Pearson disturbed Carol’s memory by beckoning her forward. “You can look through here, and be quick about it.”
A window was set in the nursery door, presumably so that a nursemaid or nanny could check quietly on a sleeping child, or a wealthy parent with a few minutes to spare could look admiringly at their progeny without the trouble of making conversation.
Mrs. Pearson barely glanced through the window before withdrawing. Carol was not sure she would be able to control her emotions, but she had to look. She had not seen her child since she was three months old. Could she bear to see what she had given up? The sight of her child almost took her breath away. Anita was asleep, but Carol could see the tracks of tears on the flushed face, and the rumpled bedclothes attested to the fact that the child had tossed and turned before finally giving in to exhaustion.
Carol studied her child’s face. The golden curls held a hint of red, but the color was tempered by the father’s input. Gunther’s hair had been white blond. Anita’s eyes were closed. Were they blue like Gunther’s or brown like Carol’s? Staring at the sleeping face and seeing Gunther’s features so clearly reproduced, Carol wondered how Vera intended to get away with convincing Jack’s American parents that Anita was, in fact, their grandchild. She knew of the resemblance between Vera and Lady Sylvia; everyone knew of that resemblance, but, not surprisingly, she could see nothing of Vera in this child. She could see only glimpses of herself and glimpses of the prisoner of war who had sworn his love and lied with every breath.
Mrs. Pearson pulled her away from the window. “You’ve seen her, so now you can go.”
“No,” Carol protested. “I’m not leaving her. This isn’t right.”
She felt a hand on her arm and turned to find Vera beside her. Vera looked at Mrs. Pearson. “You can wait for us downstairs.”
She saw the twist of the housekeeper’s mouth at the idea of taking orders from Vera, but Vera kept her gaze steady, and eventually Mrs. Pearson turned and left them alone.
“Carol.” Vera’s voice was calm and cold. “If you say anything to anyone, I swear I will tell the whole world the truth, and then what will become of your kid? Do you think anyone in this village is going to want a kid whose father was a Nazi?”
Shame and humiliation forced Carol’s protest. “Not a Nazi, just a soldier.”
“If I say he was a Nazi, then he was a Nazi.”
Carol looked at Vera’s cold determined face and tried to find a trace of the girl that Vera had once been. She thought of the little girl in the nursery. Could Vera really be as heartless as she now appeared?
“Aren’t you going to miss her? You’ve been her mum for six years.”
Vera shook her head. “She’s my ticket out of Beaver Creek.”
“But—”
“She’s also a little devil. Frankly, Lady Sylvia is welcome to her. She’ll ship her off to boarding school and that’ll straighten her out.”
Carol could feel tears pricking behind her eyes. She thought she would have the consolation of seeing Anita from time to time, watching her play in the school playground, maybe even serving her in the shop.
“No, don’t send her away to school. I was hoping I would see her sometimes.”
Vera shook her head. “Be glad that you won’t. Do you want people to notice that she looks like you? That would be unfortunate for both of you, wouldn’t it? It would be the end of her life as the heir to Southwold. You wouldn’t want that, would you? In fact, it would probably be best if you left the village. I’m sure you can find another post office to run somewhere far away. It would be so sad for Anita if people find out that she’s not an aristocrat and that her father’s a Nazi.”
“Not a Nazi,” Carol protested.
Vera shrugged her shoulders. “It’s up to you. If you keep quiet, none of this will come out. Leave now and don’t let anyone see you. The Blanchard’s lawyer is an old coot with one foot in the grave, and he won’t notice anything, but there’s a younger lawyer who has been asking questions. You should definitely steer clear of him.”
At the thought of Toby Whitby, Carol’s heart skipped a beat. She had grown accustomed to the feeling. The leaping of her heart had little to do with fear of Toby as a lawyer, and a great deal to do with the sparkle in his gray eyes, his curling brown hair, and his air of quiet strength. She struggled to stay calm. Nothing could come of these feelings. She had lied to Toby from the first day she had met him. The only way to stop lying was to make sure she would never see him again.
If she took Anita away ...
The thought lodged itself in her mind and would not be budged.
Vera led her down the back stairs and pointed to the door that would take her outside.
“Price will drive you back to the village,” she said. She laughed softly. “You should have seen his face when he discovered I was the one arriving by plane. I thought he was going to refuse to carry my luggage, but he did it in the end. People will do anything if you offer them enough money, or if they think they’re going to lose their job.”
Carol stood by the back door and looked at the woman who used to be her friend. “When did you become so hard?”
Vera’s face twisted. “When I found that Nick was nothing but a lie.”
Carol turned and blinked her tears away. Lies! So many lies; and Nick had not been the only one that was lying.
She heard Vera’s footsteps receding down the long corridor toward the main rooms of the house, the rooms where she, Carol, would not be welcome. Anita would be welcome in those rooms. She would be called Celeste and be heir to the fortune of a man who was not her father, and the title of a woman who was not her mother.
Carol thought of the child, who had so obviously cried herself to sleep. Vera had called her a little devil. Lady Sylvia would send her to boarding school. When would she know the love of a mother?
Carol’s mind was made up; one way or another, she was going to take her child out of this house, and she knew how to do it. No one would see them leave and no one would know where they went.