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What he thinks of my teaching is none of my business, she wanted to think.

He could take my job, she couldn’t help but think.

Still, what could she do but what she always did?

She taught this class like she did her ones on Greek philosophy or advanced English—without any agenda but sharing her love of the subjects, the languages, the thoughts that had shaped Western society.

But that was all Abraham had ever wanted to do too, or any of the others.

And she didn’t have the savings those men had brought with them from Germany.

All the money Papa had accepted from his brother had been for their educations, hers and Maman’s.

He could have accepted more, but none of them had wanted it.

Even that much had been a gift they’d never dreamed of.

If their new overlords decided only a German-born professor could teach this class, would the university simply let her offer a different one in its place? Or would Karl Gustaf have her sacked altogether?

He was gone by the time the class ended and she finally granted herself permission to glance to the back row. A good sign or a bad? Try as she might to tell herself she didn’t have time to worry over it, the coffee she’d sipped at Abraham’s still churned in her stomach.

“?a va?” Madeline Grandier asked in a whisper as Corinne trailed her toward the door. She glanced up at the empty back row.

Corinne pasted on a smile. “ ?a va , Madeline. Such things are to be expected these days.”

The girl screwed up her face. “They shouldn’t be.” She glanced around, leaned closer. “Some of us are meeting sometimes—to...read poetry.”

Corinne held up a hand. “Not here,” she murmured, quietly enough that even she barely heard her own words above the talk of the other students.

A good decision—Gustaf was waiting in the corridor, right outside the door. Still smiling, but she wasn’t willing to trust such a thing, especially as he halted her with a brusque, “A moment, Doctor,” and sent Madeline on her way with a shooing motion.

Arrogant, insufferable prig.

She smiled back. “Of course. I hope you found the class satisfactory.”

“Satisfactory?” Was his laugh one of genuine humor, or was he mocking her?

She honestly couldn’t tell, not until he took her hand and pulled it through the crook of his elbow.

No, not even then. Not until he said, “You must be German, at least in part. You speak like one, think like one. Your mother, perhaps? Or a grandparent?” His gaze moved to her hair, her eyes.

Gauging her Aryan purity, she would wager. Trying to guess how far from those supposed-gods her lineage had fallen. “Pure French, actually. Though I have been blessed to have several German tutors throughout the years.” She wanted to tell him their names, just to see the look on his face.

She wouldn’t, of course. That would be tantamount to shooting herself in the foot.

His hand still lingered on hers, fingers tightening now. “I have rarely heard professors debate translation so eloquently—much less a female. I am truly impressed, Doctor. I never expected to see a woman thriving in captivity quite this way.”

Her feet jerked her to a halt, giving him little choice but to stop with her. “Did you say captivity ?” She must have misheard. Or he’d misspoken. Or her German vocabulary needed some brushing up after all.

He motioned toward the building—or perhaps beyond it. “These walls, the city—grand as they are, it isn’t what mankind was meant for. We’re meant to run free in the countryside, to reacquaint ourselves with nature. Breathe fresh air. Don’t you agree?”

She let him tug her forward again, but she wasn’t about to fall into the verbal trap of yet another German officer.

“I certainly won’t argue against fresh air’s desirability.

Though I could quote several philosophers who would argue that a city is a very natural development of mankind and his need for community. ”

“To an extent, of course. Villages, towns, even cities of the size of the ancients’.

But city life drains us. According to the latest statistics, city dwellers are less likely to marry, to procreate.

And when they do, they produce fewer offspring.

How are we to proliferate the master race under those conditions?

” He shook his head. “No, Hitler’s ‘Back to the Country’ campaign has the right idea.

In a small rural village, you’d have had no trouble finding a husband by now, fraulein , to give you the family you must want. ”

She was fraulein again now, was she? No longer doctor ?

She ripped her hand out from under his, pulled it away from his arm.

“Actually, Herr Gustaf, I could have had my pick of husbands ten times over—here or in the village I was born in—had that been my desire. But no rural village could give me the education I craved.”

His smile now was patronizing. Condescending. “And it is important for a woman to be well-spoken, well taught. But women should not be constrained by concerns of politics or academics. You would indeed make a fine helpmeet for—”

“I have another class.” She stepped away, offered a tight smile. “Thank you for your encouragement. I hope you enjoy your time in Paris.”

She hoped he ate bad cheese and spent three days in the toilet, but that thought she kept to herself as she pivoted and stomped away.

Her next class wasn’t, in fact, until after lunch, but after checking to be sure he hadn’t followed her, Corinne let herself into her tiny cupboard of an office and indulged in a growl. Punctuating it by tossing her attaché case onto her chair helped dispel some of the frustration.

She had heard, of course, of Germany’s “Back to Nature” campaign. She knew the prevailing Nazi sentiments on family, children, and a woman’s “proper” role—in the home, nowhere else. She had butted up against plenty of men with similar opinions over the years, well before the Germans invaded.

But she’d won her place. Fought for it and secured it, by her own merits. She was one of only a few female professors, it was true, but she’d earned the respect of her colleagues, just as Maman had done.

At the burning in her eyes, she squeezed them shut.

This was why she didn’t even tell people that she wasn’t just a student, she was a professor.

They were willing, for whatever reason, to accept it of Maman—a widow, a mother.

But for a young woman to pursue education above a husband? A profession above children?

It wasn’t that she didn’t want those things—but she wanted them too , not instead of. And thus far, she’d found no one to make her heart react like Maman’s had to Papa. No man who would give up everything to give her her dreams.

A knock sounded on the door behind her. “Corinne? Are you in there?”

Liana. Corinne blinked the moisture from her eyes and opened the door for her friend.

Liana stood there with brows drawn. “I saw a Nazi striding from your building, and heard Madeline say something about one auditing your class. Are you all right?”

“I...don’t know.” It felt like defeat to admit it, but who else could she be honest with? She perched on the edge of her desk. “He liked the class. And then launched into how I should be some man’s articulate wife, not confined by the restrictions of academia...”

Liana grimaced. “Same old rot we always hear, isn’t it?”

“But this rot could get me sacked. What if women are dismissed like foreigners have been, Liana?” Her friend already knew that she was alone, more or less, in Paris.

Oncle Georges traveled too much, kept few resources to his name.

“I have little savings. I could lose the flat. And then what? Where would I go?”

“To our house, of course.” Liana perched beside her, bumping their shoulders together. “Or if you’re feeling adventurous, you could poach some grand apartment that the aristocrats left behind when they fled.”

Leave it to Liana to make her laugh. She thought, for just a moment, of Maman.

Did she have a flat in London to herself?

Or had she accepted an invitation from one of the in-laws who had been so surprised to learn she existed, that Papa had lived for years in France without telling them?

Was she worrying, from wherever she was staying, about Corinne, and whether she’d be able to keep the place they’d called home for half her life?

Yes. Of course she was worrying about that. She was her mother. Just as worry for her kept Corinne up some nights.

It wasn’t supposed to be this way. They weren’t supposed to be apart so long.

Corinne had never agreed to being alone for the indefinite future, with only her uncle occasionally dropping by, with all her old friends fled, with so many empty, hollow hours to fill with nothing but fretting and mounting hunger.

Then she turned her attention back to her friend. “I should probably say I can’t impose upon a family I’ve known so short a time, but...”

Liana laughed this time. “But after Maman has made you help with the dishes, you cannot claim to be anything but family. Come.” She took hold of Corinne’s wrist and pulled her toward the door.

“You don’t have another class until two, do you?

Let’s have lunch at your flat, and we can rant in peace about overbearing men—German and French. ”

Michel, it seemed, had a few opinions that Liana didn’t much care for either, and she made no secret of it as they walked to Corinne’s flat. It felt blessedly ordinary, complaining about one’s beau, about the social norms that they wanted to embrace yet bucked against.

“Why?” Liana demanded as they rounded the final corner onto Boulevard Arago. “Why can a woman not both pursue a vocation in the world and raise a family? Why are men the only ones who do not have to decide?”