Page 48 of The Widows of Champagne

Gabrielle

7 May 1945

G abrielle entered the chateau, her spirits still high after rejoicing in the streets of Reims with her fellow Champenois . The war was officially over. After five long years of Nazi occupation, the end had taken less than ten minutes. With a sweep of pens to paper, top-ranking officials from the Allied and German forces signed the surrender documents in the Reims school building where the American General Dwight Eisenhower had set up his temporary “war room.”

How fitting that the enemy was forced to surrender in a city where they’d caused such pain and death, not only during the current war but also the one before. Gabrielle was still thinking about poetic justice when Marta peered around the corner. “You look happy, chère .”

“It’s been a good day.”

Marta’s smile came fast and true. “A very good day.” She turned to go, then paused.

“Was there something else?” Gabrielle asked.

“A letter, from New York. It arrived while you were gone. Your grandmother is reading it now. You will want to hear the news, I think.”

There were countless questions on her tongue, but the housekeeper was no longer standing in the doorway. A clock chimed from somewhere in the house, startling Gabrielle into motion. She stepped into the kitchen. And froze.

Her grandmother sat at the scarred table in the center of the room, head bent over a single sheet of paper. She’d seen her in this same posture nearly six years ago. The war had ravaged her, body and mind and soul, and she looked every bit a woman in her eighties. Gabrielle cleared her throat. “Marta tells me we received a letter from New York. Is it from Maman?”

Faded blue eyes rolled up to meet hers. “Ah, ma chère , come. Sit. And I will read what your mother has to say.”

The letter itself was short, not more than a page and a half. It started with a salutation, and a brief summary of Hélène’s life in New York. “We had a lovely spring,” Josephine read. “There was much celebration when news arrived of Germany’s imminent surrender.” She paused, her forehead creased by a frown as if trying to make sense of the scene. “Paulette is more herself these days. She sleeps better now and is only plagued with the occasional nightmare.”

Josephine sighed, the sound heavy and full of sadness. Marta sat beside her and patted her arm. “It is to be expected. The girl had a rough time during the war.”

“I weep for her.”

“We all do.”

Feeling her own tears welling, Gabrielle carefully took the letter from her grandmother and, after scanning the page, finished reading the rest. “The skills Paulette learned in Paris have put me in mind of an idea. We plan to open our own little boutique in Manhattan next autumn. With my sense of style and her creativity, we just might make a go of it.”

I pray you succeed, Maman.

She’d nearly made it to the end of the letter when the sound of pounding on the front door cut her off. All three women jumped at the noise. Marta started to rise. Gabrielle said, “Let me.”

It was an odd hour for visitors, even considering the joyful events of the day. Allied forces were everywhere and...

Something like hope moved through her. Her hands shook as she freed the lock then reached for the handle. The door creaked on its hinges and seemed to want to stick as she tugged. Two men stood on her doorstep, a British soldier. And...

“Papa!” Gabrielle yanked her father-in-law into her arms. He was older, and thinner, and much smaller in the shoulders, but he was alive. “Oh, Papa, you made it home.” The words hitched in her throat. “Are you well? Let me have a look at you.”

She stepped back and smiled into the dear, dear face. Max sighed, a slow lifting and lowering of his shoulders, then opened his arms as if to let her have a nice, long look at him.

So many emotions poured through her—shock, happiness, relief. “I feared we would never see each other again. But here you are.”

“It’s good to see you, ma fille .”

“I have so much I want to ask. How have you been? Where have you been?” Once the words started tumbling out of her mouth, she couldn’t stop them. “How did you get home?”

“There will be plenty of time for answers. But first, there is someone I wish for you to meet. The man who saved my life.” He motioned to his companion. “Gabrielle, meet my friend from the British army.”

The soldier stepped forward. “ Bon soir , Gabrielle.”

It required several seconds to place the man in the uniform of the British army. Then, he took off his hat and the wind tousled his hair and she knew him in an instant. Her lungs stopped working. Her heart quit beating. “Richard,” she said, deaf but for the roar in her ears.

His vitality hadn’t dimmed. He looked solid and real and alive. He’d survived the war and she couldn’t stop staring. He seemed plagued with the same affliction.

Max cleared his throat. “I wonder, Gabrielle, if perhaps your grandmother is at home?”

Eyes still on Richard, she nodded. “You’ll find her in the kitchen with Marta.”

“I know the way.” Max shuffled past her, pausing only a second to kiss her cheek and whisper, “He’s a good man, as fine as my Benoit, and certainly as brave.”

Her father-in-law’s words were tantamount to a blessing.

How often she’d played this reunion in her mind, and still, she couldn’t stop staring.

Richard broke the silence first. “May I come in?”

“I... Yes. Please. Come in. Come. Come.”

He moved across the threshold, looking nothing like the Gestapo agent he’d once been and everything like the brave man Max claimed.

Gabrielle shut the door behind him, wondering if he’d been at the signing, not sure that it mattered. All that truly mattered was that he was alive. And looking well. There was much to say. But for now, all she wanted to do was take him in with her eyes. The broad shoulders, and the blue-blue eyes that had presented themselves in her dreams many nights since his departure.

With no more pretense, deception or war between them the mood should have been light. The air seemed to pulse with tension.

“This is one of the reasons I came.” He indicated the bottle he held in his hand.

The glass was streaked with dust and caked with mud in several places, but Gabrielle easily read the label. “The 1928 I sent to Berlin.”

“I recovered every case. Apparently, Hitler was not much of a champagne connoisseur. He seized the wine out of greed.” He placed the bottle in his palm, his gaze narrowing over the label. “I only brought this one bottle with me. The others will be delivered later in the week, along with the rest of your champagne, and the thousands of cases stolen from your neighbors.”

“It’s a blessing you found even one bottle. Thank you.” The words didn’t seem enough.

“I’m afraid the news I come bearing isn’t all good.”

She waited.

“By the time von Schmidt was captured, he’d already sold most of the valuables he stole from your family. I have the list of missing items and have begun making inquiries. I will recover what I can, but it’s a tangle. It may take years.”

“What are a few years?” She surprised herself with the certainty in her voice. “When I am so very good at waiting.”

He looked at her for a long moment, and she watched the wariness drain from his features. Then his face broke into a smile. “And I’m very good at keeping my promises.”

She took the bottle from him, set it on a nearby table, then placed her hand on his heart. “Welcome back, Richard.”

He wrapped her in his arms. Promises were made. Promises they would have a lifetime to keep. And then they kissed. Long and deep and when they pulled apart they both acknowledged that the spark of attraction was stronger now than when they’d last met.

“I think it’s time my grandmother met my friend Richard Doyle.” She reclaimed the champagne bottle, took his arm and led him through the chateau.

It was Josephine’s idea to open the champagne. Gabrielle found the glasses. Richard pulled the cork and poured the liquid. A brilliant, bubbling gold. They toasted to the future.

Outside, church bells rang. The high-pitched peals rolled through the village, across the vineyard, summoning workers home, families to their dinner tables and, inside the chateau on the hill, they called Gabrielle and Richard out into the night.

With the vineyard as his backdrop, moon and stars overhead, Richard took her hands. He pressed his lips to her right palm, then her left, then pulled away to gaze into her eyes. “I love you, Gabrielle. I felt the stirrings of it the first time I saw you. It only grew stronger from there.”

She drew her hands free of his, gathering her thoughts. She would prefer never to think of their original meeting. But it would stand between them if they didn’t speak of it now. “I wish I could say the same. It would not be true. Wolfgang Mueller was a chilling, fearsome man. I was terrified the first time we met.”

“A calculated move on my part, and one of the many regrets I carry with me from the war. I can only offer you a contrite heart, and say I am sorry for the pain I caused you.”

Absolution came easy to her lips. “I forgave you the night you told me your real name.”

A look of uncertainty moved in his eyes. That moment of naked vulnerability touched her in ways mere words could never have done. “Tonight,” she said, “we begin anew. No more facades. No more deception between us. No more lies, only truth and honesty.”

“And the knowledge that together, we are better. Together—” he smiled, and oh, what a smile it was “—we are stronger.”

“Together,” she said, understanding his heart as if it were her own, “we are one.”

She slid into his arms then. Once there, she knew only conviction. This man was her future. She would live out the rest of her days with him by her side. “This is when you’re supposed to kiss me, Richard.”

“Gladly.” As his head came down to hers, Gabrielle lifted onto her toes, welcoming him into her life, on this, the first of many nights they would spend under the moon and stars, on the edge of the vineyard her family had tended for two hundred years. And, God willing, would tend for many—many—more to come.