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the builders he would use for the restoration would all be German. He needed to know the language, and he was not overly skilled at it. But by the time they left, he was nearly fluent. And they had long since agreed that Antoine would speak to Amadea in French, and Beata in German. They wanted their daughter to be completely bilingual. And in time, Beata was determined to add English. If they could afford it once in Germany, Beata wanted to hire a young English girl to help her, so Amadea would also be fluent in English. She and Antoine both agreed that languages were always useful.

Their financial situation was far from secure, although the salary he'd been offered was respectable. And the job he was going to was something Antoine loved and did well. The opportunity they'd been offered was a great blessing. And Beata was thinking of doing some sewing for some of the elegant women she had known, if they were interested. And she hoped that, in an indirect way, it might be a conduit back to her mother.

Antoine also mentioned that Madame Daubigny had a great deal of money. It was undoubtedly her money that Gérard was using to do the restoration of the Schloss, as he had very little himself. He was from an aristocratic family that had been impoverished even before the war. Véronique's family had a considerable fortune. And Gérard had promised Antoine he could buy all the horses he wanted. They were starting a new life.

The Daubignys and Beata had never met, and they had no idea who she'd been before she married Antoine. She and Antoine discussed it and decided it was simpler if they didn't know she'd been Jewish. It was a piece of her history, and theirs, that they decided to keep to themselves. They felt private about that, and their family difficulties before they married. Without the Wittgensteins in their lives, there was no need to explain that Beata had been born Jewish, and she certainly didn't look it. Nor did Amadea. She was as blond and blue-eyed as babies came, and she had perfect cameo features like her mother. Beata's fam-ily's rejection of her was still a source of great sorrow and shame to her, and she didn't want anyone to know.

All five of them cried the day the Vallerands left the Zubers. Even Amadea wailed miserably as she held her arms out to Maria. The Zubers drove them to Lausanne to the train, and Beata couldn't stop crying as she hugged them both. It reminded her of the day nearly three years before when she had left her parents. They arrived in Cologne on Amadea's second birthday. And when they arrived at the Schloss, although Antoine was pleased to see his old friend, he had to confess to Beata that night that he found the project daunting.

The Schloss itself was in terrible shape and had been allowed to go to rack and ruin. The noble family who had owned it for centuries had long since run out of money, and the place had been uninhabited and was crumbling and had been allowed to deteriorate to a shocking degree during the war, and even before that. And the stables were even worse. It was going to take months, or even years, to get the place clean, whole, and up and running. But Antoine had to admit after a month or two, he found what he was doing exciting. And he couldn't wait to start buying horses for them. Beata loved hearing his plans when they talked about it at night.

In the end, their progress went faster than expected. By Christmas, there was an army of carpenters, painters, architects, builders, stonemasons, gardeners, glaziers, and master craftsmen hard at work on the place. Véronique and Gérard Daubigny were relentless. According to Antoine, Véronique was building a palace. And much to his delight, they spared nothing on the stables. They were heated, immaculate, modern, beautifully built, and could house up to sixty horses. By the following spring, Antoine was buying horses at fabulous prices all over Europe for them. He made several trips to England, Scotland, and Ireland, and took Beata with him. She loved it. He also took several trips to France, and bought three beautiful hunters in Dordogne, within ten miles of the château where he had grown up, and where his family continued to refuse to see him. He was quiet as they drove past the