Führer spent many happy years in this area and purchased the house when the old owner died.” Eric selected a biscuit and bit into it as he continued his interruption. A habit of his. “Nothing like watching the snow fall outside that large picture window and listening to the logs crackle in the great hall’s fireplace.”
Ellie’s eyes shifted back and forth between them. Her arms crossed and uncrossed in her lap. “How do you two know each other?”
Surprise raised Eva’s thin eyebrows. “Related through my—”
“Cousins. Distant cousins.” Eva’s chin dropped at Eric’s glare.
Awkwardness rippled as they all feigned interest in their tea. After two long minutes of silently staring at the scenery and sipping the watery drink, Kat couldn’t take it any longer. She turned to Eva. “What a beautiful dress.”
“Danke. Had many years.” She smoothed a hand over the embroidered bodice. Her eyes slowly traced the scalloped edges of Kat’s green-and-white-striped Rouf skirt. “No new clothes, no elegant.”
“We should change that. The next time you’re in Paris, we’ll go shopping down the Champs Élysées.” Kat tried to offer her an encouraging smile despite the sourness still curdling in her stomach. Maybe the tanks trundling under the Arc de Triomphe would inspire the woman’s fashion sense. Whoever she was, she didn’t deserve to dress like a milkmaid every day.
“Not sure . . .” Eva glanced over her shoulder again. “Kindness, danke.”
Eric jumped to his feet, rocking the table back. His arm flung out and up. “Heil Hitler!”
All the warmth and brilliance of the August summer day evaporated like a hiss of steam on a frozen tundra. The devil in human flesh strolled across the terrace, upright and solid as a brick, with dark-brown hair slicked to the side and a rectangular patch of hair balanced on his upper lip. Kat had often reminded herself that men were just men and women just women, be they a king, duke, shopkeeper, or bus driver, but staring into the intense dark eyes of Adolf Hitler, she realized she’d been mistaken to think he was like any other. This was a man set apart.
Eric made introductions all around. He fairly burst at the seams with pride when he gestured to the rat-faced man hovering behind Hitler as Dr. Joseph Goebbels, the propaganda minister, his direct boss.
Kat resisted the urge to wipe her hand on the grass after shaking his clammy one.
Hitler’s dark eyes lingered on Ellie. His lips fumbled to tilt up into a smile. “Sprechen sie Deutsch?”
Still standing at full attention, Eric dropped his hand to Ellie’s shoulder and shook his head. “Nein, mein Führer.”
No, Ellie didn’t speak German, nor did she understand it. But thanks to their governess’s keen interest in languages, Kat did, at least rudimentary conversations. Anything beyond “Will you please pass the butter,” and she was lost.
“I hear you are doing wonderful things to promote German pride and expand our society in Paris,” Hitler was saying through Eric’s interpretations. Though he settled back in the chair and took a cup of tea, he didn’t unbutton his box-cut pinstriped jacket. He sat rigid, as if his back detested the plush cushions.
“I don’t know about spreading pride—that’s Eric’s forte—but I do know how to put together rather a smashing party.” Ellie’s hands pinched together under the table. “Eric’s very resourceful when it comes to helping me plan, like acquiring Mr. Anderson’s bar for Ms. Chekhova’s latest movie debut. Such a shame you couldn’t attend, Dr. Goebbels.”
“What a triumph for our nation until that Jew ruined it,” Goebbels spat out like a sullen child.
Hitler leaned forward, drawing the attention back to himself. “It must never happen again. Great precautions must be taken all around to ensure that the Fatherland is not weakened by such radicals. Our noble cause will thrive, and all opposition must understand that they no longer have a place in which to fester their ideas and lies.”
Ellie’s hands pinched white. “Next time will be better.”
“How infallible our cause would be with supporters of like minds outside Germany.” Hitler’s voice remained steady, as appropriate for afternoon tea, but the tone sharpened as his intent narrowed to its purpose.
Kat slid her gaze to Barrett across the table. Hands laced across his flat stomach and head tilted slightly back, he was the perfect picture of ease. If not for the rapid rise and fall of his chest, she might have thought him immune to the conversation imploding around them.
Of course that’s why Eric had lured them here. He’d very cleverly found a