LITMIR.BIZ

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will come back someday, if you like.”

      His voice was warm in my chest. I wanted him to kiss me again, but instead I followed him around the corner of the barracks to the stairs. Your poor feet, he said, looking down, and I said, Your poor leg, and he kissed my hand and said, The lame leading the lame.

      I said, I thought it was the blind, the blind leading the lame, and he said, I am not blind at all. Are you?

      No, I told him. Not blind at all.

      There were two weather-faced men smoking on the terrace when we passed under the arch. They looked up at us and nearly dropped their cigarettes.

      “Bonjour, mes amis,” said Stefan cheerfully, and he bent down and lifted me into his arms and carried me the rest of the way, to hell with the wounded leg.

      12.

      An hour later, we were standing inside the Isolde’s tender, a sleek little boat with a racehorse engine, motoring across the sea to my father’s villa on the other side of the Cap d’Antibes. The wind whipped Stefan’s hair as he sat at the wheel, and the sun lit his skin. Against the side of the boat, the waves beat a forward rhythm, and the breeze came thick and briny.

      We hardly spoke. How could you speak, after a morning like that? And yet it was only seven o’clock. The whole day still lay ahead. We rounded the point, and the Villa Vanilla came into view, white against the morning glare. Stefan brought us in expertly to the boathouse, closing the throttle so we wouldn’t make too much noise.

      “I will walk you up the cliff,” he said. “I do not trust that path.”

      “But I’ve climbed it hundreds of times. I walked down it in the dark, the night we met.”

      “This I do not wish to think about.”

      The house was silent when we reached the top. No one would be up for hours. There was a single guilty champagne bottle sitting on the garden wall, overlooked by the servants. Stefan picked it up as we passed and then looked over at the driveway, which was just visible from the side as we approached the terrace. “My God,” he said, stopping in his tracks. “Whose car is that?”

      I followed his gaze and saw Herr von Kleist’s swooping black Mercedes, oily-fast in the sun. “Oh, that’s the general, Baron von Kleist. I’m surprised he’s still here. He didn’t seem to be enjoying himself.”

      “Von Kleist,” he said.

      “Do you know him?”

      “A little.”

      We resumed walking, and when we had climbed the steps and stood by the terrace door Stefan handed me the empty champagne bottle and the small brown valise that contained my few clothes. “You see? You may tell your brother I have returned you properly dressed, with your virtue intact. I believe I deserve a knighthood, at least. The Chevalier Silverman.”

      “What about me? I was the one who nursed you back to health, from the brink of death.”

      “But you are already a princess, Mademoiselle. What further honor can be given to you?”

      All at once, I was out of words. I was empty of the ability to flirt with him. I parted my lips dumbly and stood there, next to the door, staring at Stefan’s chin.

      His voice fell to a very low pitch, discernible only by dogs and lovers. “Listen to me, Annabelle. I will tell you something, the absolute truth. I have never in my life felt such terror as I did when I saw you lying on that beach this morning in your white nightgown, surrounded by the rocks and that damned treacherous Pointe du Dragon.”

      “Don’t be stupid,” I whispered.

      “I am stupid. I am stupid for you. I am filled with folly. But stop. I see I am alarming you. I will go back to my ship now. It is best for us both, don’t you think?” He kissed my hand. I hadn’t even realized he was holding it. He kissed it again and turned away.

      “Wait, Stefan,” I said, but he was already hurrying down the stones of the terrace, and the sound of his footsteps was so faint, I didn’t even notice when it faded into the morning silence.

      13.

      I passed through the dining room on the way to the stairs, and instead of finding it empty, I saw Herr von Kleist sitting quietly in a chair, eating his breakfast. He looked up at me without the slightest sign of surprise.

      “Good morning, Mademoiselle de Créouville,” he said, pushing back his chair and unfolding his body to an enormous height.

      “Good morning, Herr von Kleist.” I was blushing furiously. The champagne bottle hung scandalously from one hand, the valise from the other. “I didn’t expect anyone up so early.”

      “I am always up at this hour. May I call for some breakfast for you?”

      “No, thank you. I think I’ll take a tray in my room.”

      “We have missed you these past ten days.”

      “I’ve been staying with a friend.”

      “So I was told.” He remained standing politely, holding his napkin in one hand, a man of the old manners. The kitchen maid walked in, heavy-eyed, holding a coffeepot, and stopped at the sight of me.

      “Bonjour, Marie-Louise,” I said.

      “Bonjour, Mademoiselle,” she whispered.

      I looked back at Herr von Kleist, whose eyes were exceptionally blue in the light that flooded from the eastern windows, whose hair glinted gold like a nimbus. He was gazing at me without expression, although I had the impression of great grief hanging from his shoulders. I shifted my feet.

      “Please return to your breakfast,” I said, and I walked across the corner of the dining room and broke into a run, racing up the stairs to my room, hoping I would reach my window in time to see the Isolde’s tender cross the sea before me.

      But it did not.

       PEPPER

       A1A • 1966

      1.

      Annabelle waits for her to finish, like a woman who’s done this before: waited patiently for someone else to finish vomiting. When Pepper lifts her head, she hands her a crisp white handkerchief, glowing in the moon.

      “Thank you,” says Pepper.

      “All better? Can we move on?”

      “Yes.”

      The engine launches them back down the road. Pepper leans her head back and allows the draft to cool her face. Annabelle bends forward and switches on the radio. “That was too late for morning sickness,” she observes.

      “I don’t get morning sickness.”

      “Lucky duck. Nerves, then?”

      “I don’t get nerves, either.” She pauses. “Not without reason.”

      The static resolves into music. The Beatles. “Yesterday.” So far away. Annabelle pauses, hand on the dial, and then lets it be. She sits back against the leather and says, “Are you saying the bastard’s been threatening you?”

      “He’s been trying to find me, and I’ve been making myself scarce, that’s all.”

      “Why? He is the father, after all.”

      “Because I know what he wants.” Pepper examines her fingernails. She thinks, You’re an idiot, Pepper Schuyler, you’re going to spill it, aren’t

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