“I’m sorry,” he said, his tone softening. He placed a hand on her shoulder. “It’s only that I don’t know how I’d forgive myself if anything happened to you.”

“I know.” Ruby relaxed slightly, reminding herself that every marriage was bound to hit some snags. And really, who could blame Marcel for his sense of powerlessness? “But I feel that I’m meant to be here, Marcel. Here with you.”

She expected him to make a face, but instead, he just stared at her for a long time. “Oh, Ruby. I’ve ruined everything for you. I pretended to be the man I wanted to be, but now you’ve seen the real me, a man whose pathetic injury has taken away his ability to protect you.”

She took a step closer, putting a hand on his stubbled jaw. “I see you, Marcel,” she said. “I have always seen you. Do you think the French soldiers retreating from the front feel any more in control than you do? We are all powerless for now.”

“I suppose I should be thankful that you still see the world through rose-colored glasses. Perhaps it’s helpful not to see the coming storm so plainly.”

She wanted to protest, to tell him that she saw things as clearly as he did, but then he pulled her toward him, folding her in, and she held her tongue. Being in his arms again for the first time in weeks felt like coming home, even if it had turned out not to be the home she expected.

An hour later, when the three tones of the all-clear siren sounded, she led him upstairs, back into their apartment in the nearly deserted building, to the bedroom that had once been a sanctuary. It felt like a battleground now, and she knew they had to change that if they were to survive.

“You can’t possibly want me,” he whispered as she kissed him. “I’m nothing.”

“You’re my husband, and I stand by you,” she said firmly, covering his mouth with hers.

He made love to her quickly, almost violently. She tried to hold on, to focus on his eyes, to make him come back to her, but he was somewhere else entirely until he collapsed on her, spent and panting, his skin damp. “I’m sorry,” he murmured into her breasts. “I love you, you know. I do.”

She waited until his chest was rising and falling against her before she replied, “I love you too.”

Yes, Ruby would stay. Storms were meant to be weathered, after all.

“MADAME BENOIT?” A SMALL, TIMID voice jolted Ruby out of her fog later that night. She had been unable to sleep, and after tossing and turning for an hour, she had stepped onto the terrace. The air still carried the scent of burning rubber and smoldering metal; the German bombs had found their mark. She looked over to see Charlotte silhouetted in the moonlight next door.

“Charlotte,” she said warmly, relieved to see her. The girl and her parents hadn’t appeared in the shelter during the air raid, and Ruby thought perhaps they had fled. There were reports coming in of cars bombed to pieces while snarled in traffic on country roads, and Ruby had had the terrible feeling that something had happened to the Dachers. Even with Charlotte in front of her now, Ruby couldn’t erase her sense of foreboding.

“Good evening, Madame Benoit,” Charlotte said formally.

“Please. Call me Ruby, or you’ll make me feel old.”

“That is an American thing, I think,” Charlotte said after a long pause. “Calling adults by their first names.”

Ruby smiled into the darkness. “Yes, perhaps it is. Or perhaps it’s simply a neighbor thing. Times are too dark now for us to be anything but friends, don’t you think?”

“Well . . . all right.” Charlotte hesitated. “Can I ask you a question, Madame? Er, Ruby?”

“Anything.”

“Why are you still here?”

Ruby laughed at the girl’s bluntness.

“Here in France, I mean,” Charlotte clarified, a hint of embarrassment in her tone now. “Since you’re American. Maman and Papa said you should have left months ago. Why didn’t you?”

Ruby sighed. “Maybe because I’m stubborn. Or maybe because I don’t feel that anyone—German or otherwise—should force me into fleeing. I think that’s part of it, Charlotte. But I also think it’s because once I make a decision, I try to stick to it. I made Marcel a promise to be his wife, to join my life to his. And so here I will stay.”

“You’re loyal. And brave.”

Ruby thought of Marcel’s words, hating how much they wounded her. “Some would say foolish.”

“But staying makes you French, doesn’t it? All of those people who would judge you, they didn’t have a choice. But you did. And you chose Paris.”

“I chose Paris,” Ruby repeated slowly. “Well, maybe I am French after all. Thank you, Charlotte. You’ve just made me feel lots better.”

Charlotte went inside soon after, but Ruby stayed on the terrace, lost in thought. When she finally stepped back inside, shutting the doors softly behind her, Marcel was sitting in the darkness of the kitchen, staring at her.

“What were you doing out there?” he asked her, an edge to his voice.

“Just getting some air,” she said, feeling suddenly guilty, though she’d done nothing wrong.

“I heard you talking.”

“Yes, to the Dacher girl.”

Marcel lit a cigarette, the match flaring for a second in the darkness. Ruby watched as he exhaled a mouthful of smoke, obscuring her view of him. “You talk too much, I think.”

Ruby’s heart sank. An hour ago, she’d felt that things between them might be changing for the better, but now he was in another one of his moods. “She’s a nice girl, Marcel. I think she feels very alone right now. I’m just trying to help.”

“There are lots of nice people who are alone in the world.” He took another long draw from his cigarette. “It’s very American, you know, this need to talk to anyone and everyone. If you were truly as French as you’d like to be, you’d know when to keep to yourself.”

“MARCEL, MON AMI!”

Marcel’s old friend Aubert—a short, bespectacled man around forty with a receding hairline, hooded eyes, and a flat, wide nose—approached the table outside the Café Ciel where Ruby and Marcel sat. It was a Tuesday afternoon, and they were playing at being normal, pretending that Paris wasn’t about to be occupied, that life could still go on as it had before. The Germans hadn’t reached the capital yet, but they would be here any day now. The French government had departed for Vichy the day before, and the streets were filled with injured soldiers telling tales of horrors at the front.

Aubert embraced Marcel and leaned down to kiss Ruby on both cheeks. “You are looking radiant, my dear.” He sat and beckoned to a waiter. “Champagne, my boy! Champagne for my friends!”

Marcel looked amused, but Ruby was troubled. The café—one of the few in their arrondissement that had actually stayed open—was nearly deserted, but the other customers were staring at them. “What is there to celebrate, Aubert?” she whispered. “Life as we know it is about to end.”

“Ah, but it’s not over yet, is it?” Aubert lit a cigarette and took a long drag. “Paris is still ours. And if you want to know, Ruby, I’m toasting to the future. I can see it already. We’ll defeat them yet.”

“Surely you’re joking. Things couldn’t possibly be bleaker right now.”

Aubert smiled. “But it’s only a matter of time. The Huns may be here for a little while, but with the help of the Brits, we’ll push them out. Isn’t that right, Marcel?”

Ruby glanced at her husband, expecting him to share her doubt, but he was staring at Aubert, his eyes gleaming. “Do you two know something about the invasion that I don’t?” Ruby asked.

The waiter arrived then, popping the cork on their champagne and pouring the bubbly for them. Aubert didn’t reply until they’d clinked glasses. “No, Ruby, of course not. I’m only saying there’s hope if we band together. But it’s nothing for you to worry about, dear. Things like this are better left to the men, don’t you think?”

Ruby drew herself up a bit taller in her chair. “Aubert, I follow the news too. You can’t think I’m not aware of what’s going on.”

“Of course,” Aubert said, and Ruby could hear his amusement as he added, “Our university girl.” He and Marcel exchanged smiles.

“Excuse me,” Ruby said stiffly, rising from her chair. Aubert and Marcel half-stood too, but she ignored them as she made her way inside to find the toilette.