? ? ?

It took three days for Michel to connect with someone capable of moving the Cohns along an established escape line. Inès held her breath, as did Michel and Céline, each day as Theo descended into the cellars. Of course Inès had walked the underground halls thousands of times without noticing the hidden room, but what if Samuel or Rachel coughed or knocked against something with Theo in earshot?

On the fourth day, Inès was surprised to see a dark car she didn’t recognize pull down their drive just after dusk. “It is time,” Michel said, and after he and Inès moved the armoire in the kitchen, he made his way down to the caves without another word. In Céline and Theo’s cottage, Inès could see a light on, the shadows of Céline and Theo at the table, and she prayed that Céline would keep her husband’s attention away from the windows.

Michel emerged ten minutes later with Samuel and Rachel, both of whom exchanged kisses with Inès.

“We will not forget the kindness you have shown,” Samuel said as Michel hurried them toward the door. “May God keep you safe.”

“And you,” Inès replied, feeling a strange sense of emptiness as soon as they were gone. By the time Michel came back into the house, she was crying.

“You hardly knew them,” Michel said, eyeing her warily and then glancing out the window toward the Laurents’ cottage, where Theo’s shadow was still visible at the table.

“But I feel responsible, Michel. I couldn’t live with myself if they didn’t make it safely to freedom.”

“All we can do is perform our own duties as effectively as possible and hope that luck is with us. Come, help me move the armoire back in place.”

“So have you hidden people here before?” Inès asked carefully as she wiped her eyes and crossed the room to help Michel push the large piece of furniture back over the cellar’s entrance. “Helped them escape? Has this been going on beneath my feet all along?”

Michel seemed to be considering his words as he stepped back. “Inès, I want very much to keep you out of this, for your own safety.”

“I think it’s too late for that, don’t you? You owe me the truth.”

Michel just looked at her, and in his gaze, she saw suspicion, uncertainty.

“You owe me trust,” she said quietly, her tears coming again, and finally, he moved toward her and wrapped her in his arms. She couldn’t remember the last time he had held her this way, like she was something of value, something that deserved protection, and it only made her cry harder.

“Shhhh,” he murmured, stroking her back until her tears ceased.

“Michel?” For a moment, she was sure he would kiss her, but instead, he cleared his throat and stepped back. Out of his arms, she felt suddenly unmoored.

“To answer your question,” he said, “no. The Cohns are the first people I have concealed.”

“But yet you knew exactly where to send them when Edith and Edouard couldn’t find them a way out.”

He gazed at her for a long time. “There is a network that moves secrets across the Swiss border.”

“Secrets?”

“Information. From within our country.”

“What kind of information?”

“Documents. Microfilms, sometimes. Whispers that help the Allies understand what is coming next. It’s run by some Dutch people who have formed a community here in France.”

Inès felt a shiver run down her spine. “And you are part of all this?”

He glanced at her. “This network doesn’t go through Champagne. But from time to time, there are people here who have contact with the line. And I know that recently they’ve been moving refugees.”

“But how?”

“There are false documents. Cover stories. Handshakes with authorities who are secretly on our side. It is all very dangerous, Inès, and that is why I don’t want you involved.”

But she was already involved, and they both knew it. “Where will the Cohns go from here?”

“Paris. And then, I believe, south to Lyon, and then Annecy, near the Swiss border.”

Inès stared at her hands for a long time in silence. They were hands that had betrayed her husband, but they were also hands that were capable of saving lives, and there was power in that. She reached across the divide and touched Michel lightly on the arm. He jumped as if she’d burned him, and she withdrew. “I want to help more people.”

“It is not possible.”

“Anything is possible.”

Michel shook his head. “Theo has no idea what we’re doing, and to do this again, right under his nose, would be to flirt with disaster.”

“Then tell him.”

Michel blinked. “I cannot.”

“Why? Céline knows, doesn’t she? I’m sure he would do anything to protect her, with a child on the way. He would not put the mother of his child in danger by betraying any of us.”

Michel looked away. “You must understand, Theo is much more rigid in the way he thinks about right and wrong. It is what makes him a good winemaker, but perhaps not a great contributor to our cause.”

“I thought he was your friend.”

Michel frowned. “He was. But we think of things differently now. And though I believe he would do anything to protect Céline, I’m not so sure he has the same allegiance to you or me.”