“What did you say his name was—Kurt?”
“Yes. What color do you fancy wearing for the wedding?” Anneliese turned through the doors of the boutique, moving through the ivory bridal gowns and floral bridesmaid dresses, waving away salesgirls. “This blue? So lovely with your skin.”
She took off her gloves to test the fabric between her fingertips, and Jordan eyed her hands, naked of rings except for the engagement cluster of garnets. She tried to remember if she’d ever seen Anneliese wearing a wedding ring and was certain she had not. “You could wear your old ring, you know,” she threw out, trying a new tack.
Anneliese looked startled. “What?”
“Dad would never mind if you kept wearing your husband’s ring. He was a part of your life—I hope you don’t feel we expect you to forget him.”
“Kurt never gave me a wedding ring.”
“Is it not customary in Austria?”
“No, it was, he—” Anneliese sounded almost flustered for a moment. “We were rather poor, that’s all.”
Or maybe you lied about being married, Jordan couldn’t stop herself thinking. Maybe it’s not the only thing you’ve lied about either . . .
Her father’s voice, scolding: Wild stories.
“I think you’re right about this dress.” Jordan looked at the pale blue frock, full skirted and simple. “Ruth would look pretty in blue too, with her dark eyes. Most blondes have blue eyes like yours. She must have gotten her eyes from her father too.”
“Yes.” Anneliese fingered the sleeve of a pale pink suit, face smooth again.
“Well, it’s very striking.” Jordan tried to think where to tug the discussion next. It wasn’t just Ruth or Anneliese’s first husband she was interested in, it was everything—but something about the wedding ring had jarred Anneliese’s poise. “Did Ruth ever know her father, or—”
“No, she doesn’t remember him. He was very handsome, though. So is your young man. Would you like to bring Garrett to the wedding?”
“He’ll be working if it’s a day wedding—he’s putting in hours for his father’s boss until he starts at Boston University in the fall. His parents want him to join the business, though all he wants to do now is fly planes. Garrett never saw combat; he broke his leg too badly during training, and the war ended before he was anywhere near healed, so he was discharged early. Was your husband in the war?”
“Yes.” Anneliese picked up a cream straw hat, examining its blue ribbon. Jordan tried a question about Anneliese’s family next, but she didn’t seem to hear it. “Do you plan to follow Garrett to Boston University this fall?” she asked instead.
“Well—” Jordan blinked, sidetracked. “I’d like to, but Dad isn’t keen. With a business in the family, he doesn’t think college is necessary.” Especially for a girl. “He never went, and always says he didn’t regret it.”
“I’m sure he didn’t. But you have your own path, like any young person. Perhaps we might try to change his mind, you and I. Even the best men sometimes require steering.” Anneliese gave a conspiratorial smile, perching the hat on Jordan’s head. “That’s lovely. Why don’t you try on the dress? For myself, I think this pink suit . . .”
Jordan slipped into a changing cubicle, diverted despite herself. She’d first thought of a stepmother as something wonderful for her father and his loneliness—then, given all she didn’t know about this woman and her life even as she moved into theirs, as something to be uneasy about. It had never occurred to Jordan to think a stepmother could be . . . well, an ally. Perhaps we might try to change his mind, you and I. That made Jordan smile as she fastened up the blue dress with its snug waist and swirl of skirt, hearing the rustle of clothing as Anneliese changed on the other side of the wall. Did you mean it? Jordan wondered. Or were you trying to derail me from asking about you?
“Beautiful,” Anneliese approved as Jordan came out. “Against that blue, your skin is pure American peaches and cream.”
“You look lovely too,” Jordan said honestly. Petite and elegant in a suit the color of baby roses, Anneliese revolved before the triple mirror. An assistant fluttered with pins, and Jordan moved closer, straightening Anneliese’s sleeve. “Would you really help me with Dad, changing his mind about college? Most people tell me it’s a silly thing to want, when I’ve got a nice boyfriend and a place in the shop waiting for me, and I’m already working the counter on weekends.”
“Nonsense.” Anneliese smoothed the jacket over her waist. “Clever girls like you—another dart here?—should be encouraged to want more, not less.”
“Did you, at my age?” Jordan couldn’t help the question that popped out next. “You said you went to college. Where was that?”
Anneliese’s blue eyes met hers in the mirror for a thoughtful moment. “You don’t entirely trust me, Jordan,” she said at last in her very-faintly-accented English. “No, don’t protest. It’s quite all right. You love your father; you want the best for him. So do I.”
“It’s not that I—” Jordan felt her cheeks flame. Why do you have to probe things? she chastised herself. Why can’t you just flutter and squeal like a normal girl in a bridal shop? “I don’t distrust you—I just don’t know you, and . . .”
Anneliese let her struggle into silence. “I’m not easy to know,” she said at last. “The war was difficult for me. I don’t enjoy talking about it. And we Germans are more reserved than Americans even at the best of times.”
“I thought you were Austrian,” Jordan said before she could stop herself.
“I am.” Anneliese turned to examine the skirt hem in the mirror. “But I went to Heidelberg as a young girl—for university, to answer your question. I studied English there and met my husband.” A smile. “Now you know something more about me, so shall we make our purchase and look for a dress for Ruth? There’s a children’s boutique not far away.”
Jordan’s cheeks stayed hot as they left the shop with their parcels. I am a worm, she thought, kicking herself, but Anneliese seemed to hold no grudge, swinging her handbag and tilting her nose up to the breeze. “My former husband would say this is hunting weather,” she exclaimed, reminiscent. “I’m no good at hunting, but I always did like heading to the woods on such days. Spring breezes bringing every scent right to your nose . . .”
Jordan wondered why her stomach had tightened again, when Anneliese was chatting away in a perfectly forthcoming fashion. Because you’re jealous, she told herself witheringly. Because you don’t want to share your father, and you resent her for it. That’s a mean, nasty little feeling to have, Jordan McBride. And you’re going to get over it, right now.
Chapter 5
Ian
April 1950
Vienna
You have a wife?” Tony dragged Ian into the corner for a quick, hissed discussion. “Since when?”
Ian contemplated the woman now sitting at his desk, boots propped on the blotter, crunching down biscuits straight from the tin. “It’s complicated,” he said eventually.
“No, it isn’t. At some point you and this woman stood up together and said a lot of stuff about to have and to hold, and there was an I do. It’s pretty definitive. And why didn’t you tell me four days ago when I said she was coming here? Did you just forget?”
“Call it a sadly misplaced impulse to have a joke at your expense.”
Tony glowered. “Was the part about her being such a fragile flower a joke too?”
No, that turned out to be a joke on me. Ian remembered Nina stumbling over the foreign words of the marriage service, swaying on her feet from weakness. The entire wedding had taken less than ten minutes: Ian had rushed through his own vows, pushed his signet ring onto Nina’s fourth finger where it hung like a hoop, taken her back to her hospital bed, and promptly headed off to fill out paperwork and finish a column on the occupation of Poznań. Now, five years later, he watched Nina suck biscuit crumbs off her fingertip and saw she was still wearing the ring. It fit much better. “I came across Nina in Poznań after the German retreat,” Ian said, realizing his partner was waiting for answers. “The Polish Red Cross picked her up half dead from double pneumonia. She’d been living rough in the woods after her run-in with die J?gerin. She looked like a stiff breeze would kill her.”
It hadn’t just been her physical state either. Her eyes had been so haunted, she looked a step from shattering altogether. Logically, Ian understood she would have changed in five years, but he couldn’t stop trying to reconcile the woman in his office with the frail girl of his memory.