She wished the baby had a proper name like other children, but Rosalind hadn’t concerned herself yet with a name. It wasn’t Brigitte’s place to name her, but she pretended the baby had a beautiful name, a name with wings. Like Princess Adler.
Soon, she prayed, they could all fly far away from here.
The girl was four days old now. After Olivia left, Brigitte and Rosalind had labored together to deliver her. Brigitte had never seen so much blood before and then—the miracle of life. The scream of a child no longer harbored in Rosalind’s womb.
But Rosalind had retreated into her own shell after the birth, not sure, it seemed, what to do with a baby. She’d been reluctant even to feed her, as if she wasn’t certain that she wanted the child to live.
Baby finally slept as Brigitte carried her toward the cemetery. The markers there, with their Scripture verses, reminded her of the yard around her father’s church in Moselkern. God might not be in the Mill House, but she hoped that His presence lingered here among His saints.
So she stopped by the tombstones to pray, begging Vater Gott to save this baby’s life. For the baby must live. Before they left the cemetery, she knew what she must do. Defy Rosalind, if necessary, to make sure her daughter survived.
As she and baby drew close to the house again, beside the garden plot, Brigitte paused. There was a motorcar in the drive, but unlike the investigator’s vehicle, this one she recognized. It was the dark-blue Wolseley that Herr drove.
What would the man do when he realized his wife had been taken away?
Even though Frau didn’t like her, she’d been a sliver of a shield between Brigitte and her husband. Now that she was gone, Brigitte feared he wouldn’t have any use for her or Rosalind. Or for a baby.
“Wait for me,” she whispered, laying baby girl in a tuft of grass beside the garden. The baby stirred but slept, exhausted from her sleepless night and hunger pangs.
Brigitte wouldn’t let Herr touch this child.
“I’ll return,” she promised, like Dietmar had done with her long ago. Then she reached for the mud-caked hoe beside a tree, the one Herr had brought them to plant a garden.
Clutching the handle, Brigitte crept through the front door and past the fireplace. Herr was talking to Rosalind inside the bedroom. His voice was calm, and it scared her more than his yelling.
“Where were you in Germany?” he asked.
“I wasn’t in Germany. I was in Austria.” Rosalind wasn’t commanding this time nor did she seem scared. She sounded bored, as if she’d already tired of talking. “With the father of my child.”
“I don’t care about the child’s father. I want the name of the man who fathered you.”
Her laugh was hollow. “Are you going to kill him too?”
“Tell me his name,” he repeated, the calm in his voice tightening into a demand.
“Ask your lady.”
“She won’t tell me.”
“That’s because Mummy loves him much more than she’d ever love you.”
Brigitte stood at the bedroom door, her fingers washed purple as they clenched Herr’s hoe. But he didn’t turn around. His eyes were fixed on Rosalind, and in his hands he had something as well, pointed at her friend. Like Roger when he’d pointed his gun at Brigitte.
Herr stepped closer to her. “Too bad your mummy wants you dead.”
“Dead or fed,” Rosalind said with a shrug. “It won’t be long before she wants you dead too.”
“Lady Ricker needs me.”
Rosalind laughed again. “She doesn’t need anyone, except my father.”
“Where’s the girl?”
When he glanced toward the window, Rosalind signaled Brigitte forward with her finger, ever so slightly. “Which one?”
“The—”
Brigitte cringed at the vile word on his lips, but in that moment she found her English voice. Rich and strong. Calm and controlled. “I’m right here.”
When Herr swiveled, she hammered him in the head with the hoe, and he fell like one of the toy knights in Dietmar’s army, crashing onto the wood floor.
Rosalind swept the gun out of his hand, and as he groaned, Brigitte raced out of the room, out of the cottage, and retched in the brush. A blast of gunshot reverberated through the trees, and in that instant, she knew she’d been fully liberated from the Terrell family and this miserable house.
Rosalind stood at the front door, her black dressing gown whirling like a storm cloud around her. “We have to leave.”
Wiping off her mouth, Brigitte followed her back into the house, stepping over Herr’s body as she reached for the sack with cloth diapers in the bureau and the extra layette Lady Ricker had sent before the birth.
Her hands shook as she packed Dietmar’s wooden knight and a change of clothing for herself, but Rosalind didn’t seem to tremble at all as she slipped the key for the Wolseley out of Herr’s pocket.
“Should we bury him?” Brigitte asked, unable to look at Herr again.
Rosalind shook her head. “The rats can have his body.”
Brigitte felt as if she were drowning in the rusty smell of blood, the lingering smoke from Herr’s gun.