Whisper on the Wind Read Online Free PDF Page B

Justice.”
    “The Germans are in the Palais de Justice?”
    He laughed at her naiveté. “They’re everywhere, Isa.”
    They walked for some time, staying away from major intersections and keeping to narrow alleys. Edward didn’t believe in unnecessary risk. He drew Isa with him to the shadows if he saw any of the Kaiser’s soldiers or heard the clop of horses pulling a cart.
    After a while Edward stopped before one of the buildings. He’d been here often enough in the past year or more since gaining his freedom—such as it was—but still he had to count the doors from the corner, they were all so much alike. Nothing adorned the structure, neither flower boxes nor welcome mat, not even shutters at the windows. Though swept clean, this home was stark and plain. Like all the others.
    Edward pulled a key from his pocket and unlocked the door, then quietly let them into the small, dark parlor. The single common room in the house offered a sturdy, bare wood table, a cast-iron cookstove in the corner, and a freestanding cabinet laden with dishes. There was one bedroom on this level, belonging to Viole and her husband, an older Walloon couple who’d worked for Edward’s parents when they’d begun managing the Hotel Cerise. Edward’s mother and his brother, Jonah, used the two rooms upstairs. On the rare occasion Edward allowed himself to join them, he shared his younger brother’s quarters.
    “Everyone is asleep. You can rest right here in the parlor.” He pointed toward a settee in front of the tall fireplace. “Come along, then; you can sleep a little before everyone rouses.”
    “All right.”
    He would have stepped past her, but she stopped him with a gentle touch to his arm. “Edward, wait. I wanted to—to thank you.”
    He grimaced and would have turned away, but she still held his arm.
    “No, Edward, please listen. Will you sit with me? Here on the settee?”
    He was tired and wanted to go to bed but found that sitting was too tempting to pass up.
    “I know you think I’ve made a mistake in coming back, but even if you’re right, what’s done is done and I’m glad I’m here. I’ve longed to be here since the moment my parents forced me to leave.” She sighed. “I was so young then, I didn’t have a choice.”
    He wanted to tell her the passage of just over two years hardly counted toward aging her but didn’t.
    “Do you remember those days, Edward, just before the Germans came?”
    He shrugged. He’d rather not recall. Yawning, he stretched out his legs and leaned back.
    Isa shifted too, but to his dismay she leaned into him the way she used to when they were children. “There was so much going on, so much confusion. Everyone thought we’d be left alone, our little Belgium.”
    “As we should have been.”
    “Everyone was full of confusion and fear. . . .”
    “And now only fear.” He patted the hand that rested on his chest and for a moment felt every bit the age he was dressed to portray, so much older and wiser than this girl beside him.
    “But none of us knew back then what would happen. We shouldn’t have left so quickly.”
    “Why should your parents have stayed? Brussels was just a diversion for them, not a home.”
    “But not for me. Brussels is my home.”
    “So what? Do you think if you’d stayed you could have changed anything? Do you think you can change anything now? What good are you here, Isa?” She sat up with an open mouth, no doubt with a ready defense, but he raised a hand. “Let me answer my own question: None. None whatsoever. You’re worse than that—you’re a liability. Oh, there you go, with your eyes welling up and thinking I’ve insulted you. But be logical for once, will you? You’re getting older now. Do you think anybody wants to be noticed by a German soldier? Least of all a woman, which you’ll be someday.”
    “I think I already—”
    “I haven’t mentioned that we’re dependent on charity for nearly every meal. No one works because