The Baker's Secret(26)

“He is not mine in any way.”

“Perhaps.” Didier sidled closer. “But the officer would not deign for one moment to soil his hands, would he? I could stockpile mortar rounds in there, and the scent would be all the guardian I need.”

“Mortar rounds,” Emma scoffed. “You live in a fairy tale.”

“More like a nightmare, don’t you think?”

“I think,” Emma said, rolling up her sleeves, “that you have one whale of a nerve, playing house on my land.”

“Perhaps so,” he answered again, and was he suppressing a grin at her? The cheek of him. “What if I said that I have your father’s permission?”

“You have no respect for anything. He has been jailed these eleven months, and you know it.”

“What courage he shows us all,” the Goat said, shaking his head. “Such a shame that his daughter is so fearful.”

She put her hands on her hips. “You know nothing.”

“I know that you have tolerated his imprisonment for nearly a year, without once inquiring about his situation, much less demanding his freedom.”

Emma took a step backward. Should she have done so? “Of whom should I inquire?”

The Goat swept an arm toward the house, the upstairs room where Captain Thalheim slept—or more likely, at that hour, where he was shaving with his customary vanity and precision.

“You would have me indebted to that murderer?”

The Goat shrugged. “He comes to court you nearly every day. I can hear him, abusing our beautiful language for your benefit. You never exercise your power over him.”

“You sound worse than Mademoiselle Michelle.”

“I am worse than Mademoiselle Michelle. I have compromised myself far more than she. But unlike her, I have purposes greater than my own survival. I have large reasons.”

“Oh yes.” Emma rolled her eyes. “You’ll tell anyone who loans you a cup to pour your self-praise into. The Wolf is busy with all sorts of intrigue. Please spare me.”

Now he did smile, openly. “Actually, Emmanuelle, you ought to join us.”

“Fairy tales, I told you,” she scoffed. “There is no ‘us.’”

Still smiling, the Goat shook his head. A noise from the house took their attention. An upstairs window casement opened, a bare arm reached out holding a basin, and it poured soapy water out on the ground.

“Love to stay and chat,” the Goat said, “but I prefer to continue breathing.”

He ran then, rabbiting away up the trail. Emma was surprised to see how fast he could go.

Blast him, though: Emma returned to the baking shed with a head full of questions. Should she have been asking about her father? Was the captain seeking her favor? Could she manipulate him to anyone’s benefit? And how had the Goat so distracted her, that she forgot to evict him from the hog shed? Pondering, she bent to work on the kneading board—her souvenir from the tree against which Uncle Ezra had died.



An hour later Emma had made the baguettes, wet their skins, and laid them parallel in the oven like the beds in an orphanage. They were brown and ready when Thalheim presented himself at the door. “Do you have a whetstone?” he asked.

Emma was removing loaves, one in each hand. She turned, and the captain was holding an open straight razor. What was he intending? She glanced at the rolling pin, her only ready means of defense, but no match for the small sharp blade.

The soldier frowned at his razor. “If I don’t sharpen this soon, I will be slitting of my own throat.”

“No luck,” she said with relief, calming herself by laying the baguettes on the cooling rack. “We always used Uncle Ezra’s.”

The captain did not leave, however. Reaching for two more loaves, Emma studied him sidelong: uniform immaculate, so impressed with himself. She imagined snatching that razor and slashing him. But then she remembered being a little girl and watching her father shave, how casual he was with his face, how familiar with it, shaking the blade in the water before taking the next stroke, putting a dab of soap on the tip of her nose, stretching his chin to shave his throat smooth.

Damn that Goat, though. He had awakened in Emma a want, which was a feeling she had learned to distrust. Desire always led to sorrow. And now it swept over her like a breaking wave.

“I have something else for you,” she said.

“Some other kind of sharpener?”

“No.” She removed the oven mitts and lifted a baguette. “Yesterday my rations were larger than usual. So I made extra.” By one end, Emma held the bread toward him.

Thalheim’s eyebrows raised. “For me.”

She nodded, unable to speak.

“Mademoiselle, if there are errors with rations you should report them, not cook them.”

“You don’t want this? Because plenty of other people—”

“Of course I do.” He marched forward and took it from the other end. “The Kommandant’s praises have made your bread legendary. He does not sharing with junior officers.”

“I hope you enjoy it. And next time I will report the error.”

The captain seemed to freeze for a moment, still as a statue, weighing, calculating. Then he broke his pose, and for the first time in her presence, he smiled. “Or perhaps not.”