China Blue (The Dudley Sisters Saga Book 3) by Madalyn Morgan (top 100 novels of all time TXT) 📕

She felt it tilt and pulled on a riser until it levelled. As she floated down the old feeling of excitement and exhilaration flooded back. She landed well and began to run, but she stopped too soon and, with the wind at her back, folds of silk billowed up around her. She unbuckled the harness and batted the ballooning silk, finally controlling it. The excitement of the jump and the prospect of seeing her daughter had overwhelmed her – and she hadn’t watched what she was doing.

She had almost finished folding the parachute when André and the men and women of the reception committee arrived. Each of them shook her hand, kissed her, and welcomed her warmly. Claire returned their greetings. ‘Édith!’ she exclaimed, delighted yet surprised to see her old friend. ‘What are you doing here?’ She threw her arms around her. ‘Are you part of the reception committee now?’

‘Only for tonight,’ Édith laughed. ‘And do not worry about the little one. Thérèse is at home in case she wakes.’

‘I didn’t think for a second that you would leave her on her own.’ Claire took Édith’s hand and together they trudged across the field to the Belland Farm. It was still uninhabited, but it was no longer being used as a whore house by drunken German soldiers. They were better employed trying to stop the Allies and the Resistance groups from kicking them out of France.

The bicycles were hidden in the small wood, as they had been on the night Édith and Claire cycled to the farm to move Monique’s body from the well. So much had happened since that night. Édith tapped Claire on the arm. ‘Sorry, I was thinking…’

‘I thought of her too, and Frédéric, when I arrived.’ In a voice cracking with pain and emotion, Édith said, ‘Are you ready?’

Pushing her bicycle out of the wood, Claire followed Édith up the muddy bank to the road. As she mounted she wobbled and put her feet to the ground. She pushed off again and this time retained her balance. Side by side, Claire and Édith began the short journey to Gisoir.

Édith knocked on the kitchen door and waited to give Thérèse time to switch off the light. A minute later her daughter-in-law opened the door. Claire followed Édith into the familiar warm kitchen. ‘My dearest Claire,’ Thérèse cried, clicking the light on.

Seeing Thérèse wearing a maternity smock, Claire ran to her and held her at arm’s length. ‘Congratulations, my friend,’ she said, looking down at her extended stomach. ‘When is the baby due?’

‘Not for months, but André and Mother have been feeding me up,’ she laughed. ‘Come and sit down, you must be tired. Would you like coffee?’ Claire looked at the door leading to the hall and stairs.

‘I think Claire would like to see Aimée,’ Édith whispered to her daughter-in-law. ‘You go up, my dear, while Thérèse and I prepare some food. There’s plenty of time for coffee.’

Claire looked from Édith to Thérèse. ‘Would it be better if one of you came with me? If Aimée wakes she might be frightened if she sees me in her bedroom.’

Édith laughed. ‘I do not think so. She talks to your picture every day.’

‘My picture? But how…?’

‘Your friend Edwina left a photograph of you next to Aimée’s bed. It is of you both in uniform, but she folded it down the middle so only your face is seen. I found it just after you left, when I put Aimée down for her afternoon nap. You are the first person she sees in the morning and the last at night.’

‘She sometimes puts your photograph in her bed with Dolly and Teddy,’ Thérèse laughed. ‘She has only been in bed a couple of hours. I do not think she will wake. She has worn herself out running to the door every five minutes, ready to open it when you arrived.’

Claire bit her lip and frowned. ‘I have disappointed her already…’

‘What nonsense,’ Thérèse said, crossing to Claire and taking her by the hand. ‘She is not disappointed. We told her when she wakes in the morning she will see her mummy.’

‘It is just your daughter’s impatient nature that has had her running around today. Go now, go up to her.’

Claire took the stairs slowly and at the top took a deep breath before opening the bedroom door. In a single cot at the side of Édith’s bed she saw a mop of golden curls above a pink and white knitted blanket. She tiptoed into the room, knelt beside her daughter and watched her sleep. Aimée lay on her right side, one hand under the covers, the other on the pillow by her face. Claire bit back her tears. Her daughter had changed. She was bigger, longer – and the back of her hands had lost their dimples. Suddenly Aimée’s eyelids flickered and her breathing changed from a calm rhythm to what sounded like a complaining sigh. Leaning away from the bed, Claire sat back on her heels, worried that if Aimée woke she would be frightened seeing someone leaning over her. A second later the child opened her small mouth and smacked her lips as she did when she was a baby and was hungry. Then her thumb found its way to her mouth and she became calm again. Steeling herself from touching her daughter in case she woke her, Claire whispered, ‘Sleep well, my beautiful girl,’ and quietly left the room.

Back in the kitchen Édith spooned thick aromatic soup into Claire’s bowl. The nerves in her stomach were jumping, sending messages to her brain to say she wasn’t hungry, but Claire knew she needed to keep her strength up for the long nights to come. The packages that were dropped with her contained materials to make explosives. She was capable of putting them together, but hadn’t had experience. Since Frédéric’s death