Read Online Christmas Diamond, a Novella: Inspired by The Jewel series and the Virtues and Valor series by Hallee Bridgeman - Free Book Online

myself even though it is a fact."
    He stood close enough that she could smell the earthy wool smell of his uniform. Marie felt her eyes lower as her cheeks grew hot. She noticed the mirror-bright shine on his boots before she heard her heartbeat thundering in her ears. Was this fear or something else?
    He cleared his throat. "I have been searching for you,
Fräulein
."
    Marie tasted bitter bile in the back of her throat and kept her gaze downcast. Had she gone too far taunting him about Hitler in their first meeting? Had a careless glance revealed the hiding place of her wireless? Had he sent a team of Gestapo to search her quarters while she had been away? Had she transmitted too long and been discovered? She relied upon her training and forced her voice to remain even as she prompted, "You've been searching for me?"
    "Yes. I want to ask you. Would you like to go see a show with me?"
    Was this some new euphamism for imprisonment and torture? Confused, she raised an eyebrow. "A show?"
    "Yes. Next week, Virginia Benoit will be here to perform for our
Oberst
, our Colonel.
Herr Obsert
is her biggest fan and we are all invited to see the show ... to lift the morale of the troops, you see. Tell me,
Fräulein
, do you know Virginia Benoit?"
    Marie swallowed. Hard. How was she supposed to handle this situation? Never, in all of her training, was this brought up. "Of course I have heard of her," and laughed with her and prayed with her, though she kept that part to herself.
    "She is from America, like me," he proclaimed, almost proudly.
    She knew his accent had sounded wrong somehow. "American? Why are you here in France, then?"
    He gestured in the air. "The call of the Fatherland I'm afraid. My father insisted I return a few years ago."
    With wide eyes, she let that digest. "Do you know Virginia Benoit?"
    "No." He chuckled, perhaps at her
naïveté
. "America is enormous. She's from a state called Louisiana in the deep south near the Gulf coast. I'm from Oregon a few thousand kilometers away on the north of the Pacific coast. Also, I understand the lady is a Negro. Perhaps you've heard that Negros and Arians hardly ever socialize in America. Still, it will be nice to hear an American accent again, I think."
    His casual remark establishing his racial beliefs disgusted Marie and she tried very hard to conceal her loathing. She knew with an unshakable faith that God made all men and all nations of just one blood. Everyone on earth was a son or daughter of Adam and Eve. The bloody Nazi campaign of terror relied on faith in a lie — a form of Darwinian evolution establishing separate races coupled with the notion Friedrich Nietzsche proposed, that some races were inferior while other races were superior. Hitler aimed to create a "master race," a race of supermen, by practicing enforced eugenics that either sterlized or eliminated the races Hitler deemed inferior.
    In practically the same breath, Schäfer had mentioned his father. Thoughts of her own father rushed through her mind, and she once more remembered that First Lieutenant Schäfer was her sworn enemy. How had she forgotten that for even half a second? She could not let her thoughts travel too far down that road or else her expression would betray her. She had to lighten the conversation somehow."I imagine you must feel very homesick at times,
Oberleutnant
."
    "I am homesick." He put a hand to his heart. "It would do me a great deal of good to attend the performance with the most beautiful woman in the village on my arm."
    "
Oberleutnant
Schäfer, I don't think —"
    He held up a hand to halt her speech. "Please, don't say no,
Fräulein
. At least let me have a little hope by telling me you'll consider the offer. Besides, I still owe you for sewing on my button."
    She would have to clear any action with headquarters. It was possible that she could collect valuable intelligence by accompanying the junior German officer. It was even possible that Marie, code named Temperance,