Page 51 of With a Vengeance

For six years, she cared for them, even though she’d been hired as a housekeeper and not a nanny. She couldn’t help herself. She’d always wanted to be a mother, but it never worked out while her husband was still alive. So Edith had transferred all that untappedmaternal longing onto the Matheson children. Making Anna breakfast, sneaking Tommy chocolate, tending to their skinned knees, frostbitten cheeks, foreheads hot with fever.

All of it had been real.

Of that, Edith is certain. Yet it didn’t stop her from choosing Germany over them when the time came to pick a side.

Kenneth Wentworth had a lot do with that. Edith always referred to him as Der Spinne. The spider. Always skittering into places he didn’t belong, often at the worst possible time. And she was just a mere fly who got caught in his web the day he came to the Matheson residence when she was the only one home.

“Mr. and Mrs. Matheson aren’t here,” she said, which didn’t seem to surprise Mr. Wentworth.

“I’m here to see you,” he said. “You might not remember me. We’ve only met once or twice. Kenneth Wentworth.”

Of course Edith remembered him. Mr. Wentworth was hard to forget in many ways. He was handsome, for one thing. He and his son had also shown up uninvited to the annual Matheson Christmas party, an incident that had upset Mrs. Matheson greatly. She’d made quite a scene. A reaction that left Edith with a sense that Kenneth Wentworth was not a man to be trusted.

The feeling grew even stronger that afternoon, when he said, “I wanted to talk to you about the war.”

The question made Edith uneasy. From her accent, it was clear where she was from, and as Hitler’s mighty grip spread across Europe, she’d noticed the way reactions to her had changed. Formerly friendly shopkeepers grew curt. Housekeepers from neighboring homes stopped waving to her when she passed. Distrust of Germans, she realized, was everywhere.

“What about it?” she said.

“Surely you have an opinion.”

Edith certainly did, but that was none of Kenneth Wentworth’sbusiness. She started to close the door, mumbling an apologetic “Excuse me, but I must get back to work.”

Before she could completely shut the door, Mr. Wentworth blurted out the question that would change her life—and destroy the lives of her employers.

“Where do your loyalties lie, Miss Gerhardt?”

“Mrs.,” Edith said, quickly correcting him. “And they lie with my adopted country, of course.”

“Then would you care to explain this?”

Kenneth Wentworth removed a photograph from his jacket pocket and showed it to Edith. She seized up at the sight of her younger self smiling for the camera, so proud of her crisp brown uniform and the swastika armband wrapped around its sleeve. Her husband stood next to her, dressed the same, giving a stiff-armed salute.

Edith remembered the occasion. It was 1934, and her husband had just been made a ranking member of the Kreisleitung, the district level of the Nazi Party. How proud she had been then. After years of decline, Hitler and the Third Reich were changing Germany for the better. And she and her husband were doing their part.

Years later, as Edith looked at the photo, all sense of pride was gone. She felt then—and still feels now—that Hitler was correct about the German race being superior to all others. Just look at their accomplishments over the centuries. All that art and music and technological advancement. But Edith also knew what it meant if her past was revealed, especially with the war in full swing.

“Where did you get this?” she said.

Kenneth Wentworth flashed a reassuring smile. “Don’t worry, Mrs. Gerhardt. I have no intention of causing you any trouble.”

“Then why are you here? Why are you showing me this?”

“Because I have a proposition for you.”

Edith knew even then that it was less of a proposition and more of a demand. He’d give her the photo—plus a heart-stopping amount of money—in exchange for her hiding business files throughout Mr. Matheson’s office.

“What if I refuse?” she asked.

“Then things could get very unpleasant for you, very quickly.”

“These files, what are they? Does it have something to do with the war?”

“Yes,” Kenneth Wentworth said. “Although it’s more personal than political.”

Edith’s knees weakened, for she knew this had something to do with Mr. and Mrs. Matheson. “Which side will benefit?”

“Your side, of course,” Mr. Wentworth said, adding with a wink, “The real one.”

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