Previously: Mercenary Leon meets MI6 spies David, the Prince of Wales, and socialite Wallis Spencer. David abdicates the throne to marry Wallis. He becomes Bahamas governor. Leon dies and his son Sidney turns mercenary. David hires him as his valet. The Windsors go on their last mission to steal Nazi documents.
The war was finally over, but the battle with the Royal Family continued. Wallis knew David loved his family though he claimed many times he did not. One of the reasons Wallis sneaked away to New York to kill Kiki Preston was the pain Kiki inflicted on Prince George. When George died in the plane crash David was devastated and the only way Wallis could think of to comfort him was to push the girl with the silver syringe out of a New York hotel window.
David’s mother caused him the most grief. The Queen Mother demanded David never live in England if he were still married to Wallis. On trips to visit his mother, David sneaked away once to see if Fort Belvedere had survived war damage. Except for normal neglect, Belvedere looked the same.
“You know,” David told Wallis when he returned, “Fort Belvedere was the only place I had bought myself, and the only place I considered my own.”
“I can’t very well push the old broad out of a Buckingham Palace window,” Wallis often thought.
David’s brother Bertie, who had replaced him as king, refused to let him have any job in the Commonwealth. Even Prince Henry became governor of Australia but for David nothing. One of the tweedy types in the Home Office suggested the Windsors could continue to wander around the world doing good deeds of charity. Now that they were retired from espionage, MI6 could not and would not interfere in anyway.
When they left the Bahamas in May 1945, David and Wallis asked Sidney if he wished to work for the Duke as his valet, wherever that might take them. Wallis noticed the beam on Sidney’s face and wondered why he would be so eager to leave his own home and friends on Eletheura. She put those thoughts out of her head when she realized how happy it made David when his valet said yes.
They spent a few months in New York enjoying its café society before returning briefly to their Paris house on Boulevard Suchet, which also had escaped damage during the war, but soon their landlord announced he had rented it to someone else and they had to move by fall. David shrugged and told Wallis he preferred life on the Riviera. The war left La Croe untouched as well.
Soon Wallis had the estate in its former glory, and they had a glorious time hosting parties and basically doing nothing. Despite the desperate conditions for ordinary folks, the Windsors still lived well. David had money inherited from his father, and both David and Wallis had generous pensions from MI6, even though the typical agents had to live on much less. One obstacle to their party life was the food rationing by the French government. Wallis worked her way around that inconvenience by shipping in foodstuffs from the United States, such as canned ham, hot dogs, and canned vegetables. At one particular party, where high society guests dressed in formal attire, servants brought in a large bowl of baked beans and on a silver tray meat loaf.
When her guests looked surprised, Wallis said, “Y’all understand that my menus have suffered a bit!”
During this transition time, the Windsors kept up with the news of post-war Europe. Many former Nazi leaders killed themselves rather to submit to the indignities of capture and imprisonment. Among others who were nabbed trying to leave the continent was Joachim Von Ribbentrop.
“They caught Joachim the other day,” Wallis announced over breakfast, trying not to sound like she cared.
“Oh really?” David bit into his toast. “Do you think they can make him talk about us?”
She kept her face covered by the newspaper. “I thought you’d know more about the Germans than that, since you are part German. They never tell on their own kind. Much like our American crime families.” She paused searching her mind for a suitable change of topic for breakfast conversation.
“Isn’t it wonderful Monsieur Valat and his son could come work for us again? Jean has grown into quite a handsome young man. And he seems to have outgrown some of his more annoying tics, don’t you think?”
“Yes, quite.”
When David did not pursue the conversation about Ribbentrop, Wallis sighed. As the months went by she did keep up with the news about Ribbentrop and the others. By late summer of 1947 the Allied powers had moved the most powerful of the German prisoners to Nuremberg where a trial was set with an international panel of judges appointed. She tried not to bring up the latest developments while they sat reading the newspapers.
“Did you see this?” David said one day. “Joachim is the first to be tried.”
“Do you think we could go shopping in Paris soon?” she asked. “I haven’t had a new piece of jewelry since you bought me those things with the code boxes hidden in them.”
“They’re bringing up the nastiest charges about him.”
Damn, he’s not letting me change the conversation.
“He was right in the middle of all that terrible business with the Jews and the Gypsies. He also ordered all down Allied pilots to be shot on the spot.”
“He didn’t seem all that ruthless in the 30s at the German embassy parties in London.” Wallis winced a bit. She should have been able to come up with a better response.
A week or two passed without any other word about Ribbentrop, to Wallis’s relief. He was the enemy, of course, and there was no excuse for the barbaric treatment of the Jews and others, but Wallis couldn’t forget how she met him in Paris in the 30s. He was so dashing and romantic. He actually helped her with her divorce from her first husband Win. The carnations through the years….
As the trial news continued, Wallis covertly found a maid on their staff at La Croe who spoke German and paid her to help improve her own use of the Teutonic tongue. She sat at her dressing table for hours practicing how to apply makeup to her face the way Annalies Ribbentrop did. She scoured little shops to find dresses which suited the woman’s taste. Eventually she filled a small suitcase with makeup and disguises, attire and one other thing, a small bag of ground leaves from the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains.
Within days David announced over breakfast he was planning a London visit to see his mother.
“I don’t know why I bother. We talk but she never looks me in the eyes.” He paused. “I suppose I’m still a little boy seeking mummy’s attention.” He flipped a page in the newspaper. “I see Von Ribbentrop is scheduled to be hanged Oct. 16. Hmm, isn’t that odd? I’ll be chatting with mummy that day. What a coincidence. So sorry to be leaving you alone.”
When he lowered his newspaper, David had a smile on his face. Wallis swallowed hard and tried to smile back.
“Oh, I’ll think of something to amuse myself.”
On the day of his departure, Wallis walked David to the limousine awaiting him. She patted his back and wished him a safe journey. He looked into her eyes.
“I can’t control what you do when I’m away but…” He bit his lower lip. “Whatever you do, be careful.” David kissed her lips, held her tight then whispered, “I really do love you, you know.”
Wallis took several moments to regain her composure as she watched the limousine drive away. She immediately went to her bedroom, changed into a drab traveling suit she had found in one of the local shops and pulled out her packed suitcase. The maid who had tutored her in German drove her to the station where she boarded the next train to Nuremberg, Germany.
On her way, she rehearsed her speech in German. “I am Annalies Von Ribbentrop. I wish to say good bye to my husband.”
She also composed what she would say to Ribbentrop on his way to the gallows. She’d hand him a white carnation and whisper, “After you say your last words, eat the flower quickly. First you’ll lose your ability to speak, next you’ll become numb all over and by the time they pull the trap door, you’ll feel nothing.”
After the train arrived in Nuremburg, Wallis, in her Annalies makeup and clothing, stepped from the train and took a cab to a hostel where she checked in. She bought a local newspaper and read the time of the execution the next morning. She looked out the hotel window to see a large mob already forming in front of the fortress where Ribbentrop was held.
Wallis decided she could not risk waiting until morning to join them. She went out on the street and found a flower vendor to buy a white carnation. She stuck the flower into her coat pocket which held the ground herb from the Blue Ridge Mountains. After she was sure the bloom was covered with the herb, she pulled it out and began her solemn walk to the prison.
In good German she said to those around her. “Please let me pass. I am Mrs. Von Ribbentrop.”
Murmurs began to flow ahead of her, and the crowd parted. Soon she was at the front gate. She repeated it to the guard. He widened his eyes and let her in.
No one questioned her word but took her to the commandant.
“You speak English?” Wallis created a German dialect on the spot.
“Yes, ma’am,” the Allied commandant replied. “What can I do for you?”
“I am Annalies Von Ribbentrop. I wish to say good-bye to my husband.” She held up the carnation. “I have brought a flower to brighten his final moments.”
The commandant smirked. “Annalies Von Ribbentrop? I thought they had you locked up in the prisoner of war camp in Dachau.”
“I was. The camp commandant took pity on me and allowed me to come here. I have two plainclothes guards waiting for me in the crowd. To be seen with guards in their uniforms would have too humiliating.” She paused to pretend to hold back tears. “After my visit, they will take me back to Dachau. Please don’t turn me away after I have traveled such a long distance.” Wallis made her lips quiver.
She looked him in the eyes. It was an expression Wallis had perfected in her youth to get her own way. The commandant asked no further questions but instead picked up a glass of water to give her.
“Put the flower in this. It will make it last.” He looked at the guard standing behind her. “Take Mrs. Ribbentrop to her husband’s cell.”
“Yes, it’s my wish he hold the flower to the very end.”
“Of course, madam.”