Heaven Forbid: A Devils Historical (Portland Devils Book 7), page 1
HEAVEN FORBID
A DEVILS HISTORICAL
PORTLAND DEVILS BOOK 7
ROSALIND JAMES
BELLBIRD PUBLISHING
Rosalind James
© 2026 by Rosalind James
If we were meant to be, nobody knew it but us.
So: I was a German princess sailing across the Atlantic to join my American-GI husband. My Jewish GI husband. And I was Catholic. And eighteen years old. And an independent woman.
In 1947.
And his parents didn’t know yet.
What could go wrong?
Note: This book follows Hell to Pay (Portland Devils Book 6), in which Marguerite and Joe meet—in Nazi Germany, You could say that obstacles have always abounded.
Formatted with Vellum
CONTENTS
Author’s Note
1. Prologue
2. Not Tiara Territory
3. The Welcoming Committee
4. O Sweet Song
5. Fully Equipped
6. All Aboard
7. Dancing at the Opera
8. The Truth—Or Most of It
9. Anticipation
10. With the Spongy Bread
11. Absolutely
12. Night Noises
13. In Which I Do It All Wrong
14. Moment of Truth
15. For Life
16. Sieg Heil
17. Ethics Schmethics
18. Not a White Christmas
19. The Chickens Come Back to the Nest
20. Adventures in Employment
21. In the Hot Seat
22. Of Lamb and Sanitary Napkins
23. The Almost-Godless
24. The Princess Emerges
25. The Whole Truth
26. Gentleman Caller
27. In Which I Take Charge
28. Alternate Route
29. In Which I Atone Rather Imperfectly
30. Things Go Awry
31. Joe Tackles the Question
32. Failing at Meekness
33. Moving Up
34. In Which I Am Incompetent
35. Straying From the Righteous Path
36. Joe Lays Down the Law
37. Out of the Blue
38. Surprises
39. A Lucky Star
40. Epilogue
Explore More
Acknowledgments
Also By Rosalind James
AUTHOR’S NOTE
This book is as firmly based on history as I could make it, but it is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents, places, and teams described are products of my imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
My bounty is as boundless as the sea, my love as deep;
The more I give to thee, the more I have, for both are infinite.
- William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet
1
PROLOGUE
Aboard the Queen Mary
November 1947
“Marguerite!” The friendlier of my bunkmates, a cheerful girl named Paula, burst into our stateroom. “Come and see!” She shouted it, because her baby, Abigail, was crying again. Abigail wasn’t the quietest baby I’d ever known, but she certainly had personality.
“Come see what?” I asked. “I’m getting ready.”
“How?” Paula asked. “Without a stitch of makeup, and your hair barely curled? No, pet, you’re not getting ready, you’re hiding. Not that you aren’t ten times prettier than most of us all the same. Certainly prettier than that cow Louisa, for all her airs and graces. Thinks she’s a duke’s daughter, when you know and I know that no British toff would ever let his daughter marry some Yank who’s probably about as common as mud—because ten pounds says that’s what he is—and head off to the States, never to be seen again. Unless she was born on the wrong side of the blanket, of course. Maybe I should suggest that, whatcha think?”
“Your hair’s fixed too nicely for that,” I said. “She’d surely pull it.”
Paula made a noise in her throat. “If she wasn’t a shopgirl—a very refained shopgirl, I’m sure—I miss my guess, and I never miss my guess. When your dad’s a publican, you learn to size people up pretty smartly. Same way I knew you weren’t any kind of shopgirl, whatever you say. Posh, that’s what you are, and just what Louisa isn’t. Class, the kind you get born into. That’s why she can’t stand you.”
“Not because I’m German?” I did my best to laugh. “That seems like a larger issue, under the circumstances. And makeup doesn’t have stitches.”
Paula waved her free hand. “Nah. That should be it, o’course, but with you talking like the Royals, I keep forgetting. No, it’s that she and her little circle can’t manage to snub you, not with you staring them down the way you do. They can’t work you out, either. Now, I’m not asking why you’re here and not with your family, although I’ll tell you, everybody’s imagining the worst. Father a high-ranking Nazi, they reckon, from some noble family—is it Prussian I’m thinking of, now? Are those the touchy blokes with the monocles and dueling scars?” When I didn’t answer, she went on, “I’ve told them I don’t know and I’m not asking. Not that I’m not curious, mind, but am I asking?”
“Well, yes,” I said. “Any number of times. And I believe I’ve mentioned, in reply, that my family died in the firebombing of Dresden, and my father wasn’t a Nazi.”
Paula went on as if I hadn’t answered, because, yes, my story was decidedly thin. “Louisa is sure you’re a Nazi. She’s probably imagining reporting you right now, as if you haven’t been through the wringer same as all of us to get your documents, and they’d have found you out soon enough. I’ll never forget having to strip down in front of those doctors so they could shine a torch on my privates. And asking me if I’ve ever been a prostitute! When I tell John about that, he’s not going to believe it. There I was, guarding my virtue that hard until I had the ring on my finger, only for some geezer to peer at my naughty bits in front of God and all the saints—and in front of all the rest of you, too. I must’ve been red as a beet, but you hardly turned a hair. Come on, though. It’ll be gone.”
I gave up on my hair-brushing—Paula was right; I was hopeless—grabbed my coat, and followed her along passageways and up staircases. The Queen Mary didn’t look much like a luxury liner these days—not painted battleship gray and with a big gun mounted on her main deck, she didn’t. Nearly two thousand war brides and their rather loud offspring didn’t raise the tone much, either. The regular passengers had a distinct tendency to look pained as they strolled the sun deck amidst the prams and nappies, or ate their breakfast to the sound of thousands of chirping female voices and too many wailing babies and discontented toddlers.
When we emerged onto the deck, the frigid wind whistling around us, I forgot all that, for there, on her own little island, rising from the fog, the Lady with the Lamp stood and held up her torch. A chill ran down my spine, and I lost my breath.
“That’s a sight, innit?” Paula asked happily. “The Statue of Liberty, that is.”
“Yes,” I said. “There’s a poem inscribed on the base, too.”
“Ooh, poetry,” she said. “You do know the oddest things, for a Kraut.”
“I had to memorize,” I said absently, gazing at the green lady, standing so strong and proud and sure. She was everything I wanted most to be. Of course, she was made of metal, which probably helped.
“Poem?” Paula prompted.
“Oh. Here’s the last bit, anyway.”
“Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!” cries she
With silent lips. “Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”
“Not sure I like being the tired and poor,” Paula said. “Or ‘wretched refuse,’ either.”
“No,” I said, “it’s not very complimentary, is it?” We were both laughing, then. “But I like the part about lifting her lamp.”
“Welcoming, is what she looks,” Paula agreed. “Ooh, I think I see the pier. Crikey. I hope John remembers me! Just wait, he’ll go for some other girl instead, thinking she’s the one. I’ve only seen him once since the end of the war, and now with Abigail and all … Well, he signed the paper, so he’s stuck with us.”
“You’ll make him a wonderful wife,” I said. Baby Abigail reached for me, and I took her, settled her cap more firmly on her head—she was constantly trying to rid herself of her socks and cap, as if she wished only to join a nudist colony—and said, “You’re about to meet your Papa, aren’t you?”
“No!” she said, because that was her favorite word.
“Well, that’s a brilliant start,” Paula said, and I laughed again, her cheerfulness settling me. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to be here. It was that I wanted to be here too much.
Also—Joe.
A studiously refined voice from over my shoulder. “We’re here at last, then. I expect we’ll go through another round of questioning before they allow us into the country. Last chance for them to find anybody who doesn’t belong.” Yes, that was our Louisa.
“You worried, then?” Paula flashed straight ba
Louisa’s bosom friend, Claudia, a blonde whose hair and makeup were always perfect—and plentiful—said, “Ignore her, Louisa.”
Louisa said, “Thank goodness I’ll be living in New York. I can’t wait to stroll along Fifth Avenue, can you, Claudia, and pop into Bonwit Teller or Bergdorf Goodman for a new frock? You and Marguerite are going to California, aren’t you, Paula? All that way on the train, across the empty prairies, to live in the back of beyond. Do they still have all those Dust Bowl people in California? What are they called, Okies? I don’t know that I could live in such a new place anyway, without any museums or any history, except the wild Indians. Never going to the theater again—that would truly be a fate worse than death to me. I do adore culture.”
I tried very hard not to laugh. It didn’t work perfectly, because I definitely snorted a bit before recovering enough to say, “You’ll be very happy here, then, I expect.” The best way to take the sting out of a snub, I’ve found, is not to recognize it. “And I’m sure Charlie will be thrilled to show you around.”
“Charles,” she said, losing some of the lofty polish and some of the accent. “His name is Charles. I can call him Charlie, because I’m his wife. What’s your husband’s name again? Joe, is it?”
“Yes,” I said, perfectly calmly. Calmly about this, anyway; Louisa couldn’t shake my faith in Joe, or my admiration for him. And when you’ve been born and raised a princess, it does tend to stick, however reduced your circumstances. “I suppose I’d better go down and tidy up before we dock.”
“I’ll come with you,” Paula said. She sounded nervous again. Well, it was nerve-wracking. I hadn’t seen Joe since he’d left Nuremberg at the end of April. That had been a very long six months ago, but then, it was only natural that the Army would transport its troops home before it spared a thought for their dependents, and there were only so many ships.
I’d thought I was calm, but somehow, we were back in the cabin again without my being aware of moving. I grabbed my hairbrush from my purse and did my best. Paula said, “Please let me put a bit of lippy and powder on you. You’ll look peaky otherwise, and he’ll think you’re ill. Women in the States wear makeup and nylons every day, you know, and, well …”
“And I,” I said, “have only a few dresses, ugly shoes, and somehow, an even uglier coat. But then, Germany did lose the war.” I was trying for a joke. It didn’t quite come off.
“Three minutes,” Paula said. “Please.”
That was possibly why, when we found each other at last, Joe stared at me. It was probably why the two people with him stared, too. And looked horrified.
Well, my face and the very tiny baby I was holding.
Not the best start to my brand-new life.
2
NOT TIARA TERRITORY
San Jose, California
Present Day
“It’s weird to go through Customs and be, like, American,” Ben said, once the officer had handed back his new blue-and-silver passport. “I don’t feel American. I still feel Canadian. Also, I think Canadian is better, sorry.”
“You’re allowed to think so,” I said. “You still have your Canadian passport, and you can feel Canadian the rest of your life if you choose.” I looked back and saw Sebastian pushing the luggage cart with Alix beside him, so clearly wishing she could take the handle and sprint for the exit. My granddaughter is not a patient traveler. “Do you mind if I take your arm?”
“Oh, geez. Sorry. I’m supposed to be looking out for you.” Ben slowed his pace, and I took his arm with gratitude as Sebastian and Alix, yes, passed us. No reason to feel weak, though, despite my family now knowing that I was ninety-two rather than ninety-four. There’s not really much difference. Over ninety is over ninety, at least until one develops the illness that will take one to the grave. I still had my sanity and the use of my limbs, and what more can one want? Not to have to wear ugly shoes, perhaps, but such is life.
Oh. Ben. Ben is my granddaughter Alix’s fiancé Sebastian’s nephew and ward. Is that still a word? One never hears it these days. It always sounded romantic in novels when I was young. So many stories about men marrying their wards. Really quite perverse, if one considers it for half a minute.
“So did you still feel German?” Ben asked. “When you came here the first time? You’ve never talked about that, at least not that I’ve heard. Did you keep your citizenship and everything? Or did they make people give it up because, like, no Nazis allowed?”
“No,” I said, “the Americans didn’t force one to renounce one’s citizenship, despite the Nazis. I did anyway, though.”
“But you just said—”
“The circumstances were quite different,” I said. “You were forced to come here when your mother became ill. I escaped here. Anyway, I never felt so much German as Saxon. There was always a little … distance.”
“Well, yeah,” Ben said, “since you were the Princess of Saxony.” We were nearly to the pneumatic doors now. In ten minutes, we’d be in Sebastian’s car, and thirty minutes after that, I’d be back in the little house in the hills. I tried not to long for that quite so devoutly, but the thought of my own kitchen and my own bed was such a pull. And Joe’s garden. And most of all, Joe’s cello. I’d given away almost all his things, because one can’t live in the past, but the cello was Joe. An object, but such a beloved one. Even putting my hand on it would be a comfort.
Oh, the tears of old age. Joe had felt almost close enough to touch as I’d stood in the Nuremberg bakery where we’d met, had walked the streets we’d strolled together and eaten at the Biergarten where we’d taken so many dinners, during all those months when we couldn’t be married but also couldn’t be alone. We’d eaten very badly and the beer had been weak, but it hadn’t mattered. When Joe had been in my life, I’d never felt alone.
Through the International Arrivals doors, and a crowd of excited people greeting their travelers. Elise, my daughter, was there, and her husband Niles—how kind of them to come, and how unequal I felt to the conversation that would surely ensue! And somebody with a film camera on a tripod, beside a very well-groomed woman with a microphone. There must have been a celebrity on the flight from New York. I hadn’t noticed, but then, I never do. I still sometimes look at those features on red-carpet gowns at the Oscars, but while I can admire many of them, I never recognize the names or faces of the women attached. You may have lived too long when you lose all your cultural landmarks.
That was depressing, and I wasn’t a depressed person. Just a tired one. Life went on just the same whether you enjoyed it or not, so why not enjoy it as much as possible?
“Princess!” the well-coiffed blonde was saying, for some reason. “Princess Marguerite!”
I stopped. So did Ben, obviously, since I still had his arm, and so did Sebastian and Alix. I heard some noise around me, too. “There they are!” somebody was saying. A young boy called out, “Can I have a selfie?”
Oh. He was asking Sebastian, of course. He was a celebrity, certainly by American standards—a football player. Thank goodness, I was allowed to be merely an old lady, attempting neatness if not elegance in my travel-ready black trousers and flowing jacket. And, alas, my hideous black walking shoes with their thick soles—“podiatrist approved!”—which may have been even uglier than the Band of German Maidens shoes I’d been wearing when I’d first arrived in this country. It was a contest, though.
The blonde woman surged toward us—it seemed as if half the crowd was surging toward us—and then Sebastian had his body between me and the camera and was saying, “Give us some space, please,” in his firmest and most masterful tone. Not glowering like Mr. Rochester, the object of my girlhood longings, but not entirely unlike him, either.
The woman said, switching tacks as smoothly as she’d applied her makeup, “I’m speaking now to Sebastian Robillard, star kicker for the Portland Devils. He’s here with his fiancée, Alix Glucksburg-Thompkins, the latest Princess of Saxony and Schleswig-Holstein-Sunderburg-Glücksburg, and her grandmother, Princess Marguerite, whom we’ve all come to know so well in the weeks since her tragic and heartwarming story became a social media sensation. They’re just returning from Dresden, where they recovered the famous emerald tiara that Napoleon gave Josephine at their marriage. Have you set a date for the wedding yet, Princess Alix? And will you be wearing the tiara, or does that honor go to your grandmother?”
