“Lady Ricker will send you some of her things.”
“The woman likes to make promises that she doesn’t keep.”
“The war is almost over,” he said. “And we’re winning.”
“That’s what you always say.”
“Just a few more days. Then we can celebrate. Perhaps even before the baby is born.”
“What will you name it?” Brigitte whispered in German, sitting beside Rosalind on the edge of the bed. There was no reason, she’d decided, to hide her language from her new friend. Rosalind knew it too.
“I suppose I can’t call him Fritz. People will wonder.”
“Was that the name of your—?” She searched for the right word but wasn’t certain what to call the father.
“He was my lover, Brigitte. No more or less.” She rubbed a white cream into her hands, and Brigitte was fascinated by her assortment of jars. “If it’s a girl, I’m naming her something simple. Not stuffy like Rosalind.”
“You have a beautiful name.”
Rosalind studied her for a moment. “I think I just might like you.”
She pulled her legs up to her chest. “Nobody likes me.”
The front door slammed outside, and Rosalind glanced toward their bedroom door. “If you’re referring to Olivia, she is a nobody. And I doubt she likes anyone. Eddie, on the other hand—”
“That man hates me.”
Rosalind gave her that look again as if she was trying to determine if she could trust her. “It doesn’t mean he won’t take advantage of you.”
“What advantage?”
Rosalind sighed. “Just stay away from him. Tonight you can sleep in my room.”
Brigitte looked at the bed with its covers. The mattress underneath. She hadn’t slept in a real bed since leaving home. “Are you certain?”
“Quite,” Rosalind said before she opened the door. “Eddie, fetch me my luggage.”
The man actually did what Rosalind bade although he clearly wasn’t happy about it. Minutes later, he returned carrying two large suitcases—filled with items Rosalind said she’d pilfered from her mother—both of which he deposited on the bed.
Then he lingered in the room, staring at Brigitte. The hatred was still there, but there was something new in his eyes. Something she didn’t like. They wandered this time, tracing the holes in her ratty pinafore, studying her bare feet. And she felt naked before him. Sick. The same way that man—Lothar—had made her feel when he’d touched her in bed.
Was this the advantage he had?
“That will be all, Eddie,” Rosalind said, waving him away, clearly secure in her station.
He still stared.
“Eddie,” she snapped.
After he left the room, Rosalind tossed Brigitte a dress, a slender pleated one with white polka dots. It fell on the edge of the bed. “Wear this,” she commanded.
Brigitte didn’t touch it. “Are you certain?”
“You must stop asking me if I’m certain.”
She lifted it gingerly, assessing it. The collar was rounded and it had large white buttons down the front to match the dots. She held it up in front of her, and even the gown Cinderella wore to the ball couldn’t have been more beautiful.
At the stroke of midnight, it would probably turn back into rags, but she would enjoy it while she could. Just like Cinderella.
Herr and Frau drove away in the car, which was just fine with Rosalind and Brigitte. They pumped water from the well and heated it in a kettle over the fire. Then they sponged themselves with the warm water and even washed their hair in the basin, drying it in front of the flames.
Rosalind let Brigitte borrow a nightgown from among her treasures, and they laughed as Rosalind rolled her hair in curlers.
Herr and Frau returned late. The door to Rosalind and Brigitte’s room rattled once, but then she heard Frau’s voice, calling out to Herr.
Before they went to sleep, Rosalind locked their window. And Brigitte helped her push the dresser in front of the door.
CHAPTER 37
_____
As the sun rose over Hampstead, Quenby tied her muddy trainers and left to run through the eight hundred acres of heath behind her flat. Swimmers were already immersed in the ponds, stroking their way back and forth across the water. Others, like her, were jogging in the hills.
She’d wanted to dislike the Hough family last night, wary of their pomp and circumstance, but there wasn’t much pomp involved and the circumstances were awkward enough to take off the edge of formality. Lucas’s parents had been quite gracious to her as they exchanged stories over dinner in Anabelle’s terrace home, across the Thames in Greenwich.
Quenby had answered their questions, all of them friendly enough, but mostly she’d just observed, not sure exactly what to do. They all teased each other, like Lucas had teased her. And they all seemed to enjoy one another’s company.
She’d watched Anabelle and Mrs. Hough working together in the kitchen, laughing as they’d peeled potatoes. A mother and daughter who loved each other.
Not everyone had a family who liked being together, she knew that, but sometimes she’d wondered what it would have been like to grow up surrounded by people she loved, who loved her as well. A family to visit when she was on holiday.
She raced up the heath, her lungs burning in spite of the cool air.
Grammy had been her only family after Jocelyn left, and after she died, the concept of home went with her. One didn’t just invent a new family. They were either born or adopted or married into one.
Even though she longed to be loved as strongly as Daniel loved Brigitte, for someone to pursue her like they were pursuing this woman he’d lost, she couldn’t imagine trusting a man with her heart and her future in marriage. Or risking getting hurt again.
Her mobile rang a few minutes after eight, and she glanced at a number she didn’t recognize. Perhaps Evan was contacting her about the story. She hoped so. With the new information she’d unearthed in Newhaven, she was hoping she could change his mind.
She slowed to a walk. “Hello?”
“Is this Miss Vaughn?” a man asked. She didn’t recognize his voice.
“It is.”
“This is Paul, Mrs. Douglas’s nurse. I met you at her house.”
“Of course.”
She heard something slam in the background, perhaps a door. “Mrs. Douglas asked me to contact you. She would like to speak with you again.”
“Did she mention what she’d like to speak about?”
“A man named Eddie Terrell.”
“What about Mr. Terrell?”
“She wants to tell you in person.”
Lucas had said she could borrow his car today if she needed it. The streets of London still intimidated her, but after his lessons and her practice yesterday, she felt confident enough to drive around Tonbridge alone.
But if Lucas needed his vehicle after all, she would take a train back down. “I could visit her this afternoon.”
“Mrs. Douglas will be relieved to hear it. She’s been having trouble sleeping the past few nights.”
“Please tell her that I’ve had trouble sleeping as well.”
Back in her flat, Quenby called Lucas before she showered and changed. He agreed to let her borrow his vehicle, though he offered to drive her to one of the boroughs south of London before she set off on her own. She readily agreed to this plan.
The Tube delivered her to Canary Wharf in East London, and she found Lucas’s flat in a silver tower, overlooking the Thames. When he answered her knock, he leaned over to kiss her cheek, but she backed up, stunned, as if he were a porcupine who might pierce her. Though Chandler would probably say Quenby was the prickly one.
Red splashed over his face, drowning his smile. “It’s customary among friends to kiss on the cheek.”
“I know that,” she said, trying to absolve herself from her awkwardness. “Where I’m from, we shake hands.”
Or give hugs, but she wasn’t ab
out to hug him. The professionalism between them had already slipped over to personal, and she was grasping to rebuild the wall that once kept them apart.
He opened the door wider. “One day I hope you can trust me, Quenby.”
She stuck out her hand in response, shaking his stiffly. Then she stepped into the open reception room of his flat with its kitchen, dining table, and sitting area—the furnishings black and white with clean lines and orderly shapes. There were only two pieces of artwork on the wall—photographs of the rain forest, palettes of a thousand green lights to burnish the gray outside.
Outside the sliding glass, a silver-railed patio extended over to what she assumed was a bedroom or two. The stormy expanse of the Thames stretched below the windows, barges furrowing through its slate waves, docked boats banging against a pier.
Lucas slipped up beside her. “I like to watch the boats when I’m working.”
“I’m afraid I’d be too distracted to get any work done.”
“You don’t seem like the type to be easily distracted. Except, perhaps, when a certain red tractor forces you off the road.”
She laughed, grateful for the familiarity of his teasing. She much preferred it over the cheek kissing. “I expunge distractions.”
He took a step away. “Now I’m afraid.”
“You don’t distract me, Lucas.”
His nod was curt. “Glad to hear it.”
And with that, everything was back in its place.
“My family liked you,” Lucas said as they drove away from the wharf.
“I liked them, too, though you still should have told me they were at the concert.”
“Would you really have come if I had?”
She wanted to say yes, but it wasn’t true. She wouldn’t have run away from them, per se. She just never would have stepped into Westminster Abbey.
Sunlight broke through the gray, and Lucas slipped his sunglasses out of their holder. “I’m glad you stayed, for the concert and for dinner.”
“Me too. It’s a gift, you know, to have a family as normal as yours.”
He glanced over at her. “You think we’re normal?”
“Comparatively.”
“We’ve had plenty of angst over the years, but I guess we’ve sorted it out.”
“Do you still regret being sent away to school?” she asked as they drove south through the endless city, rows of brick houses and church steeples, glass skyscrapers and railway stations.
“Immensely. I didn’t feel particularly close to either of my parents until I was fourteen. That year I begged them to let me attend a public school near home, and they finally conceded. I missed so much in those earlier years, being away.”
“Will you send your children away to school?”
He flashed her a smile. “Assuming I have children?”
“I suppose I was assuming. Don’t you want to have kids?”
“Eventually, though I’m a bit concerned for my children.”
“I think you’ll be an excellent father, Lucas. And you’ll have great kids, like your niece and nephew.”
“Don’t let them fool you. All Houghs are unruly at heart.”
She laughed. “I doubt it.”
“Layla texted me this morning. She wants to know when you’re coming back for a visit.”
Her heart twinged with his words, happy-sad. But she knew she couldn’t get involved in these people’s lives, no more than she’d already done. She might have the gift of reinventing herself, but the reinventions didn’t last for long. They’d eventually see through the chinks in her armor, to the rough edges underneath.
She didn’t want to disappoint Layla. Or her uncle.
“I’m glad I went,” she said, her eyes falling to the safety of her phone. A barrier to mount between them. Something that she could control.
Instead of continuing the conversation, she checked her e-mail. Then she whistled.
“What is it?” he asked.
“Listen to this.”
Dear Miss Vaughn,
I’ve learned that you are trying to contact the Ricker family about a story. I’m glad to speak with you but this is not a conversation to have via phone or e-mail.
I’m available to meet tomorrow in Jacksonville, Florida. If this is acceptable, please reply so we can work out the details.
I’ll tell you all about my mother.
Alexander
She set down the phone. “Who is Alexander?”
“No idea.”
“Seriously, Lucas. If his name is somewhere in Mr. Knight’s files, I need to know about it.”
“I’ll ask.” He reached for his phone. “And I’ll arrange a flight for tomorrow morning.”
“I can’t go to Florida,” she said, speaking to herself.
“We have to—”
“We?”
“You can’t go alone. You don’t know who this man is.”
“He’s contacting me about the Ricker family, not Brigitte.”
“Brigitte’s story is so intertwined with the Rickers’, I’m not certain which is which anymore.”
Quenby stared out the window, at a colorful mural of children flying kites in a park. She couldn’t tell Lucas, but even on a corporate jet, even with the carrot of a story dangling in front of her, Florida was the last place she wanted to go.
Chapter 38
Mill House, March 1943
Rosalind and Brigitte laughed as they strolled up the rutted path from the river, their legs damp from a morning spent splashing in the water.
The day was warmer than usual for the end of March, and they’d been anxious to escape the house, away from Frau’s low mood. Somehow the woman had obtained rum, either as payment from Lady Ricker or a gift from the postman.
Brigitte had shown Rosalind all her secret places. The rooms she’d found in the old mill. The reeds along the water. The cemetery hidden in the trees. And she’d told her that her name was Brigitte—sworn to secrecy of course.
Rosalind told her about her family. Her father—a man named Oskar—was a high-ranking officer in the Wehrmacht, and her mother had been madly, hopelessly in love with him when she was nineteen. Lady Ricker was already married to her first husband when Rosalind was born in Boston, though she’d been traveling in Europe, alone, when Rosalind was conceived.
After Lady Ricker divorced her American husband, she’d sent Rosalind to Germany to be with Oskar, planning to join them later, but Oskar decided that Lady Ricker would be much more useful to him in England. Even after her marriage to Lord Ricker, Lady Ricker had visited Rosalind and Oskar in Germany. Until two years before the war.
Apparently Oskar was married as well but Rosalind didn’t tell her much more about him, only that she was terrified of the man. And he didn’t know she was expecting a child.
Brigitte didn’t tell her about Lady Ricker’s letters or her botched translations. Not with Rosalind’s father looming in the background.
Her friend stepped around a tree branch, but then she froze, holding out her arm to stop Brigitte as well. A strange motorcar was parked beside the house. Black with four doors.
“Follow me,” Brigitte said, directing Rosalind to the side of the house.
Cigarette smoke wafted through the sitting room window, and she could see two men inside with Frau, clinging to a cigarette.
Brigitte glanced at Rosalind. She didn’t look surprised.
“We know what you’ve been doing, Mrs. Terrell,” one of the men said. “We picked up a man near Swindon last week, by the name of Lothar. Do you remember him?”
Her voice trembled when she denied it.
Brigitte peeked over the windowsill again as the man leaned closer to Frau. “Too many men for you to remember?”
“You’re insulting me.”
“Lothar is quite a talker. He said you hosted a number of his friends here. He also said that he was sent by Hitler himself, to wreak havoc on the railway works up north.” The man stopped for a moment, and when he tu
rned, Brigitte ducked down. “Do you know what that makes you, Mrs. Terrell?”
“I want to speak to my husband.”
“That makes you a collaborator with the enemy.” Silence reigned before he spoke again. “A traitor.”
She still didn’t speak.
“Where is your husband?”
This time she didn’t hesitate. “He’s in Manchester.”
“Manchester?”
“He found a position there on a farm.”
“I thought he was working at Breydon Court.”
“Not any longer.”
“Lothar said you had a daughter living with you. She helped in your work.”
Brigitte braced herself, waiting for her answer. Would Frau tell the men that she and Rosalind were in the woods?
“She’s not my daughter.”
“What’s her name?”
“I don’t know. We called her ‘girl.’”
“Lothar said she’s German.”
“She’s a mute. And she ran away, months ago.”
At first, in her wistfulness, Brigitte thought Frau might be trying to protect her, but she was probably terrified of what Brigitte would say if they found her. And she had plenty to say.
Her feet turned toward the front door, but Rosalind caught her sleeve and started to whisper. Brigitte put her finger on her lips, hushing her as she glanced up into the window again.
The men inside were probably police. British Gestapo. They hadn’t believed Frau’s lies. They probably wouldn’t believe Brigitte’s story either, even if she spoke the truth. At least not when they discovered that she was German and that her voice had been broadcasting back to the enemy.
They would brand her a traitor as well and probably put her in the hold of another boat traveling straight back across the channel. Or hand her over to Hitler’s men the next time they floated up the river.
“Brigitte,” Rosalind said, squeezing her arm. Then she groaned.
Brigitte almost hushed her again, but as she turned, she saw the panic on Rosalind’s face, her hands pressed against her abdomen.
Moving away from the window, she and Rosalind stumbled toward the woods until Rosalind stopped and doubled over, the house still in sight. Then Brigitte began to panic as well. “You can’t have your baby here.”
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