I poured myself a whiskey neat, too impatient to go to the kitchen in search of ice to mix a cool cocktail. I downed it in one swallow, welcoming the burn as it slid down my throat, before pouring myself another two fingers.
“What was this important information Ryde so urgently needed to relay to you?” To his credit, he had at least lost the sarcastic edge to his voice, though it was still taut with resentment.
“Several things.” I crossed toward the sofa, leaning against the arm as Sidney poured himself a drink. “He confirmed the existence of that report on La Dame Blanche, though not much else about it. And he also saw a list of all the citizens employed by British Intelligence in the occupied areas who were either captured or killed during the conflict. A list that included code names.”
Sidney arched his eyebrows as he sipped, not missing the significance.
“Emilie’s wasn’t on it.”
“So the medium lied. Not that there was any real doubt. As far as anyone knows, Emilie is alive. That must be of some relief.”
My eyes dipped to the amber liquid in my glass. “That’s not all.”
He stilled, clearly sensing the apprehension coursing through me.
“It seems a number of our former intelligence contacts throughout the occupied territories have received threats. And I can only presume Emilie is one of them.”
He searched my gaze, waiting for me to continue, for it must have been evident there was more. Why else would my hand be gripping my cut crystal glass so tightly my knuckles turned white?
I inhaled past the constriction in my chest, forcing myself to inform him of the decision I’d made almost within seconds of hearing everything Max had discovered. “There are no answers to this in London. I have to go to Belgium. I have to find her.”
CHAPTER 12
I expected him to erupt in anger. To yell, or glare at me with icy disdain, or hurl his glass into the fireplace. Anything but the blank stare he leveled at me, his face wiped clean of all emotion. It made my heart shrivel inside me and my conscience scream.
His silence prodded me into speech. “If someone is sharing classified information about Emilie, about me, if someone is threatening her and some of the other agents, then I need to find out why. I need to know if she’s in danger.” My voice turned to pleading. “I know this must be difficult to understand . . .”
“Then make me.” His voice was clipped, and I realized he’d been furious all along. He’d just been restraining it. “Make me understand,” he demanded, his voice dripping with contempt. “Because I can’t see it. You’re not in the Secret Service anymore, Verity. It’s not your job to look after their agents.”
“In theory, yes,” I replied stiffly. “But the staff has already been reduced, and now that the treaty has been signed, it’s only a matter of time before it’s slashed again. The lives of a few foreigners who passed on intelligence during the war will mean little to the bureaucrats. And even though they might matter to the chief man on the ground in Belgium, I doubt he has the time or the resources to do any significant investigating.”
“But that’s not your problem.”
I slammed my glass down on the table next to me and stood tall. “Yes, it is! They’ve dragged me into this by sharing information about me with that medium. They’ve implicated me. And I can’t walk away without knowing why.”
“But it doesn’t make any sense, Ver.”
“I know it doesn’t!” I inhaled a shaky breath. “And that’s precisely why I have to go. To make heads or tails of this madness and why I’m linked to it.”
His eyes scoured my face, as if searching for something, something I didn’t know how to give him. “And you must go now? Just when we’re supposed to retire to our cottage?”
Some of my vehemence drained out of me in the face of his disillusionment. “I realize the timing isn’t opportune . . .”
“I can appreciate why you want answers. But is it really more important than fixing this, fixing us?”
I blinked at him, stricken with pain and guilt.
He turned away, raking a hand through his dark hair. “Dash it all, Ver. When are we to have time for us? I just returned to you, and now you want to run off to Belgium.”
“So come with me,” I murmured before I had time to reconsider the words.
Sidney glanced up at me, perhaps wondering if I was serious or not. His eyes grew haunted, their depths stark with shadows I could only guess at, and he shook his head. “I spent four and a half years in war-torn France and those blasted trenches,” he swore, using far stronger language. The words were torn from deep inside him. “I don’t want to go back.”
I swallowed the lump in my throat that had risen at the evidence of his distress. My gaze dipped to the arm of the sofa as I ran my fingers along the rough fabric, knowing that my next words would hurt him. “This is something I have to do. I . . . I won’t be able to rest until I know that Emilie is safe. Not after everything.” I clenched my hand into a fist, firming my resolve. “She would do the same for me.”
I glanced up at Sidney, seeing that blank look had returned to his eyes, though now I could sense the brittleness behind it.
“At Umbersea Island you asked me to trust you. To understand why you were so determined to find the traitors who betrayed your battalion. That you couldn’t let it go until you knew the truth, for you and your men.”
His jaw clenched, holding back words, evidently guessing where I was going with this.
“Well, I’m asking you to trust me now.” I pressed my hands over my chest. “Now I’m the one who needs answers, for me, for Emilie, and for the others. Perhaps we weren’t fighting in the trenches, but that didn’t mean our work wasn’t dangerous. That our lives weren’t in each other’s hands.”
For a moment he merely stared at me as if in an agony of indecision, and I waited for him to say something, anything.
Then he turned on his heel. “Do as you must,” he bit out.
Each word lodged like shards of glass in my chest.
Near the door, he paused and turned his head to speak over his shoulder, not even bothering to look at me. “I only wish you were as intent on fighting for us as you are for your friends.”
With that parting shot, he was gone. The door to the flat clicked shut behind him.
I stood in the middle of the drawing room and listened to the echoing silence of the flat, while my world crumbled around me. With the end of the war, with the coming of peace, things were supposed to be better. But I still felt the same yawning emptiness, the same unbearable pain I’d experienced whenever I heard of the death of yet another friend or loved one. When I’d received the telegram that informed me of Sidney’s passing, the blackness inside me had already been so deep I thought I might drown in it.
I felt it again now, rising up to drag me under.
My eyes strayed toward the sideboard, toward the glittering bottles of forgetfulness. My mouth dried, urging me to taste them. My nerves begged for release from their tightly wound state.
I inhaled a shaky breath and forced my feet to move toward the bedchamber. If I was to make the early morning train toward the coast, I had packing to do.
* * *
The wind whipped against my cheeks as the ship slipped out of Folkestone Harbour on steel blue waves and headed west toward Ostend, Belgium. It was a familiar enough sight, since I’d sailed from here several times during the war, though more often I’d embarked from Harwich on the east coast. I also felt the same flutter of nerves in my stomach as I’d felt then. Though at least this time, there was no need to fear being torpedoed by a German U-boat.
A heavy blanket of clouds covered the midday sun, making the sea breeze all the more biting, though not nearly as frigid as it was in the depths of winter. I rested my hands on the cold metal rail, welcoming the sting. Anything to distract me from the churning in my stomach. Though I tried to tell myself it was because the only thing I’d managed to consume that day was a cup of tepid tea
in a café at the quay as I waited for the ship, I knew better. For one, I’d never suffered from seasickness in all my life, even traveling through a torrential gale which had threatened to swamp the boat with its heaving waves. And for another, my nausea was accompanied by a sharp ache in the vicinity of my chest where my heart should be.
I’d been on the move since daybreak, leaving the flat with only a valise and small portmanteau. Given my uncertainty about the conditions in Belgium and how I would arrange travel, I thought it best to pack light. I hadn’t even needed to creep, for Sidney wasn’t there.
I’d tried to pretend I hadn’t cared, but the truth was I’d started at every noise, every creek in the flat, until falling into a fitful slumber sometime in the wee hours of the morning. Given that fact, I was fairly certain he’d never returned. And I hadn’t the slightest idea where he might have gone.
I left him a short note, informing him of my plans, and ended it with another apology. Though heaven knew when he would read it. If he chose to read it at all.
My heart grew heavier as the distance increased between the boat and the shore, between Sidney and me, until it seemed I might suffocate from the weight. I couldn’t stop the feeling that I’d just rashly thrown something precious away. After all those months of wishing Sidney were still alive, of begging God to turn back the clock, only to end it by walking away like this.
But what could I do? It was too late to turn back now. And in any case, Emilie still needed to be found.
I closed my eyes, fighting back tears.
Well, I’d made my bed, and now I would just have to lie in it.
After I’d ensured Emilie and the others were safe and all was set to rights, I would return to London, to Sidney, to see if our marriage was still salvageable. I would finally tell him the truth about what I was hiding and let the chips fall where they may. My hopes weren’t high, but I only had myself to blame for that.
A tear slipped down my cheek and I gripped the railing tighter, trying to swallow my pain back down deep inside me, as someone moved forward to stand beside me to look out over the water. They shifted and I felt something brush my shoulder.
“Handkerchief?”
My heart surged in my chest at the sound of the familiar deep voice and I blinked open my eyes to see the white fabric fluttering before me.
“Thank you,” I managed to stammer, taking it from his fingertips to dab at my eyes. “This . . . this dashed wind. It’s dreadful on the eyes,” I murmured in a feeble attempt to salvage my pride.
“Of course.”
I turned to look at him then. His expression was guarded. His deep blue eyes wary beneath the brim of his hat he’d pulled low against the wind.
“You came.” It was an inane statement, but profound for all that, given the manner in which we’d parted.
“Yes, well, I couldn’t let you go alone.” Sidney’s lips quirked upward at one corner. “I may be a terrible husband, but I’m not as bad as all that.”
The jest fell flat.
“You’re not a terrible husband,” I contradicted, turning back toward the sea. “You’ve barely had a chance to be one. The war stole that from you. From me.”
He joined me at the rail, standing close enough that I could feel the heat of his body. “I wasn’t anticipating the ship to be so crowded. Belgium hardly seems the ideal tourist destination at the moment.”
Though the number of people on the deck was fairly sparse, allowing us a degree of privacy, the interior cabins were jam-packed with passengers. “I suspect many of them are embarking on one of those guided tours of the battlefield. The ones Max was telling us about.”
Consternation furrowed his brow. “But so many of them?”
I also had been surprised by the macabre flood of passengers boarding the ship, many in fashionable, albeit somber-colored attire that would hardly be fitting to the mud and rubble and ghastly sights they would soon encounter. “I suppose there are more people than one realizes struggling to deal with the loss of their loved ones.”
“That or some dashed-fool matriarch declared it an illuminating experience and they’re all flocking to follow her advice,” he scoffed, pulling his battered, silver cigarette case from his inner coat pocket. I could just make out the faint outline of his initials in the dented cover.
The case had been a wedding present from me, engraved with the inscription “Love always, Verity” on the interior. Somehow it had survived four years of war and another six months of his searching for evidence of treason, and though I’d offered to order him a new one, he’d insisted this one would do. Just now, it seemed an odd metaphor for our marriage.
I watched as he lit one of his Turkish cigarettes, shielding it from the wind with his cupped hands. “I’m not sure I have any better opinion of the intelligence of society at large than you do, but in this instance, I think these people are genuinely desperate to visit the battlefields where their loved ones breathed their last, imprudent as that may be.”
He didn’t reply, but his square jaw was tight with disapproval.
We stood companionably side by side, Sidney smoking his fag as the shores of Britain faded further into the distance. Much of the shock of his sudden appearance had faded, leaving a pleasant hum of gratitude he’d followed me when he could so easily have walked away. I knew full well this was not going to be easy for him, and I hoped our search for Emilie would keep us as far from the front as possible. Seeing the trampled countryside, the devastation of the shelled towns behind the trenches would be difficult enough, without actually venturing into the waste that stretched for miles behind the battle lines.
“You saw the trenches?” he asked carefully, his gaze fastened on the glowing tip of his cigarette.
I answered with just as much restraint, understanding what he was really asking. “Not the front line. But the rear, the clearing stations and such, yes.”
Upon hearing that I knew something of the conditions he and the other soldiers on the Western Front had endured for over four long years—the sights, and sounds, and, perhaps most disturbingly, the smells—he merely nodded. For there wasn’t anything to say. Words could never truly capture the horrifying reality of it all anyway.
He inhaled a deep drag of his cigarette, blowing the smoke out to sea. “You never told me, how did you come by your post at the Secret Service? A friend?” The words were spoken lightly, but I could sense his genuine interest.
I nodded. “Do you remember how, when the war began, we all thought it would be over by Christmas?”
He snorted. “Oh, how naïve we’d been.”
“Well, when the holidays came and went, with no end in sight to the conflict, I began to feel at loose ends. I volunteered where I could, but it was never enough to fill my time or, more importantly, my thoughts.” I laughed self-consciously. “I thought I would go mad with the waiting and worrying. I mentioned this to several friends, and one of them told me she had a situation she thought I would be perfect for. Most of the positions at the service were filled that way, by word of mouth to men and women from good families who knew how to keep their mouths shut.”
“The ‘old boy’ network.”
“Yes. In most instances, it worked remarkably well since discretion was the utmost skill requirement.” I adjusted my leaf green cloche hat. “They asked me to take a few language proficiency exams to test my fluency in German and French, and even Italian, and then I was sent in for an interview with C. He seemed to take a liking to me almost immediately, for whatever reason.”
Sidney chuckled. “I can guess why.” His gaze traveled over my features almost like a caress. “And you’re also quick and clever. It doesn’t take long for one to apprehend that.”
I flushed under his praise. “In any case, I was hired as one of the secretaries. I also did a bit of translation.”
He pitched the end of his fag into the water. “So how did you come to be an agent out in the field?”
We’d never discussed any of this, an
d I’d lived under the strain of believing we never would until a month ago. Since then Sidney had asked few questions. Perhaps he’d been waiting for me to broach the subject myself. But years of enforced silence—knowing it could mean life or death for me, or my colleagues, or the soldiers overseas—were difficult to overcome. Even now, I found the details hard to relay.
“For a while I was content, pleased to know I was doing my part and perhaps making a difference to the war effort. But as the months stretched on and the casualties continued to mount, it became harder and harder to push it all out of my head.” I stared down at the railing gripped beneath my hands. “Work no longer exhausted me as it had before. At least, not enough to bring sleep easily. And sitting at home through the long nights, fretting over everything we’d learned started to become unbearable.”
I braced myself, uncertain how Sidney would take the next. “So Daphne, and I, and a few of the other girls, would go out to parties, and restaurants, and nightclubs, ignoring the curfew set for women. We weren’t the only ones. There were plenty of other upper-class girls doing the same thing. Dashing out between their nursing shifts, like Lady Diana Cooper, or simply intent on escaping their parents, like Nancy Cunard. There were always soldiers home from the front, eager to be entertained, desperate to forget, for a short time at least, all the horrors they’d witnessed before they had to return.”
I could feel Sidney’s eyes on me, weighing, wondering.
“I . . . I danced and I flirted, but mostly I listened. It was sometimes astonishing the things I could learn just from letting the men and some of the women ramble, many of them too deep in their cups to properly mind their tongues. A lot of times it was just a vague remark here or there, which without context would mean little. But with all the things I learned day-to-day in the office, I already had the framework to string it into. I took this information to C, and he began to take notice.”
Treacherous Is the Night Page 13
