Tanyon nodded. Bruckmann galloped through the rain, skating atop the grass along the rising verge parallel to the mortared stone wall. Behind him, the Very gun coughed. A red signal flare fizzled briefly overhead, extinguished within seconds by the torrent. Not likely many of the squad would see it. He ran on.
As he neared Woodrow, his wavering light flashed across the door. Something moved then stilled. His heart jumped into his throat; Hackney could be wrong and Faust might have doubled back. Pulse pounding, Bruckmann paused and steadied the light. Jennifer stepped onto Woodrow’s front porch, closing the door behind her. She wore a tweed raincoat and waterproof deerstalker cap, rather like a female Sherlock Holmes, and carried a large iron cooking pot. She locked the door and slithered down to join him.
He took the pot from her, its weight surprising him. “Jennifer, you shouldn’t be out here. We don’t know where Faust is — ”
“Do you mean Major Faust?” She pocketed her keys, slid the pot from his grip, and started through the rain toward the postern gate at a brisk trot, leaving him standing.
Blasted woman. He ran to catch her up. “Whatever you choose to call him, we don’t know where he’s gone or what he’s up to — ”
“He stared at me through the window and moved on, even though the door was unlatched and he could have walked right on in and done whatever he liked.” She didn’t slow, water coursing down her deerstalker and flying off in droplets through the drumming rain. She sounded irritated, as if Faust had insulted her by not barging in and helping himself. “That man has no more interest in me than the man in the moon that we can’t see through the storm.” She stopped at the postern and stared at him, the pot cradled in her arms. “You could open the gate for me.”
He’d lost, that much was clear, and perhaps Faust had made a wise decision by not engaging in Jennifer’s battlefield. Bruckmann slipped a hand into his pocket.
“My keys are gone.” He dug in the other trouser pocket, then both patch pockets on the front of his service jacket, then the breast pockets even though he never kept his keys there. “They are; they’re gone.” Rain dripped beneath his collar, a cold rivulet racing down his spine and making him shiver. “Blast it, I must have dropped them somewhere.”
She thrust the pot into his hands again. “Hold this before we drown.” She pulled out her keys and opened the postern, grabbed the pot from him and set it on the ground inside the gate, crossed inside, and relocked it. “Go catch that man, Jack, and bring him back safely. Then get yourself into dry clothes before you catch your death.” She hefted the pot and ran toward the Hall, disappearing almost instantly in the rain and the night.
Bruckmann clenched his teeth. Faust had definitely made the right decision.
He turned. Tanyon ran toward him through the rain, the flashlight’s finger dancing on the ground. But where there should have been seven soldiers, there were only four.
“Who’s missing?”
“Ellington, Norris, and Reynolds.” Tanyon stepped closer and lowered his voice. “Peckham says old Peter Owen isn’t in his quarters.”
The gardener. Bruckmann sighed, removed his hat, and pushed his sodden hair back from his forehead. “He’s an odd duck, he is, always staring and carrying on in Welsh. Can’t understand what he’s saying, much less thinking.” He replaced his cover. “I take it no one has anything to report?”
Tanyon shrugged and turned to the squad. “All right, torches out. He passed near here somewhere. Find a footprint or something to show us which direction to follow.”
Chapter Fifty-Five
early evening
Margeaux Hall
Rain pounded on the glass roof above. Water puddled across the rough brick floor, crisscrossed with frantic footprints. The front desk and switchboard were deserted, but when she flipped on the light, Jennifer saw all incoming calls had been routed to Stoner’s office. She turned off the light, set the pot on the floor, shed her coat and hat, and dried her face and the outside of the pot with the kitchen towel she’d thrust beneath its lid.
She couldn’t say she liked Faust — no, he was properly called Major Faust and she would not demean him further. Possibly she never would like him. But she could no longer reproach him for doing his duty, nor blame him for attempting to escape the trap being set for him. And now that she knew he hadn’t murdered Harriet, she found she could no longer hate him. It was rather reassuring, knowing he’d seen her alone and hadn’t kidnapped her as a hostage or something. Although it also irritated her, for reasons perhaps best not examined too closely.
No, she couldn’t reproach Major Faust. Her grandfather, however, was another matter.
She slipped into Stoner’s office without knocking, the pot heavy in her arms. He glanced up from his scramble of papers, at first blankly, then with concern as she crossed the room and set the pot atop his desk.
“My dear, honestly, you shouldn’t have.”
She set the lid aside, then removed the clean dinner plates from the pot and set his desk as a table before he could move his papers. “I made this dinner; you’re going to eat it.” She unwrapped the napkins protecting the wine glasses. “It may not be as pretty as it was half an hour ago, but it should taste the same.” The bottle of Mercurey came next, wrapped in another napkin. “You work on that. It’s Burgundy, so it shouldn’t be too shaken to drink.”
His face relaxed into his charming little-boy smile, his eyes lighting from within. “My dear, as delightful as this is, I rang Mrs. Alcock for dinner.”
“And I rang her a moment later. You eat this or nothing. I know you keep a corkscrew in your pocket.” She’d packed the food into glass canning jars, and removed the lids as she placed them between the plates, serving spoons upright. Lastly she produced the candles, smiling at his delighted laugh.
“Your lighter, sir.”
He poured the wine while she lit the candles, then he switched off his desk lamp. Shadows flooded the sitting room. He said grace, and his thankfulness for “courage and imagination in the face of adversity” made her smile again. But as she served him, the telephone rang.
“Don’t you touch that phone.” She handed him the glass jar of green beans and lifted the receiver herself. “Constable Mercer.” She rolled her eyes. “How are you tonight?”
The static was horrible and the irritation in the constable’s voice worse. “Do you have a situation there you should be telling me of?”
Stoner held out a hand, his smile ironic. So much for his uninterrupted dinner. She slapped the receiver into his palm and resumed serving.
“Good evening, Constable Mercer. Well, yes. I’m afraid it’s the same circumstance as previously — oh, I see. Yes, I shall direct our searchers accordingly. Thank you.” He replaced the receiver. “It seems someone has stolen Caspar Wynant’s cart horse and ridden off in the rain toward the Dark.”
She couldn’t blame him for trying to escape, she reminded herself. But still she wanted to tear her hair. That man — no, Major Faust was exasperating enough on foot; mounted, he could cause much more trouble. “And I wanted you to have a quiet evening.”
He smiled again. “Then perhaps you would be so kind as to telephone Carmichael and request he inform our searchers of this somewhat unexpected development.”
But Carmichael didn’t pick up. She replaced the receiver in its cradle and met Stoner’s long, assessing stare.
“I believe I know where he’s gone, Dad. Eat while it’s warm. I’ll handle this.”
Chapter Fifty-Six
evening
at large in the Dark
The Dark slowed the mare’s canter to a shambling trot. Her first trotting paces, rough as a truck with shot springs, nearly threw Faust over her neck and only a panicky handful of mane kept him aboard. Rain splattered down from the leaves above and the debris beneath softened the pounding hoofbeats to gentle thuds. He couldn’t see more than a few feet ahead; hopefully the mare wouldn’t run into a tree or fall over a cliff. He could only trust h
er to find a path.
He stood in the stirrups and let his knees and ankles take the jolting. He could hear no pursuit, so it seemed the deliveryman hadn’t mounted the unfriendly horse and followed him on his midnight trek across the back pastures. But he wasn’t comforted. Once before he’d exited this forest and found Kettering’s search line directly ahead, as if the engineering major had read his mind and known his path to the inch. Well, that wouldn’t happen this time. Kettering’s troops had to travel all the way from Oxford, move ahead of him, and then organize their search line. If he could get past the edge of the Dark before they arrived, if he could get far enough ahead to vanish into the countryside, then he stood a chance against Kettering.
And against Stoner.
Faust tightened his legs about the mare’s barrel and squeezed harder.
Chapter Fifty-Seven
evening
Margeaux Hall
Soft footsteps padded down the eastern stairs, feeling their way slowly in the inky dark like some stereotypical thief in the night in a silly dime novel. Jennifer switched on the flashlight she’d borrowed from Stoner, and the beam caught Carmichael full in the face. Even in so little light, his haircut was horrid. He jumped, eyes squeezing closed, and stumbled down two steps before grabbing the handrail. “Who’s that?”
She didn’t lower the light. “One guess, Carmichael.”
“Miss Stoner.” His next breath came easier and he started to smile. “Look what you nearly made me — ”
She strode for him. His smile vanished and he scrambled back up the stairs. She followed.
“You deserter, you coward, you randy young goat. Slipping off with Sally every chance you get, whenever someone’s back is turned — ”
Carmichael gave ground backwards down the second-floor corridor. “Now, Miss Stoner, it’s not what you’re thinking — ”
“Do I look like a fool?” Considering how she must appear after her run through the rain, perhaps that wasn’t the wisest question to ask. “Don’t answer unless you believe you can survive it.” She reached past him, opened the guardroom door, and pointed. The light from the radio table lamp poured into the corridor about them.
He edged past her into the guardroom, never turning his back. “I’m going to marry her, Miss Stoner, honest, but her mother — ”
She pushed him into the chair. “Save it for the vicar, or Sergeant Tanyon, or someone who matters. Right now, get on the radio and contact Lieutenant Bruckmann. Tell him we just heard from Constable Mercer and it appears Major Faust stole Caspar Wynant’s cart horse and escaped across his back field toward the Dark.”
Carmichael grabbed the headphones and settled them aslant over his ears. Then he paused. “You mean you rang up here, looking for me?”
How could he seem so young when he was months older than she? “How else would I know to cut you off on the stairs?”
“Does Major Stoner know?”
She crossed her arms.
“Miss Stoner, Lieutenant Bruckmann said they’d make it official this time — ”
“Are you saying you don’t deserve it?” But that was real fear in his child-like eyes. “How fast can you make the call?”
He grabbed the microphone. “Wildflower Base to Wildflower Two. Come in.” When he released the button, a hissing crackle filled the guardroom, impossibly loud. “I’m letting you hear this, too, so you know I’m not lying to you.”
“And I am listening, so it had better be right.” Not that she’d know if he made a mistake.
“This is Wildflower Three.” Tanyon’s voice, deeper than Bruckmann’s, rumbled through the static. “Go ahead.”
Oh, she hated the transmitter-receiver. It wasn’t like the typewriter, machinery she could handle and even sort of understand; it was a big, complicated, masculine contraption, with dials and knobs and switches and gauges, the overriding symbol of modern mechanical technology, and just being in the same room made her queasy. But she would not allow Carmichael to see her tremble. She stood silently by, arms crossed and toe tapping an occasional emphasis, keeping her confusion and nerves to herself.
Carmichael spoke with Tanyon, then with someone claiming the unlikely moniker of Piccolo Eight. Finally he set down the microphone. “I’m done, ma’am.” He glanced up at her again, eyes wide. “Are you going to tell Major Stoner?”
That haircut was so horrid, his ears seemed lopsided. Even so, his hopeful charm needed a heart of stone to resist. “You stay at your post for the remainder of this evening and we’ll see.”
“But I promised Sally — ”
Exasperation welled within her. “You don’t think she’s silly enough to wait outside for you in this storm, do you?”
“She said — ”
“Well, trust me, she’s not. No woman of sense would be.” She sighed. “Granted, if you didn’t love her, you’d never have let her cut your hair a second time.”
His eyes widened again. “Third.”
Jennifer scoffed. “If she catches pneumonia, it’s her own silly fault. You mind your business here or I will tell.” Without waiting for an answer, she stalked from the guardroom.
Chapter Fifty-Eight
evening
Margeaux Hall
Despite the situation and despite its disheveled appearance, Stoner found himself enjoying his impromptu meal. Jennifer had clearly put some thought into her cooking, proving yet again she loved him far more than he deserved, and her results compared well with the best meals he’d had in Paris. He finished off one last bit of potato as she returned, easing the door to behind her and slipping into the wingback chair across from him. Despite her gentility, her heightened color, visible even in the candlelight, spoke eloquently of an aroused temper.
If only he could show his love for her in a similar and unmistakable manner. But he feared what she would ask of him was the one thing he could not do.
“Well?” he asked. “Is the situation under control or should I take a hand?”
She picked up her wineglass and swigged a long draft of the Mercurey. “I think it’s under control.” Yet her color remained high and her forehead tense.
He finished the potato, applied his napkin, and sat back, thinking only of how much he loved her so it would show in his face. “This was a truly excellent meal, my dear, and I appreciate it more than I can express. However, when I asked you to help out around the shop, I didn’t intend for you to assume the role of sergeant-at-arms.” He picked up his wine. “Nor that of den mother.”
She laughed, her face relaxing. “You know, Dad, they seem so much younger than I am. But they’re not.”
“In experience, they are.” He held out his glass.
She looked at him, puzzled, then chimed her glass against his. The liquid note flowed into the sitting room’s corners. They drank together.
“Your dinner is cold,” he said.
She set down her glass and rose. “I’ll run it down to Mrs. Alcock’s kitchen and warm it there. Dad, there’s something I must ask you.” Her words came out in a rush.
As he’d feared. Stoner sat back and watched as she repacked the cooking pot.
“It’s about Faust — I mean, Major Faust.”
He sighed. It would be cowardly, pretending to not understand her. “We do tend to speak of him with a deplorable lack of respect, don’t we?”
She wiped the outside of one glass jar with her towel. “We speak of him as a commodity to be used.”
“War is dehumanizing and I’m finding intelligence operations are little different from the front lines in this regard.” She packed away the plates and the papers beneath were revealed, including the unfinished report analyzing how best to shatter a capable and intelligent man’s spirit. The project was more natural to him than he wished to admit. “For those inflicting the damage, such dehumanization is sometimes necessary to maintain one’s sanity, and I believe it to be so in this instance. The Nazis must be stopped and our coastline is the most logical place for us to draw the l
ine. Breaking Faust will assist this task.” He rubbed his tired eyes. “But even when the process is necessary, it is ugly at best. At its worst,” he paused, the memory of artillery shells exploding amongst his men all too clear, “it is unspeakable.”
She replaced the glass jars in the cooking pot. “When you first spoke of breaking him, I didn’t realize what you meant.”
“I meant what I said.” He pushed the papers aside. He had no choice but to be brutally honest; she would not thank him for any sugar-coating, no matter how unpalatable the medicine nor how shoddy a light it cast upon him personally. “I meant breaking his heart and will, yes, his body and soul, if necessary.”
The last glass jar vanished. Her hands moved as deftly as ever. But she did not look at him again and the pain rocked him more deeply than he’d imagined. He’d taught her the principles she attempted to uphold. It was the most horrific irony for his own actions to call those principles into play and even into question. It was rather as if, in attempting to save her from the German invasion, he’d let her down.
“And what will become of him?”
“If I succeed, he will be a broken man for the rest of his life.”
“Do you expect to succeed?”
“No. I expect him to remain defiant to the end.” Although with the lever of Captain Clarke and collaboration in Stoner’s hand, such stern defiance would do Faust no good. His Nazi compatriots put the devil in any deal before him.
She bowed her head over the pot. Her hair fell forward and hid her face behind a curtain of dark red-gold, gleaming in the candlelight. “Dad, I want you to give up this assignment.”
The pain deepened another impossible degree. “I cannot.”
“Explain.”
Deal with the Devil Page 35
