“Have you any idea why she took such an interest—if you want to call it that—in the Finches?”
“She was extremely curious about Lewis Finch, and that seems to have extended to members of his family. Did you know that Finch has been actively trying to buy William Hammond’s property the last few years?” Kincaid asked.
“No, but it doesn’t surprise me. The Hammond’s warehouse is just the sort of thing Lewis would snap up in a minute.”
“Apparently, Annabelle was as eager to sell as Lewis was to buy—she felt the warehouse was a liability to the future of the firm, and that the profit from such a sale should be used to set up the business in more modern and cost-efficient premises downriver. The thorn in all this was William Hammond. He refused to consider a sale under any circumstances, and he still owned enough shares to block it unless all the other major shareholders voted against him.”
Irene leaned forward and tapped another Dunhill from the packet, then made a slow business of lighting it and extinguishing the match. “You’d think William would have seen that change was inevitable, but he was always a bit obsessive about Hammond’s. I suppose he was fortunate that one of his children inherited his passion for tea, if not for preserving the family heritage. His daughter’s death must have been a dreadful shock for him. And for poor Lewis, if he cared for her. Who’d have thought things would come to such a pass for any of us?” She sighed. “There were a few magic years when I thought we three could overcome anything.”
“During the war?”
“You have to understand our circumstances, Mr. Kincaid. Our friendship was so uncomplicated at first—we were so young, and we had all been removed from our homes, our security. We became family to one another. But we were growing up that last year, and things changed between us.”
“You fell in love with William,” guessed Kincaid.
“Oh, no. It wasn’t like that at all,” Irene said quietly, gazing out the casement of the sitting room window, where fat bees sampled the roses and lavender in the perennial bed. She looked up and met his eyes with her direct gaze. “You see, Superintendent, I fell in love with Lewis.”
“DOODLEBUGS,” SAID IRENE. “THAT’S WHAT EDWINA’S friends at the War Office are calling them.” She kicked her heels against a hay bale outside Zeus’s stall, and the white cotton shirt she was wearing above an old pair of Edwina’s jodhpurs looked luminous in the light of the barn. They had turned the horses out to graze on the lush June grass, then Irene had followed Lewis back into the barn with the determined expression that meant she had something to say.
He looked up from forking the dirty straw out of the stall but didn’t answer. He supposed it had been too much to hope that the raids of the winter and spring would be the last Hitler could throw at them. But with the Allied invasion of Europe earlier in the month, they had begun to hear rumors of a German retaliation weapon, and three days ago had come the first serious assault on Greater London.
“Everyone’s saying they’re really pilotless planes, and that you hear the engine stop just before they explode,” Irene continued, hugging herself as if the thought made her cold in spite of the summer warmth.
“I’m still going home, bombs or no bombs. Anything’s better than that bastard digging at me all the time.” There was no need to say who he meant: the presence of Freddie Haliburton seemed to have worked its way into every nook and cranny of their lives.
At first they’d thought Edwina would get over feeling sorry for him because of his injuries and begin to see him for what he was. But they learned soon enough that Freddie presented a different side to Edwina, and it seemed that she was too honest herself to suspect deception in others.
Freddie was always watching the three of them, always eavesdropping, always ferreting out a weakness or the smallest misdeed as a target for his ruthless tongue. That morning he’d picked apart Lewis’s translation of Virgil with such vicious sarcasm that Lewis’s face had flamed from the humiliation of it, and when he’d protested, Freddie had pinched his earlobe so hard he’d nearly cried aloud. It was only Irene’s quick hand on his arm and a quelling glance from William that had kept him in his seat, and he’d been simmering ever since.
“Well, I think you’re bloody selfish, Lewis Finch.” Irene glared at him, her chin up. “We swore a blood pact, the three of us, that we’d stick together no matter what—”
Lewis jammed the fork into the straw. “It’s all right for you. He doesn’t call you a guttersnipe, and a … a barrow boy—”
“Why is that worse than him making fun of me because I’m a girl? We’re all in this, and it’s not been easy for William, either. You know how Freddie loves to tell him horrid stories about the war just because he knows how much they upset him.” She slid down the bale until her booted feet touched the ground and her face was almost on a level with his. “Sometimes I think you’re the only thing that keeps William from doing something really silly. You can’t just leave us—”
“You’d be all right; you and William will stick up for each other—”
“How can you be so bloody stupid, Lewis? I’m trying to tell you that I don’t want you to go. Can’t you see that?”
Baffled, he stared at her. Under the thin white shirt her chest was rising and falling quickly, and her blue eyes snapped with anger.
“But …” His tongue refused to cooperate. “I don’t—”
Irene stretched up on tiptoe, placed her hands on his shoulders, and kissed him hard on the mouth. Then she stepped back and put her hands on her hips. “Now tell me you want to go.”
“I—” Lewis’s head spun with confusion and a rush of desire. For months he’d tried to ignore the way Irene had made him feel; he’d never dreamed it might be the same for her. “I—” he began again, then gave up trying to sort things out in words and reached for her. This time her lips were soft against his and he felt the pressure of her breasts against his chest.
“Irene.” He pulled away with a groan. “What about William? If he sees us—”
