advantage of the fact. But to what purpose?
• • •
AS REG TIED HIS TIE IN his dressing table mirror, he thought of Annabelle, of how he had liked to watch her when she was getting ready to go out. She had made up her face with such concentration, like an artist putting the finishing touches on a painting, but the end result had been almost invisible—she had simply been more beautiful.
She had been as self-absorbed as a grooming cat, and at the time he had found it amusing. But that detachment had carried over into other aspects of their relationship, and he wondered now how he had found it acceptable. Even in bed she had always seemed somehow removed from him, as if there were some part of her he could never reach. Had she been that way with the others, too?
The thought made him feel physically ill, and the sweat broke out again on his forehead. This morning when he left Teresa’s, he’d meant to go straight into work after coming home to shower and dress. But by the time he reached his building, he’d felt so unwell he collapsed on the sofa until the spasms in his stomach had subsided.
Everything in his life seemed to be crumbling beneath him, and it was all he could do to keep panic at bay. He couldn’t ask his parents for help—his father had bailed him out of difficulties once too often, and last year had cut him off altogether, making it clear he wouldn’t soften his position.
But if he could only find some way to hold off his creditors for a while longer … and if he could convince William to support his nomination as managing director to the members of the board, he might have some hope of survival.
And then there was Teresa. She at least believed in him, and he wondered how he could have failed to appreciate the virtues of such steady loyalty until now.
His phone rang, startling him. He crossed to the bedside table and picked it up.
It was Fiona, the Hammond’s receptionist, telling him that Miss Robbins had asked her to inform him that Mr. Hammond had called a meeting of the board for ten o’clock tomorrow morning. When, his heart sinking, he asked why Teresa hadn’t rung him herself, Fiona replied awkwardly, “I’m sure I don’t know, sir,” and rang off.
Reg let the phone fall back into the cradle. Whatever the bloody hell had happened now, he wasn’t sure he had the bottle to face it.
IN THE AFTERNOON OF THE SECOND day of the bombings, Edwina found Lewis in his room in the barn, packing his bits of belongings into the old, battered suitcase. He straightened and faced her defiantly, expecting to be chastised for his disobedience, because when he’d begged permission that morning to go to London, she’d refused him.
But instead she sat down gracefully on the room’s only chair, looking at him with such understanding that he was forced to turn away and stare out the window at the sparrows nesting under the eaves in the barn.
“Lewis, you must not do this,” she said quietly. “I know how desperately worried you are, but the only thing you can do for your family is to stay where they can reach you.”
“But—what if … I can’t bear not knowing—”
“We don’t know how long the bombing will go on, and this is why they sent you away, to keep you safe. How would your mother feel if you went to London and were hurt or killed, and all this year had been for nought?”
He shook his head wordlessly, but found some unexpected comfort in the thought of his mother’s anger.
“The East End is in chaos,” Edwina continued. “You know that—you’ve been listening to the reports on the wireless. And William’s parents confirmed what we’ve heard—they managed to ring through from Greenwich to tell us that the Hammond’s warehouse was not badly damaged. It’s quite possible that your family has been relocated, and in that case you’d not be able to find them. The only sensible thing to do is wait. I’m sure we’ll hear something soon.” He heard the chair legs creak as Edwina stood, then felt the light touch of her hand on his shoulder. “Promise me you won’t do anything rash.”
After a moment, he managed to nod and say, “All right,” but he still couldn’t bring himself to look at her.
“You’re a sensible boy, Lewis,” Edwina said, giving his shoulder a brief squeeze. “I knew I could count on you.”
Lewis heard her go down the stairs, her booted steps as quick and precise as she was in everything, but he didn’t feel sensible at all. In his heart he knew he’d failed his family, left them to an unknown fate that he should have suffered with them, and that his safe and sensible retreat marked him as an outsider and a coward.
THE HOUSE ON STEBONDALE STREET WAS was hit by an incendiary bomb on the third night of the Blitz, but this Lewis didn’t learn until almost a week later, when he received a note in the post. The paper was much blotched and stained, but the neatly looped, convent-school handwriting was instantly recognizable as his mother’s.Dear Lewis,The house is gone but we are all right. The third night the bombers came a fire bomb hit right on top of the house but we had gone round to the McNeills in Chapel House Street and went down their Anderson shelter when the alarm sounded. So it was lucky for us wasn’t it? They have given us a flat in Islington for now with two other families; it’s not very clean but at least we have a place to lay our heads. I will write more soon remember I love you.Your loving mother
Lewis had gone every day to wait for the post at the bottom of the drive, and now he stood, staring at the tattered paper, until the tears blurred his vision and splashed onto the page. He knew that William and Edwina and Mr. Cuddy and even Cook were watching him anxiously from the house, as they had every day, but he couldn’t seem to move.
After a bit, William came down to him, but Lewis found he couldn’t speak, either. He was forced to hand William the letter to read for himself.
William read, squinting at the unfamiliar script, his lips moving silently. Then he looked up, a grin spreading across his face, and whooped and pounded Lewis on the back, shouting, “Hooray! Bloody hooray!” and after that it was all right.
IT WAS MIDMORNING BEFORE KINCAID STARTED for Cambridge, after having made a stop at the Yard. He concentrated on negotiating London traffic until he reached the M11, then he popped a jazz piano tape Gemma had given him into the Rover’s tape deck and settled into the
