Silence for the Dead(58)

“Oh, hullo,” she said. “You must be Kitty, then.”

I nodded and took her outstretched hand. She froze when I came closer. She stared at the marks on my neck. I nearly flinched, but I held myself still.

“Oh,” she said. “It’s happened to you.”

“I’m fine.” I looked around the clearing, which was overgrown with weeds. “I’ve never been here before,” I said.

“Hideous, isn’t it?” She recovered herself and smiled at me. One of her front teeth was crooked, just enough to make her face look charming and off-kilter. “It was one of Mrs. Gersbach’s projects. She thought she’d have garden parties. But the wind comes in terribly off the marshes, and there’s no view to speak of, so she abandoned the idea.”

I blinked. “You knew the Gersbachs.”

“Oh, yes. I came here scores of times. We’re getting a bit ahead of things, though I do want to tell you all about it. I want to tell you everything.”

She was keyed up, excited. Her fair complexion, so easily aggravated, was flushed. I looked past her shoulder again at the bicycle behind her. “Did you ride that here?”

“Oh, that?” She glanced at it as if she’d forgotten. “Yes, of course. You can ride one over the bridge if it isn’t too windy, though it’s jolly hard on the legs.”

I stared at it. I’d never ridden one. We didn’t have much use for them in London, where you walked, or took the tube when you could afford it, and anyone trying to ride a bicycle through the crowded streets would be taking his life in his hands. “Do you ride it in skirts?”

Maisey shrugged. She really had ridden in skirts, I realized—she must have hiked her hem up over her calves to do it. I looked her over again. She was careless but not slatternly, sporty with her sun-red nose and windblown hair. I would never have ruined such an expensive suit by bicycling across a bridge in it, but her thoughtlessness suggested she had a closet full of even nicer clothes.

We sat on the benches, and I riffled in my pockets before I could forget. “Here,” I said, holding out the locket.

“Right.” She took it from me, rubbed her thumb affectionately over it, and dropped it in her pocket. “Anna Gersbach gave it to me, you know. You can keep the boots.”

I flushed. “I told you in my letter I’d pay you for them out of my salary. And the book is just a loan, until I’m done reading it.”

She shrugged again. “It’s nothing to me. Really. I can’t believe they fit you so well. I never liked them much, which is probably why I left them. They’re better on you.”

I swallowed. The boots had been a godsend; I’d no idea how I would have coped in my flimsy shoes. But I hated to appear a charity case. “I’ll pay you for them.”

“All right, then.” She leaned back on the bench, smiled at me again. “How are things at Portis House? You get along with Boney all right?” At my expression she laughed, an easy sound. “I can just imagine. The fireworks with an uptight girl like her.”

“I don’t understand,” I said. “You knew the Gersbachs, but you also worked as a nurse here. I don’t understand how the two are connected.”

The laugh faded, and something serious flitted across her expression, something that looked quite a bit like worry. “No, I suppose you don’t. I’ll start at the beginning. It’s what I came for.” But just then her gaze rose to look at something behind me. “Oh,” she said.

I turned. Jack Yates came toward us through the trees.

“Nurse Ravell, is it?” he said. “Good afternoon.”

“Oh,” she said again, speechless with surprise. “Mr. Yates.”

Belatedly, I remembered that she’d never had clearance. She probably recognized him from the newspapers, just as I had. “Maisey, this is Mr. Jack Yates. Patient Sixteen.”

Her mouth opened, closed again. The nonchalance, the easy superiority of a girl with a bit of money, had vanished. “I had heard—that is, there were rumors. But I never met—”

He was shaved and combed again, his sleeves rolled up as was his usual custom. His face was set in serious lines, and he nodded politely at Maisey. “A pleasure.”

I turned to him. “What are you doing here?”

Jack didn’t have what the girls I knew called movie star looks; the men I’d seen in pictures, with big, long-lashed eyes and sensual lips, looked nothing like him. His was a leaner face, as perfectly proportioned as a mathematical equation, the blue eyes striking and smart. A face that had been places, seen things, thought things, lived a life. And, I assumed, attracted a number of girls.

“You invited me,” he replied. “Remember?”

“Yes, but—how did you get away without Matron seeing? Or the orderlies?”

He didn’t take a seat on one of the benches but sat directly in the grass, his knees pulled up. “It’s after luncheon. We’re allowed to take the air. I’m supposed to exercise at the proper time of day.”

An uncomfortable prickle of warning rose on the back of my neck. Taking exercise meant wandering in the gardens or the near grounds, not coming all the way out here past the trees. Didn’t it? If someone saw him coming here unsupervised, wouldn’t they follow and bring him back? What if they noticed he was missing? Would an alarm go up?