Louis pulled her to him, cutting off her words.
She awoke in the night and stared at him, asleep beside her. She had forgotten to close the blackout curtains and could see him clearly in the moonlight. If only she could sleep beside him every night and wake up beside him every morning. She combed her fingers through his ginger hair and studied his face in the faint light, trying to imagine how she could make that happen, how they could be together for a lifetime. But as the moon slowly set and the sun rose, Eve knew it was impossible. Louis wasn’t hers to love.
She climbed from her bed and dressed for work, moving quietly in the tiny flat so she wouldn’t wake him. But her rustlings did awaken him, and he propped himself up on his elbow and watched her.
“Where are you going?” he asked, his voice thick with sleep. “Come back to bed.” He moved the blanket aside in invitation.
Eve turned away. “I can’t, Louis. I’ll be late for work.”
“Do you really have to go to work?”
“Audrey has a good excuse to take a few days off, but I don’t. I’m sorry.”
The bedsprings creaked as Louis climbed out of bed. Eve finished dressing, avoiding his clear blue eyes, inching away from him. Louis wasn’t hers. He never would be. She had to leave him. And she needed to do it quickly.
“I don’t want you to go, Eve. I love you. Ever since we met, I’ve been trying to figure out how we can always be together, and—”
“Don’t,” she said, holding up both hands to keep him away. “There’s nothing we can do. You’re an honorable man. You can’t abandon your wife and daughter.” She laced up her shoes, shrugged into her uniform jacket. Found her purse. Any minute now, she was going to fall apart.
“I made a mistake when I married Jean. I don’t love her the way I love you. Jean was—”
“Jean is your wife. It’s over between us. It has to be. You need to go home to her and Karen.” Eve fought back tears, the hardest battle of her life.
“But I love you and you love me—”
“That doesn’t matter! We can’t see each other again. What we feel for each other, what we had . . . you and I were just two more casualties of war.”
“Eve, wait!”
“Lock the door behind you when you go.”
23
LONDON, NOVEMBER 1945
The war had ended three months ago. Audrey thought she would never have to sit in a bomb shelter again. Yet here she was, huddling in a damp crypt wearing pajamas beneath her coat. She wrapped her arms around her raised knees to keep warm. She still trembled after being startled from sleep by news of an unexploded bomb in the rubble across the street from her flat. The smell of damp and mold sent a wave of nausea through her. She hoped she wouldn’t be sick. She’d wrestled with nausea every day this week until finally admitting the reason for it. She needed to tell Eve the news. Audrey moved closer to her, leaning in. “Eve, listen. I need to tell you a secret.”
Eve looked as though she was trying not to smile. “Should I cross my heart and swear on my life not to tell?” she asked.
Audrey drew a shaky breath. “I think I’m pregnant.”
For a moment, Eve appeared stunned. Then she pulled Audrey into a hurried embrace. “Congratulations.”
“I haven’t written to tell Robert yet. I’m afraid to. It was an accident. We took precautions . . .”
“He’ll be happy, just the same,” Eve said, squeezing Audrey’s hands. “Especially if it’s a boy. Doesn’t every man want a son?”
The baby seemed real to Audrey now, after sharing the news with her best friend. Her thoughts raced ahead. “This morning, with this bomb—I realized how badly I want to stay safe from now on. We risked our lives so many times during the war, and it didn’t seem to matter because nobody knew what tomorrow would bring, whether we would live or die, or if the Nazis would pour across the channel and murder us. But the war is over and Robert is safe, and I want to stay safe, too, until it’s time to move to America to be with him. I want our baby to be safe.”
“So what are you saying?”
“I’m leaving London. I’m going home to Wellingford Hall.”
It took Eve a moment to respond. “What about your job? And our flat?”
“I’ll give them my notice. Today, even.” Her job was no longer important. They weren’t driving ambulances, merely pushing government papers around, processing discharge documents for the returning soldiers. Besides, the men would want their desk jobs back. “You won’t have any problem finding a new flatmate,” she added. “I’m going to miss you, Eve.”