She took a moment to hang up her uniform and unpack her bag, tasks she would have let the servants do in the past. When she finished, she wasn’t quite sure what to do with herself. She should have asked Robbins which rooms downstairs she was allowed to use. She’d been disoriented after arriving, and everything had happened so quickly that—
Robert! She had walked rudely away from him without even a proper thank-you or “It was nice to see you again.” And it had been nice to see him. She’d never forgotten the wonderful evening they’d spent together at the dance. She crossed to another window and looked down to see if the jeeps were still parked outside. They were. Audrey ran a brush through her hair and hurried downstairs to find him. Robert stood at the bottom of the steps as if waiting for her.
“Robert! Hello again. I’m sorry for dashing off so abruptly—”
“Not at all. I can only imagine how good it must feel to be home again.”
“It is nice, yes. Although no one else in my family is home at the moment. And everything is so . . . different.”
“You’ve been invaded, Audrey. Thank goodness it wasn’t by the Nazis.”
“This is the first time I’ve been home since Eve and I enlisted. It was such a nice surprise to find you here. I so enjoyed talking with you the night we met.”
“I did, too. And now that you’re here, I hope we can talk some more. Maybe even right now, if you’re free.”
“I would like that very much. But aren’t you supposed to be working? I’m not keeping you from anything, am I?”
“I’m off duty today and tomorrow, as it happens. Louis and I almost went to London but decided to stay here. Now I’m glad we did.”
“I am, too. Shall we go someplace and catch up? How about Father’s library?”
“That’s one of the rooms that’s off-limits to us. I confess that I’ve peeked inside, though. I couldn’t resist all those books. But I didn’t touch any of them.”
“Come through, then. You’ll be my guest.” They scanned the shelves as they roamed the room, using the library ladder to peruse the highest shelves. They shared the same tastes in poetry and literary classics. And history.
“I could spend years in here and still not read everything that I’d like to,” Robert said when they finally sat down in Father’s club chairs by the fireplace.
“I’ll tell Robbins to let you borrow books whenever you’d like.”
“Thank you. What a spectacular inheritance you have, Audrey—this house, these books and furnishings, your distinguished family. I assume all of the grand portraits in the foyer are your ancestors?”
“Hardly! I’m a fake aristocrat, actually.” She surprised herself by admitting the truth to this virtual stranger. Yet something in Robert’s gentle manner, his honesty and attentiveness, convinced Audrey that she could trust him. “My father came from a middle-class family and made his own fortune through shrewd business ventures. He bought this estate from a down-on-his-luck aristocrat who’d gone bankrupt. All of the portraits and antiques and books came with the house. The sterling silver, too. My mother was the true blue blood. Their marriage was one of convenience. She gave Father respectability and he gave her enough wealth to keep any woman happy. I don’t suppose there are many situations like theirs in the United States.”
“You’d be surprised. We don’t have an aristocracy, but an old family name and a good reputation are still highly valued, especially in families like mine that have been around since before the Revolution. There’s a lot of pressure on the sons—especially only sons like myself—to follow in the footsteps of their fathers and grandfathers. I’m expected to attend Yale Law School after the war and join the family practice.”
“That’s what struck me the last time we spoke—how alike we are. I don’t know if you feel trapped, but I sometimes do. Yet when one spends their entire lifetime trying to please one’s parents, disappointing them is out of the question.”
“I understand, believe me. But just for a moment, let’s try to imagine what we would do if we truly were free from all of those expectations. You go first.”
“I don’t know! . . . I haven’t dared to imagine . . .”
“Okay, it wasn’t fair to spring the question on you. I’ll go first because I’ve been thinking about it ever since I started basic training. Joining the Army turned my life upside down, ripping away all my usual props. It forced me to rethink everything I once knew—”