Viv ordered two French 75s and met Grace’s questioning look with a grin. “It’s my favorite,” Viv shouted over the blast of lively music. “They say it has more punch than a French 75mm. Meaning it will even get you out on the dance floor, Duckie.”
The beverages arrived in tall glasses with bubbles dancing up their sides. The drink was tart and sweet with a fizz that tickled Grace’s tongue and set a warmth glowing through her. It took only one to melt away her inhibitions and pull her toward the beat of the live band playing their souls out on the stage.
Grace and Viv danced on and on through the night, with soldiers, with men who had jobs that kept them from conscription, and even with each other. By the end of the night, Grace’s cheeks hurt from laughing and her veins were still buzzing with the electricity of the night, the drinks and the joy of dancing.
It was the first time since the start of the Blitz, as the papers termed the interminable onslaught by Germany, that she’d been able to set it all aside. She didn’t once think about the bombs, or the destruction they caused, or how no matter how hard she worked, she could never make the world right.
She was alive.
She was young.
And she was having fun.
This was what life in London was supposed to be for her and Viv—a celebration of youth and happiness and everything she’d set aside for far too long.
The effervescence of it all kept the smile hovering on her lips through the following morning after they freshened up and stepped out of the Grosvenor into a world of snow flurries and smoke.
In the daylight, the familiar odor of war hit Grace like a punch, and all the exhilaration crushed out of her. Rubble and fragments of broken glass littered the street just beyond the immaculately swept entryway to the hotel. Several fires still burned in the surrounding buildings, the oily scent on the air indicative of incendiaries.
It was then she realized the flecks whirling in the air weren’t snow at all, but ash.
“Would you like me to ring you a taxi?” one of the hotel’s attendants asked.
“How could this have happened while we were inside?” Grace asked through numb lips. “I never heard any of it.”
“The sand bags.” The attendant puffed his chest proudly. “We’ve so many, it blots out the bombings completely.”
A chill threaded through Grace’s veins that had nothing to do with the bite of icy wind. They were never informed of an air raid being sounded. It was all too easy to imagine what a bomb would have done to such a large roomful of people. Everyone dancing, carousing, oblivious. A shudder rippled down her back.
The realization was immediately replaced by the heavy press of guilt.
While residents were outside being bombed, losing their homes and their lives as volunteers worked all night to save who and what they could, Grace had been dancing.
A pain lashed through her. She could have been out here, helping. She could have been able to offer first aid, comfort, advice to the rescue crews on who might be where and in need. She could have manned a stirrup pump to help with dousing the flames. She could have—
Viv tucked Grace’s arm in the crook of hers. “Come, let’s go to the station.”
“I could have helped.” Grace let herself be led away, barely acknowledging the attendant’s warning to mind their step.
“You could have been killed,” Viv said, sharper than Grace had ever heard her speak.
In truth, they all could have been killed. Thick walls and sandbags didn’t do much. Even underground. She’d heard of too many shelters whose occupants thought themselves safe, only to be bombed or buried in rubble.
And the hotel had never even told them of the air raid.
Their feet crunched over broken glass, and heat wafted toward them from a pile of shattered bricks with flames still burning somewhere within.
“You walk outside while this is going on?” Viv asked quietly.
“Of course,” Grace frowned. “I should have been out here last night.”
“No.” Viv stopped in front of Grace and met her eyes. “You are working yourself ragged. You needed the distraction, at least for one evening, and I’m glad you took it.” She looked around in horrified awe before turning her attention back to Grace. “Good God, the things you must see.”
Then she threw her arms around Grace and squeezed her in a hug that smelled like the old Viv, all sweet floral perfume that overwhelmed the acrid odor in the air. “You’re so brave,” Viv whispered. “So very brave.”
Brave.