Lawrence and I watched them disappear into the shop, then looked at one another in amazement.
‘Well what in blazes was that all about?’ Lawrence wondered.
I shook my head. ‘Will looked as though he hadn’t a clue what to say, or do.’
‘Not like him. Decisive bloke, normally. One of the least flappable chaps I know.’
We started to walk again, slowly, and I kept glancing back until the shop doorway was out of sight, but there was no sign of either Will or Evie. Lawrence was becoming quieter and quieter. The earlier fun had gone out of the day, and I knew he was thinking about what tomorrow would bring.
I’d heard him talking to Will about his unit, the Machine Gun Corps, and where they’d likely be going next. There was talk of the Heavy Branch, the tanks, being split from the rest of the regiment and given its own designation of Tank Corps, and I’d longed to ask more questions about what it was like to drive one of those great beasts, or even to ride in one, but Lawrence’s voice had held no enthusiasm, and even Will’s interested conversation had drifted away when he’d sensed that too.
Asking those questions now would have been even harder, so we walked around the market more or less in silence. When we’d circled the remaining stalls, and watched many of the stallholders packing their wares away, the increasing emptiness of the market seemed to echo the shadow that had crept across Lawrence’s mood. We sat down at the edge of the square, in sight of Markham’s shop, to await the return of the others. Lawrence sighed. It was a long, shaky sigh, and a high note escaped his throat unbidden, reminding me he was still only a boy.
‘You’ll be safe,’ I told him quietly, not looking at him. I knew he’d be embarrassed at having made the sound that was almost, but not quite, weeping.
‘How can you say that, you of all people?’
‘Because you have to be. You have to turn Oaklands into a convalescent home, remember?’
He gave a little laugh, then sniffed and wiped his hand across his eyes. ‘Perhaps I’ll be the first customer.’
‘Perhaps,’ I allowed. It would be patronising and pointless to pretend that, at least, wasn’t possible. ‘Either way, you’ll be in the right place, with the right people. And just think of the preferential treatment you’d get!’
He smiled, and was about to answer when we both heard the tinkle of Markham’s shop doorbell. Evie came out first, saw us and waved, and turned to take Will’s arm and it was immediately obvious that she was not merely being affectionate; Will’s walk was hesitant and his free hand was wrapped across his waist. I gasped in sudden pain as Lawrence’s hand clamped down on my arm, and turned to tell him he was hurting me…but the words didn’t come.
Instead I followed his hard, anguished gaze to where Will had stopped to catch his breath, and everything suddenly became very clear. He felt my eyes on him and looked down at me, swallowing a denial, and just gave me a sad, hopeless little shrug. So that was the way of it…the one he loved, whose heart belonged to another.
‘Oh, Lawrence,’ I breathed, and he managed a watery smile.
‘Hush, Kitty. I’m trying to live up to expectation,’ he said, and I felt like weeping along with him.
Evie found us in the sitting room much later. I’d accepted a glass of whisky, to keep Lawrence company, but the taste of it just reminded me of the first time I’d tried it—just a few hours before I’d discovered Colonel Drewe had left me with more than bruises and nightmares. The glass sat on the little table beside the settee, untouched but for that first sip. Lawrence sat beside me, tense and worried, and his own glass rolled between his hands more often than it was raised to his lips, for which I was grateful. His fear of leaving for the Front in the morning had been momentarily eased aside by worry for Will, but Evie smiled, although her face was pale.
‘The doctor’s gone,’ she said, ‘and Will’s under orders to remain in bed. I think that slip in the loft was the last straw. I don’t think there’s any bleeding, his blood pressure hasn’t dropped enough for that, but he ought to stay as still as possible now, and give himself a chance to heal.’ She poured her own drink, and sat down opposite us, closing her eyes as she took her first sip. I felt Lawrence slump in his seat beside me, but I don’t think Evie had noticed any more than the general relief she would expect from a close friend and brother-in-law.
I remembered what had made Will exert himself to find us in the market. ‘What was wrong with Mr Markham, anyway?’
Evie opened her eyes again, and I saw her thoughts come back into focus. ‘It wasn’t him, so much as his daughter.’
‘His daughter?’
‘He got a girl in the family way a few years ago. The kitchen maid, Ruth Wilkins. Ruth was dismissed, of course, and went back to London. I think she was hoping to find her old family, but from what I’ve heard they didn’t want any extra mouths to feed. Frank went to find her when he was invalided out of the army last year, and last week he did.’
‘What’s the matter with the child?’ Lawrence asked.
‘Nothing. At the moment. But Frank has stolen her from her mother, and brought her back here. He has her hidden away in his rooms above the shop.’
I could feel my eyes growing round and wide. ‘Why?’
‘Well, because…’ She fixed me with a troubled look, and sighed. ‘Ruth is working the streets. There are men who…manage her. Amy’s only just four now, but it won’t be too many years before she’ll be in danger of being used in the same way as her mother.’ I went cold at the thought, and my hands clenched painfully tight.
‘I’m certain Ruth would have been happy to let Amy go with Frank,’ Evie went on, ‘but it’s not up to her. The kind of men who control her wouldn’t want to lose a potential moneymaker. The benefits, to them, would outweigh the cost.’
A nasty, greasy, queasy feeling squirmed in my stomach. ‘I just… I can’t even—’
‘Unthinkable,’ Evie agreed quietly. ‘Frank evidently agrees, so when he found out where she was staying he went in there, grabbed Amy, and ran. I gather there was a struggle with one of the men standing over Ruth, but Frank’s quite a big chap, and even one-handed it seems he didn’t have too much trouble. Besides, it wasn’t Ruth he was after.’
‘What will they do to her?’ I whispered, horrified for this girl I’d never known, but even more so at the thought of what might have happened to the poor child.
Evie shook her head. ‘I don’t know, love.’
‘But Amy’s safe?’
‘For now, as I said. But Ruth knows where Frank lives, and she might send them after him and Amy. From her point of view she’d be sensible to do it because, to be brutal about it, it might buy her life.’ She put down her glass. ‘I think you should get some sleep now, Skittles. It’s been a long afternoon. You too,’ she said to Lawrence, and her expression was filled with sadness. ‘You need to be away early tomorrow, after all.’
‘I’m not going to bed,’ Lawrence said quietly. ‘The sooner I go to bed, the sooner it’ll be time to leave.’ His voice hitched suddenly, and when he looked up his eyes were brimming with unshed tears. ‘Evie…I don’t think I can bear it again.’
A second later Evie was at his other side, taking him in her arms and drawing his head to her shoulder. I waited for a moment, unsure what to do, then laid a gentle hand on his shuddering back, and left brother and sister alone.
I came awake, gasping, swamped in a darkness so heavy I couldn’t even tell if my eyes were open. My heart was thudding against my ribs and I could feel sweat trickling down beneath my nightgown, pasting the thin material to my back and buttocks. My thighs were trembling, as if the muscles there had been tightly clenched, and I felt the ghosts of hard fingers pressing into the flesh, the echo of a once-trusted voice telling me to relax…the cool relief of tears at the corners my hot, swollen eyes.
I sat up in bed, these familiar sensations gradually easing away into the peace and silence of Evie’s childhood bedroom, and drew my knees up to rest my forehead on them. This dream was not new, so why had this time been so much worse? I made myself recall as much as I could, exploring what had been different about this one, biting the back of my hand against a sob when the dream became solid memory, as I’d known it would once I poked around in its depths. But I couldn’t fathom what it was that, this time, had brought me awake in the darkness, barely able to breathe.
I lay back down, closed my eyes and, as always, found the only path back to sleep—Archie Buchanan. I didn’t want my imagination to claim the honour of putting this nightmare to flight. I needed it to be as much a memory as the one that had led me here, so I put myself in the road outside the hotel in Dixmude, I put Archie in front of me, and I let my heart do the rest. My hat dropped to the ground to lie beside his, his hands gently tilted my face upwards, and his mouth came down on mine. This time the tears that coursed down my temples to soak my pillow carried my terror and despair with them, and left me feeling calm and able to sleep, with Archie’s hands cradling my head to his chest, and his breath ruffling the fine hair at my crown.
When I awoke again Lawrence had gone. I found Evie sitting alone in the library, a note crumpled on the table beside her. ‘He left in the middle of the night. I convinced him to get a few hours’ sleep, and he promised he would, just so I would go to bed. Then he…just left.’
‘He probably hates goodbyes,’ I said, feeling an emptiness that surprised me; we got along well, but after all we’d only known each other a week. ‘I would have liked the chance to see him away.’
She nodded. ‘Well, he writes often, so I’m sure we’ll hear from him soon, and then we can give him a sound telling-off for sneaking away like that.’
‘Your mother must be beside herself. And how is Will today?’
‘He’s awfully fed up. I keep nagging at him to lie still, and he’s just not used to it. She swallowed hard, and in her face I saw the battle she fought day after day. ‘I sometimes feel like forcing him to take that blessed morphine,’ she admitted. ‘But at the same time I know why he doesn’t, and it… Oh, Kitty, if it were possible to love him more, I would now.’
‘He’ll never turn into what Colonel Drewe became,’ I said softly. ‘It’s just not in him.’
‘But he sees my fear of it,’ Evie said. ‘And he won’t risk it.’
‘He’s a very courageous man,’ I said, and she gave me a distracted smile, her mind on her husband, and his struggle towards recovery without pain relief.
I couldn’t bear to see her distraught, and shifted the subject slightly. ‘Has he got something to read?’
‘One or two things.’ Her smile became more natural then. ‘I daren’t give him any of our really valuable books. He’s more likely to rip the pages out and re-create the Taj Mahal. Oh!’ She remembered something, and went to a bureau in the corner of the room. ‘Remember I showed you that stall, where I bought my wedding gown material?’
‘Yes. I’d love to see the dress itself, if you have time?’
‘It’s packed away, but this is what I was going to show you,’ she pulled out a book of photographs, and flicked through the heavy pages for a moment. ‘Here. Our wedding day.’
There were only three photographs. One wasn’t fixed properly, and slid out as I lifted the tissue paper away, and Evie caught it before it fell to the floor. She passed it to me, and I caught my breath.
‘Evie, it’s beautiful!’
‘He’s beautiful,’ she pointed out softly, and I looked again. Although I’d seen him every day for two months, I’d never seen him completely free of pain. In this picture, taken the very day before he’d left England in 1914, he was standing tall and straight beside his new wife, lit with pride, his hair ruffled by the wind and his face unmarked by the experiences that would so soon change him for ever. He was, as she said, beautiful. I looked up in time to see her wipe her eye with the back of her hand.
I looked more closely, trying to pick out the design of her dress, and noticed a rather grey, shabby-looking something, scrunched up at her belt. ‘What’s that?’
She took the picture to see what I was talking about, and smiled. ‘That, young Skittles, is the rose Will made me out of newspaper before the war. The rose I took to Flanders, and the rose that led me to your brother when he was hiding out in Number Twelve and probably saved his life.’ I fought back a familiar pang at the thought of what Oli had gone through, and she saw it.
She touched my hand gently. ‘Do give him my love when you write to him. And let me know how he is when you hear back.’
I nodded, and there was a quiet moment—I don’t know whether Evie’s thoughts were with Will or Oli at that moment, but mine had taken an unexpected turn towards Frank Markham and his daughter. With that turn came a sudden idea that made me sit up very straight, and I opened my mouth, but before I could say anything the door opened and Lily came in, an odd look on her face.
I assumed it was sorrow at the way Lawrence had left, but Evie read the look, accurately, as shock rather than sadness. She led her mother to the biggest of the armchairs and made her sit down, then sat down herself, on the arm. ‘What is it?’ Her voice shook; there were so many things that could put that look on someone’s face nowadays.
‘It’s Samuel Wingfield,’ Lily said, sounding as if her lips were too numb to speak properly. ‘They’ve found his body. In Germany.’
The name rang a faint bell with me, but neither Evie nor her mother wore any hint of grief as their eyes met. Lily still looked stunned, but Evie’s face was carefully expressionless, although I saw her hands wrap around each other on her lap.
‘How did he die?’
Lily blinked and looked away. ‘I, uh, I don’t know. It was a telegram. Matthew is coming to explain.’ She cleared her throat, and stood up, fussily smoothing down her skirt. ‘He’ll be here this afternoon. Evie, call Mrs Cavendish if you would, please? Tell her we’ll be one more for dinner.’
‘Mother,’ Evie rose and stopped Lily as she reached the door. ‘Has this upset you?’
Lily opened and shut her mouth once or twice, then shook her head. ‘You know I have never taken to Samuel,’ she said finally. ‘I despise the man, and always have.’
‘Then why…’ Evie made a vague gesture with her hand, to encompass Lily’s arrival, and her stunned inability to think straight.
‘It’s…I… Evie, he was going to give it back!’
‘What?’ Evie froze, and now her face too was white and shocked-looking.
‘The Kalt…the… He sent me a letter. I agreed to pay him. He was going to give it back,’ she repeated, ‘and now it’s gone for ever.’ I looked from one to the other in slowly dawning realisation. No wonder she had still been so keen to see Lawrence and me together.
‘The diamond?’ I said, just to be sure. They both turned to me with identical looks of surprise that just as quickly melted as they faced one another again. I was effectively shut out, which suited me well for now, but they didn’t ask me to leave.
‘Mother, tell me everything, and then I’ll tell you what I know,’ Evie said, and I could hear her struggling to stay calm.
Lily frowned slightly at that, but returned to her chair, smoothing her dress down almost obsessively as she explained, ‘He wrote to me last year. I’m surprised you didn’t find the letter. It arrived when you were home on leave. I had only just opened it when you came into the morning room.’
A glance at Evie showed startled recollection. ‘I saw you push something away under your blotter. But then the telegram came to say Will had been exonerated, and it completely went out of my mind.’
‘The letter said…it said…’ Lily stopped, her lip trembling too much to continue. I’d never seen her so unsure of herself, and now there were tears at the corners of her eyes too, and Evie was moved to crouch at her knee and take her hand.
‘Just let me read the letter, Mother. We’ll talk later.’
Lily nodded. ‘It’s in my room, in a box at the top of the wardrobe.’ As Evie rose to leave, Lily caught at her arm. ‘I’ll be in the garden, I need some fresh air.’
Evie gestured to me to follow, and together we almost ran upstairs to Lily’s room. I had a moment to appreciate the clean, plain beauty of it, so huge, white and ruffle-free, but with heavy red velvet curtains and a deeply plush carpet of the same colour, and then Evie had pulled down the box from the wardrobe. Together we sat on the bed, and she pulled out an envelope, with Lily’s name printed on it in extremely neat handwriting. She read the letter aloud.
‘ “My dear Lily,
‘ “I find myself in possession of something you misplaced in the first few hours of 1913. I would very much like to return it to you but cannot possibly offer it gratis, and the cost of such a thing might, I understand, be seen as prohibitive. However, I am prepared to wait one full year, in order to allow you time to gather the necessary funds. The return of your lost item will, over time, more than enable you to recoup your losses.
‘ “To assist you in your decision I must tell you I have certain knowledge of your late husband that would, should it be revealed, cause deep concern. Naturally I would hate for anything to come to light that would absolutely and without doubt ruin the Creswells as a family of note, and I trust that you and I will come to some arrangement regarding the aforementioned item, in order to re-establish cordial relations.
‘ “Do not trouble yourself to try and reply. I have not supplied a return address and instead will write to you again in one year with suggested arrangements. Should I receive any unwanted attention in the meantime you must consider this mutually beneficial offer withdrawn, and all my personal goodwill towards the family with it.
‘ “SW” ’
‘What knowledge was he talking about?’ I asked, in a kind of awed horror. If I had hoped for excitement at Oaklands, this was certainly above and beyond my expectations, and far more than I might have wished for. At the same time, fascination had me in its cool, impersonal grip, and I wanted to know everything.
But Evie shook her head. ‘It doesn’t matter. What matters is that he’s dead now, and Father’s secret with him. But I suspect we haven’t seen the last of that damnable stone after all, more’s the pity.’
I looked at her for a moment, suspicion dawning at the way she kept her eyes averted. ‘What do you know about this, Evie?’ I kept my voice even, but I heard a firmness in it that surprised us both. She looked at me briefly, then back down at the letter.
‘I know what Samuel’s talking about, and I know who killed him. At least I think I do.’
‘Who?’
‘Uncle Jack.’ For a moment I thought I’d misheard, but a look at her face told me I hadn’t. She looked sickly pale, almost green, and I knew my face would be the same. Jack?
I cleared my throat, barely trusting myself to speak. ‘But he’s not that… I mean, he’s…’
‘Kind? Dependable?’ Evie said. ‘Honest?’
‘Yes! Like Archie.’
‘He’s all those things, darling, but he’s not like Archie. Not all the way through.’ She closed her eyes and swallowed hard, and her voice trembled when she said, ‘I’ve learned a lot about him in the past year, Kitty.’
‘What things?’
But she shook her head. ‘Not now. The important thing is I trust him, and I love him. Probably more than ever. But I truly believe he killed Samuel Wingfield, and I believe he now has the Kalteng Star.’
I couldn’t take it in. It was too big, too horrific to consider. I concentrated, instead, on what I knew. ‘He went to Germany, right after the trial. Was this the reason?’
She nodded. ‘I overheard him and Lizzy talking about it one night. He’d seen Samuel when he was there last. Lizzy was frightened. She didn’t want him to go, but he insisted. For me. And most of all, I think, for my father. He’d promised to protect our family, and this was his way of doing it.’
‘I saw the tree he planted for your father,’ I ventured, after a little silence. Then I had to ask, ‘Will you tell your mother Samuel’s secret, whatever it is?’
She shook her head. ‘Uncle Jack risked everything to protect it, and my mother.’
‘But don’t you think she has a right to know whatever it is Wingfield was hiding?’ Lawrence’s anguished expression as he’d looked at Will came to mind, and I pressed on. ‘If you know something, surely you ought to tell the person it affects the most?’
‘Not if it’s not going to change anything,’ Evie said, ‘and especially not if it’s just going to cause hurt. There’s enough of that in the world just at the moment, don’t you agree? What would be the use?’
I thought about it; my knowledge of Lawrence’s feelings for Will had not changed them, nor would Will’s or Evie’s. I looked up at her, but she was staring across the room, seeing only she knew what. She was right; what good would it do?
I touched her hand and she came back with a jump. ‘Evie, your mother will be in the garden, waiting for you. Do you want me to come too?’
‘No, I’d like to be alone with her. Perhaps you might go and check on Will? Tell him I won’t be long.’
I knocked at Will’s door, and he sounded alert and cheerful as he called for me to come in. It felt as if I hadn’t smiled for days, but I did so now, at the sight of him propped up against his pillows, looking rested and comfortable.
‘You really are a dreadful layabout,’ I said, sitting down on the bed. ‘Evie just asked me to pop in and let you know she’s talking to her mother, but she won’t be long.’
‘Thank you.’
‘How are you feeling?’
‘A lot better. I’ve been threatened with all sorts of things I shouldn’t trouble a young lady with, if I try and get out of bed without help.’
I laughed. ‘Good!’
‘I gather Lawrence has already left,’ he said. Something about his voice made me look at him sharply, but his face gave nothing away.
‘He went in the middle of the night,’ I said. ‘You’ve been friends quite a while, haven’t you?’
‘Since the day the van went over, I suppose.’
‘He probably thought you were quite worldly. To a young boy, you would be.’
His blue eyes narrowed slightly as he met my deliberately steady gaze. Then he sighed, and I could hear the relief in it. ‘Just don’t say anything to Evie. Please.’
‘So you know then?’
‘I might not be a special kind of genius, but I’m not daft. I’ve seen the way he looks at me sometimes, although I pretend not to.’ Then he added softly, ‘It’s the same way Archie Buchanan looks at you.’
My head jerked as if someone had tugged my hair, and when I looked at Will I saw the gentlest of smiles on his face. ‘We’re not talking about Archie,’ I muttered.
‘Why not? I don’t want to talk about Lawrence. I want to know why you’ve turned Archie down when you clearly love him every bit as deeply as he loves you.’
‘It’s because I do love him.’ I remembered my conversation with Lawrence, and how it had lifted me to be able to speak of my feelings, and I wanted that feeling of relief again, as temporary as it was. So I told Will everything that had weighed my heart down for so long, but this time there was no relief in the words I spoke; each one was a spike in my throat.
‘It matters to me that he has the life he deserves,’ I finished. ‘And he deserves someone he can be proud of.’
‘And it doesn’t matter to you whether he’s happy?’
‘Of course it does!’
‘You make him happy, Skittles. I could see it at the farm. We all could.’ He squeezed my hand and made me look at him. ‘Take it from one who knows… You have to grab every chance you can.’
‘That’s what Lawrence said.’
‘Well, he’s clearly a man of good sense. Not to mention impeccable taste.’ Will gave a wry smile, and let go of my hand in order to brace himself and shift his position against the pillows. ‘Can’t you at least give him a chance?’
‘Lawrence?’ I quipped, and he rolled his eyes, making me smile.
‘Look, I understand why you did it, but really, don’t you think it’s up to him to decide whether you’re “worthy” of him?’
‘I do sound rather as if I’m playing the martyr, don’t I?’
‘Not at all, sweetheart. Your family have proved how important it is. To them, at least. But Archie’s…well, he’s different. He won’t set any store by something as ridiculous and changeable as circumstance.’
‘I know, but—’
‘Look at Jack and Lizzy. When Lizzy met Jack she was seventeen, and as innocent as could be. She was twenty-two when they finally got together, and just out of prison. No more her fault than what happened to you was yours. We all know that, despite what your parents said.’ He took my hand again. ‘Do you think Archie’s a lesser man than Jack? Or Lizzy more of a woman than you?’
‘But Lizzy’s wonderf—’
‘And so are you. You should credit Archie with the same ability to see the truth as his uncle.’
My heart began to pick up pace as I thought about what he’d said. He was right. I’d been draping my family’s prejudices over Archie, dressing him with that same ugly, opaque cloth and not daring to listen when he’d tried to cast it away. I’d done the same with him as I’d done with Evie, Frances and Belinda—heard their declarations of love and friendship, and searched so hard for a way to convince myself they meant it that I’d talked myself out of believing in it.
I felt a new, hopeful smile creep across my face. ‘I’ll do it. I’ll write to him.’ Then I hesitated. ‘What if he’s already changed his mind though?’
‘Then you must change it back,’ Will said. He closed his eyes and his voice dropped. ‘Best do it today.’
‘I’ll have Evie chasing me up hill and down dale if I tire you out,’ I said, standing up. ‘I’ll leave you to sleep now.’ I leaned over and kissed him lightly on the forehead. ‘Thank you, Will. I miss Oli dreadfully, but you’re the perfect big brother.’
‘Happy to oblige,’ he murmured. ‘Now off you go and tell Archie what a little idiot you are.’
The Matthew who had sent the telegram was, I was surprised to learn, Samuel Wingfield’s son. I would never have guessed it from the warmth of the greeting extended by both Lily and Evie; I’d understood the enmity between the two families to be severe, yet Evie clearly trusted him, and Lily liked him. I gathered he was the only member of the Wingfield family who had earned himself the epithet of ‘uncle’, with the Creswell children.
‘How is Constance?’ Evie asked, as we went in to dinner. No-one had yet mentioned Samuel; it seemed everyone, including his son, was reluctant to bring his name out and turn the evening sour.
‘Constance is Uncle Matthew’s sister,’ Evie explained, seeing me trying to keep up with it all. ‘And, to make things more confusing, she was once engaged to marry Uncle Jack.’
‘Now there’s a chap I always respected,’ Mr Wingfield said, and by the way he looked at Evie I guessed he knew more about Jack than Lily did, and was aware that Evie knew it too. Presumably then, he would be the one to confirm her suspicions, although the more I thought about that, the less likely it seemed. Jack Carlisle was impressive, imposing even, and there was a distinct sense that he knew a great many influential people, but when I thought of the man who’d taken such pains to put me at my ease during Oli’s trial; the man who’d moved mountains, and furniture, to ensure I’d be as comfortable with him as I could be; the man who loved the same people I did… How could anyone imagine he was capable of murder?
By dessert, Evie had had enough of tiptoeing around the subject, and as soon as Dodsworth had left the room she turned to Mr Wingfield. ‘Uncle Matthew, you said you would explain how your father died. That is, if you’re not too—’
‘Not at all, dear.’ Mr Wingfield patted his mouth with the thick napkin, and replaced it on the table next to him, deliberately arranging it, and using the time to gather his thoughts.
‘My father’s body was found close to the Swiss border,’ he said. ‘He’d been shot, once. A clean shot, between the eyes.’
‘An assassin’s shot,’ Lily murmured, and I was jolted by the phrase.
Evie saw my expression, and although her face had paled, her voice was steady. ‘It’s what my father used to call snipers. Both our side and the enemy’s. Uncle Jack hated it. He always said it was an assassin when it was them, but a marksman when it was our side.’
‘You won’t have any love to share for snipers, Evie,’ Mr Wingfield said gently. ‘Let’s not talk about that now; it’s not helping.’
‘So why do you think your father was killed?’ Evie asked.
‘He’d been carrying…papers, evidently. Classified papers.’ He cast a look at Lily, and I read uncertainty in it. ‘Lily, I’m not sure if you knew this, but my father was a spy.’
I nearly dropped my fork. Part of me was fizzing with excitement at the thought of all I’d have to tell Belinda, but a colder part of me realised the implication, and I caught Evie’s eye. She gave the slightest, warning shake of her head, and I dropped my gaze back to my food, pulse racing. Jack was a spy as well, then…and Archie?
My breath caught at the thought, and I began to choke. Eyes streaming, I turned to Lily for help, and she absently handed me a glass of water before turning her stunned attention back on Samuel. I was able to force a tiny dribble down the frighteningly small passage of my constricted throat, and made myself breathe very slowly, swallowing time and time again until I could feel the air moving more easily. By then Mr Wingfield had finished talking, and there was a heavy silence lying over the table. He rose and poured Lily’s wine for her himself. Lily drank half the glass down at once, and set it back on the table with a trembling hand.
Mr Wingfield reached for that hand, and it lay unresponsive in his, as he spoke very gently. ‘Jack’s a spy, too, Lily. But Samuel was working for the Germans, and Jack’s one of ours.’
‘Hush!’ Lily glanced over at Evie, as if to indicate this was not the time to reveal such devastating news. But Evie looked away, expressionless, and Lily’s face tightened. ‘You knew, Evangeline?’
‘Yes.’
‘For how long?’
‘Does it matter?’
‘Yes!’
‘Last year. When Samuel took the Kalteng Star and Lizzy was hurt.’
Lily’s face wore an expression of one for whom many different puzzle pieces were slotting into place all at once. She kept opening her mouth to say something, remembering something else, and subsiding. In the end she picked up her glass again and finished her drink before standing up. ‘I’m going for a walk,’ she said in an oddly calm voice. ‘I’d very much like to be left alone for a while.’
When she had left the room, a piece of that puzzle slipped into place for me, too, but I didn’t want to voice it in front of Matthew Wingfield, just in case he was not the kindly man he appeared to be. After all, he was Samuel’s son. I looked at Evie, who nodded. Her father had also been a spy—the secret Jack had been protecting.
The question that burned in my mind now, and wouldn’t be quenched by any amount of wine, was whether Archie was who he seemed to be after all.