Bennett was there, waiting for her, as she had hoped and believed he would be. He’d been sitting on the room’s only chair, which belonged to a small table by the window, and now he stood and faced her. Between them loomed the bed, too wide for one person and not quite wide enough for two. She hoped it was not the sort of bed that squeaked if you so much as breathed on it.
He was dressed in workman’s clothes, clean but ragged, his coat hung carefully on the back of the chair. His hair had grown out in the months since she’d seen him last, and now had some curl to it, as she’d always thought it would. His mustache and beard were threaded with silver, and his face and forearms were tanned.
For long seconds she stared at him, drinking in the sight of his features, his form, everything about him. He was too thin, too tired, but he seemed to be uninjured.
“How did you find me in that crowd?” she asked.
“I’d been keeping an eye on you since you landed in France.” Of course he had.
“I got your letter,” she said.
“I know. I wish I hadn’t left it. Looking back, it seems so ridiculously self-centered. To leave you with that as a goodbye. It would have been better to simply vanish.”
“No,” she insisted. “Never say that. I treasure that letter. Would you believe I have it memorized? Just like you with your poems.”
“There was nothing very poetic about it,” he grumbled.
“I disagree. And what does it matter now? We’re here. We survived. What do you say to that?”
He smiled, his teeth a flash of white against his tanned face and dark beard, and took a step toward her, then another, until his knees bumped against the bed.
She moved forward, too, her heart hammering in her breast, and before she could think twice she unbuttoned her uniform jacket. A shimmy of her shoulders, enough to make Bennett’s eyes darken with hunger, and it fell to the floor.
“Ruby,” he rumbled, his deep voice roughened by desire. “If you only knew how many times I’ve thought about this moment. Tried to conjure up every last detail. Wondered if I’d ever have the chance.”
“I know,” she said, emotion clogging her throat. “I wondered, too.”
She unbuttoned the cuffs on her shirt, untucked it from her skirt, and not once did she look away from his face. Another step forward and she was kneeling on the bed. A heartbeat later and she was in his arms, enveloped in his fierce embrace, and he was kissing her, his mouth pressing against hers with growing and near-desperate urgency, his beard deliciously rough against her shivering skin.
She unbuttoned his shirt and dragged it down his arms, and as soon as it was gone she pulled his undershirt loose from his trousers and pulled it off, too. His skin was pale, apart from the tan of his forearms and throat, and contrasted sharply with the dark, softly curling hair that dusted his upper chest. All the easier, then, for her to see the marks that told her more about his work than she had ever wanted to know.
There were too many bruises to count, some fresh, some fading, and there was a long, puckered scar, newly healed, across his tautly muscled stomach. He stood there, let her run her fingers over the evidence of past wounds, and not once did he protest, not even when she found the mark by his collarbone. An older scar, raised and circular, no bigger than the diameter of her baby finger.
“Were you shot?” she asked, touching it lightly. Afraid it might still hurt.
“Yes. It happened a while ago.”
She swept her fingers over his back, where a scar from the bullet’s exit wound ought to be, and found nothing but smooth skin. “Is the bullet still inside you?” she asked, her mouth going dry.
“No. Someone dug it out. I’m embarrassed to say I passed out before she was done.”
“She?”
“The village midwife. And a nun, as it happens. Risked her life to save me.”
“Perhaps, one day, you might return to wherever it was, and thank her.”
“Perhaps,” he agreed. “Are you almost done with your inspection?”
“Almost. What about this one? On your stomach?”
“What about it? I survived, didn’t I? And they look worse than they are. Even the tiniest scratch leaves a mark on me.”
“These aren’t scratches,” she whispered, her lips brushing over each scar. “They’re badges of honor.”
His skin was surprisingly sensitive, jumping and twitching wherever her mouth landed, but she didn’t halt, didn’t even consider it, until he took hold of her chin and tilted her head back just enough that he might look her in the eye.
“I don’t want to think about any of that tonight,” he said, and then he kissed her again, his mouth tracing a glowing line from her lips to the fluttery place just below her earlobe, and from there down to her collarbone and the rising swell of her breasts.
She began to unbutton her uniform shirt, but this time he pushed aside her hands and did it himself. Then he was unfastening her skirt, which he whisked over her head before she could protest, and she was left in nothing more than her brassiere, panties, garter belt, and stockings.
“You are so beautiful,” he whispered reverently. “Everything about you is lovely. Everything.”
“I love you,” she said. “I feel as if I’ve loved you forever.”
“I know. I love you, too. Such a gift, to be able to say it to your face. There were so many times when I thought I would never get the chance.”
“How long do we have? I mean until you leave.”
“Only until the morning.”
“Then what are we waiting for?” she asked, and this time it was her turn to kiss him.
RUBY WOKE BEFORE dawn, her head tucked against his shoulder, feeling so content that she couldn’t imagine ever wanting to move. The curtains were thin and worn, and did little to mask the brightening sky outside, but she didn’t care, for she planned on memorizing every detail of his face and form before he disappeared into his work again.
There was nothing about him that she didn’t like, from the soft, dark hair on his chest to the wash of freckles across his pale shoulders. Even his hands were lovely, with long, straight fingers.
Only then did she notice the marks around his wrists, horrid purple welts that had broken and scabbed over in a few places.
“What is this?” she whispered, her throat closing in.
Nearly a minute passed before he answered, his eyes still shut tight. “I was caught. Beaten. There was a hook in the wall. They tied me to it and left me dangling for a few days. But that, and a round of kicks and punches, were the worst of it. They couldn’t have been that suspicious or I wouldn’t be here now.”
“When did this happen?”
“A few weeks ago.”
“And when you say ‘they,’ who do you mean?”
“The Milice. The collaborationists’ militia. If it had been the Gestapo proper, I’d be dead.”
“What did they accuse you of doing?” she asked, so nauseous she thought she might have to run for the bathroom down the hall.
“Nothing. They never asked me a thing. My walking down the street out of uniform was enough. Perhaps they were bored, and I was a way for them to pass the time.”
“Were you afraid?”
“Of course I was. Only a fool forgets to be afraid. But I knew as long as I kept my head they would probably let me go. My papers were in order, and I speak French without an accent. I simply had to endure until they found someone else to torment.”
“All those times you were away, when you disappeared for months, were you in France?”
“Sometimes. That’s all I can tell you.”
“I heard some people talking once. They said that people like you were given a cyanide tablet and a garrote, and not much else.”
“A knife is better. Quieter and faster.”
“So you . . . you’ve had to kill people?”
“Yes.”
“Was that the hardest thing you’ve ever done?”
“I . . . no. No, it wasn’t.” He covered his eyes with his forearm, as if to block out the sight of his most painful memories. “It’s not simply the case that I’m secretive, you know. I don’t want you to know such things because I don’t want you to be burdened by them.”
“But that’s part of loving someone. Sharing the weight of the burdens they carry. If you want to tell me, then go ahead. I won’t break.”
He swallowed, the muscles in his jaw convulsing, and her hand, resting against his chest, began to thrum from the drumbeat of his racing heart.
“I was working with another man. He was captured by the Gestapo. He killed himself before they could get anything out of him, and they decided to retaliate.
“I’d had just enough time to hide. Was high up on a rooftop that overlooked the village square. They dragged in the handful of young men who were left—most had been taken away to labor camps—and they hanged them from the plane trees around the perimeter of the square. One after the other, as their mothers screamed and begged and pleaded with the Germans. Seven of them, and the youngest was fifteen. He was only fifteen.
“I had to watch them die. There was nothing I could do. I’d have given myself up to save them, but I had to send out a message. My colleague hadn’t enough time to get it out before he was captured. I can’t tell you what it was about, but it was vital. I knew that thousands of lives, perhaps tens of thousands, would be spared if I could get that message sent. And so I stayed hidden and watched them die. It’s been more than a year, but when I close my eyes I can still see their faces.”
“If they had caught you,” she asked carefully, “would we have known? Would someone have called Uncle Harry?”
“Yes. You’d have known that I was dead, but that was all.”
“We were worried earlier in the summer. Harry stopped getting the postcards from your office.”
His arms tightened about her. “I am sorry about that. They lost track of me, and it wasn’t safe for me to let them know I was alive. Once I was able to send out a message, I did pass on the news, but that was less than a week ago. You were already on your way to France.”
“What now? What happens next?”
“We make love. We say our farewells. And then you return to your work, I return to mine, and we both do our level best not to get killed.”
“And after the war?”
“I will come home to you. It may be months or even years, but I will come home to you.”