CHAPTER 23
We did, indeed, find the crossroad cutting north. And it was wider than that single dirt lane. But about two miles from the turn, Sidney’s motorcar suddenly began to hiss and splutter, and steam seeped from underneath the bonnet.
A ferocious scowl transformed his face as he pulled the Pierce-Arrow to a stop. “What’s this? I just checked her over.” He threw the vehicle into park. “Unless she jostled something loose on these rubbish roads.”
I wisely remained silent as he climbed out, removed his coat, and rolled up his sleeves so he could look under her bonnet. He cursed, leaping backward as more steam billowed forth. Once it had cleared, he moved forward again to examine the engine.
“What is it?” I asked as he stomped toward the far side running board, muttering to himself.
I heard the clink and clatter of tools shifting about in the small storage box strapped there, and then a softly muttered oath. In the wing mirror, I watched as he threw down the rag he’d been wiping his hands with and then turned to pace away, his hands on his hips. After a moment, he retrieved the rag from the ground and returned to the bonnet.
But it wasn’t long before he slammed it shut again and turned to me. “The radiator has sprung a leak.” He stared up and down the empty road. In all the time we’d been parked there, not a single vehicle had driven by. “If I had my pliers, I could patch it long enough to get us back to civilization, but they appear to be missing, even though I saw them not three quarters of an hour ago.”
“Oh, dear,” I replied evenly, wondering if one of those animated boys might have had something to do with it, even if by accident.
He began unrolling his sleeves in sharp movements. “I suppose we’d better start walking.”
I offered him a smile of commiseration and gathered up what I thought shouldn’t be left behind and tossed it into the shoulder satchel where I’d stored some food and a bottle of cider. I couldn’t help shooting an anxious glance up at the sky heavy with clouds. It was difficult to tell whether the light had grown dimmer because rain was imminent or daylight was merely beginning to wane. Sidney seemed to share my concern for he retrieved a blanket from the rear seat and draped it over his arm before taking the satchel from me to loop it over his shoulders.
We set off down the road toward the north. There was little evidence of human habitation, and the homes and barns that did exist were badly damaged, or little more than charred remains. Yet more sins to lay at the advancing German Army’s feet. Still the walk was easy, and I quickly found my stride again, even after almost a year’s absence from this terrain.
Sidney marched along just as effortlessly, though I could tell he had adjusted his gait to match my shorter one. I worried the shoulder satchel might pull uncomfortably at the healed bullet wound in his chest, but he didn’t appear to be troubled by it. Nevertheless, I was about to ask him about it when he spoke.
“I suppose you’re accustomed to this?”
I looked at him in question.
He gestured broadly with his hand. “Walking cross-country like this. Though I suppose much of it was done at night.” He sounded genuinely interested, but still I demurred.
“I never really got used to it. Not when I knew I could stumble across German soldiers at any moment.” I glanced about me at the flat terrain. “After all, when they called out to you to stop, you had better do so.”
“Weren’t you afraid?”
I glanced up into his wide, troubled eyes.
“We heard the stories at the front, read the newspapers. I know they were censored and exaggerated, but, nevertheless, the Americans didn’t dub the Germans’ actions ‘The Rape of Belgium’ for no reason.”
I knew what he was really asking, and I sought to reassure him. “Of course, I was afraid. How could I not be? And yes, I was . . . pestered to a certain degree. As all the women were. And I didn’t like it.” I crossed my arms over my chest, feeling sullied even now. “I cried the first time it happened. But then I knew it could have been so much worse. And . . . and one simply had to carry on. The German command certainly wasn’t going to stop their men from doing such things.”
I inhaled a steadying breath, lowering my arms. “The best thing I could do, the only thing, was to complete the tasks assigned to me, and help to defeat them, and drive them out of Belgium. And in time, the acuteness of the terror faded. Didn’t it for you?”
He frowned down at his feet. “Yes, I suppose so.” Then he surprised me by adding. “Or perhaps it was more a matter that one stopped caring altogether.”
His gaze lifted to my shocked one and his lips twisted in irritation. “Not that I was suicidal. Merely that it was easier to just follow orders and stop concerning yourself with everything else.”
I could hear in his voice that he wished this was genuinely true, but I knew better. “Now why do I suspect that’s a lie?”
His head turned abruptly taking in my gently chastising expression.
“Sidney, I’ve seen the way you treat your former soldiers. I watch how it tears you up to see their lost limbs and low spirits. I mean, for heaven’s sakes, you faked your own death so that you could search for evidence to expose a traitor among your ranks! And you told off those two busybody ladies in that café for being insensitive.” He opened his mouth to argue, but I cut him off. “Not that they didn’t deserve it. But don’t try to tell me you stopped caring.”
When he didn’t respond, I decided to push a little further.
“Somehow, I suspect you know the exact number of men you killed with your own hands,” I murmured.
His face seemed to close in on itself, struggling to contain the dark emotions I sensed roiling underneath. But he didn’t deny it, and I suspected that was as near a confirmation as I was going to receive. His shoulders seemed to bow, shouldering all the weight of that pain, that guilt, and I wished there was something I could do for him. Some way I could ease that suffering. But that was not my absolution to give.
“It was hell, Sidney,” I said, knowing full well it was not enough. “All you could do was survive it and help as many of your men as possible survive it.”
He didn’t speak for a long time after that. We marched along with nothing but the rustle of the wind through the grass at the side of the road, and the honking cry of a flight of geese overhead to break the stillness, as the light continued to fade. But there was still one more thing bothering me, one more concern. Given all the other revelations of the previous evening and today, I finally felt brave enough to voice it.
“Do you really mind it so much, then?” I kicked a stray rock toward the verge of the road, feeling his gaze lift to look at me. “The fact that I worked for the Secret Service? Does it bother you?”
“Is that what you think?” His voice was more serene than I expected.
“I don’t know what to think. But I see the way you look at me. I see the doubt, the uncertainty . . . and I can only wonder.”
He blew out a heavy breath. “I suppose I have been doing that. But it’s not that I doubted you. Or rather . . . it’s that I doubted everyone.” His mouth flattened into a humorless smile, recognizing he wasn’t making sense. “I suppose I’m wary of being duped again.”
I stiffened, but tried to follow his rationale. “Because of the war?”
He nodded. “All the bloody lies they told us to rationalize the loss of so many lives. All the bloody lies some of my closest friends and fellow officers told to hide the fact that they were committing treason.” He halted and turned to me. “Once you began to reveal just what part you had played in the Secret Service, I started to wonder if I was being deceived again.”
“And then last night I confirmed it,” I whispered.
But he shook his head, reaching for my arm. “No, Verity. What happened between you and Xavier? That was different. I can see that now.” He grimaced. “And I only have myself to blame for allowing you to believe I was dead.” He leaned over me so that our foreheads nearly touched. “It doesn’t mean I like it. But . . . I accept it.”
I inhaled a ragged breath. “Thank you.”
“Don’t thank me,” he insisted. “And don’t for a minute think I’m not proud of the work you did during the war.” His lips quirked upward at one corner. “It just took me a little while to come to terms with it, that’s all. I’m afraid no man likes to hear his wife has placed herself in such danger, even for a good cause.”
I smiled up at him, blinking back tears as emotion welled in my chest.
It was then that a rumble of thunder rolled in the distance. We turned as one to stare up at the sky, and I touched my cheek, swiping away a raindrop.
“We’d better find shelter.”
Unfortunately, the only thing still standing within sight was an old barn about a quarter of a mile down the road. We hurried toward it, breaking into a run as the rain that had dogged us all day let loose. The blanket Sidney had brought and held over us did little to keep us dry. So by the time he pulled aside the door and we slipped inside, we were both sodden.
I struggled to catch my breath as I removed my hat from my head and shook it out. Turning to survey our surroundings, I discovered the barn was really more of a stable. One that was empty of any animals except perhaps some mice. The roof was damaged over the far end, allowing rain to pour through in a thunderous cascade, but at the front the shed remained dry.
Sidney’s footsteps crunched on the dirt floor as he walked from stall to stall, pausing just outside the second on the left. “There’s straw here, and it appears to be relatively fresh.”
I followed him, watching from the entrance as he shuffled his feet through it, stirring up the earthy scent. “Perhaps one of the farmers nearby still uses the barn for his livestock.”
Though where they were now was anyone’s guess. Likely slaughtered for food.
“I’m not going to question how it came to be here,” he said. “I’m just going to be grateful for it since it looks like we’re going to be spending the night here.” He spread the blanket over the wall of the stall to dry and dropped the satchel on the floor next to it. “I’ll check the tack room for any supplies. Perhaps there’s a set of tools I can use to fix the motorcar.”
I removed my coat and hung it on the stall next to the blanket. I would dearly have loved to change into something dry, but we’d left our valises back in the Pierce-Arrow. Wrapping my arms around myself, I rubbed them trying to generate some heat against the chill. The thumps and clinks coming from up and down the aisle indicated where Sidney was, but instead of following him, I moved back toward the main door.
As darkness fell, the rain drummed against the earth, falling in a curtain that obscured much of the world beyond. An ache began in my breast, like the one I’d felt the last time I’d stood alone this way, watching just such a rain. Though then it had been through a window in Rotterdam, not a barn door somewhere in Belgium, and the man with me was not my husband. The pain was so acute I closed my eyes, wondering if the weather had conjured the memory or our words on the road.
Sidney joined me, pausing just behind my shoulder. The warmth radiating from him penetrated through the thin fabric of my summer blouse and skirt. I thought he might speak, that he might tell me what he’d discovered in the tack room. If he had, it might have broken the spell. But he merely stood behind me, silently watching the rain.
“When you died, I had to stop myself from feeling or else go mad,” I began hesitantly, trembling slightly at the confession. “I . . . I’d already started to numb my mind with gin, but I couldn’t stop myself from physically wanting you. And I thought . . . maybe. . . if I wanted someone else, maybe it would make it stop.” I exhaled a ragged breath. “It wasn’t until after that I realized what a bloody fool I’d been. That I would never stop wanting you.” My voice broke on the last as I finally turned to face him. “Not until the day I died.”
His face was filled with such poignant yearning, such desire, that I couldn’t withhold anything from him as his mouth claimed mine. I couldn’t breathe for wanting him so badly. And apparently, he felt the same, for his kisses and caresses were like a fever.
I didn’t even think of resisting when he pulled me into the stall and laid me down on the blanket he spread over the soft hay. Because for the first time since his return from the grave, there was nothing between us but the sweat of our own skin.
* * *
Later, we lay wrapped in the warmth of each other, the woolen blanket rasping against my still flushed skin. We stared up at the dark ceiling, beyond the glow of the lantern Sidney had found, as the rain continued to fall outside. His fingers toyed with my hair, and I inhaled the scent of his skin and the crushed straw, and savored the contentment seeping into my limbs.
Perhaps I should have halted his advances, but it seemed fitting somehow that we should find each other again in such a humble place. For all that we were wealthy Londoners, we had both lost whatever pretensions we’d clung to during the long years of war. We’d both witnessed the worst and best of man. We’d both roughed it, sleeping in such lowly hovels as trench dugouts and barns. Perhaps it was in these unassuming spaces that we were truly ourselves.
In any case, I was not going to regret it now. Not when I felt fully connected to Sidney for the first time since his disappearance, since before the war. Perhaps even earlier than that. For there was a depth to our relationship now that the naïve eighteen-year-old girl I’d been could not have achieved. For the first time in a long time, I felt a sense of permanence being with him. I realized in the back of my mind I’d formed contingency plans, planning my course of action should the damage to our marriage prove irreparable. But in the space of the last hour, I’d let those go.
As if he’d been contemplating the same thing, he turned his head to press a kiss to my temple. “I hope you don’t mind I didn’t take precautions.”
By unspoken agreement, we’d taken steps to prevent my becoming pregnant until we’d worked out our differences. While I might not have rushed to this step so quickly had the necessary items not been back in the motorcar, I was also not upset.
“No, I don’t mind.”
“It may not even matter,” he remarked offhandedly. “It never happened before.”
I stiffened, not having planned on sharing this here.
He pulled his head away from mine to see into my eyes. “Has it?”
My gaze dropped to his chest, where my fingers combed through the dark whorls of his hair. “Once. Briefly. It was over before I could tell you. And then . . . well . . .” I risked a glance up at him. “You were different the next time you had leave from the front, and I decided not to tell you. Not then, at least.” I shrugged. “And then you died.”
He stared down at me a moment longer, before pulling me close again. “Oh, darling,” he murmured into my hair. “I’m sorry.”
I clung tightly to him, absorbing his strength. “Me, too.”
We lay like that for some time, but I couldn’t brush aside the urgency of our situation for long. Especially now that we were stranded without his motorcar.
“Did you find any tools in the tack room?” I asked.
His cheek was pressed against my forehead, and I felt him smile. “Back to business, is it? I feel like I should take offense,” he jested, and then more seriously. “No, I didn’t. Nothing useful to our predicament at any rate.”
“You said you checked the motorcar over at our last stop, and that your tools were all accounted for then?”
“Yes.”
“Did you step away from your motorcar at any point?”
He rolled so that he faced me. “Are you trying to suggest it might have been sabotage?”
“It just seems highly suspicious that such a thing should happen when you just checked the engine, and the particular tool you should need to fix the problem should be missing.”
“I’m not trying to refute you. I had the same thought.”
“Then you did step away for a moment?”
He nodded. “And either that mechanic or one of those boys could have tampered with the radiator.”
“But why?”
“I can’t answer that.” He arched his eyebrows. “Unless someone convinced them to do so.”
“Someone who doesn’t want us to reach Emilie,” I finished for him. “Or at least wants to delay us.” I frowned. “But for what purpose?”
“That is the question, isn’t it?”
* * *
How long I’d been sleeping, I didn’t know, but something woke me with a start. I lay still, searching the shadows overhead as I listened for the sound that had roused me. A few moments later, I heard it again. It was a sort of thud, followed by a splashing sound.
I rolled my head to look at Sidney, relieved to see he was already awake. He lifted his hand to keep me from speaking, before slowly sitting up. The night being too cool, and our position exposed, we had re-dressed before falling asleep. Now I was glad of it.
We both strained to identify the sound. At some point, the rain had stopped, and a hush had fallen over the barn.
There it was again—a sort of sloshing sound. I began to wonder whether there was a downspout somewhere, but the noise appeared to move along the outer wall, not remaining fixed.
That was when a subtle smell assailed my nostrils. I wrinkled my nose in distaste before sitting upright in horror, for I recognized it. Kerosene.