Karl noticed the spot on his tie as he, Millie, her brother, and Lieutenant Bridger were gathering their hats.
Millie followed his gaze. “Do you have a spare?”
He shook his head. He’d had plenty of ties at Falcon Point, but he never needed one at sea, rarely needed one when on leave.
“I’ll dance with you anyway.” Millie sent the end of his tie swinging with a flick of her finger. “It’s nothing near as large as a certain tea stain I remember.”
Bridger glanced at the spot. “I’ve several extras. You can borrow one when we swing by to get my sister.”
“Thank you.”
The fathers in both the Stevens and Bridger families worked at the same embassy, so Karl wasn’t surprised that the Bridgers lived only two blocks away. The blare of jazz music greeted them when they walked inside.
Lieutenant Bridger motioned to Karl over the sound of Duke Ellington. “Let’s find you a clean tie.”
Karl followed him through a hallway with dark paneling and a row of framed family portraits. Karl paused for a moment to look at them. Two children. Two parents. All together, smiling at the camera. Most of them were taken in a studio, but several were snapshots taken outside in exotic locales. Different postings, Karl assumed.
Bridger followed Karl’s gaze. “My mom insisted we take a family picture every year up until I left for college. I don’t think we change all that fast anymore, but she set an appointment for next week to do it all over again.” He pointed to one. “The year after this one, I made a face when the photographer told us to smile. When the photograph came back, I got grounded for about a month. And the picture didn’t make it onto the wall.”
“I did something similar when I was a boy.” Karl gave the rest of the photos a quick glance. “I wish I would have thought to pack a few family photos before I fled home.”
“You don’t have any?”
Karl shook his head. “I had to leave in a hurry.” Anna had taken one, but it had probably been destroyed along with Frau Davies’s apartment. Maybe after the war, Karl could find some at Falcon Point. Or maybe by now, his father’s murderer had taken over the estate and removed all traces of the Lang family.
The lieutenant led Karl into a spacious, orderly room. He pulled open a drawer and gestured to a collection of neatly rolled ties. “Help yourself. I’m in uniform most of the time, so I’m not wearing any of them.”
Karl reached for a blue one. “I think this one just about matches Millie’s dress.”
Bridger gestured to a mirror and gently shut the drawer while Karl replaced his tie. “So, you and Millie?”
Karl met the man’s eyes in the mirror, not quite sure what he was being asked. “If you speak Dutch, am I right to assume you met the Stevens family in the Netherlands?”
Lieutenant Bridger nodded. “Yeah, all of us consulate kids spent a lot of time together. Millie’s closer to my age, but Irving’s a boy, so I played with both of them. Her intellect developed a little more quickly than her social skills did, I guess. Some of the other kids used to make fun of her. Irving and I did our best to look out for her when they started being mean.”
That was something Millie hadn’t shared in her letters. Karl had known children like that, brilliant when it came to schoolwork, awkward when it came to finding someone to eat lunch with.
“Anyway,” Bridger said, “she seemed glad to see you when you walked in. I guess childhood habits die hard, and I’m still looking out for her. Wouldn’t want her to get mixed up with the wrong sort of man.”
“Should I consider this an interrogation, Lieutenant?”
Bridger looked away. “I just want to make sure you aren’t planning to hurt her. Because if you broke her heart, I’d be tempted to break a few of your bones.”
Karl took a moment to study the American. Lieutenant Henry Bridger was a few years older than Karl, maybe an inch or two taller. Looked as though he’d be capable in a fight. Karl didn’t like anyone questioning his intentions, and he didn’t think his relationship with Millie was any of the other man’s business. Yet the motivation behind it was regard for Millie and loyalty springing from an old friendship. Millie deserved to have friends who looked out for her. “I can assure you that I recognize how extraordinary Millie is, and how fortunate I am to have her in my life. I will never intentionally hurt her, but there’s a war on, so I can’t guarantee that there won’t be any heartache.”
“Well, as long as you know how lucky you are.”
Karl straightened the borrowed tie and turned his collar down. Maybe conversations like this one were part of the price he had to pay in order to court Millie. If so, she was worth a little discomfort from overprotective friends.
Lieutenant Bridger glanced at his wristwatch. “I suppose we shouldn’t keep the others waiting.”
* * *
Millie’s feet ached after spending so much time on the dance floor, but she ignored the discomfort as Karl pulled her back out for another slow song. She’d danced with several partners—a few numbers with Henry, even one with Irving—but she’d spent the majority of her time with Karl. He’d danced with others too. It may have been foolish, but she’d felt a flash of jealousy when she’d noticed the way Nancy Bridger watched him. Apparently, a handsome man was worth Nancy’s attention even when he wasn’t in uniform.
Karl brought his mouth next to Millie’s ear. “What do you say we make this our last dance of the night?”
She nodded. She had wanted Karl to meet her family, but they’d yet to have any time to themselves.
When the number ended, Millie found her brother talking animatedly with an auburn-haired woman in a sleek black dress. “Karl will see me home. I’ll talk to you later, all right?”
Irving eyed Karl, then nodded.
The dance floor held in heat from all the young people gathered there. Dances in Bletchley and Fenny Stratford tended to have older couples, too, but here no one looked much above the age of thirty. Mostly soldiers, sailors, and women who probably worked at factories or shops. Women in uniform too. Millie pulled her compact from her pocket to check her makeup. Karl didn’t seem to mind if her lipstick was smeared, but she did. Nor did she want her eyeliner to be smudged.
Someone bumped into her, and the compact flew from her hand and landed on the floor. A random shoe kicked it, sending it across the room. She tried to follow the spinning compact, but Karl’s hand was the one that rescued it from the floor.
He handed it to her. The mirror inside was cracked. “Sorry.”
“I should have known better than to take it out in a crowded place like this.” She shoved it into her pocket.
Karl took her hand and led her outside. The streets were dark with the blackout, and the cool breeze whipped away the heat of the dance floor and the sting of embarrassment. Everything else that day had been lovely, so she wouldn’t let something like a cracked mirror ruin her night.
“Do you mind if we take the long way back to your place?” he asked.
“Not at all. Thank you for taking me dancing.”
“I’ll take you dancing anytime, Millie. As long as there’s a dance, and as long as I’m around, and as long as you don’t mind going with a man not in uniform.”
Millie’s mood sobered. Most of the men she worked with at Bletchley Park were confident in their contributions to the war effort, and only on rare occasions did any of the townspeople say something that might be construed as derogatory toward the men wearing suits instead of uniforms. But the same wasn’t true on trains. Probably hadn’t been true for Karl on the dance floor. “I enjoy dancing with you, Karl, regardless of what you’re wearing. I know you’re doing your part to fight the Nazis. That’s enough for me.”
“Is it?”
“Yes. It’s absolutely enough for me, but sometimes I’m not sure you agree.”
He was quiet for a few moments. “Someone has to bring the supplies over. The same way someone has to work in the factories and someone has to grow the food. Waging a war like this—nearly everyone is involved. Maybe I should be glad I’m not holding a rifle, not trying to shoot anyone. But when I think of Anna, dead in the Blitz. Or of my papa, shot by an old friend turned Nazi. Or of all the men I’ve seen disappear into the sea when their ships have gone down . . . I’m angry, Millie. I want to fight back. I don’t want to run away whenever a U-boat shows up. I want to head right for her and drop a depth-charge pattern to blow her out of the water. I know the men on those merchant ships. I know how stupid they can be when they’re in port and they’ve had a few too many beers, and I know how brave they can be in the middle of a storm or when an explosion blows away half their ship. Sometimes the Admiralty focuses only on the lost cargo and lost ships. But if I were on an escort craft, I wouldn’t forget that there are men on those ships, not just supplies.”
Millie understood anger. She felt it too, and the war hadn’t yet taken anyone in her family. Karl had lost his father and one of his sisters. Maybe both of his sisters. And she understood the desire to protect the men on the ships. Every time her focus started to fade, every time the night shifts made her wish she had a different job, she reminded herself that Karl and his ship might be directed away from the wolf packs if she did her job with accuracy and speed. “So, you want to hurt the Nazis . . . and protect the men who gave you a home when nothing else would work out.”
“Something like that. And service in the navy seems more in line with what my father would have wanted for me, more in line with what your family would expect of someone spending most of his leave with you.”
“You’ve proven yourself to me, Karl. You don’t have to join the navy to impress me or my family.”
“But if your family disapproves, won’t that mean I can’t see you anymore?”
She wanted her family to like Karl, because she cared about him a great deal. If Irving told her he didn’t like Karl, she would tell her brother to mind his own business. If Dad or Mum said something . . . she usually listened to their advice. “They don’t disapprove.” She hoped what she said was true because she didn’t want to have to choose between Karl and her parents.
“They might approve more if I were serving on a warship instead of a tramp steamer.”
Millie slowed her pace and took a good look at Karl. He was handsome in a suit. He would be handsome in uniform too. Something about him seemed more in line with the spit-and-polish discipline of a Royal Navy sailor rather than with the rough-and-tumble bearing of a merchant sailor, but work in either service was honorable. “You have to make whatever decision is best for you, Karl. What my family thinks doesn’t matter.”
“Yes, it does. Because they love you, and you love them, and I don’t want to do anything to weaken that. I know what it’s like to lose a family. Nothing I can offer you would be worth damaging your relationship with them.”
Millie ran her fingers up Karl’s tie. Or Henry’s tie around Karl’s neck. “I think you’re worrying a little too much about what my family thinks.”
“You’re right.” His steps stilled as he turned toward her. “What do you think, Millie? Because you’re the one I’m most trying to impress.”
“Maybe you don’t have to worry about that anymore because what I’m thinking is it’s been an awfully long while since the last time you kissed me.”
He smiled and leaned closer. One of his arms cradled her back and pulled her into him. “I think I can remedy that.”
She met his lips in the next moment, and his sweet, perfect mouth made her feel like she would never catch her breath, never even want to catch her breath.