Page 99 of The Last Night in London
He pretended to consider. “Ah, yes, but a pickpocket wouldn’t be nearly as charming as you. Or have such a weakness for beautiful things.”
She hated herself then. Hated recognizing the truth as she held out her arm so he could place the bracelet on her bare wrist, leaning close so he could close the clasp. She felt the weight of the diamonds, could imagine how they’d twinkle like stars under the crystal chandeliers of the places they dined and danced. The part of her that was still Ethel Maltby wanted to raise her arm to show everyone, to prove that she was more than who she’d been. But the new Eva wanted to howl with her own disappointment that she hadn’t changed at all.
Alex looked up, meeting her eyes without drawing back. “Do you like it?” he whispered.
“Yes.”
She let him kiss her then. She kept her eyes open and didn’t push him away. But she didn’t kiss him back. He lifted his head, and she felt the unspoken question.
“I’m not a whore who can be bought.”
He sat back in his seat, straightened his cuffs. “Everyone has a price. Even you. It’s only a matter of time. Just know that I’ll be waiting. Anticipating your surrender.”
He turned to face her, his expression hidden in the shadows of the backseat. “You do know what you’re doing isn’t petty theft, yes? That this is all much more serious.”
Something in his tone made her shiver in her fur. When she didn’t respond, he settled back against his seat. “You remember Lord Merton, don’t you?”
“Of course. He was killed in a burglary.” She closed her eyes, saw the photograph in the paper. Remembered Alex’s threat about Precious or Sophia ending up like Lord Merton. How she’d told herself she didn’t understand, refusing to acknowledge an inconvenient truth.
“He was a Nazi spy. He was killed by his own countrymen for passing secrets to the enemy. Secrets hidden in a matchbox.”
Eva began trembling violently, her frozen bones crackling in her skin. She took two deep breaths, focused on keeping her voice steady. “So I was responsible?”
She could hear the smile in his voice. “In one way or another, yes.”
She was silent, searching for the right words. The right question. Knowing the answer before she voiced it. “But I gave the matchbox to you.”
Now he laughed out loud. “Yes, you did. And I made good use of it. I paid Lord Merton a good deal of money for it, too.”
She faced him, staring through the darkness, swallowing back the sob she knew he wanted to hear. “I don’t want to do this anymore. I’ve paid my dues. Tell Graham what you want. I don’t care anymore. Just tell me where my mother is. She and I will find another place to live, and you will be done with me. Please, release me. Please. I can’t be a part of this.”
A slow, throaty chuckle emerged from the darkness beside her. “I’m afraid it’s too late, darling Eva. You’re already a woman without a country. That makes you the enemy to everyone. If you were towalk away, you’d meet the same fate as Lord Merton. Your friends, too, just to prove a point. Even your St. John wouldn’t be safe.”
She was light-headed, sparks of light like diamonds shooting across her eyes. “How do you live with yourself?” she asked, no longer able to keep the tremor from her voice.
He leaned closer to her, and she could feel his anger. “Because I know which side I stand on, which is always better than straddling a line. Something to remember, Eva—feigning innocence does not make you innocent.”
She turned her face to the window so he couldn’t see her tears.
When it was time to get out of the car, he turned to her again. “Listen carefully. I have a new job for you.”
She looked at him, hating him. Hating herself. “What is it?”
He smiled, knowing he’d won. “I need you to visit the London Library in St. James’s Square tomorrow morning after ten o’clock. Check outAlice’s Adventures in Wonderland. It will be misshelved. The location is written on the piece of paper you took from the purse of the woman seated next to you tonight. If you believe someone is watching you, come back later in the day. There will be an envelope inside. I need you to deliver the envelope to thirty-seven Chester Terrace. Slip it into the mail slot on the door, and do it at night so no one sees you. You’ll do this every Thursday, each week a different book and a different time of day, always misshelved. The pickup time and the location of the next book will be written in invisible ink on the title page of each book. You will need a heat source to read it—Jiri will show you. Destroy the page when you’ve memorized it.”
She felt the driver’s eyes on her in the rearview mirror, and a violent tremor made her jaw ache. She recalled the letters from Graham she’d given to Alex, which then had been returned to her with singe marks between the lines, and she thought she might be ill.
“And if I say no?”
The gleam of his teeth in the moonlight mocked her as he smiled. “Oh, my dear, we both know you won’t.”
The door shut, and the car pulled away. Eva stood still for a long time, watching it disappear until she could no longer hear theengine, feeling an unfamiliar weight on her arm. She looked down and saw Alex’s bracelet, the diamonds throwing back the reflected glow of a dimmed headlight like stars in the black, black night.
—
On a rare day off, Eva walked with Precious into the Palm Court of the Ritz Hotel to meet Sophia for tea. As always, when the two of them were together, heads turned; people stared as if they’d never seen two tall blond women together. It made Precious giggle, but Eva remained pointedly unaware of the attention. It was something she’d learned from watching Sophia and her debutante friends, the women who’d been taught proper deportment from the cradle.
Besides, she was completely and gloriously drunk. She’d found it was the only way she could face each day and the reality that Graham could have been in the midst of an air battle, that she might not see him again. At one of the dinners she’d attended at Sophia’s, an obnoxious guest had mentioned that the fatality rate for airmen in combat was fifty percent. At Sophia’s look of distress, David had asked the gentleman to leave.
