Page 82 of The Last Night in London
She choked out a sob. “Of course I don’t.” She kept her back to him so he couldn’t see the tears streaming down her face.
He put his arms around her and rested his chin on top of her head. “I’ll write as often as I can.”
She gave him a quick nod, unsure where her voice had gone, unsure even if she wanted more letters from him, letters she’d be forced to share with Alex.
“Just promise me...”
When he didn’t finish, Eva turned around. “What?”
“Promise me that you’ll be careful. London is a dangerous place right now.”
“I know,” Eva said. “We’re at war.”
“Not just with bombs.” He paused, his eyes searching hers, a cold light in them that chilled her blood. “Just know that not everyone is who they say they are.”
The sound of nearby traffic seemed amplified, along with thebuzzing of insects and the tweets of a bird on a branch above. It took a moment for her to respond. “Really?” she said, trying to keep the ice from her voice. “Then I promise to be very careful.”
She held her breath, waiting for his response.
“Good.”
She waited for him to say more, deciding that if he told her he knew who she was, or if he asked her to marry him again, she’d confess everything. But he didn’t. Instead, his fingers slipped beneath the rolled curls at the back of her head. “I wish we had more time.”
Desire like an ocean’s wave consumed her, threatening to pull her under. Maybe it was a natural response to having one’s life threatened, or maybe it was simply because he was Graham and he was looking at her with those eyes, and they were utterly and blissfully alone in this green oasis in the middle of London. Standing on her toes to press her face into his neck, she whispered, “We have enough.” She felt his pulse jump under her skin, and it seemed that hers raced to match his. As if they were already one.
Then she slipped her hand into his and led him back to the empty tunnel, her need for him overpowering her fear and uncertainty. And her sure knowledge that he was absolutely right about people and secrets.
She didn’t go with him to the train station, wanting his last memory of her to be not of a tearstained face on a crowded rail platform but of a tousled and thoroughly satisfied woman who’d promised him that she’d wait for him and that she would love him forever.
And all through that first long night of the war, as Precious cried herself to sleep in the room next to hers, weeping over a world that suddenly seemed too big and too evil, and as Eva clutched the ivory dolphin in her fist and prayed to a God she wasn’t sure even existed, Eva remembered the scent of freshly cut grass on a late-summer afternoon and the feel of blue-gray wool against her bare skin and beneath her trembling fingers.
CHAPTER 24
LONDON
MAY 2019
I awoke in the middle of the night, a noise or movement bolting me out of bed before I could remember where I was. I flipped on the bedside light and blinked uncertainly, taking in the unfamiliar furniture, the open wardrobe crammed with vintage dresses opposite the bed, each piece labeled with a neat hangtag of Precious’s description, all moving gently, as if someone had just walked by. I blinked and waited for my eyes to adjust to verify everything was still.
Even then it took me a moment to realize I was in Precious’s Harley House flat, the one that she and Eva had shared before the war. A moan came from the bedroom next to mine, soft and muffled. I quickly crossed to my door and pulled it open to listen.
Laura and Oscar slept in another bedroom, only a bell ring away, and there was no sound from their end of the hallway.
I crossed to Precious’s door and, after a brief tap, let myself into the empty sitting room, which was lit by a small lamp. After another brief tap with no response, I entered her bedroom. All of the windows were open, allowing in the smell of cut grass from the park and the gentle sounds of stirring birds. Although the front of the building faced Marylebone Road, the back of the flat, where ourbedrooms were, could have been out in the country for all the absence of traffic sounds.
Moonlight spilled into the room, falling on the white sheets of the empty bed. I started, then rushed over, expecting to find Precious on the floor. Instead, I heard the moaning again from a chair by the window and blinked, trying to accustom my eyes to the moonlit room.
Precious sat utterly still. She had something in her lap, her head bent over it. Her hair had fallen undone around the shoulders of her pale nightgown, and the moonlight bleached it to cottony whiteness. She looked at me, and the moonlight made her twenty-two again.
“Are you all right?” I asked, moving to her side and kneeling. “I thought I heard you calling.” That wasn’t exactly right, but I thought it was easier for her to accept thanI heard you moaning. Because that would have construed weakness, and there was something about Precious Dubose that defied that word.
“I’m fine,” she said, although the wetness on her cheeks told me otherwise.
A cool breeze blew through the windows. “Are you cold? I can close these.”
I made to stand, but she put a hand on my arm. “Don’t. I enjoy the fresh air.”
“What are you doing out of bed?”
