Page 18 of Shadows In Paris
‘You’re right. It would,’ Pierre said. ‘At least if they search you, they won’t find anything linking you to England. If they found you travelling with a radio, I don’t want to think what they would do.’
Lizzie remembered a similar conversation with Jack when she had asked if she should take a new wireless set to Hannah.
‘I’ll put this in your room, so you’ve got your things forwhen you go up,’ Pierre said, pointing to her battered brown case.
‘Thank you,’ Lizzie said.
‘Drink this to warm your bones.’ Camille placed a hot cup of tea on the table for Lizzie, who wrapped her freezing hands around it and basked in the warmth.
When Pierre returned to the kitchen, his wife poured him a cup of tea, and Lizzie saw a joyful smile pass between them.
They were such a well-matched couple, and their home was filled with love. Lizzie hoped that one day she and Jack would live in such harmony together. Pierre and Camille were thrust into the horror of an evil regime, but it hadn’t dimmed the warmth in their hearts.
Lizzie drank her tea, and the fear gradually ebbed from her, as a comforting weariness took over.
‘You must be exhausted,’ Camille said, reading her body language. ‘Your room is ready. Would you like me to take you up now,chérie? I’m dying to hear all your news, but it’ll wait until morning.’
Lizzie nodded sleepily and rose from the wooden chair as Camille led the way out of the warm kitchen and up the stairs.
Camille removed piles of bedding and towels from the shelves and pushed hard until the wood swung into the hollow of the wall and revealedthe entrance to a secret room. Lizzie followed her in, and her eyes scanned the made-up bed and the sink in the small space. A lamp cast a dim light, just enough for them to see their way, and Lizzie noticed her case on the floor nearby.
‘We’d all better try to get some sleep. It’s almost morning,’ Camille said, pointing to the tiny window covered by a thin blackout curtain that showed the promise of the pale dawn light dancing around the scrappy edges.
After they bid each other good night, Lizzie opened hercase and fumbled about in the contents. She grappled to take off her dress and, after pulling her nightie over her head, she cleaned her teeth in a cursory fashion. A wave of sheer exhaustion overcame her, and she climbed under the covers, sank into the mattress and fell into a deep sleep.
Her last thought before surrendering to a blissful slumber was a memory of curling into Jack when they shared this bed last summer and fell in love.
CHAPTER 8
Jack stood in the airfield watching the Lysander fade away in the hazy sky towards France until all he could glimpse was a faint outline.
Lizzie was gone and his heart hurt.
He told himself he’d watched her leave several times before and she had come back to him then.
Faith.He must have faith that all would be well. He had put on a good show of bravado for Lizzie. They were in love, but he was also her commanding officer, and she needed him strong, not dewy eyed like a lovesick schoolboy.
Jack could have kicked himself when it was time for her to board, and he got all mushy. Letting his feelings for her consume him was no use to anyone, and certainly not to her.
Against his better judgement, they were dropping her right into the devil’s lair, and she needed to be at her sharpest and brightest.
It was heart-wrenching. He couldn’t let her go without her knowing he loved her more than life itself, but they also needed to be strong, or they wouldn’t get through this damned war.
The mission must come first now. If the Allies didn’t win, it would be the end of civilisation as they knew it. All sense of humanity and goodness would be lost with the defeat, which was why he willingly answered Churchill’s rallying cries to defend their island against evil foe.
But who was he kidding? The mission had come first for as long as he could remember. He had joined the intelligence service in his first year at Oxford. Instead of smoking on the lawn and passing his student days in a haze of parties and girls, he spied on suspected communists and passed secret messages to Military Intelligence.
Jack fired up the engine and left the airfield. His mind flickered back to the day Val recruited him. He had been an innocent young man with no sense of what was at stake, but something about her words had stirred him.
‘Your name came up several times as someone I should speak to,’ Val had said. She was smartly dressed in a skirt and blazer and cut an imposing figure, with her hat perched on her head at a jaunty angle.
‘Valerie Jones.’ She introduced herself with a firm handshake.
‘Jack King,’ he had replied, wondering what this mysterious woman wanted with him.
Was she a friend of his mother’s keeping an eye on him?
Even as the thought crossed his mind, he knew that wasn’t it. There was something far too professional about this woman for her to be just checking on a friend’s son at university.
