Treacherous Is the Night Page 17

  I was glad he’d worked that out on his own and I wouldn’t have to explain this omission to him. However, it also left my heart feeling heavy.

  “Yes. But sooner or later, if we’re going to make this marriage work, it seems we shall have to share some of those details of our lives during the war we would rather not,” I murmured, speaking as much to myself as to him.

  “True.”

  But the silence that fell made it quite obvious neither of us was eager to start.

  * * *

  Though there were several persons Alec Xavier could have adopted, and indeed I’d seen him shift between these with impunity, for some reason he’d elected to affect a manner of good cheer. Whether this was truly felt was a matter of debate. I was more interested in the fact that he’d taken it upon himself to befriend my husband. I couldn’t tell if this was working, for Sidney had always possessed an excellent poker face—no doubt improved by playing brag with his fellow officers at the front during the hours of monotony on rotation at the rear of the trenches. Whatever the truth, they were soon jesting and carrying on as if they’d been chums for ages. Meanwhile, I sat in the rear seat, shaking my head at their antics.

  Having grown up with three brothers and scores of their friends, and later served with men in London, Holland, and the occupied territories, I was quite accustomed to their talk and traits. Though by no means were Sidney and Xavier crass or rude. I couldn’t imagine my husband ever speaking of a woman in a disrespectful manner or allowing someone else to. On the other hand, I was quite certain Xavier would stoop to do so if the situation called for it.

  However, their bull session rather quickly grew tiresome. Fortunately, when we encountered yet another rain shower on the outskirts of Brussels, Sidney decided to stop at a café for us to grab a bite to eat. I wanted nothing so much as a strong drink, but I settled for coffee and sandwiches. Once I’d done what little I could to salvage my hair, which kinked in the damp air, I returned to the table to find our coffee had already been delivered.

  “So how did the two of you meet?” Sidney asked as he settled back in his chair. “Or is that information too classified?”

  I’d known the question was coming, but I was surprised by how quickly.

  “If Verity trusts you, I suspect I can, too,” Alec replied, my given name tripping off his tongue. He’d insisted we call him Alec, and while I’d wanted to argue against it, not wishing to conjure that familiarity, my husband had already agreed. “The first time we met she was acting as a temporary courier.” He laughed suddenly. “And I don’t think either of us was what the other expected.”

  I couldn’t help but smile in agreement. “That’s true enough.”

  “As I’m sure Verity already told you, I was fitted into the German Army before the war. Sort of a man inside, if you will. I was stationed in the Kommandantur in Brussels, and my usual letter box where I dropped my intelligence reports had been compromised. So I’d been told to watch for a person wearing a blue cornflower. Naturally I expected a man with a boutonniere. But instead, in walked Verity with the flower tucked in her hair.”

  “Yes, well, I was hardly expecting a German soldier to make the anticipated remark, ‘Ich denke, eine Rose passender wäre.’ I was told to pretend to attempt to secure a special pass to visit my ill sister, and I thought one of the Belgian clerks would approach me.”

  “But before she could reach the front of the line, or one of the Bosche could get to her first, I pulled her into my office.”

  I arched a single eyebrow. “You winked and told them I was being saucy, or rather the German equivalent.”

  He shrugged, taking a sip of his coffee. “Yes, well, unfortunately that’s all that was required should a German officer take an interest in a girl.”

  And I’d been trained well. One did not exhibit disgust or refuse an officer outright. Not unless you wanted a backhand across the face and possible confinement for one trumped-up charge or another. If you were lucky, like me, they stopped at groping. It didn’t bear thinking about what happened if you were less fotunate.

  He chuckled. “I’ll never forget. There I was apologizing for standing much too close to her in order to shield her through the glass windows of my office from the others. Had to put on some sort of show for my fellow soldiers. And what does she say?” His eyes twinkled. “ ‘Well, at least you’re not a foul-smelling oaf. So, what have you got for me?’”

  Contrary to what I’d expected, Sidney’s lips actually twitched. “Yes, that sounds like Verity.”

  “Well, there was nothing for it but to brazen my way through,” I replied in my defense.

  “I understood then why she had been sent as my temporary courier,” Alec said. “I admired her aplomb. And I requested her anytime I needed assistance after that.”

  I was arrested in bringing my cup to my lips, not having been told this before. “You did?”

  He nodded. “Too many of the male agents were bloody obvious. Not you. Even with your dirt-mussed auburn hair. You pulled that coded message from under my hatband where it rested on my desk, wrapped it around your hairpin, and secured it in your tresses without missing a beat. And all while having some strange fellow breathing down your neck.”

  “Yes, but . . .” I halted, struggling to get the words out. “But I was the reason you were almost caught.”

  He brushed that aside with a shake of his head as our food was set before us. “I told you before, it wasn’t. That oberst had been suspicious of me for some time. It would have happened eventually anyway. Besides, you risked your own safety to see that I was warned and extracted. So the argument is moot.”

  I wasn’t certain I felt the same way, but I didn’t argue.

  “What about you?” Alec gestured between the two of us after swiping his mouth with a napkin. “I knew you existed,” he told Sidney. “But I’m afraid it wasn’t safe for Verity to share much beyond that with me. So how did you meet?”

  I launched into the tale, expecting him to interject a comment or two himself. But it became apparent he wasn’t listening, and I soon realized why. Across the café were seated two older women, fashioned after my mother’s ilk, and a rather anemic-looking young woman of about eighteen. They were speaking rapidly in English, and, if I should guess, had embarked on one of those macabre tours of the battlefields. Though apparently, they had not hired a tour company, but were determined to go it alone with only the illustrated guidebook the young woman was attempting to hide behind to direct them. Given the fact that they were sixty kilometers or more from the trenches of the Western Front, they weren’t doing a very good job of it thus far.

  But their poor sense of direction was not my concern, nor Sidney’s, but rather the insensitive nature of their exchange. We weren’t the only ones bothered by it. Based on the sour looks some of the café staff sent their way, they seemed to have a good enough grasp of English to comprehend what they were saying.

  The ladies’ conversation started with complaints about how hard it had been to find butter during the war, comments that, while insensitive to the Belgians who had faced much more serious food shortages than anything the British experienced, were relatively harmless. Then they progressed to a sort of back-and-forth competition of the various war committees to which they’d been appointed to the board, and the number of recruits they had signed up, just doing their bit. As if they should be ultimately thanked for those boys’ service and not the soldiers themselves. This smug, self-congratulatory prattle was vexing, but nothing I hadn’t heard before. However, their discussion devolved into a sort of callous comparison of their losses.

  “Johnny received the MC, you know. So wonderful. But also sad, of course. Nearly wore myself to the bone with worry. But one must smile and carry on, knowing they died for the greater good.”

  “So true. They say my Davy was called up to the worst sector. Such an eager, strong boy. If only he’d had longer to earn his distinction. But, of course, I’m still so proud. By Jove, my boy was
n’t a slacker. And neither was my girl.” She smiled at the young woman now slumping low in her seat. “She set such a noble example. Wouldn’t keep out of it. Simply had to join the VAD.”

  I stared down at my coffee, now grown cold, trying to stifle the anger building inside me. I hated hearing this sort of talk. Not all of the older women were like this, thank heavens. Not all of them seemed so detached and heartless, determined to prove they’d done more, sacrificed more—than even their own flesh and blood—to the cause. I empathized with all the mothers who had lost their sons and daughters to the war, but I could not reconcile myself to these women who made the war a tally for their good works, who counted their children’s service and deaths as more a mark in their favor than a terrible tragedy.

  And neither could Sidney, it seemed. Seeing the tension along the line of his neck, I reached out to take his hand underneath the table and found that he was shaking with fury. He gripped my fingers back, as if struggling to restrain himself. This was clearly his first encounter with their like, and I pressed my other hand gently to his arm, thinking to distract him.

  “Let’s talk of something happier, shall we?” I suggested. Much as I wanted to give those women a piece of my mind, I knew it would do no good. For they could not hear how cold and insensitive their words were. In their minds, they were the victims, and any attempt to explain why their attitudes were so insulting would fall on deaf ears.

  “Yes,” Alec agreed, catching on. “Tell me, who was the stroke during the Boat Race your final year at Oxford? I can’t recall. Was it Horsfall or Pitman?”

  Sidney looked up from where he had been glaring at the table. The glint in his eye made it clear he didn’t give a fig for rowing—polo had always been his sport—nor did he care to be diverted. But then he relented, perhaps realizing we were only trying to help. “Horsfall,” he grunted.

  But before Alec could respond, one of the women’s voices trilled with intensity. “Oh, if only my younger son Cecil had been old enough to serve! I should have happily given him to the cause as well.”

  At this last, Sidney could stand it no more. He rose from his chair, rounding on them like a tiger. “Would you? Would you happily sacrifice his youth, his sanity, his very life to gratify your vanities, without a thought to his wishes, without a care to the horrors he’ll never be able to forget?” he snarled. “I suppose you would spill the blood from every last Englishman to indulge your conceits, spill enough to flood the sodding trenches.” He stabbed his finger at his chest, leaning forward to hiss at them. “Well, I held the hands of those whelps you recruited, I watched the life drain from their eyes, and I can tell you they cared naught for your self-righteous patriotism. They died begging to know why you lied.”

  He whirled away from the cowering women and stormed off through the door out into the light patter of rain. For a moment, no one moved or even dared to speak.

  Then one of the women lowered her hand from where she had been clutching her bosom. “Well, I never,” she exhaled in protest. “How abominably rude. And he’s one of our countrymen. If it were the French, or one of these Belgians, I shouldn’t be so shocked. But an Englishman.”

  “It must be shell shock,” the other woman murmured in a hushed voice, though not low enough I couldn’t hear it. “My sister’s son had to be confined to a hospital.” She darted a glance at me before looking away. “They say it’s caused by cowardice.”

  I closed my eyes and clenched my fists, lest I stride across the café and slap both women across the face.

  But the truth was, I was also shaken by the vehemence of Sidney’s outburst. Before the war, his emotions had always been so contained. He would have made some scathing quip, but he would never have allowed his anger to get the better of him.

  I didn’t know how to deal with this new side of him. This man whose pain was at times so raw, so exposed, and yet he refused to talk about it. Though he hadn’t directly admitted, I knew he was bothered by the number of men who had died or suffered under his command. It was evident in the way he spoke of them, in the way he interacted with them, like that man at the Savoy. In the way he’d risked everything to uncover the traitor who had been responsible for at least some of the men in his battalion’s deaths.

  It was also apparent how much he despised lies. It was as if he’d been fed more than one man could handle, and perhaps had been forced to dish out a fair share of his own, all in the name of the greater good, and he simply could no longer stomach them.

  The thought made my own stomach churn with dread. For while I’d not directly lied to him, I also hadn’t been completely honest. Not yet. And now I was even more afraid of how he would react when I was.

  Not that I thought he would strike me. Sidney had never been the violent type. But then again, how did I know exactly how much war had changed him?

  Still, I thought it more likely my confession might turn whatever affection he still felt for me to hatred. And whatever became of us, I didn’t want it to end that way.

  “Have you told him?”

  I looked up into Alec’s keen brown eyes, unsurprised he’d divined my thoughts. After all, he was a very good agent.

  “About us?” he clarified, as if I needed it.

  I inhaled an unsteady breath, sitting taller. “No. And don’t you dare say anything. I’ll do it in my own time.”

  He dipped his head once in acknowledgment. “Just . . . don’t wait too long. You must be aware he already suspects. And the longer you wait, the harder it will be for him to forgive.”

  I wanted to take offense. I wanted to argue that it hadn’t been my fault I hadn’t known he wasn’t really dead. But I knew none of that mattered. Not really. So I simply nodded.

  CHAPTER 16

  We arrived in Liège in the heat of late afternoon. Liège had been heavily damaged during the siege of the city in August 1914 as the German Army invaded Belgium and attempted to sweep rapidly on toward Paris—all part of their infamous Schlieffen Plan. But plucky little Belgium had managed to stall them just long enough for the French and British forces to arrive and mount a defense to prevent them from reaching their ultimate objective. However, during the five days in which Liège held out, it saw its city and ring of steel-capped forts pounded into submission by the Germans’ Big Bertha howitzer guns.

  Five years later, the evidence of this bombardment was still apparent, from the pockmarked and crumbling towers of the churches to the piles of masonry and rubble still waiting to be carted away. We drove south along the Meuse River, which divides the city. Crews were at work repairing the bridges the Germans had blown during their retreat to halt the advance of the Allies.

  A short distance from the cobblestoned streets of the old city, Alec directed us to turn into a lane which ran between two thick hedges. The dirt track was bordered by horse chestnut trees. The prickly casings of the conkers, which had dropped to the ground before they could fully ripen, crackled and popped under the tires. This would be the first year in many, I realized, that all of the horse chestnuts in Britain would not be gathered up for acetone production.

  At the end of the lane stood the Villa des Hirondelles, a cool white block of stone with a wide oak door and brick red shutters. Beyond the trees, we could see the home backed up to the River Meuse. The boat moored to its dock must have provided a clever means of escape should one have been needed.

  As we stepped down into the dirt, the door opened to reveal a lanky gentleman with a sparse black beard. I had never worked directly with the chiefs of La Dame Blanche. This might have seemed odd, but even Landau had only encountered one of them once, and the other not until after the war. So this was my first time meeting them. But there was no need to tell me the man before us had been one of those chiefs. Quiet authority practically oozed from his pores.

  “Welcome. Captain Landau telephoned to say that you were on your way.” He reached out to take my hand, clasping it gently between his. “You must be Madame Kent.” His dark eyes were almost pierci
ng in quality as they scrutinized me. “I have wanted to meet you for a long time. I am Walthère Dewé.”

  “Likewise, Monsieur Dewé. It is a funny business we have worked in, is it not? Needing to rely so much on people we’ve never met, having to trust them with our lives.” I smiled softly. “Captain Landau speaks of you with the highest of praise.”

  “As he does you, Madame.” His gaze shifted to look over my shoulder. “And this must be your husband.” The men shook hands. “We were very happy to read of your survival, Monsieur Kent.”

  Sidney nodded. “Thank you for agreeing to see us.”

  His eyes twinkled, flicking between us. “You seem to be well-suited. At least when it comes to investigative instincts, no?”

  Sidney’s eyes warmed with affection. “Oh, I’m not certain I’m quite in her league.”

  I felt a flutter of pleasure at his compliment, as well as the touch of his hand against the small of my back. But I wasn’t so distracted that I failed to note the slight stiffening of Monsieur Dewé’s spine as Alec stepped forward, his hands clasped behind him.

  He dipped his head once in acknowledgment. “Captain Xavier.”

  “Monsieur Dewé, I trust that you are well.”

  I couldn’t tell whether the tension between the men was due to status, or because the men didn’t like each other. Or, more accurately, because Monsieur Dewé didn’t like Alec. As usual, Alec’s thoughts were all but impossible to decipher.

  Our host gestured toward the door. “Please, come inside. Allow me to introduce you to my compatriot Herman Chauvin.”

  Monsieur Chauvin waited for us in a wood-paneled study, which looked out upon a small garden and the river beyond. His outward appearance was such a stark contrast to the other chief’s, that they seemed each other’s foil. Chauvin was slight and boasted a head full of pale hair, as well as a long beard. His blue eyes perpetually seemed distracted, as if he was engaged in some abstract thought, and perhaps he was, for he was a professor at the University of Liège. And yet, I strongly suspected those eyes missed nothing.