“You must be feverish. From the wound. I thought you said it was feeling better.” His friend actually reached out as if to put a hand on Lukas’s forehead.
He batted him away, only slightly wincing. Which, given the strain from the concert, was a true accomplishment. “Just because I want to go back to my room, I am ill?”
“It isn’t like you.” And something unhappy, perhaps even irritated, flashed through the depths of Jules’s eyes. “You haven’t been yourself since . . .”
“Since I discovered that my family has vanished?” His own irritation sparked, fanned up into a flame. Not quite the same kind of flame Jules was accustomed to, but not quite the silent, brooding one that had held him in its grip since waking up on British soil either. “Do you really expect such things not to change me?”
Jules darted a glance at the other musicians milling about—most of them going out for a late supper somewhere or another, some to the homes of the rich patrons who had filled the concert hall.
Yes, he usually would have been among them. Out eating and drinking and flirting and indulging in whatever pleasure he fancied. Funny how he didn’t long for that even a bit right now. Didn’t have any desire to feel like his old self.
His friend stepped near and pitched his voice low. “I expect you to search for them. To find them. To pursue that like a hound on the trail of a fox, because that is your way. But not to turn into a monk in the meantime.”
With a shake of his head, Lukas began the process of weaving through the milling musicians. Jules would follow. Or not. Just now, he hardly cared which. If his friend wouldn’t support him in this change he meant to make to his life, then . . .
Then what? They would simply cease being friends?
It left a hollow feeling in his chest, that thought. Jules had been a constant in his life for decades. The one always happy to tag along, to check him when he ventured too close to out of control, to be measured when he was not.
But then, really, why had he spent all those years at Lukas’s side? Why had he never insisted on his own path when Lukas dictated their every move?
He paused a few feet from the door and looked back.
Jules was only a step away, thunder in his brow and cello case in hand. He pushed past Lukas into the cool night. “One of these days I’m not going to follow when you walk away in the middle of a conversation.”
“I’m sorry.”
The words—simple, small—brought Jules’s feet to a halt. “I beg your pardon?”
Was it that odd for him to apologize? Lukas tried to think of another time when he’d said those little words in a similarly serious tone—about his own behavior—and came up blank. Blast, but it was a wonder he had any friends at all. He shook his head and indicated they keep moving. “I said I’m sorry. For assuming you will just follow. For always assuming it, in every part of life. The truth is, Jules . . . The truth is, I don’t know what I’d do without you. You have always been there to guard my back. To keep me in check. To . . . to save my life. I owe you a debt I can never repay.”
Rather than move, Jules just stared at him. A long fifteen seconds later, he shook his head. The serious lines of his mouth pulled up just a bit. “Perhaps I do like this new Lukas. Despite scarcely recognizing him.”
His own smile felt tight and strained. “The question is why you ever liked the old one.”
“If you’re looking for flattery, keep looking.” Jules motioned him forward, down the path that was growing increasingly familiar. “You’ve people enough singing your praises without needing my voice added to the mix.”
“I’m not after flattery.” And Jules had never offered any, to be sure. So perhaps Lukas wasn’t that bad a friend, to have always appreciated the honesty he got from him. “I’m after the truth. Do you not think me capable of changing? Of putting aside my wild ways and settling down?”
Silence walked with them for a few steps, though it was the thoughtful, musing kind, not the stormy, brooding kind. And then Jules tilted his head, keeping his gaze straight ahead. “Capable, yes. Of course. I always assumed you would, eventually. But this isn’t a change to which you were won over or slowly grew accustomed. It’s too sudden—wrought by circumstance, not some internal epiphany. It’s the war that’s done this to you, Lukas. And so, what happens when it’s over and life returns to normal in a few months?”
Lukas shook his head. “Life will never return to normal. Or . . .” Of course it would—to some semblance of it, anyway. “It will be a different normal, after the war. We will never be able to forget. I will simply be a different normal too. The kind that can appreciate the gifts God has given.”
“Now you sound like our mothers.”
And their fathers. Men, both of them, who had found a way to be strong and successful and happy living quiet, family-oriented lives. Lukas could do the same.
Funny—of the two of them, most people probably thought Jules the more likely to settle down first. Yet here he was, incredulous and unwilling. It made a grin tug at one corner of Lukas’s mouth. “I’m not asking you to change with me, you know. You can go on living the epicurean life.”
Jules halted and then pivoted. Moonlight and streetlamps illumined his face—caught in an expression of realization. “You know, you’re right. Just because you’re eschewing all the best invitations doesn’t mean I must.” He smiled and took a step to the side, putting an extra foot of space between them. “You go ahead and rest. Pray, or whatever it is you mean to do these days. I’m famished.”
He hadn’t expected him to just turn and leave quite so quickly. Did it point to something in Jules, that he would do so? Or some other, yet unrealized shadow in Lukas, that he would expect his friend to keep following?
Perhaps he would go back to his room and pray. Try to straighten all this out—who he was, who he could be, and who his friends were. It would likely take a lot of practice before he really understood what the answers to those prayers were, but his parents and Margot had always insisted that the more one spoke to God, the better one could recognize His voice in return.
For now, he forced a smile. “Enjoy, mon ami. I will see you tomorrow.”
A few seconds later, he was alone on the street. And feeling another brood coming on. He didn’t like to be alone—and rarely was, until all this began in Brussels, when pain had been too constant a companion for him to want another.
Another flaw he needed to examine? Should he be content with just his own company and the Lord’s? Or was it simply a personality trait, one that was neither good nor bad?
Perhaps the latter. And so perhaps the logical thing to do was to marry. Ensure a companion for all his days and nights. Children to fill the hours with laughter and argument—two things he had always loved.
His lips quirked up again. It wasn’t a distasteful idea, really. And if he wanted some entertainment, he could propose to Miss Willa Forsythe again on those grounds and see her reaction. He had a feeling it would be every bit as volatile as the one she’d made to his suggestion that they marry for the sake of the music. And if he wanted to see her in an outright panic, he could probably achieve it with words of romance and affection. That seemed to alarm her more than anything else.
The strains of a record drifted out an open window toward him, the gramophone’s silhouette visible behind the thin curtains when he glanced up. Music. That, if nothing else, he did indeed have in common with the skittish woman.
But he wanted to convince her to spend some time with him without his violin in her hands too. To talk to him. Get to know him. Let him get to know her. That was the only way to discover what this intrigue she ignited within him really was. Whether it would pass or whether he could happily spend a few decades trying to decode it. I would value your advice on how to convince her to give me a chance, Lord.
He listened as he walked. But he heard only that fading note from the gramophone. An auto rumbling by a street over. A horse neighing from up ahead.
Where
was God’s voice in these everyday noises? Perhaps learning to pick it out would be akin to finding that one voice in an orchestra—a particular cellist or horn player. It was by no means easy when the whole point of the symphony was to hear a creation somehow greater than the sum of its voices. But it could be done when one had a practiced ear.
He had never been as skilled at it as, say, Willa seemed to be. Did she hear God’s voice amid the noise of life? He would ask her. If she was such a good friend of the Davieses, then chances were good she shared their faith. Perhaps she could help him rejuvenate his own.
He strode along the final few feet of Crynfryn Row until it terminated at Marine Terrace, his eyes by rote searching through the streetlamps’ glow for the familiar stretch of white building a few doors down. His arm was much improved, but the healing process was more exhausting than he’d ever supposed. He was ready to collapse on his bed and spend a few hours in oblivion.
Which apparently would have to wait. He was just outside the circle of the hotel’s lights when a somewhat familiar shadow emerged from the far corner. Dread curled through him, twined with relieved expectation.
Please let him have worthwhile news, Lord. His prayer felt as rusty and stiff as his arm, but he was at least trying. Much as he tried to position a welcoming smile on his lips, though he really didn’t like the man. He moved to the corner, since the other made no attempt to come to him. “Akkerman.”
The lights did nothing to banish the shadows on Cor Akkerman’s face. “Do you mean to cheat me?” He spoke in Flemish, harsh and low.
Lukas fought the urge to reply in French, just to irritate him. His brows drew together. “I beg your pardon? Why would I do that?”
As he waved a hand at the hotel, Akkerman’s face darkened still more. “I got your envelope—empty, let it be noted, of the money. Our agreement was that you would leave it at the front desk.”
“No, our agreement was that I would leave the first bit at the front desk. Why would I leave the rest there for you to claim regardless of whether you did the job or not? You show me answers, I pay you.” Simple enough. Though the hunch of his companion’s shoulders had him looking around for escape routes. He wasn’t usually a pushover, but with one arm injured and the other holding a violin worth more than a house, he wasn’t exactly in a position to put up a fight.
The man gritted his teeth for a moment, then visibly relaxed and drifted at a seemingly leisurely pace up Terrace Street. “I left you a letter with all I found, but I can tell you now as well. There are refugees spread all throughout Great Britain, and rumor is that there will be thousands more before the month is out. They are most heavily concentrated on the east coast—logical, since it’s closest to the Continent. But other ports like Bristol are full of them as well.”
Them. Did this man feel no unity with his fellow countrymen who had been ousted as surely as he had been?
Lukas nodded and kept pace. “Are they integrating into the local communities or setting up their own?”
“Both. In the cities, they stay where they can. But a few camps are already springing up in the countryside, with purpose-built buildings.” Akkerman folded his arms across his chest and halted at the next small junction. This must be the way back to his rooms. Or he wanted Lukas to think so, anyway. “You gave me vague instructions—I can give only vague answers. If you want more specifics . . .”
It would cost him more. Lukas had the urge to grit his teeth as well.
How much did he really want to tell this man about his family? Would he be a fool to trust him with even a sliver of the truth?
But he didn’t know who else to send out in search of answers. And if he kept it vague enough, it would look like no more than what any other man in search of his mother might do. “Right.” He set down his instrument case and reached into his pocket, pulled out his wallet. He extracted a twenty-pound note with a sigh. “The rest of this payment, with some for the next. I need to know if any of these communes have newspapermen. And if they will be starting up their rags here to distribute to the refugees.”
Akkerman reached for the note, all smiles now. “It’ll take a bit of time to find that out. I’ll have to talk to some cousins I have scattered about.”
“Then talk to them. But I want all the information you can find about it—if, and who would be running them if so. And how to go about subscribing and placing advertisements.” He hoped—he prayed—that one of Père’s friends would be among the refugees. One who would help. Who would let Lukas put a message in his paper for Margot and Mère. It was his best hope of finding them.
Please, God. Please.
Yet even as he prayed it, something inside went heavy, sank. The chances were so slim—that he’d be able to get a message to them at all, that they’d receive it, that it would work, that they could get one back to him. That he would have the means to go and save them.
It felt, just now, impossible. But impossible was all he had to hope in.
Akkerman stuffed the money into his pocket, nodded, and took a step past him. “I’ll report as soon as I know anything useful.”
Lukas nodded as well and picked up his violin again, turned to watch him go. Praying the money he’d had with him in Paris would fund Akkerman long enough to find him the information he needed. Praying his family was out there somewhere, searching for ways to find him too. Praying—
A tingle brushed the back of his neck, made his throat go tight. Someone was watching him . . . though he wasn’t usually one to note such things. It never really struck him as this did, but now his head jerked to the side, his gaze searching the shadows of the quiet street to his right.
Some street rat? A thief waiting to pounce, who had seen that exchange of money? He should hurry back to the safety of the promenade, the hotel doors, and the light. He should . . .
“Willa.” He wasn’t sure what, exactly, made him certain it was her in the shadows. Some shift, perhaps, that caught the light? But no, all was darkness in the alley. His eyes gave him no message that anyone lurked there. Perhaps he’d caught a whiff of her citrus scent. Or perhaps, if he were being romantic and believing his own stories, his soul had simply recognized the nearness of hers.
His lips curved as she stepped from the shadows. Perhaps he ought to give his soul more credit.
She didn’t smile. “How did you know I was there?”
Her voice was cold calculation. And her eyes were those measuring, all-seeing windows again. Gone was the polish, the ease, the sweet smiles of the society girl.
Who was this woman? Perhaps in a lifetime he would find the answer.
It would be a start, anyway. And would prove entertaining for years. Still grinning, he shrugged and moved toward her. “True love knows when the object of its desires is near.”
At that, she rolled her eyes, as he’d known she would. “What utter rot. I certainly hope you don’t actually believe such nonsense.”
Maybe he did. Or was beginning to. And perhaps, in a decade or two, she’d believe it too. For now, he looked past her, down that dark street. “What are you doing out at this time of night, mon amour? Miss Davies said you were unwell.” She didn’t look unwell. She looked perfectly at ease. A little bit angry.
And absolutely perfect.
“I stepped out for some air and saw he was back.” She used her chin to indicate where Cor had been. It wasn’t a ladylike gesture. Had, actually, a bit of the masculine to it. Where had she picked it up? And, the better question, why did it suit her so well? “Thought I’d follow him.”
She turned her blue-green gaze on him. It was grey in this light, but no less piercing. “Do you really trust him to find information for you?”
He probably should have told her sooner that he’d hired her would-be suitor for the task. But he hadn’t wanted to fill what few minutes they had together without the violin with talk of him.
And he wasn’t yet accustomed to the thought of including someone else in his decisions. He would have to change
that, if he meant to pursue her seriously. And just now, he felt as serious as a bullet wound, that tingle of her nearness still fresh.
In answer, he shrugged. “I think I can trust him exactly as far as the money goes, and not an inch farther. But as long as my silver holds out, I think he can be useful. Plus,” he eased closer, just to watch her spine straighten, her feet shift half a step away, “it keeps him away from you, n’est-ce pas?”
She was all angles and planes and straight lines. And if he hadn’t just turned over a new leaf, he would deem it a much-desired challenge to make her melt into a few delicious curves draped around him.
Her chin came up. “I can take care of myself.”
“Je sais.” His affirmation emerged on a chuckle. Because he wouldn’t have expected it from a girl in her position. But it had been clear from the moment he first saw her. “Of this I have no doubt. But if a friend can help you, then all the better, oui?”
He must have leaned closer to her, though he didn’t realize it until her hand landed with a thud against his chest and pushed him back. “You are not my friend, Mr. De Wilde. It takes more than a ten-day acquaintance to earn that title.”
“True. At least when the ten-day acquaintance is filled only with music lessons and your determination to keep your distance.” He made sure to keep that space she liked between them—but he caught her hand as it tried to drop away, and eased his violin case back to the ground. “You do eat, do you not?” He may have questioned how regularly she did so, given her slenderness, were it not a strange question for a well-to-do girl.
She huffed and tried to pull her fingers free of his.
He held them all the tighter. “Have a meal with me. Tomorrow, after Mass. I will arrange a picnic. That will be charming, n’est-ce pas? Relaxing.” And inexpensive—not that he didn’t want to shower her with all the good things his fame had earned him, but all those things were cut off from him just now, and he had to be wise.
“I am not interested in relaxing with you.” Yet as soon as she said it, she drew in a sharp breath and averted her gaze.
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