A Song Unheard

by Roseanna M. White

  He studied her and Barclay, one and then the other. Looking for evidence that they lied. Knowing, probably, that he wouldn’t be able to tell if they did. Weighing the risk—trusting them—against the reward—his family.

  He sucked in a breath. “Why? Why would you help me—and ask nothing in return?”

  “Because it’s your sister,” Barclay answered before Willa could wrap her tongue around a response. He bumped his shoulder into hers. “Family matters more than anything. And besides.” A smile had entered his voice. “V will pay us for a job well done. Everyone’s happy.”

  Sure. Everyone. Lukas would have his sister and mother. She would get paid. That was all either of them could want, right?

  Daisy cleared her throat, drawing all gazes her way. “We will help you with this, Mr. De Wilde. We will have the funds delivered to your hotel first thing in the morning. Just . . .” She looked to Willa and Barclay. “Everyone be careful, please. TJ—our trustee—and his colleagues had no difficulties at all. There must be a way to achieve this that does not invite gunshots.”

  When all they were doing was secreting musicians out of the country, yes. But when they were trying to remove the De Wildes? Willa could make no promises.

  Neither, apparently, could Lukas. He simply nodded and bowed toward the sisters. “I am, yet again, in your debt. And will repay it the moment I can.” And then he was striding for the door, giving her and Barclay a wide berth. “We will catch the first train to London. Do not be late.”

  Willa pivoted when he passed her, followed him a step into the entryway. “Lukas.”

  But he didn’t even pause. Just yanked the door open, walked through it, and slammed it behind him.

  There were three people she cared about just a few steps away. But Willa hadn’t felt quite so alone since she was six.

  Twenty-Four

  Lukas paced to the window of the London house, wondering yet again if he were in fact trespassing—if this house, which they’d sworn belonged to their brother-in-law and were using with permission, in fact belonged to a random stranger who had left it vacant for a few months.

  Wondering how long they could possibly sit there, poring over a map.

  Wondering if it wouldn’t have been more efficient for her to simply tear his heart from his chest and stomp on it.

  “We need a bigger crew, Will, I’m telling you.” Barclay tapped something against the top of the desk.

  “More of us stumbling around a strange city? Barclay, it would be the gardens all over again.”

  “I’m thinking more the British Museum. We need someone who speaks German, who can be the mouth if we get stopped.”

  Willa sighed. “We’re not pulling Rosie into this. She’s got all the little ones with her.”

  “I speak German.” Lukas said it to the window, not to them, watching the way his words frosted the glass. “And Flemish. So do my sister and mother.”

  “See?”

  Barclay huffed out a breath. “He’s too recognizable.”

  “Not to the general public.” Lukas still refused to turn as he spoke. Their reflections were enough for him to see. “Only in my own circles, and perhaps to the army. If we avoid them and disguise ourselves appropriately, I daresay no one will look twice at me.”

  “See?” Willa said again. “We can handle it.” Her words were light. Her tone carried another note in it though. An undertone. One that said, Don’t risk any more of us.

  He still couldn’t quite wrap his mind around this group. A gang of thieves who seemed downright offended whenever he said they weren’t really family. There were five of them in this house right now—the two behind him and three girls somewhere upstairs. Elinor, the blonde he’d bumped into. Retta, whom he had assumed she’d met at the train. Lucy, who had regaled him with stories at supper—he ought to have assumed from that one’s darker complexion and almond eyes that she was no real relation to Barclay, but he’d rather assumed their father had behaved as so many had before, and then had the kindness to take in his illegitimate child.

  There were apparently seven more of them in Cornwall. And the youngest, they said, was only six. “Train up a child in the way he should go . . .” Apparently they believed in training thieves young.

  They acted like a family. They looked as though they belonged in this house, in the well-tailored clothes they all wore—Rosemary’s handiwork, it seemed. The one leading the band in Cornwall and supposedly married to the owner of this house, the novelist.

  Right.

  Just like Willa had seemed to be growing fond of him, bit by bit.

  What an artist she was. And him the fool.

  A buzzing sound filtered through their conversation, and footsteps raced down the stairs, along with a cheerful, “I’ll get it!”

  Lukas turned. Barclay had gone tense. Willa had popped out of her chair and was already halfway to him, her eyes flint. “Hurry. There’s a cabinet here you can hide in.”

  “A what?”

  But she’d already opened a door hidden in the paneling and was pushing him toward it, hissing, “Get in!”

  Barclay was doing something with the atlas on the desk, turning rapid pages.

  Lukas dug in his heels. “I will not be shoved into a hole.”

  Her eyes called him an idiot. “You think we have regular visitors?”

  No. No, they wouldn’t. He folded himself into the squat little closet and let her close the door.

  He wondered if she ever meant to let him out. Or if he’d be able to open it from in here if it were the police, coming to arrest them all. He’d have a hard time explaining the position to the authorities if he had to ask for help with it.

  “Mr. Pearce. And Miss Forsythe. I thought you were in Wales.”

  It was V. Lukas’s throat went tight. Perhaps he couldn’t quite explain logically the aversion he felt toward the man, but it reared up again at hearing his voice. Purely visceral. Overwhelming.

  “She is. This is just a very clever disguise you see before you—I’m really Ellie.”

  A beat. Then, “You are amusing as always, Miss Forsythe. Perhaps I should ask why you are not in Wales. Here I came to assure Barclay that the German spy has fled the country, and I find you here when you are supposed to be about your task there.”

  Lukas could see her, though he couldn’t see her. Rolling her eyes. Perching on the edge of the desk in that way that said nothing in the world bothered her. “I can’t be about my task there, sir. I finally got some decent information from him, and the key’s not in Aberystwyth.”

  Another beat. “Then where is it?”

  Lukas held his breath. She had no reason to give him up—not now, when he was here, hidden in a closet she’d all but shoved him into.

  “Paris.”

  His breath eased back out, silently. It was, he supposed, plausible. It was where he had been before he hurried back to Belgium after the invasion. He had, in fact, left many of his belongings there for the hotel to ship to him once he provided them an address.

  A tap, like the dozens of others Barclay had made on the map. “We have the direction for the room he’d rented—paid up until the fifteenth of November, but we need to move fast to get in and out again before then.”

  He must have turned the page in the atlas to a map of Paris. Clever. And thorough. If he had to be working with thieves, these at least seemed to know what they were doing.

  “Paris.” V didn’t sound disbelieving. Just thoughtful. “I thought for sure he would have it with him. How did you learn otherwise, Miss Forsythe?”

  She didn’t answer. Which would sound like an answer, especially if she summoned a blush to stain her cheeks. How did a woman usually get sensitive information from a man? Lukas’s fingers bit into his palms. At least he hadn’t been that kind of fool.

  V sighed. “You are a thief, my dear. Not a spy. Not . . . I did not ask you to compromise yourself.”

  “Don’t make assumptions, sir. They don’t become you. Let’s jus
t say I know how to run a confidence scheme and leave it at that.”

  “Very well.” A bit of rustling like paper being drawn over wood. “Where in Paris?”

  Lukas squeezed his eyes shut, though it made it no more dark in the little closet. Would this be where they tripped? They surely didn’t know Paris that well.

  But that tap came again. “The Rue de . . . Admiral Hamelin, however you say that in French. The Hotel Elysées Union.”

  Of course, he apparently didn’t have to know Paris all that well, if he had a good memory. Lukas had told him about the month he had spent in the city. Mentioned turning onto the street and seeing the Eiffel Tower.

  Though the man mangled the pronunciation of the hotel. He would have to keep his lips sealed whenever they stepped into Belgium or he’d give them all away in the first syllable. He might as well call out “Oi!” at the start of every sentence.

  V made a humming noise. “Very well. Do you need anything for the trip? Documents? Passports?”

  “V.” Barclay laughed. “You haven’t really met Retta yet, have you?”

  “Ah. You’ve a forger already. I ought to have known.” Footsteps, blessedly, toward the door. “Well, if you need anything you cannot procure within your own family, do let me know. Godspeed.”

  “Thanks.” More footsteps followed the first. Barclay walking him out, Lukas guessed. They were too heavy to be Willa’s.

  And when the light came, blinding him, it was her face that came into focus after a few blinks. She held out a hand.

  He ignored it and unfolded himself. Or tried to ignore it, until his foot caught on a strip in the threshold and nearly sent him tumbling into her. Grasping her fingers was instinct. And preferable to ending up draped all over her.

  Her fingers curled around his to steady him. He could feel the uneven skin on her palm, the injury the bandage had covered yesterday. It was hot to the touch, swollen.

  His feet had found their footing. But he felt all kinds of off-balance. He turned her hand over in his so he could look at the angry red cut. “You should put something on this. You do not want it to get infected.”

  Her fingers tried to curl over it, but his got in the way. And his heart made a strange little thunk.

  “It doesn’t matter.” Not It will be fine or I have or I will. She tugged her hand away.

  “Of course it does.” He backed away a step. “You cannot play with injured hands or arms. Trust me.”

  “I won’t be playing any time soon anyway.” Avoiding his gaze, she turned back to the desk and clasped her elbows with those mangled hands.

  She looked small. And fragile. And alone.

  He didn’t care. Couldn’t. “What else do you need from me? For the planning?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Then . . . I will see you in the morning. First light.”

  “First light.”

  Apparently that was all they had to say now. He turned and left the room. Went upstairs to the same room he’d borrowed before.

  Or stolen. He still wasn’t sure which. But if it got him to his sister and mother, he didn’t care which it was.

  Antwerp was behind them. And so, thankfully, was Cor Akkerman. Willa pulled the scarf more securely over her head and tucked it into the ragged top of her old coat. They blended in rather well, she thought, with the poor farmers trudging along the road, always looking over their shoulders to make sure there were no soldiers galloping up behind them. Or zooming by in automobiles that rutted the road and scared the animals.

  There was supposed to have been a wagon waiting for them just outside the city, but Cor’s “cousin” was apparently about as reliable as Cor himself. No wagon had been there, but Lukas wouldn’t wait. They’d started walking.

  And would keep doing so—if they didn’t find something faster—the thirty miles to Brussels.

  She sidestepped a mud puddle and cast a glance to her left, where Barclay walked. And past him, to Lukas. “Do you think—”

  “No talking.” He didn’t bark it. Just said it so calmly, so evenly. “You scream English the moment you open your mouths.”

  Well, yes. Because she was speaking English. She rolled her eyes and faced forward again. Did he really expect them to say nothing for the whole time it would take them to walk thirty miles?

  The trip thus far had been painless—a train to the eastern coast of England, where Cor had led them to one of the fishing boats being used to smuggle goods across the Channel. Whereupon he’d barred their entrance until Lukas had handed over a thick stack of pound notes. The Davieses had, of course, come through.

  And were praying for them. Both Daisy and Gwen had clasped her hands before she’d left—mindful of her bandages—and whispered a prayer then and there. That God would keep her safe. Show her where He would have her step. Guide her as she guided Lukas’s family to safety.

  Willa looked down at the road, pocked and spoiled by too many boots and wagons and automobiles in too short a time. Never in her life had she ever thought anyone guided her steps. Not God. Not parents. Not teachers or benefactors or the usual adult who ought to do so. It had always just been her. And then her and Barclay and Rosemary. Then the others who they cared for.

  She brushed a fly off her bleak brown skirt and regretted it. Her hand stung.

  Her chest ached.

  She was tired. So tired, and it had nothing to do with the three miles already behind them. It had everything to do with the silence inside. And out.

  As if he heard her thoughts, Barclay started humming. A simple tune, one he’d asked her to play time and again in Pauly’s pub. Some sort of lullaby, though she didn’t know the words to it. And the tune must not scream English! since Lukas didn’t hush him.

  Willa drew in a long breath and savored the notes. He had the better voice, did Barclay. No natural talent with an instrument, but he could sing.

  He went from one song to another as they walked, and when he stopped, clearing his throat, Lukas took over. Or no, he didn’t hum. He sang, something soft and low and in what she assumed was Flemish, since it didn’t sound like French.

  Another lullaby, she would bet. It sounded like one. She could imagine a father bent over his little one’s bed, singing this.

  She curled her fingertips up. And regretted it. Her palms stung. Her heart ached. And the road stretched endlessly before her.

  After another half mile, another three songs, Willa came to a halt. They’d just rounded a bend, and the green-brown autumnal fields stretched their way up to a house. It was all turrets and windows and spires and climbing ivy and perfection.

  Aside from the wagon parked in front of it with the insignia of the German army. And soldiers scurrying around it, packing something or another inside.

  “Do not stop.” Lukas tugged on her arm, having apparently stepped past Barclay to do so. “Do not look their way. The Belgians do not, have you not noticed?”

  Of course she had. In Antwerp, it had been almost comical, the way the natives would turn their backs whenever a soldier walked by, and shove their hands into their pockets. As if ignoring the soldiers’ existence.

  She would have apologized, if she dared. Explained that it was just the house, set back against the trees and looking so perfect, that had caught her eye. She would have said that Belgium was beautiful.

  Instead, she kept walking.

  The pressure of his hand on her elbow eased off, of course. He lowered his arm. But didn’t leave her side. His fingers brushed up against hers as they walked the next step.

  He should have jerked away—that was how he’d been all through the trip to London, in London, then to the coast. Other than in the study when he’d looked at her injury, which hardly counted.

  But he didn’t. He turned his hand and trailed the tip of his index finger down the length of hers.

  Then he moved back to the other side of Barclay.

  Willa fastened her eyes on the road ahead of them and told herself it had been an accident. Or somet
hing meant to confuse her. To punish her, even. He just wanted to make her feel like an idiot, to remind her of what he’d offered and she’d lost.

  Well, she didn’t need the reminder. She’d known all along she wouldn’t be able to hold for long whatever it was they’d had.

  They were closer now, and they could hear the Germans’ shouts and laughter as they loaded boxes into the wagon. Boxes not marked with the German insignia. She kept her head down, the scarf pulled low so that she could still peek out.

  A family stood at the corner of the house. A father in shirtsleeves, with one arm around his wife, who wept into his shoulder, and another around a girl of maybe twelve. A young man, seventeen or so, stood half a step behind them, looking ready to charge past his father and light into the soldiers.

  A bottle peeked out of one of the boxes. Green, like the ones used for wine. From another she could see a sack of flour.

  Her blood simmered. They were taking their food—this family’s food, and who knew what else?

  “Head down, Will.” Barclay barely breathed the words. “There’s nothing we can do. Not for them. Focus.”

  “They are supposed to pay for what they take.” Lukas, not but a breath louder than Barclay had been. “They do not. That is what Allard’s brother reports.”

  Willa put her head back down. And clutched the scarf at her neck—more to have something to strangle than because the air was cold.

  They drew even with the house just as the wagon lurched forward and started down the muddy drive. The men didn’t need to tell her to move out of the way, they all leapt off the road together, into the muck and grass. Just ahead of them on the road was another wagon, old and plodding, which couldn’t maneuver quite so quickly. The German driver shouted and barreled past, making the farm horse rear up and the driver yell something.

  At the horse? Or at the laughing soldiers?

  The horse, she assumed, or the soldiers probably would have leapt down to teach him a lesson for shouting at them.

  Lukas took off toward the man’s wagon, arriving just in time to keep a bale of hay from tipping off the side. He said something, smiled. The farmer smiled back, replied, motioned to the hay-filled bed of his wagon, and clucked to his horse until the wheels sat evenly on the road again. Then stopped.