The Paris Secret

by Natasha Lester

  “Pregnant again with his child,” Skye finished for him. “How you must hate us too, his children, for costing him his life.”

  “I did hate you both, just as I once hated Vanessa—but hate doesn’t get you anywhere, does it?” He sighed. “After the war, Sophie stayed on in France. She’d been very close to your mother, as close as sisters, and didn’t blame her at all for what had happened. She told me that Sebastian was his own man and made his own decisions, that he was the one to blame, not Vanessa.”

  “And she promised my mother to look after me and Liberty if anything happened.”

  “Quite right. After spending several years being angry at Vanessa, I went to stay with Sophie in France for a week or two. She neglected to tell me that Vanessa and her children—you and your sister—would be there also. I was furious at first. But then I realized Vanessa was one of the only people I could speak to about my brother—she’d known him properly. So after that, I went to see her occasionally, to remember. I should have done more for you and your sister though. You’re my nieces, for Christ’s sake.”

  He touched Skye’s arm, then withdrew his hand uncertainly. In that gesture, she understood that she now had another family besides the women at Hamble. It almost made her smile.

  But there was, still, the most important question, which lay all around them unanswered.

  “Why are you telling me this now?”

  He stood, moving away, and spoke with his back to her. “It’s thought you could help the war effort the same way your mother did. I’m not at all sure that I shouldn’t try to dissuade you. But we need more women. It’s getting harder and harder to send men over; they’re too conspicuous. Most Frenchmen have either been prisoners of war since 1940 or have been sent to Germany on forced labor programs. Women attract far less suspicion. It’s just damned hard to find ones who speak French well enough, and who seem French enough not to give themselves away within five minutes of being over there. We’ve had to take on a couple whose trainers raised doubts about their emotional control but, as their Frenchness was beyond doubt and we can’t lose this bloody war . . .” His sigh expressed his frustration. “Well, nobody could afford not to use them.”

  He turned to face her, his expression troubled. “I have no doubts about your self-possession; you’ve more than proved yourself in the ATA. If you agreed to all this, you would join the Special Operations Executive, or SOE as it’s known. Duties generally involve sabotage, working with Resistance circuits, and gathering and passing on information between those Resistance circuits and HQ in London. The agents are flown into France on full-moon nights by Lysanders, whose pilots are based at Tempsford, where you arrived by accident eighteen months ago. I’m responsible for all the Special Duties squadrons in the RAF, of which that is one.”

  Nicholas. Her breath stopped, her heart clenched like a fist. Nicholas flew spies into France. If something went wrong with his plane and he was captured by the Nazis . . . She shuddered.

  “You look as if you need more Scotch,” Wylde said. “I didn’t mean to shock you quite so much. You can certainly refuse.”

  “It’s not that.” She shook her head and, unbelievably, the words came out. “Nicholas Crawford is . . .” The man I love. She caught herself just in time. “A good friend. I had no idea he was in so much danger.”

  “Ah.” Wylde took up the bottle and poured her the healthiest slug yet. “I didn’t know that.”

  He was kind enough not to press her, but she knew she hadn’t hidden anything from him. Which would make her a terrible spy.

  He waited while she drank deeply, as if the Scotch were water. Her head was already spinning so much the Scotch did little more than burn her throat.

  “Would you like to meet someone who can tell you more?” Wylde asked.

  Could she give up flying for this? How could she not? We can’t lose this bloody war, Wylde had said. What kind of person would it make her if she refused to give the kind of help that was most needed?

  The heat from the Scotch was suddenly doused by ice-cold fear and she felt that same terrifying immobility suffuse her just like it had when the Messerschmitt had shot at her. No breath. No pulse of blood. Nothing beyond her eyes riveted to Wylde’s face. And one thought: there were a hundred ways to die in an airplane in the sky. But there were a million ways to die as a spy in Nazi-occupied France.

  But Nicholas flew there all the time. He didn’t sit like a mute and self-centered idiot thinking only of himself. Her heart just about burst right then with how much she loved him.

  She managed one long, deep inhalation. What of all the people who had died since 1939, all the people who were yet to die with every day the war went on? “Do you think I can do it?” she asked Wylde.

  He didn’t hesitate. “Yes. And part of me wants you to do it because if you’re as good an agent as you are a pilot, I have no doubt we’ll win. But I also know that if I let you go, I might never see you again. And I would,” his lips pursed as if the words hurt to say, “regret that very much.”

  Skye felt her hand reach out to take his. He squeezed it, holding on, and her own mouth skewed to the side, everything inside her hurting too. “I think I have to,” she said.

  He nodded. “I think you do too.” He let go of her hand and stood up. “I’ll take you to meet Vera Atkins. You’d report to her if you choose to work with SOE.”

  Skye’s limbs unfolded and she managed to stand, despite the quantity of Scotch she’d consumed, the new history she’d learned, and the new future that threatened like a distant thundercloud, and walk in a relatively straight line behind Wylde.

  He was about to tap on a door along the corridor when it opened and Nicholas and Margaux walked out.

  Skye stared at them.

  Margaux smiled.

  Nicholas stopped still. His eyes, dark blue with sudden fury, blazed at Skye. She flinched.

  “No,” he said, face hard.

  Wylde stared at Skye, and then at Nicholas.

  “No,” Nicholas said again. “No.”

  * * *

  Seeing Skye again, so close he could reach out and touch her, almost had him staggering backward at the realization that everything he felt for her had only intensified over the months of absence, and also fighting every instinct in his body that wanted to draw her in and kiss her like he’d never before kissed anybody. Even breathing was difficult; the shock of being just two feet away from her like flying into a fire rainbow—dazzling.

  Then it hit him: a body blow against his heart. She was at SOE headquarters. Which meant only one thing. They wanted to recruit her.

  “No,” he said. Because then it might be Skye shot dead on a field in France right before his eyes, and he would have to climb back into his plane and leave her body there. He would never be able to do that.

  “No,” he said again. It came out even more forcefully and he saw Skye step away. He had never punched anything in his life, but right now he wanted to punch the wall.

  Then he caught sight of Margaux’s face and he knew. She had brought them all to this place.

  He hadn’t understood why he’d needed to come with her to SOE headquarters today. He never went there; his dealings were all through the RAF. But Margaux had said it was to do with their cover story so he’d driven them both down from Tempsford. But Vera Atkins hadn’t seemed to know why they were there and Margaux had apologized and said something about having the wrong day and he had been about to ask her what the hell was going on when she’d opened the door and there was Skye.

  “You can’t,” he managed to say. Take my hand. Let’s go. Anywhere. Together. And he saw his hand actually reaching out to take Skye’s, before he caught himself and recoiled, just as he’d shied away the night at the Embassy when Margaux had told him to dance with Skye.

  Skye’s face twisted into an expression he’d never seen on her and never wanted to see again: hard and hostile, as if he’d stolen all of her joy. He stood silently watching as e
very one of her feelings for him erupted into loathing, one more beautiful thing ruined by war.

  “I can,” she said, and she stalked into Vera’s office and shut the door.

  Twenty-Nine

  On the train back to Southampton the following day, Skye thought about two things. That she now had an uncle. Someone to perhaps spend Christmas with. To talk about her mother with.

  Her mother. She was the other person Skye thought of. She imagined the life Vanessa Penrose had led: a life of secrets and danger and excitement and, obviously, love. Then, once the war ended and her services were no longer required, she had moved to Cornwall with two daughters and a broken heart, which must have been one of the most difficult things of all.

  And now here was Skye, nursing a similarly broken heart, but she had only herself to care for, not two small and needy children who craved love and attention. And the man she loved was still, for now, alive.

  It was only as she cycled back to Hamble that she thought of Margaux emerging from a room in a building that obviously housed intelligence workers. If Skye’s suspicions were correct, Margaux had recommended her to SOE. For them to have taken her recommendation seriously, it meant that Margaux wasn’t working for the Women’s Auxiliary Air Force, but for SOE.

  None of it changed the fact that Margaux was engaged to Nicholas, who had spoken to Skye at SOE headquarters with so much anger, as if he hated her. Perhaps telling him she loved him—giving him that burden—had been unfair of her. He certainly, at best, seemed to resent her for it.

  She cycled faster, along the pathways of frail England and away from the remembrance of Nicholas’s annoyance. She arrived at the cottage in Hamble to find she’d forgotten about the dance being held that night at the country home of the Tangmere station commander who wanted to celebrate Easter 1944 and the fact that they’d all made it this far. A time of sacrifice and then resurrection; even Skye could see the symbolism.

  The dance was being held a week early because, after next week, everyone had had their leave canceled and they all knew it meant that the rumored invasion was soon to sweep them up in its deadly wake. That everything until now had been a rehearsal, and this was the finale: an extravaganza of blood and battle and broken bodies.

  It was also why SOE needed more agents. The next few weeks in the lead-up to the invasion, and the months thereafter, would be the most crucial time for bolstering Resistance networks, and for sabotage. Skye had two days’ leave before joining that fight. No more flights for the ATA, but a training course, which she’d been told she mightn’t pass. If her superiors’ reports were favorable, then she would become someone else, a Frenchwoman, and take her place in a plane like the ones Nicholas flew, heading off to fight the Germans.

  I never wanted to be Vanessa Penrose in the way that you did. Strangely, her sister’s words floated into Skye’s consciousness and she stood and held them in her mind as she propped her bicycle against the wall of the cottage. Was that why she was doing this? Was her whole life some kind of duplicate of her mother’s: a history repeating on and on, leading only to death and heartbreak?

  Skye shook her head. She thought of Amy Johnson dying while ferrying planes, Honor too. She thought of every other ATA woman who had lost her life, all of them her fellows. This had been going on for four and a half years. It had to end. No, this was one thing she wasn’t doing for or because of Vanessa. But for so many others instead.

  Skye felt a tear on her cheek and then another. She brushed them away and composed her face into an expression Rose would expect to see. A little bit of anticipation about the dance, a little bit of excitement. No fear, no sadness. A mask she would wear from now on as her life became a lie that she lived.

  “I’ve been looking forward to this all month!” Rose cried, erupting out of the cottage.

  Skye turned to her with a grin behind which she hid what she knew about Rose’s fiancé—that he flew spies into France like Nicholas did. She hid also the prayer she offered up right then: that Richie would survive, and that Rose would always be this happy.

  Rose, unknowing, continued her enthusing. “We’re allowed to wear civvies!” she whooped. “Pauline said I could make a detour this morning to Mummy’s so I gathered up a few dancing dresses for us. They’re prewar but I think they’ll do.”

  “Show me what you have,” Skye said.

  Rose’s dresses were lovely. Skye coveted one in particular; a Vionnet she discovered with a gasp when she saw the label. It was a shade of pinkish red she couldn’t quite describe—magenta possibly, or fuchsia, or perhaps just the deepest pink of a sunset sky. Two pieces of fabric wrapped up over her bust to form a softly draped neckline, and then tied at her back, and the bias-cut skirt caressed her hips before falling with a little swirl—but not too much—to her ankles.

  “It’s too bright though, isn’t it?” Skye said, wanting Rose to disagree but also worried that showing up at a party in a color so blazing might be offensive when grief and mourning were the ordinary way of things.

  “If anyone’s earned the right to wear a dress like that, you have,” Rose said. “Enjoy it. Who knows how much longer we’ll all be smiling for? Besides, with your dark hair, you’re the only person it would suit. It never looked any good on me.”

  So Skye did wear it, curling her hair and putting on only a touch of makeup because the dress didn’t need any embellishment.

  Then she and Rose hoisted their finery onto their bicycles and rode to the train station, and were grateful to find two cars organized by the station commander to collect everyone in Chichester.

  At the house, tulips and hyacinths—in defiance of war, like Skye’s dress—stood proudly in the garden beds and buds thrust their stubborn heads out from rosebushes. The last candle flame of sun was waiting to be extinguished by night as Rose and Skye stepped inside, where lights shone and music played and everyone laughed and was merry, and Skye tried her hardest to be as well.

  Until Liberty wound her arm drunkenly around her sister’s neck. “Guess what I just heard?”

  Skye sighed and removed the glass from her sister’s hand. “I don’t want to have to clean you up tonight,” she said.

  Liberty snatched the glass back and, eyes on Skye, took a large sip. “Guess what I just heard?” she repeated.

  “What?” Skye said, thankful for an approaching pilot who looked as if he would ask her to dance and save her from her sister’s gossip.

  “Margaux and Nicholas are no longer engaged,” Liberty said triumphantly.

  Skye shook her head at the pilot, who veered off, disappointed. “Pardon?” she said.

  “Nicholas is free to do what he likes. He and Margaux had a huge row this afternoon. Then Margaux strolled into the mess like she hadn’t a care in the world and announced to all the men that she was now available for dates. Within ten minutes she was sitting on someone’s knee!”

  “That’s not true,” Skye said. She’d seen Margaux and Nicholas yesterday morning and they were very much together.

  “It is,” Liberty said, suddenly insistent and serious and focused on Skye as if the drunkenness were only an act and she was, in fact, extraordinarily sober and knew just what she was doing.

  Isn’t this better than being with O’Farrell, Skye remembered Liberty saying that night at the hotel when they were lying in bed and Skye had thought her sister was drunk and babbling. Why, of all the men in the RAF had Liberty been so intent on O’Farrell if indeed she thought Skye was better off without him? Then, like a finger snap, the moment was gone and Liberty was back to her scandalmongering.

  “It looks as if the Ice Queen has definitely come here to have a good time,” Liberty said, nodding toward the dance floor.

  Skye followed Liberty’s gaze. Margaux, wearing a spectacularly revealing backless dress in cobalt blue, was leading O’Farrell out to dance, the closeness of her body to his suggesting that dancing alone wasn’t her intention.

  Liberty thrust her glass at Skye. “Here.” Then she stro
de off in the direction of the dance floor and Skye didn’t know if she was planning to separate O’Farrell and Margaux, or if she was going to lure another pilot into her arms to show O’Farrell that she too could flirt with the best of them.

  Suddenly, Skye couldn’t bear to watch whatever was about to happen between Liberty, O’Farrell and Margaux. She also didn’t want to know if Nicholas was at the party, didn’t want to brace herself in expectation of more hurt. So she crept outside, where a waning moon shone, silvering the house, spotlighting the gardens, defeating England’s attempts at blackout.

  Skye picked her way across the lawn, past the hopeful flowers, far away from the house. But she couldn’t be alone even there. She’d no sooner kicked off her shoes and dug her toes into the velvety lawn when she heard a voice she didn’t want to hear say her name. Go away, she tried to whisper. Her whole body contracted—even her skin, even her breath—as if she were made of glass.

  If Nicholas spoke again, the sound of his voice against her heart would make it splinter. If she said nothing, perhaps he wouldn’t either. Perhaps he would leave.

  But he crossed the lawn and stood far closer to her than she wanted. “I’m not . . .” he began, then broke off, swore under his breath and started again. “I’m not engaged to Margaux.”

  “But you were happy to let her spy for our country,” Skye said, testing.

  “That’s not—” He stopped and she knew that her guess about Margaux had been right.

  She rounded on him, her voice dangerously quiet. “Do I really seem that inept to you? Margaux is cool and elegant and self-controlled enough to spy, but I’m young and foolish and would make a mess of it with my devil-may-care attitude. How about you try thinking of me as something other than a child?”

  “Believe me, I do that far too often.”

  It was his peculiar smile that did it. It made her shout as if he were someone she loathed.

  “I’m so tired of all the riddles! Why the hell is it all right for Margaux to do what she does, but not me?”