by Kate Breslin
He was decrypting his last message of the day marked FORWARD TO LONDON when the telephone rang in his office. Relieved at the diversion, he reached for the receiver. “Lieutenant Mabry here.”
“Colin, how are things in Hastings?”
He straightened at the sound of the tinny male voice. “Lord Walenford.”
“Enough of that. Either Jack or Benningham will do. We’re going to be brothers, after all.” Jack Benningham’s voice warmed. “Speaking of which . . . I thought you might join me for dinner this evening. My man can meet you at Victoria Station and bring you around to the house.”
The town house? Colin still hadn’t gotten used to the idea his sister was about to marry a viscount and the future Earl of Stonebrooke. A man who also happened to be Colin’s boss.
Which meant, despite his reluctance to travel into London tonight, he could hardly refuse his employer and brother-to-be. “I can take the train from Hastings if that is acceptable.”
“Splendid. I’ll expect you at eight. Mrs. Riley is making her ration stew.”
Colin stared blindly at the unfinished work on his desk, still surprised at the invitation. “Very well, Lord . . . uh, Jack. I look forward to it.”
“Excellent. I’ll see you tonight. We’ll have dinner in my study, and you can bring any dispatches for the Admiralty directly here.”
“Of course . . .” Colin’s hand groped to replace the receiver as his gaze fell to the last message he’d been working on, noting for the first time the letters he’d already deciphered. LT. C . . . O . . . L . . . I . . .
He continued breaking down the other cryptic numbers, his pulse hammering as more words began to form:
Lt. Colin Mabry, British Army, c/o Swan’s Tea Room, London:
Urgent you remember your promise of love. Meet me Café de la Paix, Paris. 10 April, 1500 hours. You’re my last hope.—J. R.
J. R. . . . Colin’s shock overrode his rapid pulse. Jewel Reyer . . . alive.
He’d thought of her often over the past year: her beautiful face, her laughter. Like her namesake, Jewel had glowing skin, lustrous golden hair, and soft blue eyes that sparkled when she sang. She’d also kissed him. . . .
Another explosion rumbled across the channel, and Colin flinched, staring at the note. Jewel was alive. In Paris.
Sweat broke out along his forehead while his heart stirred with emotions from the past, including another memory.
He had given her his promise to return.
CHAPTER
2
KENSINGTON, LONDON
How was the trip from Hastings?”
Lord Walenford’s dark blue gaze studied him from across the small, linen-covered table.
“Well enough . . . Jack.” Colin sat in the chair facing his blond employer after being escorted into the study by Knowles, the elderly butler. He quickly scanned his surroundings, noting the paneled room in the elegant, Victorian-styled brick residence on Holland Street was larger than his entire flat in Hastings.
Grabbing up his white linen napkin before Knowles could reach for it, Colin snapped the cloth open and draped it across his lap. When he looked up again, he noticed for the first time Jack’s tan linen business suit and the red tie slightly loosened at his neck.
Jack caught his look and smiled. “It’s rare that I get to take the liberty of casual dining.”
Colin was grateful to be excused from wearing formal dinner dress; the military had withdrawn the use of colored uniforms during the war. And though his white tie and black dinner jacket remained at his family’s London home in Knightsbridge, by the time he made himself presentable with all of those buttons and cuff links, Jack might starve. “Casual dining suits me fine, and my uniform takes the guesswork out of dressing.”
“Another benefit of being in the military.” Grinning, Jack reached for his wineglass. “Anyway, with the new rationing laws in Britain, food these days suits a more casual palate.” His eyes gleamed as he leaned back in his chair. “Though if you tell Mrs. Riley I said so, I’ll deny it. At least she makes the meager fare edible.”
He took a sip of red wine before returning his attention to Colin. “So, how are you getting on in that picturesque little town by the sea?”
“Hastings is certainly better than being here in the city.” Colin recalled his anxiety upon arriving in London two months ago, after leaving his uncle’s farm. “Not so many people. I thank you for offering me the post.”
“My pleasure.” Jack’s smile caused the scarred flesh around his eyes to pucker. He’d suffered his own casualties of war. “Yet I would imagine that since Kaiser Wilhelm began his Spring Offensive last month, you are plagued by noise from across the water. We sometimes hear the guns in London as well.”
Colin reached for his crystal goblet of water and stared at the glass a moment before setting it back down. “The sound is . . . distracting but not unmanageable.” He glanced up to see compassion in Jack’s handsome features.
“Every so often a German plane will get through our home defense and drop a bomb or two here in town. I nearly jump out of my skin.” Toying with the stem of his glass, Jack paused. “Grace asked me to tell you that your father still wishes you to come and work with him at Swan’s. Once your sister and I marry, she will resign her position as the tea room’s floor manager. Patrick wants you to take the reins and learn the tea business from the ground up.”
Colin’s mouth compressed at the sudden stab of guilt. With their mother gone from tuberculosis these two years, he and his sister had become closer than ever, and Grace occasionally traveled to Hastings to visit him.
Yet he rarely returned to the Mabry family’s London home in Knightsbridge. It was difficult to endure the doleful looks Grace tried to hide as she watched him eat his meals or button his coat, and Father, always looking away from the prosthetic while trying too hard to provide accommodation for what his only son lacked. Even worse were his father’s continued attempts to recruit Colin into the family tea enterprise.
“You know I cannot work the floor at Swan’s. Being in the public eye . . .” He slid his arm with the wooden hand farther out of view beneath the table.
Jack sighed. “I told her as much. I spent months hiding away from society after the explosion, knowing I frightened the locals.” He touched his scarred brow. “Blinded, I wanted nothing more than to remain invisible.”
Colin merely nodded.
A knock sounded before an aged footman with a slight limp entered the study with a tray bearing a white soup tureen. Under the watchful eye of Knowles, he began serving up steaming bowlfuls of Mrs. Riley’s ration stew.
Colin had been relieved to know stew was on the menu. Reaching for his spoon, he breathed in the fragrance of beef broth and thyme and realized the fresh vegetables had likely come from Jack’s farm estate in Kent, where Colin’s sister had met the heir to Stonebrooke while baling hay with the Women’s Forage Corps.
The two men tucked into their supper, and Colin tasted bits of beef much like those from the rationed tins of bully beef sent to the soldiers overseas.
“Now that you’re here, I have a favor to ask.” Jack glanced up from his stew. “I need your help with the wedding.”
Colin paused, his spoon halfway to his lips. Curiosity battled his wariness. “How so?”
“I want you to be my best man.”
“Me?” Colin’s stomach lurched as his spoon fell back into the stew. “But . . . I assumed you had a best man. Captain Weatherford?”
Jack’s expression sobered. “I can see this comes as a surprise. And yes, Marcus was to do the honors. However, he left London on Crown business a few weeks ago, and no one has heard from him.” His frown deepened. “Not even his department chief can give me information.”
Colin had met Captain Weatherford on two occasions after returning to London. He knew the man worked for MI6 at the Admiralty and that he and Jack Benningham were close friends. With the day of the nuptials drawing near, why hadn’t he contacted Jack?<
br />
Colin didn’t want to consider the possibility the captain had met with foul play.
Moisture broke out along his upper lip as he imagined himself standing beside Jack in a church filled with hundreds of society’s nobility. Every one of them would be staring forward to the bride and groom . . . and Colin’s prosthetic.
“Captain Weatherford could still return in time for the wedding.” Desperation edged his tone while his neck heated against his too-tight collar.
“I assure you, if Marcus returns, you’ll be relieved of the duty.” Jack leaned forward, spoon in hand. “Colin, I know how you feel about being on public display, but I won’t risk ruining Grace’s wedding day by coming up short a best man.” He smiled. “And who else aside from Marcus would I ask to stand up with me, but my future brother-in-law?”
Colin eyed him across the table. Despite his reservations, he owed Jack a great debt. His host had done far more than grant him a post where he could still be useful to the war effort yet live away from London, where people gawked or eyed him with pity.
Jack Benningham had saved his life.
He glanced at the prosthetic hand in his lap and was reminded that, while his life would never be the same, by God’s grace, at least he had one.
Jack had traveled across the channel to the Front and used his uncanny sense of direction to locate the collapsed tunnel where Colin and several other soldiers lay buried. He’d done it for Grace, of course, but Colin was nonetheless grateful to be the recipient of the gesture.
Acting as best man was little enough to ask in return. He swallowed and met the gaze of his brother-to-be. “It will be my honor to stand with you at the wedding.”
“Excellent!” Jack’s smile held relief as he took up another spoonful of stew.
Colin stared down at his food, hesitating. During the train ride from Hastings into London, he’d wondered how to broach the subject of Jewel’s message.
Yet Colin himself was living proof that his future brother-in-law was a brave and honorable man. Surely Jack would understand his reasons for wanting to aid the woman to whom he owed so much. “I have something I wish to discuss as well.”
Jack raised his head. “What’s that?”
Colin’s pulse quickened as he thought again of the daily bombing across the channel. “Before the wedding, I need to go to Paris.”
“When?”
“Tomorrow.”
Jack rested his spoon in the bowl and picked up his napkin. “Care to explain?”
“I . . . need to meet someone.”
“I see.” Jack glanced toward the elderly butler near the door. “That will be all, Knowles. I’ll ring if I need you.”
Once the butler exited, Jack’s attention returned to Colin. “That someone must be very important if you’re willing to go to a city currently being bombarded by the enemy.”
“I made a promise I need to keep.” Colin laid his palm against the table. “A year ago, I was fighting in the British Expeditionary Force’s Second Cavalry Division at Arras. A few of us rode east during maneuvers and somehow went off course. Mortars rained down, and a shell landed in our path. When I awoke, I saw the others, or what was left of them, lying dead. I also lost my sorrel, Wyatt.” He clenched the white cloth in his fist. “I managed to get up and start walking. I was completely lost, and it was dark when I finally reached an isolated farm outside the French village of Havrincourt.”
“Havrincourt?” Jack’s gaze narrowed. “That place would have been crawling with Germans about then.”
Colin nodded. “I believe God was on my side, because I saw a young woman coming out of the barn carrying something in her apron—potatoes, I think. I greeted her in French, telling her what had happened. She took me inside and hid me away in a cellar beneath the barn floor.”
Jack whistled softly. “I’d certainly call it Providence.”
“I’d caught a bit of shrapnel in my right leg, and Jewel and her aunt took care of me. They practically starved under the occupation, yet they fed me from the few enemy rations they received. Jewel also had a remarkable voice. She learned a few Boche songs to sing for the kommandant and his officers at Havrincourt’s town hall, and shared the spoils they gave her as tribute.” He relaxed his fist. “I was there a month, and we spent much time together. . . .”
“Ah, so that’s it.”
Seeing Jack’s knowing grin, Colin’s face flooded with heat. He wasn’t about to add that Jewel had been the first woman to ever kiss him.
He cleared his throat. “My chance to escape finally came.” Colin stared at the paneled wall beyond Jack’s shoulder, remembering those last poignant moments. “She begged to go with me. Even her aunt tried to convince me to take her only niece away from the Boche.”
Colin turned to his host. “Jewel’s father was off fighting in the French Army, so it was just the two women. Still, I refused. I couldn’t risk taking her through no-man’s-land in order to return to my regiment. She could have been killed, or worse.”
“Of course.” Jack’s humor ebbed. “I was there for just a brief time, but I saw it was no place for civilians, especially not a woman alone.”
“I told Jewel she would be safer remaining in the village, so long as she had a patron in the kommandant and she kept singing. I promised her I’d come back after the war.”
His chest tightened with the old regret. “I returned to my regiment, and for weeks, the fighting was intense. I never received word from her—not that I expected to, with the town occupied by the enemy. Shortly after that, I was sent to Passchendaele to help with the tunnels.” He shot Jack a grateful look. “You know what happened after that.”
Jack nodded.
“This past December, when I was still in Dublin seeing the head doctor at Richmond, I overheard talk that our tanks in France had pushed past the Hindenburg Line at Cambrai, near Jewel’s village. The Boche began a retreat, and their artillery fire left Havrincourt all but destroyed. Most of the townspeople are dead or missing.” Colin’s gaze fell to the table. “I wrote to the Red Cross, hoping to get word about Jewel and her aunt, but there was no information. I thought they had both been killed.”
“That’s why you stayed away at Christmas.”
“It was one of the reasons.” Colin’s sister and father had been crushed over his absence, but he’d been in no condition to come home and spread holiday cheer. “I thought it best.”
“And this Miss . . . ?”
“Reyer. Her name is Jewel Bernadette Reyer.”
“Reyer, you say?” A slight frown touched Jack’s lips. “I take it, then, your Miss Reyer is alive?”
Colin explained the encrypted message he’d received that afternoon. “The meeting at the café in Paris is set for tomorrow, the tenth. Her request sounds urgent.”
“Reyer . . .” Jack rose from his place at the table. “Excuse me a moment.”
Colin watched him stride across the room to the oak desk situated near the hearth. After shuffling through a stack of papers, Jack withdrew a file and returned.
“I know that name. . . .” Once again taking his seat, he opened the file and began flipping pages, his features intent. “Here it is. J. Reyer.”
“What are you looking at?”
“It’s the Allies’ enemy watch list from France.”
“Enemy list?” Colin fell back against his seat, eyes wide. “You think Jewel is working for the Boche?”
He almost laughed until Jack’s grave look ignited his anger. “That’s ludicrous! With all she has suffered living in enemy territory, Jewel would never betray France.”
“Are you so certain?” Jack spoke quietly. “Perhaps she had no choice. You did mention she’d found favor with the kommandant—”
“Not like that!” Colin tossed down his napkin and rose to his feet while memories rushed him: Jewel singing softly as she re-bandaged his wound, then sharing with him her last crust of bread; amusing him by mimicking the Boche kommandant as she strutted about the cellar f
loor, talking German nonsense and twirling the end of an imaginary moustache before falling into gales of laughter at Colin’s feet.
“It’s not her.” He stared at Jack, his mouth hard. “Reyer is a common enough name in France, and the initial J could stand for Jean or Joseph or a hundred names other than Jewel.”
When Jack merely gazed at him, Colin blew out a breath. “I just told you all that she did for me, what she sacrificed for my safety. You cannot know what it was like for her, having to hide me those weeks from the enemy, taking risks to feed and care for me.” Kissing me . . .
Colin still remembered the warm press of her lips and the love shining in her soft blue eyes. “Please, Jack, I have to go to her.” Especially if the Allies think she’s an enemy spy!
A long moment passed before Jack finally spoke. “I’ll grant you, there are thousands of names on this list, and it is possible J. Reyer is someone else entirely.” He tipped his head. “That corporal in Hastings you’ve been working with . . . Goodfellow? Would he be able to hold the fort during your absence?”
“Absolutely.” Colin suppressed his nervous excitement as he returned to his seat.
Jack hesitated, then set the file off to one side. “All right. I’ll approve your flight out of Kenley in the morning. When will you return?”
“Two or three days at the most.” The thought of seeing Jewel again after nearly a year made his pulse race.
Jack eyed him sternly. “It probably goes without saying, but with the enemy knocking at the back door to Paris and spies all over the capital, vigilance is key. You’re a seasoned soldier, Colin, and you’ve trained with the secret service, so I know you can take care of yourself. But until you learn more about Miss Reyer’s situation, please be on guard.”
“Of course.” Colin’s heart sped up. By this time tomorrow, he’d be in Paris. The siege guns . . .
“Will you see Grace before you go?”
He focused on the question and frowned. His sister would not take the news of his leaving well at all.
Jack read his thoughts. “Since you’ll only be away a short time, I can tell her once you’ve gone. Do me a favor, though, and check in with the British MI6 office in Paris when you arrive, so they know you’re there.” An edge of his mouth lifted. “I’ll sleep better.”