Hetty's Secret War

by Rosie Clarke

  ‘Sit down and tell me everything,’ he instructed. ‘Make it look as if you’re flirting with me.’

  ‘I’m not sure I want to do that,’ Hetty said and gave him a teasing smile, her tone belying her look. He was much too sure of himself, much too arrogant for her liking. ‘You hurt my arm, you pig. You didn’t have to manhandle me like that!’

  ‘You look so beautiful when you are angry,’ he said and Hetty saw an old man walking past them. His eyes stabbed at her, angry and demanding. ‘I asked who gave you the password?’

  ‘If you want the truth, it was my brother.’ She reached towards him, planting a kiss on his cheek and smiling in a way that seemed beguiling to passers-by. ‘He dropped in out of the mist last night and we found him when we were in the woods.’

  ‘What were you doing in the woods?’ He took her statement without a blink, which surprised Hetty. She had thought he would disbelieve her whatever she said, which is why she’d told him the plain truth.

  ‘Looking for Germans to kill,’ she hissed in his ear. ‘Just as you would, if you’re the person I’m looking for.’

  ‘I knew I’d seen you!’ he said and reached out to trail a finger down her cheek. ‘You’re the ones who have been messing up my plans these past few weeks. I caught sight of you last month running away from the scene of your stupidity.’

  ‘And you’re a self-satisfied pig,’ she replied and jerked away from him, her eyes flashing with temper. ‘I don’t know why the hell I let Ben talk me into coming!’

  ‘You did it because there was no alternative,’ he said, a flicker of amusement in his hard grey eyes. His hair was very dark and waved back from his brow, his mouth might be sensuous if he ever smiled in a certain way. Which wasn’t likely because they had disliked each other on sight. ‘What happened to your brother?’

  ‘He hurt his ankle. He had to parachute in because there were no flares. You let him down.’ Her voice was accusing, her look enough to kill at ten paces.

  ‘Because there was a German patrol nearby. The plan was for them to take him elsewhere, but the mist was so bad they couldn’t have landed anyway. He would have needed the parachute even if we’d lit the flares.’

  ‘Well, that’s your story. You know all I have to say. He wouldn’t give me a message. You have to come and see him for yourself if you want to find out what it is.’

  ‘I might come, but when I’m ready,’ the man said. ‘Tell me where you are based and I’ll think about it.’

  ‘The hell you will!’ Hetty snapped. ‘If you come, you come now – and you’ll be blindfolded.’

  ‘No, I don’t think so. I may be seeing you, mademoiselle. You and I have some unfinished business.’ He got up and strolled off whistling.

  Hetty stared after him in frustration. Should she run after him? Tell him where he could find her?

  No, she was damned if she would! She didn’t trust him. If he was so clever, let him find out for himself!

  She got up and walked away without turning her head. Bernard was waiting for her at the edge of the village. He frowned as he saw she was alone.

  ‘What happened? Did you make contact? Why hasn’t he come back with you?’

  ‘He is a pig,’ Hetty muttered. ‘I am glad he didn’t come. Ben will have to make contact some other way.’

  She got in the car feeling furious as Bernard started the motor. It wasn’t her fault that she’d messed up an important mission. How were they to know someone else planned to infiltrate what they thought of as their territory? She took a compact from her pocket and glanced at her reflection, averting her eyes from the road only for a moment, and was shocked as Bernard suddenly trod hard on the brake. She gave a little scream as she saw two men blocking the narrow lane. They were both carrying guns and pointing them at the car – at her. And one of them was the pig!

  ‘I make the rules, mademoiselle,’ he told her as he dragged open the car door. ‘Get in the back with my friend and behave yourself. Or I might just decide to teach you a few manners.’ He pulled Hetty out, pushing open the back door and gesturing to his companion to get in with her. Then he turned to Bernard. ‘I hope you have more sense than your friend here. Take me to the man I need to see or both of you will end up with a bullet in the brain. I don’t mess with amateurs.’

  ‘Yes, monsieur, certainly,’ Bernard said. ‘But there is no need to treat Mademoiselle ’Etty so roughly. She is a brave and good woman – even if she does lose her temper easily sometimes.’

  ‘Bernard!’ Hetty muttered. ‘Keep your mouth shut. He knows my name now.’

  ‘And your friend’s,’ the pig turned and grinned at her. She was right! His mouth was sensuous when he smiled. ‘But I have known them for a while, mademoiselle, and yes, you are brave, if a little foolish. If I had not suspected a traitor in our midst, I should have made contact with you weeks ago.’

  ‘A traitor?’ Hetty glared at him. ‘We know how to deal with them!’

  ‘Believe me, he is no longer in a position to betray us.’

  The man sitting next to Hetty laughed and she shivered as she saw the look in his eyes. Yes, these two would know how to deal with traitors!

  ‘You could have come when I asked you. I wouldn’t betray you.’

  ‘That remains to be seen,’ the pig answered her smugly. ‘Since I know your name, I shall tell you mine. I am Stefan Lefarge.’

  Hetty frowned as the name rang bells. ‘Lefarge… Your grandparents own the inn, don’t they?’

  ‘My grandfather was killed some months ago, by a German who was stealing wine,’ Stefan said and a nerve twitched in his cheek. ‘My grandmother died a week later of her grief. My father owns the place now, but he has no heart to run it alone. Perhaps after the war…’ He shrugged his shoulders.

  ‘I am very sorry. They were lovely people.’ Hetty was sad for them.

  ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘That is true. My father wanted to kill the soldier who murdered Grand-père, but I told him there is a better way. We want to be rid of them completely, mademoiselle, not just kill a few here and there for revenge. If we are to help the British defeat them, we must act together. Personal feelings do not enter here.’

  His quiet words struck home. Hetty went pink and remained silent. He was right, she knew it in her heart, just as Ben had been right when he told her she was in the wrong. Killing Germans in blind revenge wasn’t helping anyone, not even her since her first black rage had evaporated.

  ‘All we want to do is help.’

  ‘And I’m sure you can be very helpful,’ Stefan said. His smile did strange things to her stomach, making her swallow hard. He was an arrogant devil and not particularly handsome, but there was something about him that appealed to her. ‘But in future we work together – yes?’

  Hetty nodded. She didn’t trust herself to speak for the moment. All her instincts were screaming at her not to trust this man. He was too sure of himself, too arrogant. And yet what he said made sense.

  ‘That is good, mademoiselle. We shall see what your brother has to tell us, but before that I would like to hear your story. I know that you are not French, though don’t worry, a German wouldn’t – and you’ve told me you have an English brother. So how do you happen to be working for the French resistance?’

  Hetty hesitated and then lifted her head proudly. ‘I ran off to Paris to live with an artist when I was seventeen,’ she said. ‘When he betrayed me for the fifth time, I left him but loved France too much to go home. And when the Germans arrived, I left Paris – and ended up at the chateau.’

  ‘Ah, now I see,’ he said and laughed softly. ‘That explains a great deal, mademoiselle.’

  ‘I hoped it would,’ she said and smiled back, drawn to him against her will. ‘Is there any more you need to know about me, Monsieur Lefarge?’

  ‘Oh no,’ he murmured. ‘I think that will do very well for the moment.’

  Hetty didn’t answer, but inside she felt as if she were laughing for the first time in months. He was sti
ll an arrogant pig, of course, but there was something compelling about him. She would have to be careful not to let him under her skin, but there was no reason why they shouldn’t be civil to one another for the sake of their work.

  *

  Georgie had been reading a long letter from Jessie Kendle. It wasn’t often that Jessie wrote letters, she preferred to telephone, but it was clear that she had a lot on her mind and needed to unburden herself. Harry hadn’t been well again, and they’d had a man from the War Office round to see if Kendlebury was suitable for use as a convalescent home for wounded officers.

  After some hours of poking his nose in everywhere, he said we were too large, Jessie had written with a mixture of frustration and relief.

  I was so pleased, and that was awful of me, but you know what I mean. They would have wanted us to move out and I just couldn’t cope with all that.

  One good thing has happened recently. Walter told his father that he wants to help him with the business when he leaves college. He’s been doing a course in design and he’s come up with some really good ideas, but he also has other plans for his design work – and it’s rather clever. Of course, nothing can happen until after the war. I do wish it was over, but Harry says he thinks we’ve got a lot more to put up with yet.

  Georgie sighed as she turned to her other letter, which she’d opened before Jessie’s. It was a coincidence that it should have arrived by the same post. It seemed it was her turn to be inspected by a man from the ministry and for the same purpose. Arthur would turn in his grave at the thought, but she wasn’t sure how she felt about things. The house was too big for her on her own, and yet it was her duty to preserve it for Geoffrey. If it was her choice she might have sold it, even though she loved both the house and the garden. But she wouldn’t want to live here with Ben; there were too many memories of the past, and with Geoffrey at school she found it lonely at times.

  God, she did miss Ben! Some days the ache inside her was so painful that she felt ill. In fact, she had been feeling a bit under the weather altogether of late. It must be this awful winter.

  She got up and went to look out of the window. The garden was looking a bit sorry for itself because the weather had been too bad to do much out there recently. She must try to do a bit to it when she was feeling better.

  Arthur would hate it if they took over the house! He had always been so proud of it, of the fact that it had been in his family for generations. She could almost see the look of displeasure on his face.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she said out loud. ‘I’m sorry I disappointed you, but it isn’t my fault if they want the house.’

  Now she was talking to herself! Georgie smiled wryly. That was what loneliness did to you. It was a good thing she was going to spend Christmas with her mother. And after that she might go and visit with Annabel or Jessie. Annabel was feeling down herself because Beth wasn’t coming home for Christmas.

  *

  ‘You can get us out of London, Beth,’ Arnold told her as he took her cases and stowed them in the boot of his car. ‘I have some work to do and I want to get it finished so that we can enjoy our holiday.’

  ‘I’ll drive all the way if you like,’ Beth offered with a smile. ‘I always enjoy driving.’

  ‘I’ll take over after we stop for lunch,’ he said. ‘I’d hoped to have this damned thing done before we left, but it’s been one meeting after another. I thought we might have to cancel altogether at one point, but I put my foot down in the end. They tend to take you for granted if you let them and I’m due for a break.’

  ‘You work very hard,’ Beth agreed as she got into the driving seat. ‘Off we go then…’

  Arnold nodded to her, his head bent over his work as he sat in the back seat. She was a little amused, knowing it would be a wonder if he even remembered to stop for lunch.

  But she was glad of his company, or she would be when they reached Drew’s home, which she guessed was a rather large and important house set in one of the best areas of Hampshire. Drew’s family was wealthy, and though that hadn’t seemed to matter when he was with her, she suddenly felt very intimidated. His parents were bound to think he might have done better for himself. After all, she wasn’t particularly pretty, even though Drew had said she was lovely, and her mother had been an actress – and the victim of a murder.

  Beth had always felt there was something slightly shady about her mother’s death that Annabel hadn’t told her. She’d suffered torments about it at her private school, from one rather unpleasant girl in particular, and in the end she’d been glad to leave and live with her grandmother. Her life had been uncomplicated and mostly happy after that. However, having been to an exclusive school had made her aware of the difference between them and her. And she was feeling even more conscious of the divide than usual as she prepared to meet her parents-in-law. She just knew they wouldn’t like her.

  To Beth’s surprise, Arnold did remember to stop for lunch. It turned out that he’d telephoned ahead and made arrangements at a rather nice coaching inn about two thirds of the way there.

  ‘This used to be marvellous before the war,’ he told her as they went inside. ‘I dare say they won’t be quite up to their old standard, but it should be all right. They told me they had a rather special game pie on the menu and recommended we try that – that’s if you like game?’

  ‘Yes, Annabel has it quite often at the hotel,’ Beth said and smiled at him. ‘It was good of you to go to all this trouble, Arnold.’

  ‘I wanted to make it a bit special for you. You deserve it, Beth. I think you’ve been wonderful to keep going. I was sure you would have got fed up and gone home by now, and I should have been sorry to lose you.’

  ‘Only because you hate breaking new secretaries in,’ she said and laughed teasingly. Of late there had been a feeling of warm companionship between them.

  ‘Oh, secretaries are two a penny,’ Arnold said. ‘But there’s only one Beth.’

  She blushed at the compliment, surprised that he had made it. Arnold usually kept his thoughts to himself and got on with his work because he didn’t have time for chatter. But they were on holiday and this was the first time she’d seen him as relaxed as he was now.

  True to his word, Arnold took the wheel when they left the inn. The meal had been much better than Beth had expected and there was even a sherry trifle for afters, which seemed almost decadent after the strict rations of recent months.

  ‘How did they manage that do you suppose?’ Beth asked when they left. ‘Real cream too!’

  ‘They have their ways,’ he replied. ‘But I have a feeling it was only for special customers. It wasn’t on the menu.’

  ‘Using your muscle as an important man from the Government?’ Beth teased.

  ‘No, as a son-in-law of the owner actually,’ he replied. ‘Montgomery is a decent old boy and he told me when I rang that his staff would lay something on for us.’

  ‘Your wife’s father?’ Beth stared at him, her heart thumping.

  ‘Yes. I suppose Drew told you my history?’

  ‘Just a little,’ she acknowledged. ‘I – it was sad. I’m sorry.’

  ‘Don’t be, Beth. It was a long time ago. I grieved and I’m over it, as Tilda’s father is at last, I’m glad to say. We’ve helped each other through and remained good friends. He asked to meet you sometime and I told him to come and see us at Brigsham House over Christmas. I think he may.’

  ‘I should like to meet him,’ Beth said. ‘Will Mrs Bryant mind you inviting him?’

  ‘Lady Bryant?’ Arnold frowned as he saw her eyes widen. ‘Surely someone told you? Well, that’s a bit stupid of them – to just spring it on you out of the blue. I would have mentioned it before, but I assumed you knew. Drew’s father is a baronet, you see. Sir Edward Bryant.’

  ‘Oh…’ Beth swallowed hard, her panic growing by leaps and bounds. ‘When she writes to me, she signs her letters Sonia Bryant. Drew’s father spoke to me once on the phone, but he told me to call h
im Ted. I had no idea… thank you for telling me. I should have felt such a fool if I’d called her Mrs when she’s a Lady…’

  ‘They are the fools for not making things clear,’ Arnold growled. ‘Drew should have taken you home at some point, told you about his family. I can’t understand why he didn’t make things easier for you, Beth. It’s hard enough to meet your in-laws for the first time without having to do it on your own.’

  ‘I suppose he meant to do it but things just caught up with us,’ Beth said defensively. The few hours they’d managed to spend together had been too precious to share. Besides, Beth had resisted the idea, and so it wasn’t all Drew’s fault. ‘I dare say I’ll survive – as long as you’re there too.’

  ‘Sonia and Ted are nice people,’ Arnold told her. ‘She will expect you to call her Sonia, I’m sure. But I’m there if you need me. I shan’t let them eat you alive, Scout’s honour!’

  Beth laughed. ‘I don’t believe you were ever in the Scouts.’

  ‘Yes, I was, team leader,’ he said and grinned at her. ‘Precocious little beggar, I promise you.’

  ‘You’ve made me feel so much better,’ she said. ‘I’m not sure I could have done this without you.’

  ‘Oh, I’m sure you would,’ he replied. ‘But I wanted to come.’

  After that they drove in silence for most of the time.

  The house when she first saw it took Beth’s breath away. It was as large as Kendlebury but didn’t have the soft, worn, welcoming feel of Jessie and Harry’s home. It looked pristine, the grounds kept as neat as a new pin, not one weed in sight in the rose beds, and it made Beth shiver. She knew at once that she couldn’t have her child here, no matter what her in-laws said about Drew’s child being born at home.

  Inside, the house seemed cold and uninviting despite all its treasures – and there were plenty of those. Sir Edward hadn’t given an inch to the war. The threat of a few bombs wasn’t going to make him hide his family pictures in a dark vault somewhere, as he later told her in a booming voice that made her eardrums ring. And the antique furniture was the very finest from the Chippendale and Adam eras, beautifully polished and free of blemish. Beth wondered how anyone ever dared to sit on the chairs.