I risked a glance at Martin to see if he showed any sign that he knew. But Martin was sitting rapt, his elbows on his knees, watching Alex. Dottie had a gleam of admiration in her eye, and even Robert had subsided, propping an elbow on the back of Martin’s chair and listening with a half smile on his lips.
My heart was pounding in my chest. Alex, the Alex I had known and loved, was lying—to his family, to me. That was terrifying enough. But what stole the breath from me was the fact that still I did not know where my husband had been for three years. What kind of secret would he bury so deeply he would lie to everyone he loved? Had he worked for the enemy? Had he found another woman? The thought made me sick.
Alex had secrets—years of them. What if somehow Frances had found out? If she had innocently learned something he needed buried, what would he do about it? Would he beg special permission to visit Wych Elm House in private, then push his cousin from the roof? How far, exactly, would he go?
The family was still speaking—Dottie was saying something about limiting gossip about Alex in the village—but suddenly I couldn’t stand any more. I shook Alex’s hand from mine and stood. “I’m very tired,” I said. “I’m going to bed.”
“Are you all right, Cousin Jo?” Martin asked. “You’ve had quite a shock.”
My lips were numb and I could barely force myself to speak. “I’m tired,” I said again. “Good night.”
From his seat on the sofa, Alex took my hand where it dangled limply at my side and squeezed it as he looked up at me. “I’ll be up in a moment,” he said.
I had no time to see the reaction of the others as I pulled my hand from his and stumbled from the room.
? ? ?
In my bedroom, I pulled the pins from my hair. I took off my shoes again and tossed them next to the wardrobe. Then I stood in the middle of the room and wondered what to do.
I glanced at the bed. Part of me wanted to sleep, or at least make the pretense of it—to lie down and pretend that today, which seemed to have begun a year ago, when I got out of bed to take pictures, had never happened. But another part of me was more awake than it had been in years—perhaps ever. The fog I’d felt over my mind, over my existence, had broken up, been blown away by the reappearance of Alex Manders in my life.
I’ll be up in a moment.
He would. My husband may be a different man from the one who left me in the train station in 1918, but I knew as certainly as I knew my own name that he would very shortly come upstairs to my bedroom. And he would know exactly which room it was.
I could lock the door. There was that. It would keep him out for tonight at least. But how long, exactly, did I think I could avoid him? Did I want to?
I walked to the basin, poured water into it from the pitcher, and washed my face, scrubbing vigorously. Alex was a liar, and perhaps even a murderer, but he was also the smartest man I knew. He wasn’t just the man who had loved me and married me seven years ago. If he was my enemy now—and I had to admit that I had no idea exactly what he was—then I needed my wits about me. I needed a plan.
He didn’t give me the option of locking the door. As I was drying my face, he knocked quietly. “Jo,” he said.
I dropped the towel and opened the door, blocking his way. “I don’t suppose there is any way I could make you leave me alone?”
Something flashed across his expression—hurt, I thought—but he covered it quickly. “That’s a little harsh after three years,” he said.
I stared at the column of his neck where it disappeared into his collar. I knew exactly how that warm patch of skin tasted. “I said I was tired.”
“I can make a scene in the corridor if you like. There are guests in all the rooms, and I hear Miss Staffron lodges across the hall.” He paused. “Jo, I have to talk to you.”
I stepped back and he brushed past me, closing the door softly behind him. I was still wearing the peacock dress, and I felt the feathers waft against my legs. “Sit down,” he said.
“You needn’t explain,” I said as I remained standing. “I heard all of it. Influenza, hospitals, missing papers. It was very heroic.”
Alex sighed. “Goddamn you, Jo.”
I made myself look up at his face, the face that still, after all this time, was the handsomest face in the world to me. The shadows of my bedroom made it look familiar and unfamiliar at the same time. I toyed with the idea that I was being hard on him—that I was wrong, and he’d been telling the truth—but then I remembered his file.
Things are about to become more difficult for you. Colonel Mabry had known.
“If I find a hospital east of Breslau,” I said, “and I write them about you, what do you think I’ll find?”
“You’ll find a record that I was there, suffering from influenza, and that I was mistakenly identified as a German.” The words were flat; he sounded tired. But when he stepped out of the shadows, I saw something almost sad in his eyes, something that changed and softened when he looked at me. “It was very carefully done,” he said quietly.