I felt my shoulders sag at the admission. I blinked and put my hand to my mouth. “Oh, God.”
“It’s important,” Alex said, “that they believe the story. I convinced them, though Robert still has a few doubts. But I can’t convince you, can I? I think I knew that from the first. Now, sit down, dear wife, and I’ll tell you what actually happened.”
I backed away from him. Without thinking, I sat on the bed and scooted to the farthest corner, my stockinged feet on the coverlet, my knees pulled up. Then I realized what I had done.
“No,” I said to him as he came toward me. “Oh, no. This is not a reunion. Don’t even think it.”
Alex went still for a moment, and then he pulled the room’s wooden chair out into the middle of the floor, facing the bed, and sat on it. I heard the breath sigh out of him.
It was too dark, so I leaned over and switched on the bedside lamp. The light from beneath the china shade dimly illuminated his face. “Talk,” I said.
“May I take off my jacket?”
“Yes,” I said, leaning back and hugging my knees again.
He rose from the chair and shrugged the wool coat off; then he unknotted his tie. “Don’t worry,” he said, glancing at me. “I heard you. I’m just uncomfortable, that’s all.”
When he had finished—he wore a white shirt beneath the jacket, his movements as crisp and elegant as I remembered—he draped the jacket and tie over the back of his chair and sat again. He crossed one ankle over the other knee and regarded me, his hands folded neatly over his stomach. He looked tense and controlled, aware of his every movement. Deliberately, he went very still.
“You,” he said slowly to me, “are more beautiful than ever. I have spent three years imagining you with your hair down.”
Something twisted inside me, hard, but I mirrored him and kept still. I did not speak.
He looked at me for another long moment, simply looking, and then he spoke. “I’ll start at the beginning,” he said.
“Please do,” I snapped, the tension getting to me.
He seemed to think it over, choosing his words. “I lived here for a time. You know that, right?” He saw my expression and nodded. “I know I never told you. My favorite hobby was to sit on a spot near the cliffs of the shoreline and watch the boats. The Ministry of Fisheries is just down the coast. Have you seen it?”
I nodded. He leaned back, and his gaze traveled up the wall, looking into the past as he continued to speak. “I suppose I dreamed of being a brave sea captain, as boys do. But I spent so much time in my observation spot that I began to notice something among the boats. A pattern. There were vessels coming and going regularly—simple boats manned by researchers, mapmakers, other civilians. And then one day a boat entered the harbor that had guns.”
“Guns?”
Alex nodded. “This was 1907, remember. We were not at war. The Ministry of Fisheries isn’t a Royal Navy installation. But gunboats began to enter the Ministry’s harbor, stay a few days, and leave again. In a regular pattern.” He thought back again, lost in memory. “I was fifteen and impetuous, and I thought gunboats were romantic. So one day I made the three-mile trek to the Ministry itself, intent on seeing one of them up close.
“The Ministry is gated and guarded. I walked right up the drive to the gate, but before I could say anything to the guard, a motorcar pulled up. I was dazzled, because a motorcar was a wonderful thing in those days. A man leaned out and asked me my business. I told him I wanted to know what the gunboats were for. He looked at me for a long moment, and then he told me to come with him. Then he told me his name.”
My mind had already worked ahead. “Colonel Mabry,” I said.
Alex paused, surprised. “You were always quick, Jo,” he said. “Yes, that’s who it was, though he wasn’t a colonel then. I take it you’ve met him. He isn’t supposed to be here, but I suppose he’s decided to continue as the curse of my bloody life.”
I blinked at the hostility in his voice. My own anger at Colonel Mabry paled next to that chilled fury.
“Mabry told me nothing, of course,” Alex continued. “He didn’t take me to see the boats, which disappointed me. Instead, he sat me down in an office and questioned me extensively. I told him everything I had seen, the patterns of the gunboats’ movements, their shapes and sizes, the days and times I had seen them come and go. He asked if I had made notes of what I’d seen, which of course I hadn’t. He questioned me about my family and my background. I was bursting with my own questions, but he was as forthcoming as a marble slab. He finally told me that I was an intelligent, observant boy, and that when I got older he’d likely have a job for me.”
I blinked. “A job?” I said.
Alex nodded. “I didn’t know what he meant at the time—it only became clear to me later. He meant a job in intelligence. Specifically, military intelligence.”