Allenton gave Cameron a rather down-the-nose glance. “This is why I made the call to leave her in place.”
“Of course.” Cameron exhaled. “I think you’ll agree Miss Gardiner should go to Folkestone now, however. There can be no option but to dissolve the Alice Network.”
“Why?” Allenton looked at Eve. “I say send her back to Lille.”
Eve’s heart sank, but she nodded weary assent. Cameron looked astonished, eyebrows climbing toward his sandy hair. “You cannot be serious.”
No one had addressed Eve, but she answered anyway. “I’ll go where I’m ordered. I have a job to do.”
“Your job is done.” Cameron turned back to her. “You’ve done top-class work, but the Lille area is far too dangerous to keep running informants. Without Lili the entire network will come apart.”
“Someone else could run it.” Allenton shrugged. “This girl’s keen as mustard.”
Cameron’s voice was flat. “Allow me to register my disagreement in the strongest possible terms, Major.”
“Oh, it won’t be for long. A few more weeks.”
“However long I’m needed.” Eve pushed the dread away. She wasn’t going to cry off when there were lives at stake, no matter how much she wanted to. “I’ll catch the train back tonight.”
Cameron rose. His jaw was taut with fury, and his hand as he raised Eve from her chair wasn’t gentle. “Major, I’d like a word with Miss Gardiner in private. We’ll discuss this upstairs, if you don’t mind.”
Eve let him march her out of the parlor to the sound of Allenton chuckling. Up a flight of stairs to a makeshift bedroom, nothing but a narrow iron-framed bed piled with a few blankets. Cameron came into the room with her and banged the door behind him.
“C-coming into a lady’s bedroom uninvited?” Eve said. “You are upset.”
“Upset?” He was nearly whispering, voice vibrating with tension. “Yes, I am upset. You are refusing to beg out of an order that is clearly pure idiocy. I can only conclude you want to get yourself shot.”
“I’m a spy.” Eve set down her bag. “Some might say it’s my job to g-get shot. It’s certainly my job to follow orders.”
“I am telling you that order is absurd. You think there are no idiots in the intelligence business, that your superiors are all brilliant men who understand the game?” A furious hand waved in Major Allenton’s direction. “This business is rife with idiots. They play with lives and they play badly, and when people like you die as a result, they shrug and say, ‘Risks have to be taken in wartime.’ You’d really march yourself into a firing squad for that kind of fool?”
“I want to plead out, believe me.” Eve touched his sleeve, halting his furious outburst. “But I won’t claim to be b-broken when I am not. If I get myself transferred out of Lille due to breakdown or exhaustion, I will never find more war work elsewhere.” She paused. Cameron raked a hand through his hair, but didn’t contradict her. “It’s just for a few more weeks,” Eve continued. “I can survive a few more weeks and then—”
“You know what he said when Edith Cavell was executed?” Cameron’s voice lowered, and he made another angry gesture in Allenton’s direction. “That it was the best thing that could have happened, because it got everyone on the home front angry at the right time. I do not like speaking ill of a fellow officer, but you must understand me: he wouldn’t care if you got caught like Violette and Lili, because dead girls mean more newspapers sold and more support for the boys in the trenches. I, however, am not in the habit of risking my people needlessly.”
“I’m not doing this needlessly—”
“You want revenge for Violette and Lili, because you love them. You want revenge, and if you can’t get it, you just want to die trying. Believe me, I know that feeling very well.”
“If I were a man you’d be calling me patriotic for wishing to continue in my duty to my country.” Eve folded her arms. “A woman wants the same thing and she’s suicidal.”
“An emotionally compromised asset is not an asset to her country. And your emotions are running far more wild than you let on. Anyone’s would be, in a situation like this one. You keep a calm face on, but I know you.”
“Then you know I will put emotion aside in the face of duty, just like any other soldier with orders to carry out. Like any man who takes the oath.”
“Eve, no. I forbid it.”
Calling her Eve—now there was a slip. She gave a wintry inner smile. He should know better than to give himself away like that.
“You will convince Allenton you’re unfit to return to Lille,” Cameron ordered, straightening his cuffs. “And then I’ll send you to Folkestone. I do not like circumventing a superior, but I see no other way. This matter is closed.”
He was turning, heading for the door. He’d go down and tell Allenton she was pleading breakdown, and that could not happen. Eve seized his hand, stopping him. “Stay with me,” she whispered.
He pulled back, his anger dropping away to something shuttered, wary. “Miss Gardiner—”
She reached up and tangled her hands in his undone collar, pressing her lips to the hollow of his neck. He smelled of Lifebuoy. “Eve.”
“I should not be here, Miss Gardiner.” His hands covered hers. Eve went up on her toes, whispering into his ear with a catch in her voice.
“Don’t leave me alone.”
It was a low blow, and she knew it. Cameron stopped, his hands warm on hers. She pressed, knowing just what to say.
“I saw Lili dragged away by Germans this morning. I . . . Please don’t leave me alone right now. I can’t b-bear it.”
Oh, but this was a dirty trick. It would only work because Cameron was a gentleman, a man who couldn’t bear to see a woman in distress. It wouldn’t work on René in a thousand years.
Cameron’s voice thickened. “I’ve lost friends too, Eve. I know what you’re feeling—”
“I want to be warm,” she murmured back, her hands slipping through his hair. How long had she wanted this? “I want to lie down, and be warm, and forget.”
“Eve—” He began to pull away again, his hand at her bare throat. The gold wedding band on his fourth finger warmed against her skin. “I can’t—”
“Please.” The grief stabbed her like a living thing. Even if just for a few minutes, she wanted to forget. She leaned up and kissed him, and the bed was at the back of her knees.
“I won’t take advantage of you,” he said, but he murmured it against her lips.