I don’t want to see you hurt, Ellie.”
I looked up at him, feeling a wave of affection, and maybe something more. “I feel the same way,” I said. “So let’s both be careful, shall we?”
He smiled and squeezed my hand.
Uncle Mick came up to us then. I suspected it had been purposeful, to disrupt the tender scene. Uncle Mick liked Felix a great deal, but he had always discouraged any sort of romantic relationship between us.
“You’re ready for this, Ellie girl?” he asked, though he knew as well as I did what the answer was.
“I’m ready.”
“Take this,” he said. “You’ll be needing it.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out a small leather pouch, not much bigger than a wallet. It was his tool kit. He pressed it into my hand and his eyes met mine. Something unspoken passed between us.
“Are you sure your hand is going to be all right?” I asked after a moment, reaching down to touch the bandage gently.
“Yes, yes. It’s fine, love. Don’t worry about me. You need to focus.”
“I will.”
Uncle Mick fastened me in his gaze then. It was serious, his normal joviality dimmed by concern. “You’ll be careful?”
“Yes,” I said. “Don’t worry. Everything is going to work out. I can feel it.”
In truth, I knew there might be danger ahead of us, but that didn’t matter. All that mattered now was that we succeed. And that was something we McDonnells had always been good at.
* * *
A short time later, we were on our way out of London. The major had dispensed with Jakub’s services and was driving himself. I sat beside him in the front seat.
He had changed into civilian clothes to keep from being conspicuous, but even in the gray suit he now wore, he looked grim and severe.
We started out on Cromwell Road, eventually crossing back over the Thames and making our way in a southwesterly direction, passing through Twickenham and Sunbury-on-Thames.
He had said little since we’d left the office, and I wondered if he was miffed with me. He hadn’t been happy to bring me along, I knew that. But surely he could see that I was going to be of use.
I also suspected the only reason he had allowed me to accompany him in the car instead of taking the train with Kimble and Felix was that he didn’t think me trustworthy. Well, whatever the reason, I was just glad to be going along.
We were on the outskirts of London when the quiet began to wear on me. I came from a family of talkers, and it felt strange not to have a conversation when there was nothing better to do.
“Are we just going to drive along in silence?” I asked him.
He didn’t look at me. “That was my intention.”
That set me back for a minute or two. I looked out the window for a bit, not really noticing the scenery, then looked back at the major.
I studied his profile. The strong line of his jaw, the straight nose, the sunlight through the window turning his eyes the color of lilacs. I noticed that the bronzed shade of his skin was beginning to fade ever so slightly. In a few more weeks, that remnant of his time in the desert would be gone.
“Did your uncle really have you brought back from North Africa?” I asked. I’m not sure why I decided to voice that question, the one he was probably the most sensitive about, but it came out almost before I realized I was going to ask it.
There was a long silence in which I thought he would either not answer or tell me to go to the devil.
At last, however, he spoke. “I was working with military intelligence there. When they began to put things together for this operation in London, they needed officers here. My commanding officers thought I would be suited to the job. My uncle had nothing to do with it. At least as far as I know.”
“But you didn’t want to be sent back from North Africa,” I said.
“No,” he replied, his eyes still on the road. “I didn’t.”
“You’d rather fight than work behind the scenes?”
“Yes,” he said. “I wanted to do my duty.”
“You’re doing your duty now.”
He looked over at me for the first time, and, for just a moment, his guard was down and I saw the frustration in his eyes.
“It’s a difficult thing to explain,” he said, “the feeling a man has when he knows that there are other