Eve had already thought of that. “What if he wants it?” She wasn’t sure he would—René was hardly a family man—but Eve suspected he had something of a dynast in him. What if he decided Eve might have a boy, and found that thought . . . interesting?
“If so, you could still get it taken care of on the sly. Tell him you miscarried.”
Eve shook her head. She knew René; he hated mess and expense. To him, a mistress was something pretty that never caused trouble. Whether she miscarried a child he wanted or he had to pay to get her taken care of, she was trouble. She might easily lose her place at Le Lethe. No, her best chance to continue her work for Lili was to have things continue as they were.
“Hm.” Violette didn’t suggest telling Captain Cameron or the other officers who oversaw the Alice Network. “You know the procedure can be dangerous. You’re sure it’s what you want?”
Eve gave a single violent nod. “Yes.”
“You might bleed to death, doing it this way. It’s still early days; if you wait you might still miscarry, or—”
“Do it.”
Her voice came out in a desperate snarl. It was more than her determination to stay, to continue her work. It was the fact that behind her surface calm, Eve battled a panic bordering on madness. She’d given up so much since coming to Lille—home, safety, virginity, even her name—and she’d done so willingly because it was for an unseen future, a sunny clearing somewhere safely beyond war and invaders. And now the invader was inside her, claiming her as thoroughly as the Germans claimed France, and there was no more future. At a stroke she’d been rendered from a spy and a soldier, someone who battled enemies and saved lives, into just another pregnant woman to be unceremoniously bundled home and treated like a whore. Eve knew exactly what kind of future she could expect seven months from now if she did nothing: unmarried, unwanted, jobless, penniless, despised, shackled for life to an invader seeded by an enemy in the cold, starvation-racked hell of a war zone. Her body had betrayed her so completely: giving way to pleasure in a profiteer’s arms, then keeping some portion of him when she tried so hard every night to wash away every trace. She was not going to let it betray her any further.
Eve had spent weeks huddled in her cold bed, fighting the wild surges of blind panic and icy dread, and she knew she would happily risk bleeding to death for the chance to reclaim her future from the invader.
Violette was nodding tersely. “There’s a surgeon in the network who treats people for us,” she said as Eve stood battling her own emotions. “He wouldn’t touch something like this—he goes to mass every day—but I can borrow some instruments on a pretext tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow,” Eve said, dry-mouthed. “Yes.”
Sunday. Holy Day, blessed day, ironic day because it was the day Eve had decided to do something most men would call her a murdering slut for even considering. It could only be Sunday, because Le Lethe was closed Sunday. It meant she had a full day free to bleed and die, or bleed and recover.
“What happens if I die?” Eve managed to ask when Violette arrived with her bag of borrowed instruments. “During the procedure or—or after?”
“I leave you here and never come back.” Violette was matter-of-fact. “I’d have to. If I tried to see you buried, I’d be arrested. Your neighbor would probably find you in a day or two, and then it would be a pauper’s burial for you while Lili notified Uncle Edward.”
The sordid reality of such plans hit Eve like a knife thrust. “Well. Let’s g-get on with it, then.” And try not to die.
“Lie quiet.” Violette said it over and over that afternoon. Eve didn’t know why; she lay quiescent as a marble figure on a tomb. Perhaps it was meant for reassurance. The bed was spread with a clean layer of sheets; Violette wore an apron with a crossover front surely left from her Red Cross days, and her voice had a nurse’s crispness. Instruments gleamed on a folded cloth, but Eve didn’t look at them too closely. She pulled off her petticoats and underclothes and stockings, everything below the waist, and lay down. Cold. She was so cold.
“Laudanum,” Violette said, uncapping a tiny vial, and Eve opened her lips obediently, swallowing down the drops. “There