voice was even, but her thin shoulders hitched under Eve’s arm. “He reported that—”
“Sssh.” Eve rested her cheek against the blond hair that smelled like blood. “You don’t have to talk. Close your eyes.”
“I can’t.” Lili stared straight ahead, tears leaking slowly down her cheeks. “I see her.”
“The woman who stepped on the mine?”
“No. Violette.” Lili buried her face then in her folded arms, and began to sob. “Antoine gave me the news, little daisy. Violette was arrested. The Germans have caught her.”
CHAPTER 23
CHARLIE
May 1947
You’re not invited to dinner,” Eve told Finn and me. “Either of you.”
The telephone call she’d put through to her English officer had borne fruit: he was coming from Bordeaux tonight for dinner at the hotel café. Eve had been wearing her fierce mask ever since the meeting was confirmed, but by now I could see behind that mask just a bit. I’d been looking at her rather wonderingly since she’d told me she’d gotten pregnant. Pregnant. She’d been almost my age, caught in just my predicament—only she’d been half starving in a city full of enemies who would have marched her to a firing squad if they realized who she really worked for. Suddenly my Little Problem seemed a lot smaller in comparison. I knew what I’d been taught growing up, that what she’d done was wrong, but I couldn’t manage to condemn Eve. She’d been swallowed up in a war; she did what she had to do. In truth, I admired her for carrying on after such a thing.
I knew she’d slough off my admiration, though, so I just smiled. “Just tell me one thing. Is it Captain Cameron you’re meeting tonight?”
Eve shrugged, cryptic as always. “Aren’t you headed for that village where your cousin went?”
“Yes.” Three days we’d been in Limoges already. I’d have taken off for Rose’s village sooner, but Finn had to do some more patient tinkering with the Lagonda’s innards before he trusted her on the country roads. Today he’d pronounced us ready, and we were leaving Eve behind to await her mysterious dinner companion.
“What do you think?” I asked Finn, sliding into the front seat. “Is it Captain Cameron she’s meeting?”
“Wouldn’t be surprised.”
“Think we’ll be back in time to see him?”
“That depends, doesn’t it?” He set the Lagonda’s fuel-air mixture, advanced the timing. “On whether we find out anything about your cousin or not.”
I shivered, part anticipation and part fear, as we started down the street. “Today might be the day.”
Finn smiled in answer, driving us out of Limoges at a leisurely pace, one arm along the wheel. He wore his usual old shirt with the sleeves rolled up, but he’d shaved, his jaw smooth for once instead of stubbled, and I wanted to reach over and stroke my hand down his cheek. I wanted it so badly that I had to keep my hands primly folded in my lap. How was it that the Lagonda felt more crowded when we didn’t have Eve along?
“We should be there soon,” I said, just to be saying something. According to Finn’s crumpled road map, our destination was only fifteen miles or so west of Limoges.
“I reckon.” Finn steered the Lagonda past a fenced meadow where cows munched grass, a gray stone farmhouse in the distance. The outskirts of Limoges had quickly given way to quiet country roads and rutted lanes. It couldn’t be more picturesque, and I sat there stiff as a board. I didn’t know why I was nervous, just that I was. Finn had kissed me back when I planted one on him a few nights ago, but he hadn’t made reference to it since. I wanted to move the game along, but I didn’t know how. I might be a whiz with numbers but I was a dismal flirt.
“What’s this village called again?” Finn asked, breaking my awkward swirl of thoughts.
“Oradour-sur-Glane.” On the old road map it looked like a tiny place. Hard to imagine Rose in a French hamlet too small even to deserve the word town. She’d always dreamed of Paris boulevards, Hollywood lights. New York in a pinch, I remember her saying, New York’s chic enough for me. And instead she’d come to Oradour-sur-Glane, a hamlet in the middle of nowhere.
The Lagonda rounded a corner, following a rough stone fence seeded with wild wallflowers, and I saw a little French girl walking barefoot along the top, arms out for balance. She had dark hair, but she instantly became Rose to my eyes, blond curls dancing