behind.”
Kat ground her toe in the dirt to keep from stretching it back and kicking herself. “I’m sorry.”
“Why? Not your fault.”
“It was careless to bring up something you don’t have.”
“Never had them, so I don’t know what I’m missing. Kinda prefer it that way.”
“I suppose having no strings has its perks in your line of work.”
“Aye, it does. I go where and when I please, and if things take a turn for the bad, then there’s no one to pull down with me.”
But no one to turn to when times were good or when there was a burden too heavy to carry alone. Who was she kidding? Standing in a room filled to the brim with Whitfords and their extended blood, she never felt more alone. Of course, she had Ellie. Or had had before the girl started taking her opportunities of freedom into her own mischievous hands. Unlike Kat, she’d ignored their father’s rule that children should be seen and not heard and had drawn the attention of anyone within earshot. Then she was gone, abandoning Kat with nothing of comfort but the broken pieces of her heart.
“For good or bad, family has its way of leaving a mark on you no matter how far you roam,” Kat said.
The breath eased in her lungs, stilling her like a statue at his direct stare. Dark eyebrows flattened over his fathomless eyes as he searched for something in her face. A crack? An answer? She waited for the judgment to settle, but it never came. The studious lines smoothed into something she hadn’t seen in a long time: understanding.
A current moved in his dark-blue gaze. “Or connections, in your family’s case.”
So much for understanding. Disappointment scorched her as she ruffled a finger over the fluffy peony petals at their side. The ants gathering the sticky sweetness from its center scattered and raced back down the stem. “Is that why you’ve agreed to help us? In hopes my father’s connections will extend to you in some way?”
“I’m not one to polish a man’s shoes in hopes he’ll notice me.” He glanced away. “I’ve a job to do, plain and simple.”
“For a man who seems to make his own rules, I have to think your jobs are rarely simple. You must have a good reason for risking your neck every day.”
A dark eyebrow lifted. “Are you calling my patriotism into question?”
“We all strive to defend our country, but it goes much deeper than pride in one’s nation. For many it’s to preserve a way of life and protect family.”
“And beneath all that is money. Money makes the world go round, and as long as the British government employs my special skills, my world will keep on spinning.” He looked back at her, cool reserve in his blue eyes. “Not the noble answer you hoped for, is it?”
Kat shook her head, swishing hair fanning the hot air across the back of her neck. “It’s not the typical answer, no.”
“Maybe not for your set, but it’s the world I live in. One that’s all the muddied shades between black and white where nobility no longer exists.”
“So says the man helping two nobodies escape from under the nose of the Nazis.”
“You’d do best to stop holding people to such standards, especially me.”
Why had she expected a certain depth from him? One minute charming and sweeping out of the blue to spend the afternoon strolling a garden with her, and the next slashing all her ideals of knights on their white horses. It was just as well. She was allergic to horses.
She continued down the shady path bursting with scents of delicate alyssum, sweet peas, and tangy grass. A few yards away at the end of the garden rested a round ornamental pool with a patinaed statue in the center.
Barrett’s footsteps crunched slowly behind her. Never in a hundred years would she have dreamed of life plopping her here in a beautiful city thrown under a merciless shadow with a trained saboteur as her bodyguard. What was he going to do if she got into a jam? Pistols at dawn? Blow something up? How did one overcome the fear of blowing themselves up in the process of setting a trap for the enemy? It’d certainly take quite a bit of gumption.
She peeked over her shoulder. The steady gait, the confident set of his shoulders, the cocky tilt of his hat. Barrett Anderson had enough gumption for an entire army.
He looked up, a half smirk on his lips