“That’s life. At least for the lower class of us.” He slid the rear sight onto the frame, locking it in place.
“How did you escape the backyard brawls and come to serve British intelligence?”
“Didn’t have much of a choice. This or jail.”
Her pen stopped scratching for the faintest of seconds before continuing. “Dare I ask the circumstances?”
The memory of that night over three years ago swept over him like a stale wind. He touched a finger to the white scar above his lip. “I was tending the counter one night when three university lads came barging in, bragging loud enough to drive off the locals. When I asked the drunks to leave, they threatened to close me down after I refused to serve them. How dare I throw out Lord Charles Bounty’s son?” He paused, remembering their pathetic insults. Rich chaps never knew how to curse properly. “That little peacock dared to call himself a man after he got his two lads to hold me down. He’d obviously never punched anyone before, but the beer gave him determination. That and the bottle he found.”
Sadness rippled in her eyes as she looked at the scar. “Ethan Bounty.”
“You know him?”
Nodding, her gaze rose to meet his. “His father and mine served together on the finance committee some years ago. Ethan deserves every insult you gave him and then some.” She tapped the capped pen in her palm, each beat whacking faster and faster until the skin turned red. “Let me guess. He ran home to squeal to his father, who had the police cart you off to jail for defending yourself against his precious angel.”
Barrett rocked back. “Aye, but I was lucky that the bailiff noticed the beating I gave them, and pretty soon someone from the MI6 came knocking on my cell with an offer.” He spread his arms wide. “As you can see, I didn’t turn it down.”
She shook her head. The froth on her hat swayed gently back and forth as if it, too, disagreed with the absurdity. “My goodness. The hands of Fate are ever so strange.”
“Probably seems that way to you. You must’ve spent your childhood eating bonbons and petting a fluffy white cat, eh?”
“Hardly. Mother deemed both inappropriate. One to the figure and the other to her pristine furniture. There. What do you think?”
She held up her masterpiece, her anxious blue-green eyes peering over the top, waiting for his inspection. Eric’s face stared back.
“If I didn’t know better, I’d say the man is standing before me. You’ve a true skill, poppy.”
“Thank you.” Pink engulfed her cheeks. She smoothed the drawing on the table. “I’ll give you ten francs if you get it between his eyes.”
“I’ve got something better than a bullet for this work of art.” He nodded to the stacked rolls of dynamite on the table. “He deserves nothing short of a proper send-off.”
“I assume the brewery didn’t teach you to detonate bombs.”
“No, that came from the office of ungentlemanly warfare, along with a few other polishings of my hard-earned skills.”
She recapped her pen and slipped it back into her handbag. “Bit of a soldier buried deep in there, I think.”
Memories of his drunken da tugging on his old Tommy uniform and stumbling around their basement flat in search of her seared his brain. The war had cost them too much, he would cry to the bent photograph of her. It was the only picture Barrett had of his mother. If he ever found that little hovel she’d worked and died in, he’d tear it apart with his bare hands.
He shook his head. “An opportunist. Nothing more.”
“You keep saying ‘nothing more’ as if you’re too afraid of your own possibilities. Look around you. Do you not see the bravery it takes to accomplish what you and these other Resistance members are doing? Don’t sell yourself short, Barrett.”
A thrill shot through him at the sound of his name coming from her lips for the first time. No. No, no, no. He wasn’t giving in to her charms. They’d do nothing but shackle him to eternal misery. And yet those wide eyes offered him something he hadn’t seen in a long time, something he dare not trust in: hope.
He placed the revolver parts back on the table and shifted closer to her. “This evening, if you’re—”
Bang! Bang, bang!
Trepidation sliced over him like freezing water. The emergency knock. “Take positions!”
Grabbing an assembled revolver, he checked to make sure it was loaded while the students flipped over tables