Catching the Wind(32)

Lady Ricker’s short hair was curled tightly around her oval face, a diamond necklace glittering above her white sequined dress. She leaned toward Admiral Drague on the divan, her gloved hand on his knee as they whispered together. Eddie stiffened. He knew she must entertain multiple men—for the cause—but still he hated the thought of her with this pompous man.

He snapped a photograph of them, the light from his bulb flashing off the somber portraits on the wall.

Admiral Drague’s head whipped up. “Put that away.”

Lady Ricker gave a sharp nod, acknowledging the man’s demands, and Eddie slowly, defiantly, lowered the camera. He was only doing what she’d asked of him.

“Eddie,” Lady Ricker said, her voice a dull drone as if she were talking to any of her servants.

He stepped forward. “Yes?”

“Those items we discussed earlier today. Go retrieve them for me.”

He glanced at Admiral Drague and saw the sneer of disdain on the man’s face. Never would he share the photographs with him on his own accord, but if Lady Ricker thought it necessary, he had no choice except to comply.

“Of course,” he murmured.

She shooed him away with her jeweled wrist. “Stop dillydallying then.”

The cottage he and Olivia shared was a fifteen-minute walk from the main house, though he could make it in twelve if he hustled. An electric torch in hand, he hurried through the darkness, down the long lane to the cluster of houses built for those who worked at Breydon Court. He didn’t dare turn on his light, not unless it was an emergency.

They all must keep their secrets right now, but he hated it when Lady Ricker treated him like one of her subjects. She mustn’t show him any favoritism or others, including Olivia, would guess at their scheme, but still it stung.

One day, it would all change. Everyone, including Lady Ricker, would treat him with respect.

His darkroom was in the cellar, but he couldn’t risk storing Lady Ricker’s photographs underneath the house, lest rats tear them apart. Nor could he put them in the bedroom he shared with his wife.

Now the evacuee was living in the room where he’d stashed his work.

He pounded on her locked door, heard the girl stir inside, but she didn’t unlock it.

He pounded again. “Open this door.”

When the girl still didn’t comply, he went back down to the kitchen and retrieved the key hanging on a peg by the stove. Minutes passed as he jiggled the rusty key, twisting until the door finally opened.

He shone his torch into the dark room, and it reflected against the glass. Swearing, he yanked the lined blackout curtains across the window before scanning the room with his light. The girl cowered in the corner.

He stepped toward her. “You must keep the shades closed at night or we’ll be bombed.”

Instead of looking up at him, the girl closed her eyes.

He bent over, whispering to her. “Olivia says you understand plenty. Do not lock that door again and keep these curtains shut.”

The girl didn’t reply.

“Turn around,” he ordered. Lady Ricker would be checking her watch now, wondering at his tardiness. He shuddered to think what she might say to Admiral Drague when he returned. Later, she would apologize for belittling him, but he hated being criticized in front of a man who already thought of him as dirt.

He wouldn’t let this child deter him any longer.

“I told you to turn around.” He slapped the wall. “Face this.”

She slid down to the floor, her head falling into her lap. Olivia was wrong—the girl was deaf. And she certainly didn’t talk to anyone, including Germans. His secret would be safe with her.

He glanced at his watch. Twenty minutes had already passed. Lady Ricker was going to be furious.

His back to the girl, he reached for the hammer that he’d hung in the closet and bent down to pry up a floorboard inside the small space. Underneath the plank was a box where he kept the photographs.

After retrieving the box, he pounded the nail back into the board and rushed back out the door, up the lane. No matter what Lady Ricker said now, she’d show him later how pleased she was with his work.





CHAPTER 18





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The narrow lane called Mulberry was located outside Breydon Court’s sandstone wall. There was another iron gate at the end of the lane, leading onto the property, but the grass around the gate was overgrown, the lock rusted.

It seemed that no one had used this entrance in decades.

Her back to the gate, Quenby looked at the cottages on both sides of the tree-lined street. The walls on some were whitewashed bricks while other cottages were built of stone, their roofs slanted with slate. Behind the cottages on her left was a pasture that appeared to be part of the estate.

Perhaps someone on this street could answer her questions about the Rickers as well as the Terrell family.

There were only four stone cottages on the lane that looked as if they might be at least seventy years in age. Number twelve backed up to the pasture.

The woman who answered her knock was dressed in black yoga pants and a light-pink T-shirt freshly stained. On one hip she was bouncing a baby girl even as she clutched her laptop to her chest with her other hand.

“Sorry to bother you,” Quenby said. “I’m trying to track down a family named the Terrells. They lived on this street in the 1940s.”