The Light Over London(85)

“This is your home,” Louise said.

Lenora nodded. “We were married the month after the war started. Paul had bought the place the year before with the inheritance from his grandfather.”

“Then why did Mrs. Fay have to call you? I assume that’s what she did.”

“It is. I moved back to my parents’ home just around the corner after the first girl arrived. She claimed that she and Paul had been engaged after meeting him in Devon. She’d heard that he was killed and came up here to be with his family as she grieved. Instead, she found me,” said Lenora with a raised brow. “Now I ask Mrs. Fay to keep an eye on things for me and ring me if any other women come around.”

“How many have there been?” Louise asked.

“You make the third.”

Four women. Lenora, Louise, the girl from Devon, and another Louise hoped she’d never meet. Paul had deceived them all, convincing them that he loved them and only them. Making them feel special. Singular. Wanted.

“I don’t understand,” said Louise softly.

Lenora went to a carved silver box on a tiny side table, selecting a cigarette and snapping at the lighter until smoke billowed from her mouth. “Neither do I.”

“Why would he marry me if he was already married to you? Why would he become engaged to those other girls?” she asked.

Lenora sighed. “Paul was a difficult man. He had a deep, almost compulsive need to be loved. You know, his parents thought they wouldn’t be able to have children for the longest time until one day, miraculously, they became pregnant later in life. He was coddled and adored, more toy than child. I think it fed a desire in him to need love constantly from all people, and what better way to get it than to charm any number of convenient women into falling in love with him?”

“But to lie like that . . .”

“Ah yes, well. It appears our late husband was also a compulsive liar and something I believe the psychoanalysts call a narcissist. Apparently it isn’t uncommon among bigamists.” Lenora tapped the edge of her cigarette against a cut glass ashtray. “I’ve been doing quite a bit of reading in my widowhood.”

Louise stared at Lenora. “That’s what you’ve been doing since he died? Reading about bigamists and greeting his former lovers or wives or whatever it is we’re meant to be?”

Lenora laughed. “No, of course not, but this helps pass the time between shifts at the volunteer ambulance corps.”

Despite the woman’s blasé attitude, Louise could hear the hurt in her voice. She had been Paul’s first wife. His real wife. Now she was the one to tell the women he’d left behind the truth about him, illuminating the dark side of the man they’d all loved.

What he’d done was unforgivable. She could see now that he hadn’t fallen in love with her that night in St. Mawgan, as he’d said. Instead, he’d seen her as a target. There was a girl who was simple and vulnerable and ripe for the picking. Except she wasn’t any of those things. In the last few months she’d learned more about herself than she’d ever thought possible. She’d drilled and studied and fought, and now, after all this time, she was the woman she was supposed to be.

She would harden her heart against him, boxing up all the love she’d felt for him and shoving it into the deepest corners of her heart. She’d work and fight and sleep and get up to do it all over again until she was numb to Paul. Then, one day, her heart might heal enough that she stopped loving him.

“I’m very sorry this has happened to you,” said Louise.

Lenora looked at her squarely. “Thank you, Miss Keene. I think you actually mean that.”

“I do. Can I ask you something?”

Lenora inclined her head as Louise pulled out Paul’s compass. All at once, the woman’s strange composure fell.

“Where did you get that?” Lenora asked, brushing the ding in the side of the tiny compass with her fingertip while Louise balanced it in the palm of her hand.

“He gave it to me. He used it as a sort of engagement ring,” Louise said.

“The bastard,” Lenora swore softly. “It was my brother’s. He was a soldier. He died early in the war and this was sent back with his effects.”

“He told me it belonged to his uncle, and that he kept it as a talisman when he was flying.”

Lenora’s lip trembled. “I gave it to him to keep him safe.”

“Then you should take it back,” said Louise.

“I don’t think I can.” A long, shaky draw on her cigarette seemed to calm Lenora, and her next words were firmer. “Keep it or throw it away, you can do what you want with it, but I can’t have it in this flat. Not anymore.”

Not knowing what else to do, Louise tucked the compass back into her pocket.

Setting her cigarette on the edge of the ashtray, Lenora leaned down and scribbled something on a scrap of paper. Holding it out, she said, “This is the address of the family home in Barlow. If you ever need anything—someone to talk to or be gin-soaked with who will understand—they’ll know where to find me.”

“Thank you,” said Louise, folding the scrap into her uniform’s breast pocket. She couldn’t imagine ever reaching out to this woman, when what she really wanted was to forget, but there was little else she could do.