Lost Among the Living(70)

“He showed me the file,” I said. “I know that you trained at Reims and that you came here to Wych Elm House on authorized travel without telling me. That you were here the day Frances died. That you went back to Reims when you left me at the train station in 1918.” The words poured out of me, unstoppable. They did not feel good, only burned me and made me sicker. “I know, Alex.”

“That’s how you knew,” he said softly. “That’s why you didn’t believe my story. You’ve seen the file. Mabry plays a dirty game.”

“Martin saw the file, too.” I tried to keep the bitterness from my voice. “He must know it’s a lie, the same way I do.”

But Alex shook his head. “Martin will believe me. He was over there. He knows that what makes it into the War Office file usually has nothing to do with the truth.”

“Are you certain of that?”

“He’ll believe me,” Alex said again.

I wanted to argue, but I couldn’t. I thought of the rapt expression on Martin’s face, the way his gaze had fixed worshipfully on Alex, and I knew that Alex could make Martin believe anything. The thought only made me angrier.

“Are you going to tell me what Reims was about?” I asked. “Or am I not allowed to know?”

Alex rasped a hand slowly over his face. “Reims was training,” he said. “In all my self-important posturing, I’d forgotten one pertinent fact: A man in the army is no longer his own master. I went to Reims because I was sent there, and I didn’t tell you because I was instructed not to in case my letters were intercepted. I was furious at first, but once I got there it seemed like a small thing, an overreaction on the part of the army. It was RAF training. It was just advanced. We were given access to the newer airplane models, sent to learn and test-fly them. We were given instruction in additional skills, like hand-to-hand combat and laying telegraph wires. We were given maps that some of the other pilots weren’t allowed to see. We were going to do advanced reconnaissance.” He shook his head. “I knew you’d hate me, damn it. I knew it. This is what I was trying to bloody avoid.”

“Fine,” I said. I wanted to get off the bed and stand, but the room was too small and I’d be too close to him. “You trained, and then you fought. Continue.”

“Mabry kept coming to me,” Alex ground out, “offering me assignments. He promised to take me out of active combat and give me other things to do, feeding British intelligence. I kept saying no. I had dug in, and I wouldn’t change my mind, even when he contacted me while I was home on leave. With you.”

The memory clicked into place. Alex, home on leave. A package arriving at our door. “The camera,” I said.

“Yes, my perceptive wife. The camera.”

I sat up straighter. “Who is Hans Faber?”

His voice was bitter now. “You’ve figured it out this far, Jo. Puzzle it out a little further.” He turned to look at me, his face still shrouded in shadow. “Hans Faber is me. He was to be my German identity when I was sent there by my own government as a spy.” He came forward and sank into his chair again. “Hans Faber has been me for three years.”

The room was silent. I ached everywhere, my legs and my back and behind my eyes. My head throbbed. Three years. I’d thought him dead for three years, had nearly been driven mad by it, and he’d been living as Hans Faber, a letter or a telegram away.

“Jo,” he said.

“I think you should leave now.” My eyes burned with unshed tears.

“Jo.”

“I’d like you to leave.”

He reached out and put a hand lightly on my foot, running his thumb along the bottom of the arch, looking inexpressibly sad. I felt his touch like a bolt of lightning. “Your stockings are torn,” he said.

I jerked my foot away. “Alex.”

“I don’t want to talk about myself anymore,” he said. “I’m sick of myself.”

I swallowed. “And they’re finished with you now? After all this time? That’s why you’re here?”

“Not quite.” His hand reached across the bed again, almost as if he couldn’t stop it, and touched my foot. This time I did not pull away. “I’m here because I quit again. At first they wouldn’t let me go, but I persisted and they finally gave in.” His thumb traced the arch of my foot again. “Mabry is angry over it. He doesn’t like to lose.”

“He came here pretending to be interested in buying art from Dottie.”

“That doesn’t surprise me.” His gaze was fixed on my foot, and his hand slid up my ankle. “He knew I’d come to you as soon as I was able.”

“Alex,” I said.

“Hush,” he replied. “I heard you. I just want to take your stockings off.”

I squirmed. “You agreed.”

“Nothing will happen,” he said, and I went still, believing him. Always, always, my body believed him, even after three years of devastation and lies. My body quieted as he pulled closer to the edge of the bed and his hands moved up my leg, beneath the hem of my peacock skirt.

Heat roared through me in a terrifying wave. “You shouldn’t have told me any of this,” I said, trying desperately to hold on to logic. “If it’s all so secret, you shouldn’t have told me.”