The Gown(73)

“Ha,” he barked, but his laugh held no humor. “That is very kind of you, but I hardly qualify.”

“Very well. The editor of a famous magazine. If they were to find out, I would be finished. No one would employ me. You must know this.”

“I do, though it pains me to admit it. And if you don’t wish to see me again until after the dress is completed and gone, I understand. It won’t be so very long, at any rate,” he reasoned. Always so reasonable, this man.

He was right. It would be sensible, and safe, to do as he said, and it would only be for a month or so. Why, then, did she feel so unmoored at the thought of it?

She had only known him for two months. Added together, the hours she’d spent in his company scarcely amounted to an entire day. She couldn’t properly say that she knew him, or that he knew her, and if she were never to see him again she would survive. She would survive, but another piece of her would be forever lost.

“What if we are very careful?” he asked. “No more restaurants, no more walking about in public? At least until after the wedding.”

“And instead?”

“Time with friends. And you could always come to my flat. I could make you supper.”

“Do you know how to cook?”

He stole a smiling glance at her. “After a fashion.”

“I suppose that would work,” she agreed, her heart suddenly light. And then, curious, “Who are these people we are visiting?”

“My oldest friend and his wife. Bennett and Ruby. I feel certain you will like them. And they you.”

“Do you mean Ruby Sutton who writes for you?”

“Yes. I brought them together—something in which I take rather a lot of pride. They’ve been married for something like two years now. And they’ve a baby on the way.”

“You have been friends with Bennett for a long time?”

“More than twenty years. We were at university together. His parents had died, mine were nearly always abroad, and Bennett began inviting me home. To this house we’re about to visit. We were nearly always here for Christmas and Easter, and we also stayed with his godmother in London. Insofar as I have a family, he and Ruby are my family. My family of intention, as it were, rather than blood. But no less precious for all that.”

He reached over and took her near hand in his, and as the warmth and weight and sureness of his touch crept under her skin, a little of her loneliness began to leach away. Could it be this simple? A resolution, a choice, a path forward?

“What is it like, this house? Is it very big?”

He took back his hand, but only so he might shift gears as they came to a bend in the road. “Not especially. Parts of it are truly ancient, I think as early as the fourteenth century, and over the years Bennett’s ancestors added to it in a rather piecemeal fashion.”

“Is it in a town?”

“Near to one. Edenbridge. Pretty little place. Ah—we’re getting close now.”

They turned onto a winding single-lane drive that led them up and over the crest of a hill, and there, nestled into the slope below, was a rambling old house, perched just so at the heart of an expansive garden, its beds still bright with blooms.

Walter parked the car on a raked gravel forecourt and switched off the engine. Miriam got out and stretched, though it hadn’t been such a long drive after all, and saw that he was doing the same.

“Brace yourself for the welcoming committee,” he said, and she was about to ask him what he meant when she heard it. Them. The din of a pack of dogs, barking and braying and howling, and they were getting louder and louder.

The front door of the house opened, and before she could react, let alone flee, five—no, six—dogs came running out, directly at them, at her. The largest was an Alsatian, with enormous paws and a head almost as big as a man’s, and the noise they made was burrowing inside her skull, making her head pound, but she couldn’t cover her ears. If she moved they would bite her, one after the other, and even a man as big as Kaz would not be able to stop them.

Once, long ago, she had loved dogs. She’d never had one of her own, but her parents’ next-door neighbors had kept spaniels, and she had loved playing with them and brushing their silky fur. They had been such sweet animals, and she’d had such fun teaching them how to sit and fetch and shake her hand.

Before Ravensbrück she had loved dogs.

In that place of horrors, she had seen what evil men could train a dog to do. She had seen what happened to prisoners who tried to run, and so she forced herself, now, to stand perfectly still. The dogs were far less likely to attack her if she didn’t move or resist in any way.

Walter had come round to her side of the car. One by one, he was introducing her to the animals. “And this one is Joey, and this shaggy fellow is Dougal—yes, yes, I am glad to see you. I am. And this one is— Miriam? My God, you’re frightened of them. What an ass I am not to have noticed.”

“I can’t . . .” Her throat was closing in. She couldn’t breathe.

“I want you to sit back down, in the car, and I’ll shut the door. I’ll be right back.”

Walter whistled for the dogs, and they listened to him and followed, still barking, as he led them inside. He returned a moment later, his shoes crunching loudly on the gravel, and then he opened the car door and crouched low beside her.