“Well, this is a very good arrangement, then,” Louis said, tilting his chair back on two legs. “We’ll all have a good time, you won’t have to worry about us making a move, and our girls back home won’t need to worry about you. Can we agree to be friends?” He stuck out his hand for Eve to shake. She hesitated for a moment, then reached for it. The warmth and strength of it made her ache for Alfie’s touch.
“Deal,” she said, clearing her throat. “Just friends.”
“So what are your names?”
“I’m Eve Dawson and this is my best friend, Audrey Clarkson.” She wondered what Audrey thought of these Americans as she gave them her shy smile and shook hands.
“Pleased to meet you, Eve . . . Audrey. I’m Louis Dubois and this is my friend Robert Barrett. We’re best friends, too, ever since grammar school.”
“From what we’ve seen over here,” Robert said, his voice a soft contrast to Louis’s booming one, “this war has been very hard on you ladies.”
“It has been,” Audrey replied, just as softly. “My home in London was destroyed during the Blitz. Eve and I both lost our mothers.”
“That’s terrible,” Robert said. “I’m so sorry. That must have been awful for you.”
Eve didn’t want to think about what they’d suffered and lost. She wanted to listen to the music and forget about the war and her grief for one night. Louis must have felt the same way because he asked, “Can we get you ladies a drink?”
“I’m set,” Eve said, pointing to her half-finished one.
“No thank you,” Audrey said. “I don’t drink.”
Eve knew why, and it was another bitter reminder of Lady Rosamunde’s selfishness and the loss it had cost her. She rose to her feet. “You know what, Louis? Maybe I’ll take you up on that offer to dance.” Audrey and Robert could sit by themselves and talk about morbid things if they wanted.
Louis stood and took Eve’s hand. “Great! I like this song.” They wove through the press of people and swing danced to three fast tunes in a row, enjoying every rollicking minute. Then the music slowed. Eve went into Louis’s arms as if it were the most natural thing in the world to do. He was an excellent dancer—better than Alfie, if she dared to admit it. She closed her eyes as Louis held her close, and she pretended he was Alfie.
“My boyfriend’s name is Alfie,” she told him. “What’s your wife’s name?”
“Jean.”
“I’ll bet she misses you. And your baby’s name?”
“Karen. She won’t know who I am when I get home.”
“Where are you from in America?”
“Connecticut. Not far from New York City. And you’re from London?”
“No, I grew up in a little village out in the country, then moved to London to work. I don’t really know where home is, nowadays. The ATS keeps moving us all around, wherever we’re needed.”
“Is your boyfriend from your home village?”
The question startled Eve. Alfie was, and yet he wasn’t. They’d grown up worlds apart.
“Alfie’s home was about a mile from mine.” It was the simplest answer she could give. It would seem like a Cinderella story to describe Wellingford Hall and explain how she’d once been Alfie’s scullery maid.
“Is that where you and he hope to settle when the war ends?” Louis asked.
Tears filled Eve’s eyes. She knew as she swayed in this handsome American’s arms that Alfie was never going to marry her. She was a fool to imagine that she would ever become Mrs. Alfred Clarkson, mistress of Wellingford Hall. Not while Alfie’s father was alive. Her mind knew it, but her heart refused to believe it. “Yes,” she lied. “That’s the plan. . . . Tell me, what do you think of my sad little country?”
“I wish the sun would shine more often, but other than that, I think it’s swell. We never traveled much when I was a kid, so it’s pretty exciting to get out and see the world.”
“Even with Herr Hitler trampling across it, shooting at you?”
Louis’s laugh made her smile. “He does take some of the fun out of it. Especially crossing the Atlantic in a troopship, dodging U-boats.”
Eve and Louis danced to one number after the next. She was having fun, and she couldn’t recall the last time that had happened. Meanwhile, Audrey and Robert seemed deep in conversation, which was unusual for the normally shy Audrey. Eventually the band took a break, and Louis led Eve to the refreshment table. “Wow!” she said. “Look at all this food! It must have come from you Americans. We haven’t seen chocolate or fruit or these wonderful sugary cakes in years!”
“Fill your plate, then. I’ll go save our table so Bob and your friend can get some, too.” They all sat down at the table to eat, and as Eve filled up on sponge cake and fruit tarts, she was glad that the Mouse had ordered them to come.
“You two seem like really good friends,” Eve said after listening to Louis and Robert banter back and forth like a lively game of tennis. “How long have you known each other?”
“Since we were seven or eight years old,” Robert replied. “We played Little League baseball together. Louis’s dad was our coach.”
“We played together on every sports team you can name, after that,” Louis added. He had a habit of twisting his wedding ring as he spoke, as if it fit too tightly. “Then two other buddies, Tom and Arnie, joined us when we were in junior high. The four of us played everything—baseball, football, basketball—you name it.”
“But our favorite is basketball,” Robert said. “The four of us—Louis, Tom, Arnie, and I—were on the greatest team our high school ever produced. We won the state championship two years in a row.”
“Everyone called us the Famous Four,” Louis said. “We all went to college on basketball scholarships, then joined the Army together after Pearl Harbor.”
“It’s a bit of luck for Louis and me to end up here together, considering how far-flung this war is, and all the places we could have been sent.”
“What did you study in college?” Audrey asked.
“Bob is destined to become a lawyer,” Louis said, answering for his friend. “His filthy-rich father and grandfather won’t settle for anything less, right, Bob?”
“So it seems,” he said quietly.
“I studied business. My father owns an insurance company, so I’ve always figured that’s what I’d end up doing. Especially now that I’m married.”
Eve felt a growing uneasiness with the conversation, fearing it would lead to questions about her education. “What about your other two friends?” she asked to prevent them from questioning her.
“Tom’s family owns a dairy farm,” Robert said. “He’s the bashful one, especially when it comes to girls.”
“He never had time for girls,” Louis said, “working as hard as he did, helping out his folks. We used to joke and call him ‘Father Tom,’ as if he was a priest or something, because he’s the kind of guy you can confess all your troubles to, you know? And he’ll tell you the right thing to do. He’s stationed somewhere in the Mediterranean, at the moment. And Arnie is the opposite—a real playboy. He worked as a lifeguard at the country club every summer, showing off his tan, getting all the girls to swoon over him. My kid sister was one of them.”