“I do.” Only Ivy could combine a giggle with a sigh to spell pure bliss. “Clarke is everything I ever dreamed of, Lil. No. Actually, he’s everything I didn’t even know to dream of.”
“That’s just too sweet for words, you know. I’m not certain I can stand it.” The poke turned to a tickle.
Ivy shrieked with laughter and pulled away for a second—long enough to bat at Lily’s hand—and then settled back at her side. “He said today that he’d mentioned me in a letter to his mother. She’s coming to London for a visit this summer. He wants to introduce me to her.”
“Oooo.” Lily bumped their shoulders together. “You’re as good as engaged, I think.”
“In July, maybe. Maybe.” She grinned, looking so perfectly radiant. Blissful.
Lily had to squash down the surge of loneliness that swelled up. She couldn’t feel lonely now with her sister, her best friend, beside her.
But Ivy was in love. She’d marry. And married women didn’t live forever in the room next door.
And yet . . . never in her life had she seen her sister so happy. How could she be anything but happy for her? Tomorrow’s loneliness could just wait its proper turn.
“The important decisions, then.” Lily made a show of folding her hands in her lap and looking intently at her sister, all rapt attention. “Hemlines have changed since our last discussion of the perfect wedding gown. Should our sketch change accordingly?”
“Now that is a fabulous question.” Lunging to her knees, Ivy reached for the stack of sketchbooks that Lily had stashed on a low bookcase at the foot of their chatting nook. She was already flipping them open as she sat.
Lily let out a squeak when photos slipped and tumbled from the pages. She’d forgotten she’d stashed those in there, thinking to finish a sketch sometime.
“Oh, sorry!” Ivy gathered them up . . . and began to laugh.
Lily snatched them from her sister’s hands. “What?”
“You know very well what.” She pointed at the photos. Three of them, from three different days. All of Zivon as he stood in that way he did, with his hands clasped behind his back. Eyes not quite closed as they sometimes were, but distant behind his glasses. When he was listening. Picking out patterns. “You may say you don’t know how you feel . . .”
Huffing out a breath, Lily shuffled them back into chronological order, straightening the edges. “I was doing a sketch, that’s all.” To prove it, she flipped open the sketchbook Ivy still held until she landed on the one she’d started a few days ago.
“Oh, I didn’t doubt you were sketching him. I was pointing out that there’s meaning to be found in the fact that you’re sketching him. Just look at this.” She pointed at the page where Zivon stood in rough outlines, three-quarters of his figure filling the white space.
“What about it?” Surely nothing had worked its way into the picture that she hadn’t known she was putting in. And surely—surely—it wasn’t some key to understanding her own feelings for the man.
Ivy bumped Lily’s shoulder now. “He intrigues you. How many photographs have you taken of him?”
“A . . . few.” Her brows drew together. She took a few every time they were together. Not exactly abnormal for her. Except, now that she thought about it, she hadn’t taken quite so many of Clarke and Ivy together, though they did make the sweetest picture as they walked in the park. But, while charming, Ivy and Clarke weren’t . . . well, as Ivy put it, intriguing.
Ivy lifted her brows. “So if I were to go into your workroom and look through your box of photos, I would see . . . ?”
Lily lifted her chin. “As I said. A few.” Dozen.
Her sister laughed. “And you’re sketching him. You never sketch people.”
“That is not true!” In proof, she flipped back through the pages. Past Zivon, past the birds in the park, past Mama’s lazy pug who never stirred from his rug when he could help it, past the last iteration of the perfect wedding dress. Eventually she landed on one of their four-year-old cousin. “There. See?”
“Mm-hmm. I certainly do.” With a look of supreme indulgence, Ivy made a show of turning to the wedding gown again. “All right, I’ll relent for now. But I maintain that your heart knows something your mind hasn’t caught on to yet. And your camera tells the tale.”
Oh heavens. She certainly hoped not. Lily sighed and tapped a finger to the page. “Gowns.”
She needed a while to think of something less terrifying than the prospect of having fallen for a man who could well be an enemy.
11
SATURDAY, 20 APRIL 1918
Evgeni knocked on yet another door, fixed his lips in yet another smile. He’d lost track at this point of how many French farmhouses he’d visited over the last few weeks, in search of the belongings that had “mysteriously” vanished from the wreck site before officials could take them anywhere to be claimed by survivors.
Blighted scavengers. Not that he didn’t understand. In German-occupied France, one had to take whatever one could find, borrow, or steal. But he wasn’t searching for Zivon’s ruby ring. Just their personal items.
The door swung open, and a frazzled-looking woman who didn’t look more than twenty-five filled the space. Well, along with the toddler on her hip and an older boy half hidden behind her skirts.
“Bonjour.” His French, at least, had improved with these visits. Matushka would be proud. He directed his attention fully onto the toddler, a little girl, probably three or four. “You must be the lady of the house.”
The girl giggled and buried her face in her mother’s shoulder. The woman released a breath that sounded a little bit amused, anyway. “Can I help you, monsieur?”
“I hope so.” He had his hat clasped in his hands and made it a point not to crowd her. Much like he’d made it a point to wear the shabbier of his shirts. “Two months ago, I was involved in a train accident about a mile from here. It has taken me many weeks to recover and now . . . well, to be perfectly honest, I’m hoping someone in the area came across a few of my personal items. I had no money.” Not true, but he knew better than to hope any of that would be returned. “But I was hoping to reclaim my photographs. They are all I have left of my family. Have you, by chance, picked up anything blowing about the countryside?”
“Photographs, you say?” She eased back a step, though it looked more like uncertainty than an invitation. “I may have found a few, though I don’t recall when it was. We . . . we make a habit of picking up any papers we find blowing about.”
“As any good steward of the land would do.” He inclined his head, having discovered many knocks ago that he gained far more knowledge through this humble show than by simply stating he was looking for his belongings and asking if anyone had stolen them.
No one wanted to admit to being a scavenger. But they all were. They couldn’t afford not to be.
The woman pursed her lips, looked over her shoulder at the boy, and then gripped the door. “Would you wait here for one moment? I will bring out what I found.”
“Of course. Merci beaucoup.” He backed up and turned half away, so that she wouldn’t feel he thought her rude when she shut the door on him.