“The chap you eat lunch with most days?”
Zivon nodded.
Camden lifted a brow. “You know, I often pass Miss Blackwell leaving Charing Cross Hospital when I go to meet Ara for lunch. You could always come with me and invite her to join us. They being friends and all.”
A thought that hadn’t occurred to him. But then, he hadn’t realized until this evening that Camden’s betrothed was Lily’s friend. Whitehall, he supposed, wasn’t so large a place. The web of relationships was just as tangled as the neighborhood he’d grown up in. He just hadn’t paused to realize that he was now part of this web. “That sounds pleasant. We should work out a date with the ladies before the night ends.”
Camden said something that sounded agreeable, but Zivon’s gaze had been pulled away. Not, this time, by Lily. Rather, by the speed of a servant who darted into the room. No, two servants. One moved straight for Hall, the other for the man Camden had just identified as the duke.
“This is not good, I think.” Panic had a very particular pattern to it—shaky movements, wide eyes, abrupt changes in direction as one sought the quickest path to one’s destination. And those two men were in full panic.
The music came to another natural halt, and Zivon angled himself toward the window, listening to more thunder.
But there was no rain on the glass of the French doors he’d been musing about luring Lily through. Only the reflection of the moon.
Beside him, Camden muttered a word he didn’t know and tossed the door open. With the glass removed from between them and the night, the sounds from outside were clearer.
Deadlier.
Airplanes. Many of them. Distant roars. A boom from somewhere far enough away that it couldn’t rattle the glass.
Just his soul.
“God, help us.” Camden had stepped through the door, his head back. Eyes on the skies.
Zivon had only to shift a bit to see what the pilot was looking at. Never in his life had he seen so many airplanes. None seemed to be on a course for them, but he knew that could change in an instant as the English gave the Germans chase. And from every direction, sirens wailed. Some in warning. Others in reaction.
The musicians didn’t launch into another piece this time.
Camden spun, his eyes seeking and finding someone. “Pearce! Where’s the nearest shelter?”
Zivon turned too, in time to see a stranger nod toward the south. “Underground station not far off. We’ll get all the guests to it. Lina! You know the drill, luv. Ellie, Rosie, Retta, do your magic.”
Zivon barely caught a glimpse of a quartet of women before they disappeared into the crowd, touching elbows here and smiling there and somehow turning the cluster of anxious people into neat and orderly queues aimed for the door. But they weren’t his concern. He strained onto his toes, wishing he were a few inches taller, looking for a flash of red-gold.
She appeared a second later, her camera bag on her shoulder. She was still with Hall, who led her his way, both of them grim-faced.
He caught the tail end of Hall’s mutter. “. . . don’t be ridiculous. If anyone is to blame, it’s me. You were but doing what I asked.”
Asked? What had Hall asked of her? Something to do with a photograph, obviously. Something perhaps linked to the planes now flying overhead? Lily’s pale face made him think so.
He hadn’t time to ask, though. Hall all but shoved Lily at him, his look fierce. “Get her to the underground now. If anything happens to her, her father will have both our heads.”
With a swift nod, Zivon took her hand and pulled her into the queue.
She didn’t seem very happy about it. “Arabelle said she was going to try to get to the sites that were hit already. I should go with her—help people. There will be injuries, and I have some training, after all.”
He held tight to her fingers. “I was given a direct order from my superior. Do not try to make me disobey, Lily.” Because the thought of her out there in the thick of it, in danger—no.
“But surely it’s safe where the planes have already struck—”
“Nyet.” He had to swallow down the Russian. “No. There are scores of them up there. They will strike in waves. They could well hit the same areas multiple times if they’re following the river. Please.” He wove their fingers together, anchoring her there beside him. “Do not ask me to put you in danger. I cannot.”
The way she met his gaze and held it made the crowd around them seem like nothing but a distant roar. At last, she nodded. “All right. To the shelter.”
He couldn’t exactly be relieved, not given the rumble of engines overhead. But he was grateful. For the first time since that terrible day when he’d found Alyona on his doorstep, his soul whispered a prayer of gratitude rather than just a plea.
The crowd moved with remarkable order out of the building and into the street. Sirens wailed, people shouted, but it wasn’t nearly as chaotic as Zivon had expected. Not like the mobs at home when the soviets had stormed their way to power. This was entirely different. Even so, he held Lily close to his side as the wedding guests merged into the street with theatergoers from nearby, all aimed at the same tube station. A few times he pulled her this way or that to avoid a run-in with another well-dressed Londoner but not as often as he would have expected.
Within a few minutes, they had hurried down the steps, where most people shuffled about looking for a bench, as if they’d all done this before. Not surprising, he supposed, since London had been facing air raids since the war began. It was not something he had encountered in Russia. And, frankly, not something he had been anxious to experience here.
“Here. Sit.” He led her farther down than the masses had gone, to where a bench still sat empty, though given the numbers surging in behind him, it wouldn’t stay that way for long.
Surprisingly, she obeyed. Her eyes looked a bit dazed again, distant. Zivon crouched down before her and held both her hands between his. “Lily. It will be all right.”
As if to belie his promise, a boom sounded from somewhere in the distance. Just close enough to hear it, to feel the slightest tremor beneath them. Another followed on its heels.
She shuddered and closed her eyes, shaking her head. “So many. Surely it wouldn’t have been so many if . . .”
“If?”
She shook her head again, folding her arms over the camera bag.
He would have pressed, but another couple was joining them on the bench, the woman babbling about not getting to see the ending of the opera now. Of all the things to worry about. He stood and moved to stand at Lily’s side, more out of the way of the bodies still pushing in. The din was soon too great to really allow for conversation with the height difference, so he made no attempt to say anything. Just kept one of her hands in his.
The slight tremors continued, along with the muffled booms. Based on the mutterings of their new neighbors, a raid had never gone on more than a few minutes. Many consisted only of a single bomb, perhaps as many as half a dozen. But they had far surpassed that already.
They had been there half an hour when a new note among the voices snagged his attention. An older woman, well dressed, was pushing through the crowd, calling for an Estevan. She paused about ten paces away to ask a cluster of people if they had seen her husband, but she asked it in Greek. They all shook their heads in confusion more than in answer.