“Oh no, Mary, I’m so sorry.” Constance lifted her hand to Mary’s shoulder.
Scarlett swallowed painfully past the lump in her throat. That made three lovers Mary had lost in the last— She stiffened. “They didn’t…” She shook her head. Surely they wouldn’t be so cruel.
“Label me a jinx and repost me?” Mary flashed a brittle smile, then cleared her throat. “What else were they going to do?”
“Anything but that,” Constance snapped, shaking her head. “It’s not your fault.”
“Of course it isn’t,” Scarlett added, guiding her to an empty chair at the table. “They’re too bloody superstitious. I’m so sorry you lost him.”
“Risks we take falling in love with them, right?” Mary folded her hands in her lap and stared straight ahead as Scarlett took the seat next to her, Constance on her left.
“Right,” Scarlett muttered.
“Good morning, ladies. Let’s get started,” Section Officer Cartwright announced as she swept into the room with her immaculately pressed uniform. “Take your seats.”
Chairs squeaked across the floor as the women gathered around the conference table. At Middle Wallop, Scarlett would have known most, if not all, of them. But living with Jameson meant she had met only a few of the ladies here at Kirton. There was no more hut gossip, no more flurries of excitement before a dance, no more late-night chats.
She was still part of them, yet oddly separate. She wouldn’t give up Jameson—not for the world—but there was part of her that sorely missed the company of other women.
“Mail,” Cartwright ordered, and a young clerk stood at the head of the conference table, calling names and sliding envelopes down the long, polished expanse.
“Wright.”
Both Constance’s and Scarlett’s attention whipped toward the clerk as a letter came spinning their way.
Stanton, not Wright. Scarlett reminded herself when she saw the letter was addressed to Constance. Not that anyone would be sending her mail, anyway. Her parents still hadn’t deigned to respond when she wrote to them after her marriage, though Constance still received regular missives from their mother.
They never asked after Scarlett.
Constance’s shoulders fell a fraction of an inch as she opened the envelope as quietly as possible. “It’s from Mother.”
Scarlett offered her hand a brief squeeze. “Perhaps there will be one tomorrow.” She knew all too well how it felt to wait for a letter from the man you loved.
Constance nodded, then lowered the envelope beneath the table.
Scarlett adjusted her seat slightly, blocking Constance from Cartwright’s hawklike gaze so she wouldn’t be caught reading during the briefing.
“Now that’s been handled,” Cartwright began. “You should have all read through the new standards provided to you at last week’s briefing. I’m pleased to say that we haven’t had a single WAAF late for her watch since the half-hour policy was enacted. Well done. Are there any questions about last week’s policy changes?”
“Is it true the 71st is to be reposted?” a girl from down the table asked.
Scarlett’s heart stopped. No. Not so soon. Her head spun with every possibility. They hadn’t had enough time yet, and there were only so many favors she could call in to be reposted with Jameson—if they were even headed to a station that had an ops center.
Section Officer Cartwright sighed in obvious frustration. “Aircraftwoman Hensley, I hardly see how that has anything to do with last week’s policy change.”
The younger woman blushed. “It would…change where the aircraft originate from on the board?”
There was a collective groan.
“Excellent attempt, but no.” Cartwright glanced down the table, pausing briefly on Scarlett. “While I understand that many of you have formed emotional attachments—against advisement—to members of the Eagle Squadron, I’ll remind you that it is, quite frankly, none of our business where the unit will be sent now that they’re fully operational.”
A dozen forlorn sighs filled the conference room, but Scarlett’s wasn’t one of them. She was too busy conquering the emotional devastation to sigh as though she suffered from nothing but a crush.
“Girls,” Cartwright groaned. “While I could use this as an opportunity to remind you of your responsibility regarding virtuous behavior, I won’t.” And yet with that line, she surely had.
“What I will say is that rumors are rumors. If we believed or got caught up in every piece of maybe that landed in our ears, we’d be halfway to Berlin by now, and I expect you—”
Constance began to hyperventilate at Scarlett’s side, clutching the letter so hard, she expected to see her sister’s nails pop through the paper.
“Constance?” Scarlett whispered, her breath catching at the horror in her sister’s eyes.
Constance’s scream filled the room, the sound tearing through Scarlett’s ribcage and gripping her heart with an icy fist.
Scarlett reached for Constance’s wrist, but the scream had already morphed into a mournful wail, stuttering with gut-wrenching sobs that shook her shoulders.
“Poppet?” she asked quietly, gently turning Constance’s face toward hers. Tears didn’t just streak down her face—they ran in a continuous line, as though her eyes couldn’t be bothered to fill, then empty.
“He’s. Dead.” Constance’s words came between heaving cries. “Edward. Is dead. There was a. Bombing raid—” Her chin sank as the sobs came faster and harder.
Edward. Scarlett’s eyes fluttered shut for a moment. How could the blue-eyed boy who’d grown up with them be gone? He’d been as much a fixture of their lives growing up as her own parents.
He was Constance’s soul mate.
Scarlett tugged Constance into her arms. “I’m so sorry, love. So, so sorry.”
“Assistant Section Officer Stanton, do you need to remove your sister from the room, or can she control herself?” Cartwright snapped.
“I’ll care for her privately if we can be excused.” Scarlett bristled, but the insensitive wretch was right. A display like this wouldn’t be tolerated, no matter how justified. Constance would be labeled hysterical, undependable. Girls had been reposted, never seen again after failing to stifle their emotions.
Cartwright narrowed her eyes but nodded.
“Hold on for just a second longer,” Scarlett begged her sister in a whisper, wrapping her arm around Constance’s shoulder and tugging her to her feet. “Walk with me.” Another whisper.