Author/Uploaded by Jessica Fellowes
Contents Title Page Copyright Notice Dedication Prologue Chapter One Chapter Two Chapter Three Chapter Four Chapter Five Chapter Six Chapter Seven Chapter Eight Chapter Nine Chapter Ten Chapter Eleven Chapter Twelve Chapter Thirteen Chapter Fourteen Chapter Fifteen Chapter Sixteen C...
Contents Title Page Copyright Notice Dedication Prologue Chapter One Chapter Two Chapter Three Chapter Four Chapter Five Chapter Six Chapter Seven Chapter Eight Chapter Nine Chapter Ten Chapter Eleven Chapter Twelve Chapter Thirteen Chapter Fourteen Chapter Fifteen Chapter Sixteen Chapter Seventeen Chapter Eighteen Chapter Nineteen Chapter Twenty Chapter Twenty-One Chapter Twenty-Two Chapter Twenty-Three Chapter Twenty-Four Chapter Twenty-Five Chapter Twenty-Six Chapter Twenty-Seven Chapter Twenty-Eight Chapter Twenty-Nine Chapter Thirty Chapter Thirty-One Chapter Thirty-Two Chapter Thirty-Three Chapter Thirty-Four Chapter Thirty-Five Chapter Thirty-Six Chapter Thirty-Seven Chapter Thirty-Eight Chapter Thirty-Nine Chapter Forty Chapter Forty-One Chapter Forty-Two Chapter Forty-Three Chapter Forty-Four Chapter Forty-Five Chapter Forty-Six Chapter Forty-Seven Chapter Forty-Eight Chapter Forty-Nine Chapter Fifty Chapter Fifty-One Chapter Fifty-Two Chapter Fifty-Three Chapter Fifty-Four Chapter Fifty-Five Chapter Fifty-Six Chapter Fifty-Seven Chapter Fifty-Eight Chapter Fifty-Nine Chapter Sixty Chapter Sixty-One Chapter Sixty-Two Chapter Sixty-Three Chapter Sixty-Four Chapter Sixty-Five Chapter Sixty-Six Chapter Sixty-Seven Chapter Sixty-Eight Who’s Who Historical Notes Acknowledgments Bibliography Also by Jessica Fellowes About the Author Newsletter Sign-up Copyright Guide Cover Title Page Dedication Prologue Chapter One Acknowledgments Bibliography Contents Copyright Begin Reading Table of Contents About the Author Copyright Page Thank you for buying this St. Martin’s Publishing Group ebook. To receive special offers, bonus content, and info on new releases and other great reads, sign up for our newsletters. Or visit us online at us.macmillan.com/newslettersignup For email updates on the author, click here. The author and publisher have provided this e-book to you for your personal use only. You may not make this e-book publicly available in any way. Copyright infringement is against the law. If you believe the copy of this e-book you are reading infringes on the author’s copyright, please notify the publisher at: us.macmillanusa.com/piracy. FOR JULIAN AND EMMA PROLOGUE 17 April 1941 Even after eight months of heavy bombing on London, Louisa Sullivan hadn’t decided which part of hearing the bomb’s whistle was the worst: the constant whine, which prevented any respite from fear and defied any guess as to its navigation, or the immediate black silence that came in the seconds when it stopped. In that dark spot was the moment of death and destruction, but you knew not where. Sometimes it seemed as if it had happened to you, only you weren’t aware yet because pain travels more slowly than the speed of sound. You waited, breath held, to discover whether you were alive. And if you were, there was no relief, for then you would have to discover who had died. Of this one thing you could be certain: someone was now dead who had been alive only seconds before. One saving grace of being down in the London Underground – as Louisa and her five-year-old daughter Maisie were, most nights, sleeping on the platform at Hammersmith – was that you couldn’t hear the bombs as loudly. Guy, Maisie’s father, was rarely with them as he was out at every opportunity, working all the shifts given to him and any extras he could take, as a private for the Home Guard. He and Louisa argued frequently about the fact that Maisie had not been evacuated. He saw it as the safest option for their only child, but Louisa could not bear to give her up to an unknown family in an unknown part of the country. Some children had been brought back to London during the Phoney War and she had heard one or two terrible stories of neglect, which she could not dismiss. Guy would remind his wife, to no avail, that the vast majority had been well looked after. Lying on the concrete floor, her winter coat a paltry mattress, Louisa held Maisie to her a little tighter, breathing in the sweet smell of her freshly washed hair. In response, her daughter wriggled, shifting closer to her mother, adjusting her hands beneath her cheeks as she slept. A thin blanket was drawn over them both, although it did not cover Louisa below her knees. As she held her child, she thought about Deborah Mitford’s wedding, due to happen in two days’ time. Maisie was going to be a flower girl. Although Louisa had first known the Mitfords when she was their nursery-maid, just over twenty years ago, things between them now were very different. The eldest of the six daughters, Nancy, was no longer a Mitford but married to Peter Rodd, commissioned into the Welsh Guards and currently abroad, fighting in Addis Ababa, much to Nancy’s relief. Louisa knew that, recently, there had been a brief but intense love affair. Even so, Nancy had thrown herself into war work with a fervour that few might have expected from the woman who claimed to work only so she could afford to take taxis rather than buses. She had been an ambulance driver for the ARP, sheltered Jewish refugee families at her father’s London house on Rutland Gate, and was now working for the Free French in London. Louisa could imagine her, lying in bed, shivering with fear, running through the argument that was debated daily in every café, on every street corner: was it safer to leave your house and run to a shelter, to stay on the top floor of your house, or simply embrace death from the comfort of your own bed? It wasn’t the screaming bombs Nancy said she minded so much as the sirens, the constant searchlights and the ominous red ropes at the end of a street. She lived only a few roads away from Paddington station, which she knew was a target. When it was light, she could get up and do good. In the small hours of the night, in the desperate blackness, she could do nothing. Diana was in Holloway prison, locked up for her Fascist sympathies. Louisa pictured her lying in the dark, upon a thin single mattress, shivering fiercely not