The UnTied Kingdom (18 page)

‘Who, as you’re demonstrating, are quite able and indeed eager to fight,’ Harker said.

‘But you’re running out of men! They’re all dying. I saw the aftermath of even that little skirmish in the fens, and it scared the life out of me, because there were so many men – and women – there, who just won’t be coming back to fight. You’re losing men every day.’

‘Not
my
men,’ Harker said fiercely.

‘No,’ she said, ‘so that’s okay, is it? Major Harker the Hero is bringing his little band of brothers home, so the war must be going well! Harker, you’re fighting an enemy who is better equipped and better informed than you. They’re allied with the most powerful nation on Earth, who, may I remind you, is just twenty-two miles away by sea. And they’re gaining support.’

‘Who says–?’

‘They took three cities without even having to attack from the outside! Do you think they could do that if people were happy with the way the army is running the country? Do you think people like being starved and killed? You conscript everyone over the age of eighteen, that leaves no one to grow food and look after children; not that there can be all that many children born with your entire population of child-bearing age going off to be shot at–’

‘And what do you suggest we do? We don’t have any more food and we’re running out of men, where do you
suggest
we get fresh troops from? How are we supposed to feed these starving people?’

‘I don’t know, by letting the French do it?’

Harker was saved from having to punch Eve by Charlie opening her door and looking at them enquiringly. Dammit. Every word Eve had said had got louder, and Harker feared he’d been shouting, too.

He shook his head at Charlie, who frowned, but went back inside her room.

Harker put his face right up against Eve’s, backing her against the wall. He was using his size and his strength to intimidate her, which was a rotten thing to do, but he didn’t care.

He saw a spark of fear in her eyes and leaned closer.

‘You’re right,’ he said softly. ‘We are starving, and we are dying, but we’re still not going to give in to the Coalitionists. I don’t know what version of England you think you’re from, Eve Carpenter, but over here we are proud of our country and we’re not about to let some thieving French bastards take it from us.’

‘Pride won’t feed people,’ Eve said.

‘
Neither will the French
.’

She glared at him, very close and very angry, frightened but defiant, and Harker could feel her breath on his face. Her eyes were clear, bright, fixed on his, and there were spots of colour on her cheeks.

He could smell the soap on her skin. She was so close.

‘Well,’ she said, nearly whispering the word into his mouth, ‘if you’re so confident in your people’s love for their country, then it shouldn’t matter what damn songs I sing, should it?’

She was so close and so pretty and so maddening that it took a second or two for that circular piece of logic to work its way through the heat frying Harker’s brain, but when it did he closed his eyes and mentally cursed her.

Then he stepped back, and cursed himself when he saw the relief cross her face.

‘Goodnight, Eve,’ he said, and she swallowed, hesitated, and nodded.

He watched her walk down the corridor, almost to her room, before he called her back.

‘Eve?’

She stopped. Turned. Raised that eyebrow at him again.

Harker didn’t even know why he said what he said next. ‘You do have a beautiful voice,’ he said, and she licked her lips and stared at him for a second.

Then she said, ‘Goodnight, Major,’ and went into her room, shutting the door with a definite click.

Chapter Thirteen

Neither Tallulah nor Martindale said a word to Eve on the subject, but she knew they’d both heard every word she’d shouted at Harker. In the morning, avoiding their gazes, she dressed and followed them down to the big kitchen, ready to face Harker again – but he wasn’t there.

‘Left early,’ Daz said. ‘Went with the LT to reconnoitre around Leeds.’

‘Oh,’ said Eve, oddly disappointed.

Banks gave her a sly look. ‘Looking forward to seeing him, were you?’

Eve opened her mouth to deliver a scathing reply, but nothing came, so she went for a diversionary tactic and asked something that had been bugging her. ‘So, all right. I was wondering. You have a co-ed army of serving soldiers, right? What happens if a soldier gets pregnant? Does the army do maternity leave?’

‘Not exactly,’ Daz said, glancing at the rest of them.

‘The army takes … precautions,’ Martindale said.

‘Or more to the point, hands out precautions,’ Banks said, grinning again.

‘Seriously?’

‘Yes. Or a lot of women would be taking the easy way out,’ Daz said. ‘Not everyone wants to be conscripted. And Wheeler takes a dim view of anyone who does it “accidentally”.’

‘I thought the Catholic Church disapproved of contraception,’ she said.

Martindale snorted. ‘Do you really think the Catholic Church cares about us?’

After breakfast, Eve asked one of the maids to show her the piano, which Lady Winterton had offered for the squad’s use, possibly out of embarrassment over her husband’s faux pas last night.

She could hardly remember the last time she’d played a piano before she came here. School recitals, stolen half-hours in recording studios, the electric piano in her mother’s dining room, sitting lost and forgotten. Almost certainly sold now, probably trashed.

Funny, but she missed the keyboard more than her mother. Well, it was only fair: Eve was almost sure her mother would be missing Eve’s fame more than Eve herself.

Her fingers slowed as she tried to summon up her old resentment, but it didn’t come. That whole world, a world of televisions and electricity and temping jobs, of people sniggering at her and her name being used as a cautionary tale, it all seemed very distant, and as hard to see as the foggy Wolds outside.

Maybe that was a dream and this is real,
she thought, beginning to play again.
For three years I don’t think I felt anything, I didn’t laugh or cry at anything, I felt no pain and no happiness and no comfort.
Strange how this sepia-coloured world, full of blood and hunger, seemed more real to Eve than what she’d left behind. Like Dorothy in Oz, only the other way around.

She stared at the low, rolling hills shrouded in mist. Those endless, boggy fens. She’d been so glad to leave the lowlands behind for the Wolds, even if they did seem to resemble mountains in contrast, suddenly steep, the peaks out of sight.

Why did I swap Mitcham for this?

Would I swap back again?

Eve’s fingers went still, because she’d just realised she didn’t know the answer to that question.

Harker swiped at a scraggy bush, annoyed as hell, wishing he’d brought his sword. A sword was really useful for things like this.

Charlie was keeping her distance, because he’d snapped at her one time too many on the drive from Hatfield Chase in Sir Dennis’s nippy little Austin. He hadn’t snapped on purpose. Charlie hadn’t done anything wrong.

But he couldn’t possibly tell her that after arguing with Eve last night he’d been tormented by such hot dreams of his little captive that he’d hardly slept.

He was close to Charlie, but not that close.

‘Sir,’ Charlie said, and pointed through the trees to where Kirkstall Abbey was visible. But instead of the tall, peaceful house of God that ought to be standing there, Harker saw only a garrison, scarred and ugly with soldiers, the enemy crawling all over it like cockroaches.

He moved closer, and realised that the huge camp didn’t contain just soldiers. It was full of refugees, and it went on for miles. Miles of threadbare tents, small fires, crying children and hungry people. Miles of barbed wire and guards with guns.

Miles of people who had nowhere else to go, and wouldn’t be allowed to go there even if they had.

He frowned. ‘I thought they’d have set up inside the city,’ he said.

‘They’ve probably got a barracks there,’ Charlie said. ‘Who do you think keeps the refugees out of the city?’

They’d tried to enter at several of the city’s gates earlier in the morning, but were repeatedly told that they’d need papers issued by the garrison at Kirkstall.

‘Out of the city, and inside the camp,’ Harker said. He didn’t expect many of the people sent to Kirkstall came back to the city gates with papers in their hands.

‘Well, at least we know where their HQ is,’ Charlie said, shading her eyes.

‘Yeah.’ Harker shaded his eyes, and glared at the Abbey. ‘Hey, Charlie, if you had a valuable piece of equipment, where would you hide it?’

‘Me, sir? In a hole underground where the enemy couldn’t find it.’

He dealt her a look.

‘Or HQ,’ she conceded.

‘So we break into the Abbey,’ he said. ‘Should be fun.’

Charlie raised her eyebrows, but said nothing.

Harker sighed and swiped at a thorny bush. ‘Look, I’m sorry I snapped at you this morning. Didn’t sleep well.’

‘That’s all right, sir. It was a long journey, and …’ she hesitated. Charlie rarely hesitated.

‘And?’ Harker prodded.

‘And I know how Eve provokes you. You shouldn’t let her get to you, sir.’

Harker closed his eyes, because all night he’d been tormented by dreams of letting Eve get to him. Letting her sweatily, repeatedly get to him.

She’s either mad, or she’s a spy. Mad or a spy. Mad. Spy.

The mission was important. The squad was important. His hormones weren’t.

‘I know,’ he said shortly, and gestured back to the thicket where the car was concealed. On the way, he asked as idly as possible, ‘Charlie, do you know what she was talking about with that Dracula business?’

‘It’s a book, sir. About a monster. There’s someone in it called Harker.’

‘He’s not the monster, is he?’

Charlie gave him a sideways look. ‘No, sir. Dracula is. Harker saves his wife from the monster.’

‘How very chivalrous of him,’ Harker said. Then a thought occurred. ‘What’s the wife called?’

‘Mina,’ said Charlie, and Harker attacked another thorn bush.

Brothers in Arms
hadn’t really been scored for piano, but it was easier to imitate an almost vocal guitar solo with black and white keys than with a Spanish guitar. At least, it was for Eve, who’d never been particularly good at the fiddly bits.

She played the song out a few times, working out the kinks, the bits she could play and the bits it was safer not to attempt, glad there was no one listening when she got it wrong. Maybe the squad might like it. And Harker couldn’t possibly object, seeing as it was all about brotherhood during times of war.

Well. He probably would object. He seemed to object to her very existence, some of the time.

‘Bastard,’ she muttered, and let her hands drop from the keys. What was she doing, trying to find songs that might please him? It was an impossible task, and she didn’t want to accomplish it anyway.

She bashed the keys a few times, annoyed, then shook her head and let her fingers take over, playing things they knew by heart. Chopin. Beethoven. Things she’d learned working her way up the grades at those after-school lessons with old Mrs Mason, whose house had always smelled of roast dinner. Even now, the scent of roasting chicken brought those melodies into her head. Or even just the thought of it, since no matter how hard she sniffed she couldn’t smell what was cooking downstairs.

‘That,’ said a voice from the doorway, making her jump, ‘is very beautiful.’

Eve glanced over her shoulder at the speaker, who was lounging there as if he owned the place. Well, he probably nearly did. Very shiny shoes and what Eve could only describe as a lounge suit, and a face that was clearly used to sneering. It wasn’t hard to imagine him addressing women by their cleavages and everyone else by sighting down his nose.

She turned back to the piano and resumed playing. ‘Beethoven,’ she said. ‘
Moonlight Sonata
.’

‘I didn’t mean the music,’ drawled the man, and Eve rolled her eyes at the piano.

When she didn’t respond, he said, much closer this time, ‘And you are …?’

‘I am,’ Eve said, still playing, still not looking at him.

‘I meant, what’s your name,’ he said, apparently not getting the joke, weak as it was.

‘Eve,’ she said.

‘
Rarely
,’ he said, almost yawning the word. ‘I’m Adam.’

I bet all the money I lost that you’re not,
thought Eve, who had heard that line more times than she could count.

‘Gosh,’ she said flatly.

‘Actually,’ he came to lean against the side of the piano, so she’d have to look at him smiling what he probably thought was a charming grin, but actually made him look rather like a lopsided weasel, ‘I’m Frederick.’

When that got no response, he added, ‘Frederick Winterton. Sir Dennis is my father.’

‘Hello, Frederick Winterton,’ Eve muttered, reaching the end of the piece and starting again so she wouldn’t have to pause while she thought of something else.

He held out his hand to her, murmuring, ‘
Enchanté
.’

Eve ignored it and continued to play.

‘I expect you’re with that frightful army squad my father has staying,’ Frederick went on.

‘What gave it away?’ asked Eve, not even glancing at her khakis.

‘Your uniform,’ he said, flashing that damned horrible grin again.

‘Tell me,’ Eve said, her fingers stilling, finally looking up at him, ‘do you know what rhetorical means?’

He smiled lazily and reached out to twirl a lock of Eve’s hair, which actually rather needed washing. ‘I know it’s a very long word for a girl as pretty as you,’ he said, and Eve felt bile rising in her throat.

Outside, a car door slammed, and Frederick glanced towards the window. It was a stupid thing to do, since the drawing room didn’t look out over the drive, but he looked anyway, and Eve smiled to herself. That car was, in all probability, the one Harker and Charlie had taken. Sir Dennis’s car. It probably looked like something out of
Gosford Park
– it sure sounded like it – but it had to be faster than their wagon.

She turned back to the piano, and started banging out some of the tunes she’d learned in the production of
Oh! What A Lovely War
her amateur operatic group had done when she was about fourteen.

I knew this stupid memory for songs would come in handy some day
, she thought, starting to sing loudly about not wanting to be a soldier. That ought to get Harker going. He must be useful for something.

‘You sing like a nightingale,’ said Frederick, raising his voice over her caterwauling.

Eve broke off for a second to smile and say, ‘That’s what my boyfriend says.’

His smile faltered, but not for long. ‘Boyfriend? Well,’ he placed his hand on the back of her neck, which caused Eve to hit several wrong notes, ‘we don’t need to worry about him.’

Come on, Harker, where are you?
Eve thought, hammering at the keys and yelling out
Do You Hear the People Sing?
from
Les Mis
, which had got him going before.

‘Now,’ Frederick was saying in what he probably thought was a silky tone of voice, ‘why don’t you stop playing for just a moment, and–’

‘Eve?’

‘Oh, thank God,’ Eve muttered, leaping up from the stool and telling Frederick triumphantly, ‘
This
is my boyfriend,’ only to turn and see Daz standing there, looking somewhat trapped.

‘Uh,’ he said, and Eve gave him a determined smile, marched over and threw her arms around him. He wasn’t as big and broad and scary as Harker, but he was no slouch and the stars on his shoulder denoted a captain. Above all else, he was
here
, which was good enough for her.

‘Help me,’ she muttered in his ear, and Daz gave her a confused look. Her colour rising, she pretended to nuzzle his ear while hissing furiously, ‘This is the odious son of the house and he wouldn’t leave me alone so I told him I had a boyfriend and now you’re going to have to be him. Okay?’

‘Ah,’ said Daz, relaxing a little. ‘Oh. Okay. Yes. Right.’

He turned to glare at Frederick, who looked mildly nauseated by Eve’s nuzzling, but didn’t seem to be remotely embarrassed that he’d been coming on to someone else’s girlfriend.

‘Captain,’ he drawled. ‘Lovely filly you’ve got there.’

‘I’ll thank you not to refer to her like that.’

‘Will you, indeed?’ Frederick let his gaze rake over Eve, who glared at him and wrapped her arms around Daz. ‘Bit of skirt from the ranks, is she?’