The Last Night in London by Karen White (reading list .TXT) 📕

taken by surprise when she touched his leg on the ride home. When she asked him up to the flat. When she invited him inside.

She didn’t think about what would happen next. Somebody would be waiting in the flat, Mr. Danek had said. All she had to do was go back downstairs and get in the waiting car with David and Precious. She had already given her valise to Sophia, had sewn in her mother’s address label. She’d filled it mostly with all the evidence of her life in London—the ticket stubs from the theater, restaurant menus, and the like—to show her mother that she wasn’t Ethel Maltby anymore. That she had managed to be more than that.

Eva had also sewn a jewelry pouch into her underpinnings so she could hide the money from the sale of the furs and jewelry Alex had given her. She’d found particular satisfaction in the knowledge that he was helping her escape yet would never know.

Tonight, she wore the bracelet and her new diamond earrings, even though it was gauche; the society ladies never wore anything so showy. But Alex would notice and be pleased. She hoped it would make him amenable. Slipping on her mask, she smiled, like an actress playing the most important role of her career.

The only potential snag in the plans was Precious, who’d complained of not feeling well and thought she might stay in instead of going to Sophia’s. Eva stopped short of begging her, not wanting to make Precious question her urgency. In the end, she had reminded Precious that their next-door neighbor Mrs. McCormick had a telephone, and that Precious should call Eva at the Savoy if she didn’t feel better within the next hour.

Worry over this unexpected complication nagged at her, and Eva decided she would find David at the Savoy and let him know of the potential problem. Sophia had told her that he’d be there for the earlier part of the evening to make sure everything was in place. He’d know what to do about Precious. Because nothing—nothing—could go wrong tonight. She pressed her hand against her belly, worried Alex might hear the excited flutter of butterflies as she contemplated her escape.

“You seem to be in good spirits tonight,” Alex said as he helped her from the taxi.

She sent him a brilliant smile, met his eyes. “I am. I suppose I’m thinking that this war can’t go on much longer. That should make all of us happy.”

He placed her hand on his arm, his hand pressing against hers. “That it should,” he said with his own smile as he escorted her to the coat check.

He’d questioned the absence of the mink when he’d picked her up, saying it was too cold for just a fox fur stole, and she’d had to insist that the fox looked better with her gown. She was relieved when he’d relented; she certainly couldn’t tell him she wasn’t wearing the mink because she’d sold it and that the money was currently in a small pouch pinned to her garter.

A pinprick of anticipation touched her spine as she caught sight of the strange man in the hotel uniform standing where Mr. Danek should have been. He nodded obsequiously as they approached. “Good evening, Mr. Grof. Madame. May I take your coats?”

Alex lifted her fox stole and her handbag and handed them to the man.

“Where is Mr. Danek?” Eva asked.

The man’s face pinched. “I beg your pardon?”

“Mr. Danek. The man who works the cloakroom in the evening. I expected to see him here tonight.”

“I apologize, madame. I usually work in the dining room but was asked to work here tonight. I wasn’t given an explanation as to why.”

She forced a smile. “Of course. Well, no matter.” She turned away and slipped her hand back onto Alex’s arm, as if she’d already forgotten Mr. Danek. But she hadn’t. As they descended the stairs to the subterranean Abraham Lincoln suite, where the best parties were now held, she casually looked around for David. Mr. Danek’s absence had shifted the night off-kilter, as if everyone had started walking backward without explanation.

“Are you looking for someone?” Alex asked.

She managed to keep her mask in place. “Just anyone familiar, really. It’s easier to eat and converse with someone we already know, don’t you think?”

He murmured something too quietly for her to understand. She continued to search in vain for David, the pinpricks of unease becoming more like nails driven by a thudding hammer, impossible to ignore.

As soon as they reached the bottom of the stairs, they were swept up in a crowd of familiar faces and seated at a table in the front, near the bandstand. Eva wore a Cartier wristwatch, the same model gifted to Princess Elizabeth by Mr. Cartier himself, according to Alex, and she surreptitiously glanced at it throughout the interminable dinner, amid constant interruptions to dance and chat and pretend.

She forced herself to eat even though each bite made her ill; she knew that Alex would notice if she didn’t. She continued to scan the crowd in vain for David, or Mr. Danek, or even Graham, waiting for eleven o’clock, the designated time she was to beg Alex to take her back to her flat. To tell him that she wanted him to come upstairs with her. Her stomach lurched at the thought, the taste of bile bitter in the back of her throat. Only the thought of being free of him, of knowing her mother and Precious were safe and seeing Graham again, calmed her nerves, made her think again of possibilities.

At around a quarter past ten, Alex excused himself to speak with a friend he’d spotted across the room. Eva was relieved, his absence giving her the opportunity to move through the crowd unimpeded. But by forty-five minutes past the hour, she’d still seen no sign of David or Mr. Danek or Graham, and a full rush of panic consumed her. She lingered by a potted palm, sure she would