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

blew out a mouthful of smoke. “Interrupting someone who is attempting to make a point does not get a point across, no?”

Mr. Danek gave Eva a wan smile. “The situation in our country has a lot of people concerned. Some see it as a good thing. Others see it as a foreign invasion. Jiri is rather set in his opinion. He hopes to sway me and others.” He smiled, and Eva tried to pretend that she didn’t notice how it lacked the brightness she’d grown used to. “I prefer to wait and see, to form my own opinion.”

Jiri stood, slamming his chair against the table as he prepared to leave. “I prefer to speak with someone whose head is less like a brick.” He gave Eva a slight bow. “Miss Harlow,” he said, and walked away. He was surprisingly light on his feet, giving the impression of a dancing gorilla.

“Jiri used to be in charge of a large stable at an estate near Karlovy Vary in the Sudetenland owned by the uncle of a mutual friend. His specialty was breaking horses.” Mr. Danek blew out a puff of smoke to punctuate his words.

“Did he leave Czechoslovakia for the same reasons you did?”

“Something like that. But enough talk of unpleasant things.”

Trying to hide her relief, Eva reached into Precious’s box purse for a cigarette, a Matinée brand. She purchased them only because an advert in the paper said that smart women smoked Matinée cigarettes.

Her fingers shook, and she was surprised to feel Mr. Danek’s hand on her arm. Their eyes met, and he smiled.

“Don’t feel embarrassed that you have other things on your mind, Eva. Your job is making the world a beautiful place. Beauty is always welcome, even in difficult times. Love and beauty—those are the things worth holding on to. They are what shine light in a dark world.”

“Thank you for saying that.” Eva frowned down at her cigarette case. She’d found it at a charity shop; it was engraved with someone else’s initials, and she’d bargained down the price. Now one of the hinges had broken, so loose cigarettes spilled into her purse. She sighed and held the case up for Mr. Danek to see. “I’ll have to wait for the next paycheck and get a new one.”

“Or maybe someone will give you one as a gift. Like your young man. Tell me—who is he?”

Eva felt her cheeks heat at the mere thought of Graham. They’d gone to dinner twice, danced at the Café de Paris, and attended an outdoor concert in Regent’s Park. They’d also attempted to go boating in the park but had discovered the lake was closed until the end of March. It had started to rain; by the time they’d found shelter on a bench beneath a large ash tree, they’d both been soaked. He’d kissed her then, his lips warm and soft, and it was everything Eva had always imagined it would be. He’d tasted of rain and heat and old winter and new spring and she’d wanted to melt into him and disappear in their new world beneath the sheltering leaves of the ash.

“He’s lovely,” Eva said, thinking not just about Graham’s green eyes and broad shoulders, but the sound of his voice when he said her name, and his crooked smile, and the cleft in his chin. She loved the small scar on his left brow. He’d been eight and had fallen out of a tree, trying to save his sister’s kitten. It was all of that. It was the way her chest burned when she was near him, how her skin ached when he looked at her. It was how her whole world now seemed full of light, her past only a dim shadow behind her.

She cleared her throat and said, “He’s Mr. Graham St. John. He’s been with the Diplomatic Service in Rangoon, Burma, for the past two years and has just returned to London. He works in Whitehall at the Home Office. I’m not sure what he does, exactly—something to do with fire services. He says he doesn’t want to bore me with the mundane details. He’s staying with his sister, Sophia, in their parents’ town house in Berkeley Square until he can find rooms of his own. Sophia is getting married in July, and her parents are giving her and her fiancé, David, the house as a wedding gift.”

The waiter placed another cup of coffee in front of Mr. Danek, who sat staring at the steam for a moment before looking up again. “You will let me do your makeup for your wedding, no?”

Eva took a sip from her coffee cup to hide her face, not wanting to reveal the hope there. It was too soon to hope for anything. “If and when I do get married, Mr. Danek, I promise you that I wouldn’t trust anyone else to do my makeup.”

She looked at him with a sudden thought. “Sophia is having a dinner party next week and has invited me—we haven’t yet formally met. Would you consider doing my makeup for that? I want to look my best.”

“Absolutely,” Mr. Danek said, leaning forward to stub out his cigarette in the ashtray. Sitting back again, he crossed his legs. “I must ask. Does this mean your Mr. St. John knows about Ethel Maltby? Are he and his lovely sister, Sophia, accepting of your past?”

Eva’s fingers froze on her cup, gripping it so hard she put it down so it wouldn’t break. “No,” she said quietly. Looking up at Mr. Danek, she said with more force, “At least, not yet. I didn’t want to ruin things. I think he feels the same way about me, but I wanted more time to be sure.” She bit her lip. “I told Graham that I was the only child of a doctor and his wife from Devon. I said my parents were killed in an automobile accident, that I had no other family or means of support, so I came to