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

to a small table occupied by an older man, a newspaper spread out in front of him.

“I believe these are yours,” Jiri said with a smirk. He slid two envelopes across the table. Eva stared at them in surprise, then pulled them closer. After a brief hesitation, she opened one and took out the letter to be sure. It was one of Graham’s, the paper singed and brown between each line.

“What happened to it?” There were so many other questions she wanted to ask, but that was the first one she could force through her mouth.

Jiri grinned. “To see if there was more than meets the eye.”

Alex reached over and snatched the letter from her, then refolded it and stuffed it in its envelope. “I suggest you put these in your purse and read them in private.”

“I don’t understand. What did he mean? And how did he get these . . . ?” She saw Mr. Danek returning and stopped. She didn’t want him to notice the letters, to ask her why she’d given them to Alex. She couldn’t stand to see the disappointment in his eyes.

Eva shoved the letters in her purse, then looked up as Mr. Danek slapped a newspaper onto the table and sat down again, a new weariness in the curve of his shoulders and around his eyes. She looked down at the newspaper, the headline glaring in bold black ink. britain sends last warning to germany. Mr. Danek crushed his cigarette into the nearly full ashtray and leaned back with a weary sigh.

Eva blinked, not ready to believe it until she heard Mr. Danek’s confirmation. “Is it true? There’s to be a war?”

“Undoubtedly,” Mr. Danek said, his voice calm. “Herr Hitler is not fond of ultimatums. He has until eleven o’clock today to respond, but I do believe Mr. Chamberlain knows the response already. One can only hope that he has started assembling his war cabinet.”

“Surely your St. John has plans to tuck you securely away in the country?” Alex spoke slowly, as if they were discussing the weather. “Although I heard from David that Sophia has already signed up with the Women’s Voluntary Services. At this very moment, she’s helping escort the last of the children who are evacuating London for the country.”

Eva nodded. “Yes. She told me. Precious and I signed up for the WVS, too, to help in the shelters, but we haven’t had our first meeting yet.” She had followed Precious and Sophia into the building and signed her name to a document. But she’d done it as if she were an actress in a play, with no meaning behind her actions. No belief that any of it would matter. But those words splashed on the front of the newspaper suddenly made it all so startlingly real.

She stood, recalling the bolts of fabric Precious had procured and sewn into blackout curtains. The two gas masks sitting on the foyer table. Precious had picked them up and made Eva practice putting hers on.

“I should go. We should all go. And prepare ourselves.”

“Surely you’ve already started?” Alex said with mock surprise. “Our friend Precious said she needed someone to help hang your blackout curtains. I suggested Graham since he’s so tall—although he’s training somewhere with the RAF, isn’t he?”

His eyes sparkled with some inner joke that Eva didn’t find amusing. Ignoring him, she turned to Mr. Danek and said, “Thank you for your honesty. You always put things in perspective for me.” She made the mistake of glancing at Jiri, saw his look of feigned concern as he blew out a plume of smoke. She turned blindly toward the door, stumbling in her heels. “I’ve got to go.”

Alex put a hand on her arm, steadying her. “I’ll walk you home.”

Eva wanted to pull her arm away, to tell him no, but she wasn’t sure if her legs were strong enough to carry her back to her flat.

“Co oči nevidí, to srdce nebolí,” he said to Mr. Danek and Jiri as he held the door open for Eva.

She had a glimpse of Mr. Danek’s bland face looking toward her as the door shut.

“What does that mean?” she asked, standing on the sidewalk. Her head spun; she forgot where she was or where she was headed.

“It’s an old Czech saying. It means ‘What eyes don’t see, heart doesn’t hurt.’ You are so good at pretending, Eva. You even fool yourself.”

She pulled away from him, running down the sidewalk. But her heel stuck in a grate, and broke. She pulled off both of her shoes and kept going, aware of Alex managing to keep up with her without even breaking into a run.

She needed to barricade herself in her room, to calm her thoughts. Inside her building, she ran up the stairs, unwilling to wait for the lift, feeling Alex climbing behind her. Pausing in front of the thick mahogany door, she tried to catch her breath as she dug through her purse for the key, dropping the purse and all of its contents in her haste.

“Damn!” She bent down to gather up her items just as Alex reached her floor, not out of breath at all.

“I believe this is yours,” he said, handing her the cigarette case.

She took it without thanking him, then jabbed her key into the lock and pushed open the door. She was about to tell him that he could leave now, that she was fine, but froze at the sound of Precious’s laughter. And a man’s voice. A voice she knew.

An RAF uniform cap hung from the hat rack inside the door.

“Graham?” Eva called, dropping her shoes and rushing into the front reception room, stopping at the threshold as she registered Graham, wearing his smart new bluish gray RAF uniform, and Precious sitting together on the sofa.

Graham stood, his smile fading as Alex came to stand behind her. Eva moved across the room toward him. He hesitated only a moment before taking her in his arms, not caring about their audience. “You’re here. You’re really