Page 30 of The Number of Love
“It went through and through—that’s all I know. I daresay your percentages would depend on whether any vital organs were struck, but I haven’t that information just yet.”
Margot shifted to the side to clear his path to the door. “You’ll tell her now?”
After a glance to the clock that verified it was nearly the time the secretaries broke to eat, he nodded.
Margot followed him out his office door, realizing only when they were in the corridor that he’d said absolutely nothing about her presence here today, in direct violation of his order to take a week off. Perhaps he was just glad to have her on hand now, to be there for Dot.
Or perhaps he understood that this was home and the people here were family, every bit as much as Lukas and Willa and Zurie.
They found Dot still at her desk, just reaching down to gather the lunch she’d packed at Margot’s flat that morning. Upon looking up and spotting them, her face went blank. Not panicked, not worried,nothing to show an impending falling-to-pieces as Hall had feared. Just the emptiness of careful control.
Margot gave her a small nod. Approval—support.
The admiral cleared his throat. “If you’ve a moment, Miss Elton, I’m afraid there’s something I must tell you.”
Margot could all but see the thoughts ricocheting through her mind. She wasn’t being sacked—Lady Hambro would be the one to deliver that news, if it were so. The possibility always existed that he’d simply selected her for a small job of some sort—but why would Margot be on hand for that?
“It’s your brother. He’s alive,” he rushed to say, not giving Dot’s eyes time to do more than widen a fraction with dark questions. “Alive but in critical condition, I’m afraid. He’s suffered a gunshot to the abdomen. I have no further information about how it happened or the details of the injury, other than that he will arrive in London on Sunday and be taken directly to Charing Cross Hospital, but I didn’t want you to read this news in a telegram.”
Dot’s hands may have been shaking that morning, after spending two nights in a home not her own, but they didn’t shake now. She gripped her brown paper bag, yes, but anyone would have. Her nostrils flared, but only once. And her voice came out even and sure. “Thank you for being the one to tell me, Admiral. Do you know where I can discover information on what train he’ll be on? I’d like to meet him at Charing Cross as soon as he arrives.”
Hall nodded. “I’ll request such details be sent to you as soon as they’re known.”
“Thank you, sir.”
Another thing everyone appreciated about Hall—he knew when to take command ... and when to delegate. At this point he stepped to the side, creating a clear and obvious path between Margot and Dot. “Know that your brother will be in my prayers and that, unless you have objections, I’ll ask the others to pray for him as well.”
Dot offered a small but steady smile. “I would appreciate that, Admiral. And I know Drake would as well.”
He left with a nod, and Margot knew he’d go and do exactly aspromised. He’d find Montgomery—their own Fighting Padre, as they’d taken to calling him when he exchanged his clerical robes for a uniform over the summer—and alert the reverend to this latest request for prayer.
Margot slid over to her friend. “I’m sorry, Dot.”
“He’s alive.” She proclaimed it with a nod. And then winced and gave Margot an apologetic look.
Drake Elton of the crooked nose and insightful questions was alive. Sophie De Wilde of the incomparable beauty and unfailing smiles was not. But the two had nothing to do with each other. And Margot was certainlynotwretch enough to begrudge her friend that thread of hope. She dug deep until she could pull out a smile. “He is. And God willing, he will remain so.”
She paused, tested the words that formed in her mind. No numbers crowded around them, one way or another, to tell her whether they were sound. Just the dull throb of a headache, mixed with the echo of DID’s news. She swallowed and said them. “I’ll go with you. On Sunday. After Mass.”
She couldn’t think of a single person who would greet that proclamation with anything other than an objection.You need to restorIt’s too soon for you to be out like that after...They’d all be thinking it was stupid to go and look death in the eye at the hospital when it was still haunting her at home.
But Dot just held her gaze for a moment, and then she nodded. “Thank you. I’d appreciate the company.”
“And you’ll stay at your own flat tonight.” Had she been well enough to think of it, she’d have insisted on it before. “It means the world that you were there for me. But I’m all right now.”
Dot pursed her lips and studied her with the same sort of intensity Margot would have given a particularly tricky equation. “You can stay with me, if you like. As long as you like. I’ve the room, with Aunt Millie not being there.”
Margot moistened her lips and wondered at the tug of temptation.
She’d never been alone. Never. Not one night in all her life to date.There’d always, always been Maman and Papa and Lukas. And then Maman and Papa. And then Maman. Always. Every day, every night.
She didn’t want to be alone. She didn’t—and so she had to be, to keep it from controlling her. Right? Especially now. If she went with Lukas or with Dot and stayed with them, she might never have the strength to go home again. To be alone.
Alone.
She’d always thought she was. Isolated, even in a crowd. Different. Unlike the other girls, unlike the other students. Even unlike the others here, to be honest, who laughed their way from the OB in the evenings and went to their dinner parties or concerts or whatever else engaged them in their “real” lives outside the secrets of Room 40.
She hadn’t been alone, though. Not really. Not before. There’d always been Maman.
