Page 4 of Shadows In Paris
‘You’d look gorgeous with any hair colour,’ he whispered next to her ear, causing the flesh on her neck to erupt into goosebumps. ‘How about I get some props, and you do a private showing for your commanding officer?’
Lizzie laughed. ‘I might have known you’d come up with something like that. Alright, let’s do it. You oversee my training, after all, don’t you, Captain King?’
‘Exactly, and I do take your training seriously,’ he said, his lips brushing hers again.‘How about dinner tomorrow evening and then we’ll go to my place? I should be able to get hold of some stuff by then. I’ll raid wardrobe and the storeroom.’
‘You’ve got yourself a date,’ Lizzie said. ‘Where shall we go to eat?’
‘I thought we might go back to the bistro near St. Ermin’s. I can’t find anywhere as good near Baker Street. It’s probably wiser to go a little further afield, now there are more people in the office, anyway.’
The following evening, the proprietor of their favourite bistro showed them to a candlelit table in a secluded granite alcove.
‘Long time no see, Monsieur Jacques,’ the man said in a thick French accent.
Jack replied in perfect French, telling him they had missed his delicious ragoût and even though they had moved office, they couldn’t stay away.
A server filled their wineglasses, and Lizzie and Jack talked about their day.
‘Did you think any more about turning down the Paris mission?’ Jack asked after their food was served, and they’d eaten a few mouthfuls.
‘Hmm, no. I mean, I thought a lot about going, not aboutnotgoing.’
Jack said, ‘Sometimes I wish I’d stuck to my guns and not recruited you at all.'
‘Oh really? But then we wouldn’t even be together,’ Lizzie said, knowing he was just worried about her and didn’t mean it.
‘People who are meant to be together have a way of finding each other,’ Jack said, with a hint of mystery.
Lizzie narrowed her eyes as she watched his face, now bathed in soft shadows that didn’t detract from how handsome he was. His thick shock of black hair gleamed in the candlelight, and his dark eyes were hooded.
‘I see why you got the codename, Raven. You remind me of one, sometimes,’ Lizzie said.
Jack studied her as he drank his wine. ‘This raven’s job is to protect you. Don’t change the subject, please!’
Jack was like a dog with a bone when he wanted something settled, and Lizzie could see this would not be a straightforward conversation.
She took another sip of wine and lay her cutlery on the plate to show she had finished. The food was as delicious as ever, but the portions were noticeably smaller. Supplies wereharder to come by with each passing month and rations eked out further for every meal.
Lizzie said, ‘The Liberty Network is based in Paris. I would have thought, it’s unlikely I’ll see anyone from Reims. When I met with Hannah briefly last time, I saw no one I knew, but like we discussed, a disguise would make it less likely I’d be recognised.’
Jack nodded, and she could tell he was mulling over the possibilities despite his reluctance. Lizzie didn’t want to leave him any more than he wanted her to leave, but the sooner they defeated the Nazis, the sooner this whole nightmare would be over, and they could get on with living a beautiful life together.
That’s what she told herself when she awoke in the middle of the night, anxious about what was in store for them in this war that seemed to only grow more deadly and showed no signs of ending.
Lizzie pressed on. ‘SOE was formed for this very purpose. I can’t say no when Hannah needs me. She’s doing so much to support the Allies. It feels cowardly of me to sit here safe and sound in the office, when I could be in France doing what I can to help the network.’
‘Did you not see the devastation on your way to work this morning, caused by last night’s bombing raids? You’re hardly safe and sound in the Blitz! This must be one of the most dangerous times to live in London.’
‘I saw some bombed houses,’ Lizzie confessed. ‘It was heartbreaking. There was a woman searching through the rubble of her home. Her children were clinging onto her apron as she sobbed.’
Lizzie saw the anger etched into Jack’s features, his jaw hardening as she told him what she had witnessed.
‘I stopped to see if I could help, but there were so many people there already. I didn’t know what more to do. Tragicscenes like that make me want to go after the bastards even more, to be honest.’
They took comfort in being close to each other, despite the daily horrors unfolding around them. They made the most of every snatched moment they could get. It was never far from Lizzie’s mind that it might be the last. Jack was right, you didn’t have to be in enemy territory to be killed in the war. The Blitz had been relentless in London since Black Saturday when she experienced her first bombing raid.
Lizzie reminisced about how young and naive she had been at the beginning of the war. She was young in years—still only twenty-one—but something harder had replaced the naivety.
In a matter of months, she had seen the worst of what humankind could do. Fortunately, she had seen some of the best, too. She thought briefly of the Resistance members in Reims who had been so brave in helping her and Jack to carry out their mission.
