Chapter 37

Breaking and entering was best done in the warmer months, Saffron decided. Summer would be ideal, for lurking outdoors would be pleasant rather than cold. She'd never plan criminal activities for the winter again.

She and Alexander had arrived at sunset in Harpenden. He'd agreed immediately to her scheme, asking only once if she felt it was a good idea, and had kept quiet after she admitted she was wary but determined to get Nick out of their lives.

She'd known there was a cluster of new homes being built further down Milton Road, providing a convenient, if uncomfortable, place from which to watch the activity at Number 28. The windows of the lower level, where the laboratories were, had been dark for hours already. It was nearly ten in the evening. Another hour, and Saffron was sure the few lingering lights above stairs would be extinguished.

A gust of wind swept through the half-finished house, and Saffron burrowed further into her coat. The cold had set in as twilight came upon them. She'd not thought to wear trousers, and her freezing legs were complaining about it. She'd already wrapped her scarf around her ankles.

Alexander's voice drifted through the dark. "You can see the house fine from here."

"But then I can't see the road. Believe me, I would much rather be taking advantage of your body heat."

His chuckle faded quickly, and they went back to sitting in silence.

They'd eaten sandwiches from the Dancing Sparrow soon after they'd settled in the defunct house, but they'd neglected to bring anything to drink. Her mouth was sticky and dry, and not just from the corned beef. Her realization about the extent of her feelings for Alexander had kept her tongue-tied, unsure what, if anything, she ought to say to him about it.

"I had to do this during the war," he murmured. He was all but invisible, just a black shape against a dark wall, but she perceived him turning to her.

"I often took night watch," he said. "I preferred it to the daylight duties on offer between bouts of shelling. Better to watch and wait than clean dishes or shore up the breastworks."

Saffron had no idea what to say to that. She didn't often hear about the mundanities of war, and she'd least expected them from Alexander. After poking at his secrets for the past few weeks, she didn't imagine he'd tell her much willingly.

"I thought it would be exciting," he continued, "being the one to raise the alarm if I caught sight of a light or heard gunfire."

"Did you?" She'd never thought of him as the sort of person to seek out excitement in the form of outright danger. He'd been scolding her off such pursuits for nearly the length of their acquaintance.

"I did," he said, almost wistfully, but it disappeared from his voice as he continued. "That was how I came to be injured. Command planned to take a place called Sugarloaf. It was a small rise that the German bulge occupied. We were to attack from the west. A division of Australians were to come at them from the east. I volunteered to do some scouting. I had no business going, but I was sick of standing around waiting. It was a warm, quiet day, the sort that once you got far enough away from camp, you might have forgotten we were at war." He shifted in the darkness. "We lingered too long and were caught by surprise when the shelling started before the attack. I don't remember much after the shelling began, but I remember seeing movement in the grass, and my companions yelling to take cover. I can only guess what happened, but I think someone panicked and threw a grenade. The blast caught us, but I was damned lucky. The debris set my uniform on fire, but the ground was wet, so only my right side burned. The remaining member of my party dragged me back to camp. I missed the attack, which proved to be my salvation. I was unconscious, on my way to the field hospital while my peers ran to their deaths."

Without making the conscious decision to do so, Saffron rose and went to where Alexander sat. She sank down next to him so she faced him, his face touched by faint silver light.

He had not fallen into his recollections, she realized. His depthless eyes were sharp on her.

"The leadership had vastly underestimated the Germans' preparations. They—" He broke off with a sigh. Her hand moved to cover his. The leather of their gloves kept their skin from touching, but she felt the connection nonetheless. "Suffice it to say, it was a disaster. Nearly an entire battalion of Australians were killed. My own division came out badly as well."

In the heavy, silent darkness, Saffron was struck with understanding of his reluctance to speak about his days as a soldier. They'd been short and harrowing, but his injury marked a mistake, a mistake that allowed him to keep his own life while thousands of his fellows perished. She could not fathom the guilt he must have felt, the unwarranted shame of it.

Her throat went tight, and she found the potent mixture of fear, relief, and sympathy was overwhelming.

"I am glad, then," she managed to say, voice too high. "For the shelling, and the grenade. That you were hurt before you could be sent out." This was perhaps not the right thing to say, given the way he was staring at her. She hastened to add, "I know that your injury has given you no end of trouble but I …" She faltered and blinked rapidly at the emotion threatening to spill from her eyes. "I would have never known you otherwise."

"I admit I am grateful for it too," he said softly. "I wish I could go back in time and tell myself that one day I would be glad for what happened to me."

A tear slipped from her eye, leaving a stinging trail on her cheek in the cold night air. She forced a lighter tone. "I doubt your past self would trust it. I doubt he believed in time travel any more than the present Alexander does."

His fingers tightened on hers briefly before letting them go. "You're right. I would have thought the concussion was playing tricks on my mind."

She didn't reply to that, choosing instead to focus on the press of his leg against hers and the resulting warmth. She knew she ought to return to her window to watch if anyone was coming or going from Number 28, but she felt an increasing pressure to share some of her own grief.

"I went to the battlefields," she blurted after a moment of indecision. "When I was at the conference. After it, rather. I went to Lijssenthoek, to see where Wesley was buried. And Ypres."

Alexander was silent, but his hand found hers again. She took it, gratefully. "It was Elizabeth's idea to go. She booked train tickets to Belgium and planned to find us a guide who could show us to the cemeteries, to see Wesley's grave and my father's." Her words had withered to a whisper. "But she had to return before we could go. I felt I'd be a coward not to go simply because I was alone. But I wish I hadn't gone. I wish …" Emotion stole the remainder of her voice.

"Past Saffron made a brave choice to go."

"Past Saffron did as she always does," she said with a wavering sigh. "She rushed into something without considering what the reality would be. Example A, going to the war-torn countryside and expecting a peaceful place to say goodbye."

Lijssenthoek Cemetery had been anything but peaceful. She'd seen photographs of the place in the newspapers years ago, sullen rows of mismatched crosses over uneven dirt. Work had been done since then to beautify it. Most of the crosses had been transitioned to uniform white stone markers. Shrubs and trees had been planted, a stone arch built, and the place was silent but for the barest breeze rustling what leaves had been left on the young tree branches.

But it had brought Saffron no peace. She'd been unable to take a full breath the entire time, unable to stop tears from falling in a torrent. She sobbed violently the entire brief visit, pausing only to whisper a prayer when she at last found Wesley's marker.

She knew now that the unending tears had been as much for herself as for Wesley and the dozens of men buried there. She had not lost her life, but she lost a future with the boy she loved. She lost a piece of innocence the moment she realized that the war would not be the quick, righteous fight the politicians had anticipated, and it would crawl on and on, dragging down thousands of innocent people with it. Visiting Wesley's grave had only emphasized feelings she thought she'd reconciled long ago.

After that, she dreaded going on to Ypres. She had not known exactly where her father had been buried, and Elizabeth had suggested they visit the few British cemeteries to search for him. But the prospect of doing so had frozen her. She'd made it off the train, barely, but the idea of even leaving the train station had been too much.

She stayed inside, sitting wide-eyed and motionless on a bench until some kind soul with an enormous mustache and gentle eyes asked her if she needed assistance. He helped her find the train back to Paris and board it.

That was when a fresh wave of tears came—when she realized she'd taken from herself the opportunity to find her father, to say goodbye, even if it was a miserable goodbye.

She said all of this to Alexander, who listened while his thumb ran over the top of her hand in steady, slow strokes.

"And now I'll never be able to say goodbye," she whispered. "And I want to. I want to put to rest all the …" She hesitated to admit it. "The doubts I have about him."

"Berking?"

"Yes," she murmured, grateful he remembered her confession of Berking's suggestions. "And I found out that Dr. Calderbrook, the director here, invited my father to work at Kew Gardens in his lab. I don't know why my father wouldn't have told me about it. Kew was … It was a special place for us. It was the greatest treat to go there. I don't know why he would not have even mentioned it to me, that he'd been offered the chance to work there."

"I've never been to Kew," Alexander said. "I imagine it must thrill you."

At the warm humor in his voice, her lips lifted into a tremulous smile, even as recollections of running through lush tropicals in a massive glasshouse set off more pangs in her chest. "I was like a child in a toy shop."

"You haven't been there recently?"

"I haven't been since before the war."

He was quiet for a moment. "Was the laboratory at Kew different from this one?"

"My understanding is that it simply moved here. The fields of study have expanded, but it's still a plant pathology lab at its core."

He hummed thoughtfully. "And you worry that your father was working to make his subjects more dangerous, rather than resistant to disease and pests."

"That was Berking's implication." She sighed. "It seems such a stupid thing to worry about. Breeding a plant to increase its toxicity does not mean my father planned to do anything nefarious with it. I know that. But after all that I've seen with what the plants already in existence can do, and knowing that the government has an interest in those plants … I cannot help but wonder."

"He could have been experimenting with the natural defenses of the plant. Many of those toxins are simply biological defenses. Maybe he was testing to see what level of toxicity was needed to prevent insects from eating them. Or studying how to use those toxins for medicinal purposes."

"I suppose." She'd thought of that, but it was comforting to hear Alexander suggest it as a possibility.

He went still next to her, a subtle change she might not have noticed had she not been pressed against him.

"The last of the lights have been extinguished," he murmured. "Time to go."