The Last Night in London Karen White (books for students to read txt) 📖

all other gifts because it had been given out of love, and how Graham had returned it to her. “Yes,” she whispered as Alex kissed her neck. As if he owned her, which, she supposed, he did. “I didn’t have a choice. . . .”

Graham stepped back, picked up his cane, took his coat. “Well, then, I bid you both good night.” Without meeting her eyes, he executed a quick mocking bow and left, his limp almost undetectable but for the tapping of his cane.

She moved to run after him, but Alex held on to her arm. “Please, Graham. Please! Let me explain!” But her words fell only on air, her protests as empty as her promises.

Later, when Eva returned to her flat, she grabbed a bottle of whisky, not bothering with a glass, and headed down the long hallway to her bedroom. She heard Precious retching into the basin in the water closet as she passed. She didn’t stop. She’d had enough pain for one night.

She stepped out of her dress and kicked off her shoes, leaving them in a puddle on the floor. And when she finally felt numb enough, she laid her head on her pillow and closed her eyes. The image of Graham’s face when she’d asked him why he hadn’t written her back floated behind her eyelids, chasing her into oblivion.

CHAPTER 33

LONDON

NOVEMBER 1940

Eva stood in the long internal promenade of the Dorchester, watching the elegantly dressed people move in and out of the mirrored ballroom next door, listening to the ack ack of the antiaircraft guns outside in Hyde Park.

The bandleader kept nervous dancers fox-trotting and bunny-hugging over the parquet floors with lively music that might have seemed ill-suited to the air raid wardens stationed on the hotel’s roof or the gunners in the park across the street.

Because of the nightly bombings, dancing at the Dorchester had been moved to the Gold Room on the ground floor, in the center part of the building, under eight floors of reinforced concrete. The new location hadn’t seemed to dim the determined faces of the revelers, who were eager to carry on with their lives despite the chaos beyond the fortified walls.

Eva stood with Alex and a group of men discussing the inconvenience of wartime shortages, something Alex knew nothing about. She suspected he was heavily involved with the black market, but as long as he kept her supplied with the Scottish whisky she’d grown to depend on, she wasn’t going to complain.

She felt Graham’s presence before he spoke, sensed the shift in the air and the flow of her blood. She hadn’t spoken to him since the month before, in the cloakroom of the Savoy, though she’d seen him several times at evening events with Alex. They ran in the same social circles, she told herself. She wouldn’t allow herself to believe it had been by design. But she’d avoided him, leaving a room when Graham entered, asking to be taken home as soon as she was aware of his presence. Graham was a constant reminder of all she’d gained and lost, the sight of him too painful to endure.

“Good evening, gentlemen,” he said, moving to stand next to her.

Alex brightened, enjoying the drama and the part he played in it. “St. John, you remember Miss Harlow, don’t you?”

Green eyes settled on her, not giving anything away. “Hello, Eva. I trust you are well?”

She noticed a scar along his jaw—it must have been from when his plane crashed into the Channel. She’d missed it in the dimly lit cloakroom at the Savoy. She wanted to touch it, to kiss it. To absorb some of the pain he had suffered.

Graham took a sip from his drink, his eyes never leaving hers. She wanted to tell him that she was dying inside, that everything was wrong in her world. That it had always been him. Instead she said, “Quite well, thank you.”

Alex watched them, his smile predatory. “How is our good friend David? I’m afraid I haven’t seen much of him of late. Busy at the War Office, I presume.”

Eva wanted to tell Graham not to say anything else, that Alex shouldn’t be trusted with any information regarding people they cared about. Graham’s gaze remained steady. “Yes. And he spends as much time with Sophia as possible. She is expecting a child and hasn’t been well.”

“I am very sorry to hear that,” Alex said with what almost seemed genuine concern. “I’m surprised she’s stayed in the city.”

“Yes, well, her doctors say it’s too dangerous to move her. David has created a rather plush shelter for them in the basement of their town house, with running water and electricity. He carries her downstairs each night to sleep and then brings her back up to her bedroom the following morning.”

“A true testament to love, isn’t it?” Alex said, as if he were well versed on the subject.

“Yes, it is.” Graham took a sip from his drink, his eyes never leaving Eva’s face.

Eva looked away, wishing she had a drink but knowing that she could never be drunk enough to dull this pain.

“Dance with me?”

She turned toward Graham, wondering if she’d just imagined it.

“I’m sorry, St. John. Eva has already promised the next dance to me.” Alex slipped his arm around her waist. “Didn’t you, darling?”

Graham gave them a mocking bow of his head, his eyes never leaving hers, then walked away into the ballroom. His hair shone in the light from the chandeliers and the sparkles of the glass studs set into the mirrored wall. He didn’t have his cane, but his limp wasn’t pronounced. Eva imagined the leg pained him, kept him up at night after days when he didn’t use his cane.

As she watched, he stopped in front of a young woman wearing red chiffon, one shoulder bare, the other nearly covered with a silk georgette rose. She smiled as she placed her hand in Graham’s, and they moved together onto the