Cate smiled. “Trust me when I say that I’ll never, ever forget you, either.”
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
ELISE
Elise shut the door behind them once they were inside, surprised to smell something cooking. She and Adelaide always took turns preparing meals, but she’d expected the others to have eaten long ago and simply to have saved something for them to eat cold when they returned.
“Addy, what smells so good?” she asked, following her nose into the kitchen.
“Soup,” Harry replied, spinning around and making her laugh out loud at the girly apron tied around his middle. “I wanted to have something nice for you when you got home.”
Elise couldn’t believe it. “Thank you, that’s very thoughtful of you.”
“It might taste dreadful, but Adelaide gave me some pointers, and if I’m honest all I’ve done is the chopping of vegetables and the stirring. We saved some bread from lunch, so you’ve got that to dunk into it as well, but Adelaide had a terrible headache and she couldn’t stay up and wait any longer.”
“I’m going to head straight upstairs to bed,” Cate said, backing away. “I’m exhausted after that walk.”
But Harry was quick to stop her. “At least take a bowl with you,” he said. “I did this for both of you.”
Cate grinned at Elise, but she just glared back at her, not liking what her smile indicated, and soon it was just Elise and Harry alone in the kitchen together. It felt too intimate, which was silly because he was standing at the stove and she was sitting at the table now as he fussed over her, so they weren’t even close.
“Did you cook at home, before the war?” she asked.
“Not even once,” he admitted. “My mother would never believe you if you told her.”
Elise’s first instinct was to insist Harry sit down, then take over herself, but she refused to give in to it. She was always the one taking care of everyone, and the way Harry was fussing over her made her think that this was the very reason he was doing it. From that first night they’d sat up late in the kitchen together talking, he’d somehow managed to actually see her for who she was.
“So what made you cook for me tonight then?”
“Someone needs to look after you,” he said, setting the steaming bowl in front of her, along with a piece of loaf on a side plate. Harry lingered at her side, and she wasn’t sure where to look or what to do, so she picked up her spoon and dipped it straight into the soup.
She blew on her spoonful and eventually took a sip, surprised at how nice it tasted. He was sitting across from her now, and she knew there was only so long she could avoid his gaze.
Cate was right. There is something between us.
“Thank you,” she eventually said. “I don’t know when I last sat down with nothing to do and had someone take care of me.”
He shrugged. “You deserve it.”
“Harry, there’s something I need to tell you,” she murmured, setting her spoon down.
His eyebrows were raised expectantly, but he didn’t say a word.
I don’t want him to leave. I want to keep him hidden here. I selfishly want him all to myself.
She took a deep breath. “I’ve arranged to smuggle you out of France, at the next new moon.”
Harry couldn’t have looked more surprised if he’d tried. “I’m leaving? I expected you to come home and say there was nothing you could do, that it was impossible.”
She toyed with her soup, needing to do something,anything, to stop herself seeing the crestfallen look on Harry’s face, because it so closely mirrored her own feelings.
“Honestly? So did I. But if we can get you all to the beach at Calais, at midnight on the new moon, there will be a boat waiting. It’s dangerous, but it’s something, and I think it might be your only chance to leave.”
“Calais?” he asked. “I thought that place was blown apart?”
“It is, but that won’t stop a rowboat from coming in under the cover of night.”
Elise ate then, wolfing down her soup and mopping up the last of it with the dry piece of bread. And when she finished, she could feel Harry’s eyes on her.
