“You can’t go back to your mother’s shop, I’m afraid.”
“What?”
“Actually, even if I hadn’t blown your cover for you, you still couldn’t go back.”
It was too much to take in. Her place with the wedding dresses was her sanctuary, her secret haven. What did he mean, she could not go back? Had someone figured out that that she was posing as Eloise Crofton’s daughter? Would she be arrested?
Emmy started to rise from the bed, but fell back against the pillows.
Mac was hovering over her in an instant. “Isabel, you’re still very sick. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said anything yet. That was stupid of me.”
Emmy felt instantly woozy from having tried to sit up. “Water?” she murmured.
Mac reached for a glass at her bedside table. He slid next to her and raised her head off the pillow so that she could drink.
He lowered Emmy gently to the pillow and then reset the glass down on the table.
“What happened?” Emmy whispered.
“You mean after the warden and I found you? There were bombs, Isabel. Just a few hours later. I’m afraid the bridal shop was hit. All the shops on that street were.”
Julia’s book of fairy tales, Isabel’s birth certificate.
Her death certificate...
They were all inside Mum’s travel bag.
“I have to go back... ,” Emmy whispered.
“Hold on, Isabel. It was hit by incendiaries. There’s nothing left.”
Mac didn’t need to say more. She knew what had become of Julia’s book. Mum’s travel bag, her clothes, her trinkets. And she knew that Isabel’s death certificate had also been reduced to ashes. At least no one combing through the rubble would find it and realize she was an imposter.
“Your bag is here,” he said. “Although I’m afraid that’s all I was able to grab the day I found you.”
“My bag? Here?”
He nodded toward a chair in the corner. Mum’s travel bag sat there like an old, wise friend. It was still clasped shut.
“Bring it to me!”
Startled, Mac was slow to respond, but then he let go of her hand, walked over to the chair, and grasped Mum’s bag by its worn handles. He brought it to Emmy and she clutched it to her chest, embracing it as a child would cuddle a beloved toy. Tears of relief spilled out of her.
Mac stared wide-eyed.
“It was my mum’s,” Emmy said, hoping that was explanation enough. “Thank you for thinking to take it.”
He returned to the chair by the bed. “You’re welcome.”
For a few minutes there was silence between them as Emmy held on to the last thing on earth that she owned.
“Isabel, the hospital is a little short on beds as you can imagine. The nurses want to know who will be coming for you,” he said gently. “Is there a friend or relative here in London who can take you in?”
Emmy shook her head, closing her eyes against the thought that she had nowhere to go.
“What about any relatives elsewhere in England? Is there anyone I can ring for you? Anyone I can take you to?”
Emmy started to shake her head again. And then an image of Thistle House with its climbing roses and clucking chickens, its shining pond and gabled windows, and Charlotte with her long silver braid, filled her head. Charlotte. Would she take Emmy back? Or would she despise Emmy for what she had done? Emmy realized with a sickening thud in her heart that she no longer felt the urgency to stay in London and look for Julia. Her sister was lost to her. Emmy didn’t deserve to be rewarded with finding her and she knew now that she wouldn’t be.
