One slow nod.
Even though Henrik closed his eyes, he couldn’t shut off the images pounding his mind.
Far bellowing at him. “Late, as always. Drunk, as always. And your work—if you can call it that—you’re wasting your potential. As always.”
Henrik had flung his arms wide. “So what? For years, I did as you wanted—but it was never good enough. So now I do what I want. If you don’t like it, what do I care? I’m used to it.”
The more Far had ranted, the more Henrik rebelled. And the more Henrik rebelled, the more Far ranted.
Sin beget sin beget sin. The rebellion Henrik had embraced as his rightful revenge was no less wrong than Far’s cruelty. Considering Henrik’s behavior, a portion of Far’s harshness was warranted.
Henrik winced. Not when Far directed his harshness at Mor and Henrik’s sisters. Not when his rigidity caused a sick woman to hold a dinner party that met his demands.
At the time, Henrik had been sailing home from America after his graduation from Harvard. His sisters told him Mor had developed bronchitis a few days before the party, but Far insisted it was too late to cancel. He had important guests on the list, guests he needed to impress. Mor had indeed impressed them with a beautiful and elaborate evening. In the effort, she’d pushed her bronchitis into pneumonia.
She never recovered.
In Henrik’s opinion, Far had killed Mor as surely as if he’d shot her.
With a shake of his head, Henrik pushed away from the boathouse wall. “I’m going for a bike ride.”
“No nap?”
“Later.” He smiled to let Thorup know he wasn’t annoyed with him for speaking his mind.
After he fetched his bike, Henrik pedaled south down the coastal road.
He couldn’t tell Thorup he had an appointment with the Special Operations Executive agent. Better to meet the agent, tell him why he couldn’t get more involved, and be done with it.
His head low, Henrik rode past lavish beach homes behind stone walls. But what aristocrat would suspect the scruffy man on a dented bicycle of being one of their own?
He’d chosen a meeting place in the Jægersborg Deer Park, about two miles from Vedbæk and even farther from Søllerød, where he might see Else.
Part of him welcomed that idea. He always saw her inside. He’d like to see her outside, the wind tossing her flaxen hair, the sun bringing out the pink in her cheeks. Maybe to have a genuine conversation with her and see her glowing zeal turned his way.
Henrik huffed and pedaled down a wooded stretch of road. If he could talk openly with Else, he’d offer to have words with that Mortensen. She was too sweet to tell him off herself.
Like Mor quietly enduring Far’s anger.
Henrik, on the other hand, hadn’t endured Far’s anger. He’d absorbed it, every biting word. For fourteen years, he’d absorbed the anger, and it had fermented inside, loathsome and noxious, until at last, in one moment of clarity, he’d turned from his father and all he stood for.
After he rode through the village of Skodsborg, he took a rustic path into the Deer Park. Trees closed in around him, and new leaves rustled in the breeze.
He bumped down the path until he came to Bøllemosen, a pond deep inside the park.
Henrik dismounted and scanned the area. A dark-haired man with a fishing pole sat on a log, and a basket sat beside him on a red blanket—the sign. He rolled his bicycle forward, his gaze probing the beech woods, his ears tuned to footfalls or voices, his muscles tense and wary.
The man appeared to be alone.
But he appeared rather skinny and stooped for an agent.
Regardless, Henrik would play the game, then end the game. He pushed his bike closer. “Excuse me, Herre. I am lost. Do you know the way to Helsingør?”
The man met his gaze through thick glasses. “Elsinore?” he asked in English, as he was supposed to.
“Alas, poor Yorick.”
“I knew him, Horatio.” The SOE agent cast his fishing line into the water.
