He could still hear her calling after him as he fled upstairs, pleading, baffled. How could she know he was leaving for her own good? She’d only know he was leaving her.
Another fear curled inside, as wispy as Far’s pipe smoke but no less pungent.
What if he wanted to leave because he feared rejection? Because she’d be disgusted when she learned that he’d deceived her, that he was a playboy aristocrat who’d wasted his life and caused heaps of family trouble.
Because she could never lovehim.
That fear felt too real to deny.
His fingers dug into his scalp. “Lord, am I a coward?”
He was. He’d rather leave her devastated than endure her disdain.
“God, help me. I love her. I want to do what’s best for her.” And what was best for her? Leave her and protect her? Or endanger her but show her why he was wrong for her?
Certainty flowed inside, both crushing and releasing. If nothing else, she deserved the chance to make her own choice, to be trusted with the truth.
Even if it wrecked him.
He shoved the last books onto the bookshelf and grabbed the envelope for Svend.
A ripping sound, and the envelope split at his rough treatment. Papers cascaded to the rug.
Henrik grimaced and squatted to pick them up. He wasn’t supposed to look at the material he transported.
He gathered up a folded map with papers clipped to it. The handwriting. It couldn’t be. It looked like his father’s. It was. It was Far’s handwriting.
Someone in the resistance had snitched it from Far’s office.
Henrik lowered himself to his knees and skimmed the report.
The report written by his father.
Listing contracts and launch schedules and actions taken to delay repairs after the sabotage raid. Describing the attached map of German minefields in Danish waters.
Henrik’s fingers went numb, and the papers slipped to the floor.
His father, Baron Frederik Ahlefeldt, owner of the Ahlefeldt Shipbuilding Company, was in the resistance.
Henrik had never rowed so fast in his life, not even in the Olympics. Smooth seas aided him, as did an almost-full moon. But curiosity fueled him, a seething, burning curiosity.
He jammed his scull into the reeds and sloshed out onto Swedish soil.
Svend Østergaard awaited him. “Hej, Henning. You made good time.”
Henrik marched right up to him. “My father? My father’s in the resistance?”
Svend’s face went completely still. “You aren’t supposed to look at the papers.”
“The envelope ripped. I saw. I saw my father’s handwriting. So, yes, I read it.”
“Henning—”
“Is he? Is he in the resistance?”
Svend turned his head in profile and sighed. “Yes.”
Henrik flung one hand toward Copenhagen. “But he—he’s a collaborator. He hires sabotage guards, for heaven’s sake. Traitors.”
