And dark. “Here, hold my arm.”
Cilla hesitated, then complied. “Thank you.” Her voice sounded as thin and crystalline as the frost on the hotel’s windowpanes.
Her gloved hand pressed lightly on his arm and spun his thoughts into a whirlwind. With effort, he forced his breath into an even rate.
A man with a white beard passed Arthur and Irene, and he halted and stared at Cilla. “Miss van der Zee?”
“Oh! Good evening, Mr. Henderson. How are you?”
“Fine.” He scowled at Lachlan and marched away.
Lachlan waited until they crossed Manson’s Lane. “Who was he?”
“One of Neil’s friends,” she said in a quiet voice. “From the Claymore and Heath.”
Free Caledonia. Lachlan slowed his pace to increase the distance from Arthur and Irene. “He wasnae happy to see you on the arm of a naval officer. This is a problem.”
“Nonsense. I’ll simply explain who you are. They know I met Neil because you and I are friends.”
Lachlan grumbled. “It is indeed a problem. You’re supposed to be—”
“Sh!” She pressed her shoulder against his arm. “It isn’t a problem. I haven’t joined their group, haven’t even expressed an interest in doing so. I ask questions and I listen. Sometimes I agree with them, sometimes I don’t. And when Mr. Henderson says Scotland would be better off under German rule, I tell them what life is like for the Dutch under German rule.”
“All right.” He squeezed his elbow closer to his side to squeeze her wee hand. “Your work is too important. I dinnae want to cause you to sli—”
His left foot shot out in front of him. Down he went, onto his backside, his back.
Cilla screeched and collapsed on top of him.
He grunted from the weight of her. “Och, lass. Are you all right?”
Arthur and Irene dashed back to them. “Cilla! Lachlan!”
Cilla laughed and kept laughing as she pushed herself up, her face a mere foot from Lachlan’s. “You—you didn’t want to cause me to slip?”
Lachlan’s laugh merged with hers, great rolls of laughter synchronizing and melding. Her light hair curled about her cheeks, shaking in time with her laughter, and all he wanted was to draw her back down and kiss those laughing lips, over and over.
But he could not. He could never.
Cilla pushed back onto her knees, still laughing, and Arthur and Irene helped her to her feet and gathered her handbag and torch.
Lachlan sat up and caught his breath. His cap lay on the pavement, and he lifted it. The badge gleamed—a crown of gold and silver wire, an anchor of silver, and wreaths of gold.
He was an officer in His Majesty’s Royal Navy. To consort romantically with an enemy agent—even an MI5 double agent proven loyal to the Allied cause—would defy all protocol and regulations.
Lachlan set on his cap and accepted Arthur’s assistance in rising to his feet.
His heart—his own heart—had betrayed him.
33
Dunnet Head
Saturday, March 21, 1942
With the smallest stitches her impatient fingers could muster, Cilla anchored another pebble to her gray fabric beach. From the wireless on the worktable in the lightroom, Vera Lynn sang “Do I Love You?”
Cilla knew the answer to Vera Lynn’s question. Yes, she loved Lachlan, and she sang louder to shift her thoughts away from the memory of falling on the slick pavement, the firmness of Lachlan’s sturdy arms around her, the nearness of his face. His lips. His beautiful scarred lips.
