“I should’ve done more.”
“You will, and I’m proud of you for it. Be proud of yourself.”
After everything that’d happened, he still had faith in her. Maybe she should give herself a little grace too. She could have fled to America, but she was here helping with the war effort. It was more than Wallis or even the old Amelia would have done.
The door opened and a brunette of about thirty dressed in a sensible green suit entered. “Mrs. Montague, I’m Miss Bright with the Military Intelligence Research Division of His Majesty’s Government.” She motioned for Amelia to sit at the table. Robert held out a chair for her. She tried to ignore the nearness of him as he pushed in her chair, but she felt the faint caress of his fingers against her back before he moved to take the seat across from her. She didn’t pull away from it but allowed it to touch her heart as much as his faith in her had. “I can’t tell you how happy we are that you’ve decided to help us. Before we begin, please sign this.”
Miss Bright laid a copy of the Official Secrets Act in front of Amelia. If she signed it and then told anyone what they were about to discuss, she could be tried and hanged for treason.
“You have a great deal of trust in me.”
“You come with the highest recommendations.” She glanced at Robert, who watched her with the impassive air of a man deeply involved in secrets and spying.
I’ve misjudged him. She wanted to hate him for lying to her but she couldn’t. He had a sense of duty that Wallis and Jackson had never possessed, and more than once he’d helped her when she’d needed him. He hadn’t asked for anything in return, not even secrets. She’d given those to him of her own free will. What he asked of her now was to help others in an effort to end this war and keep more people from suffering. She couldn’t stay mad at him, not when there was so much more than the two of them and their troubles at stake.
She signed the paper and Miss Bright slid it into her leather case then removed a folder stamped classified and set it in front of Amelia.
“As you’re aware, Axel Wenner-Gren is a prominent member of Bahamian society. Our contacts in Nassau believe he’s up to something. He was caught during the harbor construction on his estate taking aerial photography of the outer islands under consideration for American air bases. With President Roosevelt pledging to give Britain fifty destroyers in exchange for the right to lease land for bases in The Bahamas, we need to know what Mr. Wenner-Gren is up to and if or how the Windsors are involved. We need someone inside the Windsors’ household, someone they’d never suspect who can gather information for us. You won’t be there to stop them but to observe and report so something can be done to keep leaks like the Ardennes from happening again.”
“I want to help, but I’m not an actress or a spy. I can’t pretend to be close to Wallis again, not after everything she’s done. She used me as an excuse to not leave and then abandoned me, the way the Duke did Mr. Metcalf.”
“That’s not entirely true.” Miss Bright removed a few cables from her valise and handed them to Amelia. The telegrams were from Wallis to the American Embassy in Britain asking if Amelia was safe. “Once the Germans told her you were free and in London, we intercepted her communications to you. We didn’t want her to know you were moving freely in Britain but to think you were having difficulties here. It’ll give you a reason to pretend to dislike the British and help you regain her trust. We need her to trust you, as she did before, and to have an excuse for further delays in joining them so we have the chance to train you.”
Amelia read the telegrams, not sure what to think. Wallis had searched for her. She had been concerned with her safety. Not enough to have me released until I was no longer of any use to her. For all the good Wallis had done for Amelia there was no dismissing the wrong she’d done for many years, some of it right under Amelia’s nose, and all the people who were suffering because of it.
“We won’t send you to Nassau unprepared,” Miss Bright assured. “We’ll train you in intelligence, radios, codes, psychology, everything you need to gather information while blending in. You won’t interfere, simply observe and report so others can step in and stop anything nefarious. You’ll make contact with our agent in Nassau, who’ll pass on your reports to the FBI in Miami. It isn’t without risk but trust us, we’ll do everything we can to keep you safe.”
Trust. It’s what had gotten her into this predicament in the first place. She needed to do it again, while betraying Wallis’s trust, not that she didn’t deserve it. “You want me to judge people and their motives. That isn’t my strong point.”
“Your instincts are better than you believe, and there’s no one else who can do what we’re asking,” Robert assured, his faith in her strengthening hers in him.
“Will they be tried for treason if I find something?” Wallis had thought her divorce hearing had been a madhouse. A treason trial would knock a war off the front page.
“No. Their positions and high connections guarantee them a protection none of us enjoy,” Miss Bright answered. “But whatever you find will undermine their plans or plotting and keep real damage from being done.”
Watch and observe Wallis. Mrs. Bedaux’s first rule for being a private secretary. Amelia had become a master at it and they were asking her to turn it against Wallis in order to help others and she would. There’d been no one to check Wallis’s ambitions when she’d toppled the King but Amelia would sure as hell be there to stop her from trying to topple an entire country and push the Duke back on the throne.
Portsmouth, Late October, 1940
A cold wind lashed the dock where the men, women, and children who’d finally been granted passage across the Atlantic waited to board. They crowded together with friends and family for tearful goodbyes, not sure if or when they’d see each other again.
There were no luxury accommodations on board. The ship was too full of supplies and armaments to care about passengers’ comfort. Amelia was one of the few people granted a room and the privacy needed to study the code book she’d been given to memorize.
Robert stood beside her and Susan on the crowded dock. Susan’s departure had been quickly arranged so she could help Amelia prepare for her mission during the two-week crossing to New York. Amelia would travel on to Nassau and whatever waited for her from there. She’d spent the past six weeks in Bournemouth with a number of Miss Bright’s other recruits learning the ins and outs of shortwave radios, how to write and decipher codes and observe human nature, and about acting. She hoped when the time came the training would pay off and she could give the performance of her life.
“Our agent in Nassau will make contact with you as soon as it’s safe. She’ll be wearing a pale pink rose,” Robert said, his heavy blue wool peacoat speckled with drops of drizzle.
After six weeks of training with women bound for occupied France and Belgium she wasn’t surprised her contact was a woman. However, it was the most she’d been told about the only other person in Nassau who’d know what she was up to, at least the only one she was aware of. She’d learned in Bournemouth that if she didn’t know who the other operatives were she couldn’t betray them if she was found out.
She pulled her wool coat tighter around her, more chilled by this than the misty day or the dread of crossing with U-boats prowling the Atlantic.
“If you’re ever in doubt about what to do, rely on your training. It could save your life.”
“I will.”
“I got you a present.” He handed her a small velvet box and she opened it to reveal a fine gold necklace with a disk charm, bonne chance engraved upon it in a flourished script. “A little something to remember me by.”
“To remember you by or to let my contact know who I am?” She peered up at him through her lashes, wanting to stay and banter with him forever but she couldn’t. Too many people were counting on her. She couldn’t fail.
“Both.” He flashed a charming but guilty smile, then took her hands in his and clasped them to his chest. They were warm and solid, confident, the hands of a man sure of himself and his position, one who understood the importance of duty and honor and real love. “I chose this charm so you’ll know I’m always thinking of you.”
He took her in his arms and pressed his lips to hers. She savored the taste of his lips, not caring who was around them or what they saw; no one did, not with these last precious moments slipping away before they had to let go of each other for what might be forever.
The ship’s horn sounded and the teeming mass of people began to move toward the gangway.
“It’s time,” Susan said, her reluctance to intrude as strong as Amelia’s to let go of Robert.
She stepped out of his embrace and slowly backed away from him, her gaze never leaving his until she had no choice but to
turn and walk away.
Chapter Twenty-Two
The Bahamas, November 1940
Corporal Sawyer, the Duke’s new chauffeur, drove Amelia along Bay Street after he collected her, and Wallis’s many packages, from Oakes Field airport. Her months in London had accustomed her to driving on the left side of the road and it stopped her from flinching every time he turned in a way that seemed so unusual to her in France and America.
“Is it ever cool here, Corporal Sawyer?” she asked. The few thick clouds in the brilliant blue sky did little to cut the intensity of the sun. The air was thicker here and the heat higher despite it being fall.
“No, it’s merely not as hot or humid,” he answered with a chuckle, “but the breezes help keep things tolerable. It’s nothing like England.”
“No, it’s not.” There was color here with the brightly painted shops and hotels, and peace. The buildings might be weathered and old but they hadn’t been bombed out. If she were on the island under different circumstances, she’d see it as the paradise it was, but she wasn’t. Amelia rolled down the window and drew in deep breaths of the tangy sea air. She was about to give the performance of her life, pretending to be thrilled to see Wallis and with no hard feelings about what had happened in Paris. She had to pretend she knew nothing about what they or their associates were up to while always being on the lookout for evidence of their scheming. She hoped she was up to the challenge. She had to be. Robert and Miss Bright were counting on her.
Their progress up Bay Street was slow, and Corporal Sawyer was forced to stop numerous times to let the horse-drawn fringe carriages ferrying tourists in their linen traveling clothes pass. Policemen in white jackets and black trousers stood under umbrellas in the middle of the street directing the steady stream of traffic. One policeman held up his hand to stop two local women balancing baskets of vegetables on their heads from stepping out from between the cars parked along the busy sidewalk. American tourists visited the saloons, restaurants, and hotels lining the street while locals loaded and unloaded trucks or sold postcards and shell trinkets. The color, warmth, and activity were so different from the somber gray and destruction of London, one could almost forget there was a war. Almost. War was why she was here.
She said a little prayer for the women she’d trained with. They were going behind enemy lines in France and Belgium to undermine the Nazis. If they were discovered, they’d be shot or worse. Amelia had been sent to a tropical paradise and would be shipped home if she was found out, or so she’d told herself in the middle of the night when worry had kept her up. If Wallis was willing to collude with the Nazis in the destruction of a country to capture a crown, there was no telling what she or her friends might do if they discovered a traitor in their midst.
Corporal Sawyer turned off Bay Street onto George Street and drove up the hill past brightly colored pink, green, and turquoise balcony houses and wide, spreading trees. Flashes of red bougainvillea and other bright flowers she didn’t recognize bloomed in window boxes and along fences. A marble Christopher Columbus stood guard over the massive staircase leading up the hill to the Governor-General’s residence with its grand view of Nassau.
Corporal Sawyer guided the Duke’s Crosley station wagon through the brick and iron gates of Government House, where the Royal Bahamas Police Force guards in their crisp white uniforms stood at attention. The Union Jack rolled with the sea breeze over the top of the pink-walled and white-trimmed classical building dotted with green hurricane shutters. They crossed the courtyard and pulled to a stop in the shade of the front portico.
“You’re finally here.” Wallis flew out of the massive oak front door with the Duke’s Order of the Garter insignia etched in gold on the glass. She clasped Amelia in a large hug, her gardenia perfume encircling the two of them. “I was so worried when you didn’t turn up in Lisbon. Thank heaven you’re safe.”
“I was worried about you too.” Amelia slowly wrapped her arms around Wallis, surprised and torn by the effusive greeting. This wasn’t the prim and proper Duke’s wife but the cousin she remembered from Wakefield Manor. For all her sins, Wallis had genuinely missed her. It made Amelia’s head spin from more than the heat. Her cousin was welcoming her back as an innocent, and she was here to stab her in the back. Wallis deserved it. She was a traitor who’d been willing to leave Amelia imprisoned by the Nazis when it had served her plans.
Amelia stepped out of her grasp, determined not to fall for Wallis’s silver-tongued lies and false concern again. “The French newspapers said you and the Duke went missing in Spain and were captured by the Italians. What happened?”
Wallis escorted her into the house, the hem of her stylish blue and red polka-dotted dress fluttering against her slim legs as they walked. She wore her more subdued sapphire set, the one that had been in the Paris safe. At least it had reached her and Amelia’s escapades hadn’t been entirely for nothing. “It was dreadful traipsing across France, sleeping out in the open or in flea-infested hotels. I thought we’d be fine when we reached Spain but it was nothing but problems there too. They shooed us out of Madrid because the French government in exile thought we’d get them bombed to pieces so we had to drag on to Lisbon. It was worse than fleeing Paris, worse than this awful place. It’s been a mess without you, there isn’t anyone who can organize my life the way you can.”
They crossed the wide foyer as the four Bahamian footmen carried Amelia’s things and Wallis’s packages from Saks Fifth Avenue and Bergdorf Goodman up the Grand Staircase under Mr. Hale’s watchful eye.
