She smiled at her sister without taking her focus from her camera. “I wanted to get a snapshot of the Russian.”

Ivy breathed a laugh. “Why? Just for your collection, or did something catch your eye?”

“Mm.” Lily gauged the light and adjusted the shutter from the Clear setting to the Gray and then moved the knob atop the lens to the corresponding stop for exposure. She glanced up again to make sure no deep shadows had found her subject.

Lovely evening light still shone on their guests, soft and hazy. Marin was standing near the brick wall of the house, talking to that Clarke fellow. No, listening to him, it seemed. He was acting as he’d done over dinner, focusing his entire attention on whomever he was in a conversation with. His hands were clasped behind his back.

Clarke gesticulated as he spoke, his face a work of animation. Providing the perfect contrast to the Russian, who looked as though he could have been sculpted from wax. At least until one met his gaze. The few times she’d done that over the course of the evening, she’d been struck by movement instead of stillness. A mind always at work, that was what those eyes betrayed.

Not surprising, if he was one of Admiral Hall’s codebreakers—not that she would have known that’s what he was, were she not a part of OB40 herself.

Perhaps she could convince him to let her take a photograph of him looking at her too. One to capture the stillness. One to capture the motion it hid.

She adjusted the diaphragm lever and then set the shutter in place.

“He’s handsome, isn’t he?” Ivy’s whisper curled around her.

Lily looked away from the camera to direct arched brows toward her sister. Ivy’s gaze was latched onto their two young guests. “The Russian?” He wasn’t unattractive, but she was surprised at the note of wistfulness in Ivy’s tone.

Her sister glanced back to her, and she laughed. “No, Silly Lily. I mean, not that he isn’t. But I was talking about him. Lieutenant Clarke.”

She blinked at Ivy—at the light in her eyes, the smile on her lips, the way she tilted her head toward their guests. Lily lifted her camera, quickly thumbed the knurled screw all the way to bring the focus in as tight as it would go, and snapped a picture.

Ivy laughed and turned to her again. “What?”

“I had to capture the moment. I do believe this is the first time my sweet baby sister has actually expressed interest in one of the chaps Daddy brought home.”