“No, I was terribly afraid,” she contradicted. “But I wanted to help you! I want so much to do something useful. I didn’t believe he’d hurt us—he hated bullying us. He did it because he had to. Like airmen dropping bombs.”

“I worried he’d take one of us with him,” I admitted.

“So did I, until I saw how tight a fit it would be!”

We shared a shaky laugh. It felt good to have it behind us.

“We won!” I said. “Our first battle together! Keep that wee charm for luck.”

“What did I say about superstition?” Louisa exclaimed, and I laughed again.

“Och, then keep it as a trophy! Don’t let Nan spy you, though.”

“I won’t,” Louisa said.

Louisa:

Mrs. Campbell flounced downstairs, carrying a heather broom in one hand and a feather duster in the other. Her wispy hair coiled in sweaty frills around her face. She looked like she’d just finished one battle and was ready for the next.

Though she didn’t see what we’d been up to, my cheeks heated up. I slipped Felix Baer’s typewriter key into my skirt pocket. Tea, I was supposed to be making tea for Jane. I’d lit the burner for the kettle ages ago, and it still hadn’t boiled.

“The flame needs to be higher,” Mrs. Campbell said, turning it up. “Goodness, Louisa, you were in London three years already, did no one teach you how to make tea? Leaving the gas low just wastes it!”

“Don’t have a go at her for not knowing her way about your kitchen, Mrs. C.,” said Ellen, straightening her cap in a way that told you she was enlisted. “She’s not been here a day, and we’ve all had a fright.”

Mrs. Campbell harrumphed and made the tea herself. She loaded a tray for me to carry up to Jane.

Then it came out why she was cross about the wasted gas. She was just blaming it on me because the real culprit had already left.

“That Robert Ethan left the fire on in Room Four, despite all I said to him, and it’s been roaring away all day with no one in there,” she grumbled as she poured boiling water. “And he got the last of the milk as well; there isn’t any more till tomorrow. Aunt Jane’ll have to have her tea black.”

Nan gave me the tray and turned around to check she’d turned off the burner. Then she lifted the wooden gate for me to get out from behind the bar.