Perchance to dream? Drowsy, satiated. They lie entangled, perspiring into the night and into each other. Elfriede’s stuck one hand in Wilfred’s hair. With her other finger, she touches his army moustache. At last she knows the texture of his skin and the weight of his bones, which are heavier than she imagined. That lanky skeleton contains a deceptive mass. Shanks. She thinks of her English books, the English words she’s learned over the course of the past five years. Longshanks. Wilfred’s long, heavy leg wound around hers, his arm draped over her hip. Wilfred! A delirium of contentment settles over her. She’s going to fall asleep like this, she’s going to sleep all night in Wilfred’s arms. And this morning she woke alone, with no notion of what was to come!

“How do you feel, my love?” he whispers in English.

How can she stop herself? The sweet, new tickle of Wilfred’s moustache. She draws the tip of her tongue along his lower lip, from left to right, and tastes . . . herself.

Wery vell, she whispers back.

Against her belly, his cock stirs and stiffens. So maybe dreams will have to wait, after all.

Just before dawn, Wilfred rises from the bed and dresses himself, so quietly that Elfriede almost doesn’t hear him. Only a sense of parting invades her dreams, and she opens her eyes.

“Shh,” he says, kissing her. “I’ll be back soon.”

Lulu

June 1942

(The Bahamas)

There’s a reason so many revolutions occur in the summer months, and this transformation starts earlier in the Bahamas than most places. By the first of May, the furnace had begun to crank up, the heating of the air, heavy, sticky, murderous. By the middle of the afternoon on the thirty-first, as I sought refuge at the bar of the good old Prince George—window shades down, electric fans rotating furiously—you couldn’t walk ten feet without your lungs turning inside out, your skin melting off your bones and into your footprints.

“Now, why ain’t you lying on a beach someplace, taking in the ocean breeze, Mrs. Randolph?” asked Jack, wiping away on a glass that didn’t need it. “Better yet. Why ain’t you back in America with your bosom friend?”

“My bosom friend? You can’t possibly mean the duchess.”

“Peas in a pod, ain’t you? Thick as thieves.”

“That doesn’t mean I’m her friend, believe me.”

Jack shook his head and set the glass in its pristine row. “Coulda fooled me.”

“What do you know, anyway? You never met the duchess in your life.”

“I hear things.”