“Go home!” he shouted.

I shook my head. “The Red Cross!”

He opened his mouth as if to yell back some objection, then thought better of it and kissed me instead, brief and hard. “If the fire gets close, get the hell out,” he said in my ear. “I’m going to find the fire brigade.”

He released me, and I pulled my shirt—Thorpe’s shirt—over my mouth and nose and plunged through these terrible gray-orange billows, up George Street in the direction of the Red Cross building, where all our hard work lay in stacks and piles at the back of the building, all our supplies, our inventory, our parcels waiting to be sent overseas. I saw the duke’s station wagon outside, parked at a rakish angle, the back door swung open. Out in the street, four men were running a fire hose. They were sopping wet and covered with soot. One of them raised his head, and in shock I recognized the Duke of Windsor himself. I ran up the front steps and through the doorway, smack into Mrs. Gudewill, white-faced, carrying a bundle of wool blankets.

“Mrs. Randolph! Quick, we’re loading the car! She’s in back.”

By she, Mrs. Gudewill meant Wallis, of course. I raced down the hall to the back room, our warehouse, and there she was, giving out crisp orders to Miss Drewes and a couple of other ladies, stacking things in boxes, stacking boxes on each other. You might not have recognized her. She wore no cosmetics, no coiffure. Her thin lips were invisible against her skin. Her hair was in a net. Her dressing gown was belted around her waist. Only her familiar brown-and-white spectator shoes gave her away.

She gave my rumpled appearance not the slightest notice. She spoke with primeval calm. “Mrs. Randolph, thank goodness. Could you be a dear and carry these to the car? How far has it spread?”

“Halfway up George Street.” I snatched one of the larger boxes and carried it back down the hall, out the door, down the steps to the station wagon outside. The crowd was growing, looking in dismay at the advance of the fire, which had begun to lick around the side of the Charlotte Hotel, next to Christ Church Cathedral, standing opposite the Red Cross. I tossed the box in the back of the station wagon and paused for an instant, staring up the rest of George Street to Government House on its hill, the end of the line. The breeze seemed to be picking up, thick with smoke, unless that was the draft of the fire itself. Someone came up to me with another box, and I recognized Miss Drewes, wearing a pair of striped pajamas.

“Where are we taking all this?” I asked.

“To the ballroom. Come along, quick.”