Grace could practically see Mr. Evans wince at the other man’s language when customers were present in the store. She hung her handbag and threaded through the shop, ensuring their patrons were tended to.

“You said a bomb was lodged in the ground before St. Paul’s?” Mr. Evans pressed, clearly trying to rush the other man along.

“Yes,” Mr. Pritchard exclaimed. “Right before the clock tower. The whole cathedral would have been blown to pieces had the thing gone off. The bomb disposal unit had to come see to it. Fascinating stuff, that.”

No sooner had he spoken than the air raid siren started its afternoon wail. Tabby immediately leapt to his feet and trotted over to Mr. Pritchard, who scowled at the interruption by “Moaning Minnie,” his beady eyes bright with irritation. “Blast these nuisance raids. I think Germany wants to win by driving us all mad.”

Regardless of his grousing, he followed Grace out of the shop, along with the other customers and Mr. Evans. The tube stations had opened up for shelter despite the government’s initial decision to keep them closed. The repeated bombings made their use necessary, especially with so many now seeking safety.

It was to Farringdon Station that Grace led them all, utilizing her experience as an ARP warden, despite not being on duty. For those who preferred not to pay the one and a half pence to enter the station, she guided them first to the brick shelter at the corner. Before the siren had quieted, she was settled against the tiled wall beside Mr. Evans and lifting the front jacket of her book.

She’d only just started Middlemarch the night before and was several chapters in, her mind locked on Dorothea and the young woman’s plight with her new, much older husband. The siren overhead cut off and the shuffle and muttered conversation of dozens of people inside the tube echoed against the rounded walls. Wind billowed in from the gaping tunnels on either side of the platform, issuing a low, haunting note and tickling Grace’s hair across her cheek.

She blocked all sound out, propped her open book on her knees and began to read. Outside came the now familiar sounds of war, the booming ack-ack guns firing at enemy aircraft as the RAF dove and shot at the Germans in an effort to fend them off. Amid it all, and far less often than at night, came the distant thud of falling bombs.

“What are you reading, miss?” a woman asked from beside her.

Grace looked up to find the young mother she’d comforted weeks before. “Middlemarch by George Eliot.”

Guns pounded overhead. The woman glanced up anxiously. “What’s it about?”

“A woman named Dorothea,” Grace replied. “She has a handsome suitor intent on marrying her, but he’s not the man who draws her eye.”

“Why is that?”

“She quite prefers an older man, a reverend.”