Grace had given book tokens to Mrs. Weatherford—they truly were handy gifts—and a fashionable new hat for Viv who had sewn new dresses for Mrs. Weatherford and Grace. Mrs. Weatherford had purchased both girls a handbag fitted for gas masks.

It was a curious thing with a rounded bottom for the canister to go inside and a pocket to fit the bulk of the mask. The handbags were fashionable black leather with gold snaps at their tops. Certainly a handbag any lady would carry proudly.

“So you won’t be leaving them behind when you go out.” Mrs. Weatherford had made the declaration with a note of finality that told them she’d take no more excuses at leaving their masks home going forward.

Not only did Christmas passing not bring an end to the war as many had optimistically predicted, but it brought the implementation of the threatened ration. The limits to bacon, butter and sugar only served to make one of the coldest winters in London all the more bitter.

Each person in England, including the king and queen, were given a small book of stamps to limit the amount of rationed goods they could purchase. Somehow, even with Mrs. Weatherford’s stockpile of sugar she’d held under lock and key in the previous months, Grace and Viv found the sugar caddy often sparse.

It was in that dull gray world where Grace discovered an unexpected ray of sunshine.

One afternoon, on a particularly icy day after she’d been given leave from Primrose Hill Books, she found herself in the very peculiar position of having free time. And she knew exactly how to spend it. She made herself a cup of tea, snuggled into the Morris chair with a thick blanket over her legs and settled under the weight of The Count of Monte Cristo on her lap.

She ran her fingers over the worn cover and thought of George Anderson. Not only him, but all the men who had been called up.

Where were they? Was it as drearily dull for them?

She truly hoped so. Better to be bored than in danger.

Slowly, she opened the book, noting how the old spine didn’t bother to creak, as though it had been oiled by age, and began to read.

What she found within was nothing like the texts she’d read in school that offered dry accounts of maths or broken down sentence structures and word formation. No, this book, when finally given the proper attention it deserved, somehow locked her in its grasp and did not once let go.

What started as an accusation in the beginning spiraled into treachery before tailspinning into the greatest betrayal. Word after word, page after page, she was pulled deeper into a place she had never experienced and walked in the footsteps of a person she’d never been.