Her throat no longer ached, but she was still rather exhausted by day’s end. A blessing that allowed her to fall into bed and go immediately to sleep without having to look overlong at the flat. At the closed door to Maman’s cupboard of a room. To all the empty places that should have been filled with laughter and chiding and French phrases.

She focused on the street that would lead them to Charing Cross Hospital and changed the subject. “How long do you suppose your brother will be in hospital?”

“The doctors said it will be weeks.” Dot sighed. “Drake will be gnawing at the bit long before then. Perhaps I’ll be able to convince them to release him to my care, since my flat isn’t far. I can set up Aunt Millie’s room for him.”

Margot hadn’t yet pieced together all the details of her friend’s family. Most of it, but there were still a few gaps. “Where does he usually stay when in London?”

“At a club, lately. He’d been attending university in Spain before the war, so after our father died, we agreed it was best to let the house, and I moved in with Aunt Millie.” She didn’t say with words how hard the change had been on her, but a wisp of it echoed in her eyes. She’d moved, she’d made a new home. She hadn’t been willing to do it again when Aunt Millie evacuated. “Drake wasn’t at home enough to warrant keeping a room for him.”

A Lord-inspired move, no doubt. Margot had already learned that their father’s shipping business, which her brother had planned to take over once he graduated, had suffered greatly in the first days of the war, with three-fourths of their vessels being struck by U-boats. Perhaps after the war they would rebuild the line, but that was hardly possible while Drake Elton was in the Royal Navy.

The hospital loomed large and quiet ahead of them. Margot could all but feel her remaining energy drain away another half a percent with every step she took.

But she would treat it as she did everything else—a mental exercise. She counted the steps as they entered. How long it took to travel down the corridor, up the stairs to the lieutenant’s ward, down the next corridor. How many doors on each side of the hallway. Calculate the hour by how far into the rooms the light from the windows stretched.

Dot turned in at the appropriate door, but Margot halted, her ears nearly twitching. From somewhere down the corridor came a French diatribe in a cultured female voice. It acted like a magnet upon her bones, pulling her toward it.

“Margot?”

She motioned Dot on. “Go ahead. I’ll find you in a moment. I want to see who’s shouting in French.”