There was the staff at Millbrook, Sophie supposed, but they believed her to be dead, and in truth, she hadn’t been back to Norfolk in almost a decade. There was a second—or was it third?—cousin somewhere in Hampshire and a childhood acquaintance Sophie hadn’t seen or heard from since she left for Poland. But Sophie didn’t even know if they were still alive, much less where they might be now. “No. There is no one who will be worried about me.”

“That’s not true. I will worry about you.”

Sophie looked up and met Miss Atkins’s gaze. She swallowed with some difficulty and nodded. She rather thought that the woman across the desk probably said the same thing to all of her agents, but still, the words made Sophie feel less alone somehow.

Miss Atkins abruptly crushed the cigarette that she had barely smoked into the ashtray. “And your pay? Where would you like that sent while you are in the field?”

“You can send it to Millbrook Manor. It’s in Norfolk.” Imogen, the housekeeper, could be counted on to keep any correspondence for Sophie, even if she was presumed dead. When this was all over, Sophie could return to Millbrook to fetch whatever was sent there. Maybe she would even stay.

Or maybe not.

“Very good. But I will need the address.” She slid a blank slip of paper and a pencil toward Sophie and watched as Sophie scribbled down Millbrook’s address. “I will also send whatever personal effects you have there.”

Sophie glanced down at the wedding ring on her finger.

“You will have to leave that behind,” Miss Atkins said quietly. “Even from where I sit, it looks like a family heirloom. Something that means a great deal, and given that you are still in possession of it after your escape from Poland, I think I am right. You will be given something less noticeable and more generic. Something that you will never hesitate to pawn or use as a bribe if you need to.”

Sophie twisted Piotr’s ring from her finger, the small ruby glowing with dark fire in the light. She held it in her palm, suddenly unwilling to let it go.

“I will send it safely to Millbrook also.”

Sophie nodded and handed the ring across the desk, looking away as deft hands slipped the ring into a large envelope. She knew that Miss Atkins spoke only good sense. She had known that she could not take this part of Piotr with her.

Yet she couldn’t bring herself to reach for the photos in her pocket.

Miss Atkins set the envelope on the desk and paused, as if choosing her next words carefully. “May I ask how he died?” she finally said.

“I beg your pardon?”

“Your husband. It says in your file only that he was a Polish cavalry officer killed in action.”