“A friend,” Estelle said. “Of his sister,” she amended, realizing that she had no idea what Sophie’s real name might have been. “I was a friend of his sister.”

“Ah.” The woman’s expression instantly crumpled. “I’m sorry,” she said, wiping at eyes that had gone misty. “You think you’ve overcome it, but it catches you at strange moments, the sadness.”

“I understand.”

“I’m Imogen,” the woman said. “The housekeeper at Millbrook. I’ve known Will and Sophie their entire lives.”

Estelle twisted the handle of her bag around her fingers, the strap biting into her skin. Sophie Seymour, she repeated silently in her head, letting the name sink in. Sophie really had been her first name.

“You’re French, are you, lass?”

“Yes.”

“You must have known our Sophie while she was studying in Paris, then?”

“Yes,” Estelle said faintly. “In Paris.”

“She is missed terribly. By none more so than Will.” Imogen turned slightly and tipped her head toward the base of a twisted oak.

A hunched figure sat in a wheeled chair, his lower half covered with a blanket even in the warm air, his head bent in what looked like defeat. From this distance, it was impossible to make out his features, but the hair that fell over his forehead and shadowed his face was a familiar shade of pale blond.

“He’s not himself yet,” Imogen said. “He was barely recognizable when he came home.” She sounded as if she was going to cry again. “They kept him in a…camp. He won’t tell anyone what they did to him. But they took his leg.”

“I’m sorry,” Estelle whispered.

“As am I.” Imogen wiped her eyes again with the edge of her apron. “Perhaps it was for the best that Sophie died long before the war ever became what it did.”

“What?” Estelle asked in confusion.

“Oh, lass. I’m sorry to be the one to tell you this. Sophie was working in Warsaw when they bombed the city the first time.” Imogen sniffed, patting Estelle gently on the arm. “She died in that bombing. And it’s the only thing that offers any of us any consolation. Will especially. That she didn’t have to see or suffer what he did. That she didn’t have to grieve their parents.” She wiped her eyes again and let her apron fall. “Small mercies, I know. But now they are all we have.”

Estelle couldn’t speak. Didn’t really understand what had happened. What she did understand was that the British agent code-named Celine had kept many secrets, and not just from Estelle.