“Thank you,” she eventually said. “I don’t know when I last sat down with nothing to do and had someone take care of me.”

He shrugged. “You deserve it.”

“Harry, there’s something I need to tell you,” she murmured, setting her spoon down.

His eyebrows were raised expectantly, but he didn’t say a word.

I don’t want him to leave. I want to keep him hidden here. I selfishly want him all to myself.

She took a deep breath. “I’ve arranged to smuggle you out of France, at the next new moon.”

Harry couldn’t have looked more surprised if he’d tried. “I’m leaving? I expected you to come home and say there was nothing you could do, that it was impossible.”

She toyed with her soup, needing to do something, anything, to stop herself seeing the crestfallen look on Harry’s face, because it so closely mirrored her own feelings.

“Honestly? So did I. But if we can get you all to the beach at Calais, at midnight on the new moon, there will be a boat waiting. It’s dangerous, but it’s something, and I think it might be your only chance to leave.”

“Calais?” he asked. “I thought that place was blown apart?”

“It is, but that won’t stop a rowboat from coming in under the cover of night.”

Elise ate then, wolfing down her soup and mopping up the last of it with the dry piece of bread. And when she finished, she could feel Harry’s eyes on her.

“Is it wrong that I’d rather stay here with you?”

She pushed her bowl away, heat rising in her body and flooding her cheeks. “It’s not,” she said. “If I’m honest, I’ve gone from being so worried about having you all here to feeling heartbroken at the idea of you leaving.”

“All of us, or just me?” he asked, his voice gruff now.

“I’ve grown very close to Cate so I’ll certainly miss her, but you, well, you’re different, I suppose.” Different? Why had she even said that word to describe him?

“Elise, it’s not easy for me being here,” he admitted, clasping his palms together and leaning forward. “I’m in here hiding while your beautiful country is being overtaken by Nazis. Everything I fought for, everything my friends gave their lives for, it seems like it was for nothing. And there’s nothing I can do about it.” His voice dropped. “I’ve never felt like a coward before, but the way I encouraged your sister to see that commander while I hide in here myself—”