Lilly had always been so cheerful, so happy and full of life, but Cate could only see pain in her eyes now. It was like they’d both made a silent pact not to talk about Charlie or even think about him after receiving the news, as a desperate way of coping, simply to make it through each day. It never got any easier, but they’d at least always had one another. Until now. “Cate, please. Don’t make me leave you. I can’t go home without you.”

Cate took a deep, shuddering breath before she let Lilly go. “You can, and you will.”

Lilly’s eyes searched hers before she finally pulled away. “You promise me you’ll make it home, Cate. Promise me.”

Cate knew better than to make a promise she couldn’t keep, but she could see that Lilly wasn’t going to leave if she didn’t. “I promise.”

Lilly pressed a hasty kiss to her cheek before backing away. “You come home, you hear me? Or I’ll come back looking for you myself.”

Cate watched her go, feeling like time wasn’t moving as she stared at her friend. They’d been through so much together, and Cate knew it might be the last time they ever saw one another again. Her fingers found the ring at her throat, and she clutched it, taking comfort in her link to the past.

But there was no time left to stare and wallow in sadness, as the front door to the chateau was thrust open for the first ambulance, and she watched as the first stretchers were carried out. So this is what defeat looks like, Cate thought as a procession of orderlies started running inside with men in all stages of death and injury. Her stomach, which had been so strong despite all she’d seen and done, lurched at the sight of the injured soldiers; before, they’d been patching them up to go home, but these poor men were either going to die or end up prisoners of war, and she didn’t know which was worse. The smell of defeat was as heavy in the air as the metallic tang of blood that immediately filled her nostrils.

She ran inside after them, no longer thinking about what was to come, what her fate might be. Her job was to ease the discomfort of these men as best she could, and that’s what she was going to do until her very last breath.

She’d see Lilly before she left; right now she had lives to save.

So much for the last supper we all had planned for the evening, downstairs in the cellar with a few bottles of the chateau’s finest wine.

CHAPTER THREE ELISE

CHAPTER THREE

ELISE
LE PARADIS, FRANCE, MAY 1940