Albert ran out of the hotel, past Sam, Ben and Clara, who looked aghast, and into the road, where he hailed a passing cab and managed despite terrible French to instruct the driver to follow the motorbike.

He was in luck. Henri, with Lotti riding behind him, drove carefully. Albert’s driver, promised an extra tip for speed, did not. The cab screeched up outside the clifftop house just as Lotti climbed off the back of the motorbike. Thrusting a handful of notes at his driver, Albert jumped out of the cab.

Chapter Thirty-Eight

For a brief moment, before Lotti noticed him, Albert had a clear view of Lotti’s face, and what he read on it took his breath away.

Fear, certainly, or at least apprehension, but also … hope.

Fierce, burning, furious hope.

Then she saw him, and hope vanished, replaced by fear.

Henri turned, glowered and stepped forward to protect Lotti, but Albert made no move toward her.

Instead, Albert stared.

Albert stared, and Albert stared, and Albert stared.

Puzzled, Lotti stepped away from the motorbike, and began to walk toward the house. She reached the porch, then stopped and turned to see if he was following.

Albert continued to stare.

Lotti squared her shoulders. Once again, she reached for the lion’s head, and knocked. Once again, the housekeeper opened the door. For a moment, it looked like she would close it again. But then Lotti held out the ring …

The housekeeper scowled, but she took the ring and went back into the house, closing the door firmly behind her. Lotti waited, her heart in her mouth. At the gate of the villa, Henri and Albert stood side by side now watching.

The door opened and a tiny, silver-haired woman in her late sixties came out. There was a cry—Albert knew that he would never forget that cry.

The cry was surprise and disbelief and longing and joy and grief all rolled into one, but most of all it was love.

The silver-haired woman opened her arms, and Lotti fell into them.

Albert Skinner, with a nod to Henri de Beauchesne, walked away. Back down the hill he went, all the way to his hotel, where he checked out before boarding the next train to Paris, and then the boat train to England and his son.

“Dangerous,” Hubert Netherbury had written about Lotti’s grandmother in his last telegram, but now that he had seen Camille St. Rémy, Albert didn’t believe it for a minute.

Lotti’s grandmother cherished Lotti in a way Hubert Netherbury never could.

And if there was one thing the war had taught Albert, it was that children were to be cherished.

“He lied to both of us.”