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Back When We Meet Again Save as PDF
Chapters (57)
  1. Cover
  2. Dedication
  3. Epigraph
  4. Prologue
  5. One
  6. Two
  7. Three
  8. Four
  9. Five
  10. Six
  11. Seven
  12. Eight
  13. Nine
  14. Ten
  15. Eleven
  16. Twelve
  17. Thirteen
  18. Fourteen
  19. Fifteen
  20. Sixteen
  21. Seventeen
  22. Eighteen
  23. Nineteen
  24. Twenty
  25. Twenty-one
  26. Twenty-two
  27. Twenty-three
  28. Twenty-four
  29. Twenty-five
  30. Twenty-six
  31. Twenty-seven
  32. Twenty-eight
  33. Twenty-nine
  34. Thirty
  35. Thirty-one
  36. Thirty-two
  37. Thirty-three
  38. Thirty-four
  39. Thirty-five
  40. Thirty-six
  41. Thirty-seven
  42. Thirty-eight
  43. Thirty-nine
  44. Forty
  45. Forty-one
  46. Forty-two
  47. Forty-three
  48. Forty-four
  49. Forty-five
  50. AUTHOR’S NOTE
  51. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
  52. POPULAR BOOKS FROM THE ERA
  53. When We Meet Again
  54. A Conversation with Caroline Beecham about When We Meet Again
  55. Discussion Guide
  56. ABOUT THE AUTHOR
  57. What’s next onyour reading list?

Alice’s smile widened, but then it faded and she grew serious. “Is Rupert back?”

“No, he’s still in Asia. I don’t think he’ll be back for some time. Don’t you listen to the news? The Japs have more firepower than us and the Yanks combined.”

Theo saw something resembling relief flicker across Alice’s face before her gaze returned to the middle of the table. Ursula chattered on about what had been happening at the office, while Alice appeared lost in thought. She seemed far too timid to be responsible for this big book idea. How had she become such a valued part of the team? It struck Theo that she lacked pretension, just like the girls in his neighborhood growing up, and so he decided to keep an open mind although his first impressions hadn’t filled him with confidence. He was even more worried by George’s unwise decision to allocate a lot—too much, in fact—of their precious resources to her first book.

So, it was up to Theo and Ursula to convince this nervy young woman to return to Russell Square, and to ensure the success of her series, or it could be the end of the London operation. Working in business affairs and on Book Row, he’d learned enough about human nature to know that people weren’t always what they seemed. Never judge a book by its cover, he thought, smiling inwardly at the cliché. Although he had the feeling that Alice Cotton wouldn’t surprise them in the least.

Fifteen

As Alice walked to the Underground later that morning, off on her search for Olive Melville Brown, she thought about Theo’s offer and the book Partridge wanted to publish. If the past few days had taught her anything, it was that there were hundreds, perhaps thousands of missing or stolen children whom the public needed to know about, infants taken from their mothers and traded like food or fuel. For the briefest moment she’d been tempted to say yes, before deciding there was no way she could work and keep looking for Eadie.

She’d realized she had another problem to contend with: she was finding it difficult to go into confined areas. Ever since she’d woken to find Eadie gone, she’d felt increasingly uncomfortable in cramped spaces. She’d never experienced claustrophobia before—had even doubted its existence—but now she had a fear of being trapped whenever she was hemmed in. It was primal, and she had no idea what to do about avoiding small places when there were so many designed for Londoners’ survival.