Page 83

Kate didn’t waste any more time. She hit him, right in the nose, with the full force of her five foot one inches and one hundred and two pounds.

She did it the way her stepfather had taught her: striking up with the flat of her palm. Her hand hit his nose with a sickening crunch, sending him reeling backward into the table, men yelping, chairs toppling, soup and bread crashing down. Blood spurted through the man’s fingers as he sprawled on the table.

He stared at it with disbelief, and then he lifted his head and Kate saw murder in his eyes.

“Quick!” Grabbing Emmie by the hand, Kate ran for the kitchen door, not looking back, ignoring the angry cries behind them, her fingers fumbling on the door handle, knowing every second counted, every second gave them a chance.

Kate was never quite sure how after, but somehow she got Emmie through that door and into the jitney, turning and turning the crank with all her might, praying it wouldn’t break down, praying the men wouldn’t catch them before they could start, knowing that she’d be no use against all of them. Any one of them could break her arm with one hand tied behind his back. She wished she had a gun like Maud, a knife like Julia, anything.

“Go, go, go,” Kate muttered to the jitney, and nearly sobbed with relief when the engine caught. Every instinct screamed speed, but she forced herself to go carefully; if the truck broke down, they’d have no escape and the retaliation would be dreadful.

Light arced across the snow as the kitchen door swung open. The motor hiccupped and Kate nearly cried, but then it caught again, the truck jerking backward, out of the clearing, as the man in the doorway shouted curses, his shirt stained with blood and soup.

Kate swung the truck. The road was dreadful, rutted and icy, but she clung grimly to the wheel and kept going, away, away, just away. She had no idea where they were; the only important thing was to put as much distance as possible between them and those men.

“But—what—” Emmie was twisting back, staring over her shoulder. “You hit him.”

“Not nearly hard enough.” The full realization of what had almost happened swept over her. A room upstairs—be kind—alone—

Emmie’s voice seemed to come from very far away. “Do you think—do you think we ought to pay for the damage?”

The truck bounced over a pothole. Kate was shaking so hard she could barely hold the wheel. “The what?”

Emmie was twisting and twisting her fingers. She was missing her gloves, Kate noticed, probably dropped in their flight. “The damage. To that inn.”

“Pay for the damage?” Kate knew she sounded hysterical. She couldn’t help it.

“Well, yes,” said Emmie, sounding mildly bewildered, and Kate nearly ran the truck into a ditch. “We did make rather a mess.”

Through determined effort, Kate wrenched the car back onto the road, managing not to kill either of them. “You do realize what they meant to do, don’t you?”

“Give us soup and take us to Ham?” said Emmie wistfully.

“Do you really believe that?” Kate wasn’t sure whether Emmie was being willfully obtuse or whether she was really that naive. Or maybe it was just that Kate had gone mad. But she didn’t think so. She remembered the way that man had looked. She remembered Julia. “They were never going to take us to Ham. Didn’t you hear that man asking about a room? They were going to take us upstairs. He was unbuttoning your coat.”

“It was warm in there,” said Emmie, but she didn’t sound entirely certain. “I think he was just trying to be . . . helpful.”

“Helpful?” Kate’s voice went up. “They meant to rape us, Emmie!”

It felt very strange to say it.

There was a moment of silence as the trunk bumped along. And then Emmie said, “You mean like the Sabine women.”

As if rape were something that happened only in ancient Rome. Kate found it entirely infuriating. “Like all those women with Boche babies. How do you think that happened? It certainly wasn’t out of pure and lasting affection.”

“But those were Germans,” said Emmie, as if that made all the difference. “These were Frenchmen. They’re our allies.”

“They’re men,” said Kate, thinking of Julia and that doctor. He was meant to be her colleague, and look how he’d behaved. “I’m pretty sure these were deserters. Didn’t you see how they looked when you asked after their regiment? They were men with nothing left to lose. And we’re women, alone, in a war zone, in the middle of the night.”

“But—” She could see Emmie struggling with it, fighting it, and wanted to shake her. “Everyone’s been so helpful.”

“Yes! To the Smith Unit! But tonight we weren’t the Smith Unit; we were just two women alone—you can’t just assume that every man you meet is going to help you.”

But Emmie did assume that. In Emmie’s world, everyone was there to help. And why wouldn’t they? She was Emmie Van Alden. Doors magically opened for her and courtiers threw down their cloaks in the mud. It was like being Queen of England without the responsibilities.

The engine gave a strange hiccup, but Kate barely noticed. She was too busy being upset. “We should never have been there in the first place! But no, you had to up and go to Courcelles by yourself in the middle of a snowstorm!”

Emmie curled herself into a pretzel on the bench. “It wasn’t snowing when I left.”