Seeing the pain on Ruby’s face that evening as she said good-bye to Thomas was wrenching for Charlotte. After all, she was in love too, and she couldn’t imagine being forced to let Lucien go. Now that she had realized what it was to feel that way, she had the clarity to see just how deeply Ruby’s feelings for Thomas—and his for her—ran. In fact, Charlotte wondered now if Ruby had ever really loved Marcel, or if she’d simply mistaken a desire to escape the mundane and a need to be wanted, for the real thing.
Sometimes, two people are just meant for each other. It was as simple as that. And so Charlotte’s heart broke a little as she watched Thomas whisper something in Ruby’s ear, and Ruby whisper something back. Charlotte couldn’t hear their words, and she supposed she didn’t need to; she knew they were saying “I love you” in their own way.
“It’s time,” Lucien said after the hands on the clock had ticked past five. Charlotte watched as Ruby and Thomas exchanged one last pained glance and finally pulled away from each other.
“Thank you,” Ruby said simply, looking at Lucien, “for finding Thomas a way out. Please promise me that you’ll do your best to keep him safe.”
“I swear it on my life,” Lucien said solemnly, which made Charlotte love him even more.
Thomas turned to Charlotte. “You take care of Ruby for me, all right? I know I asked you that once before, but I need to ask it again now.”
Charlotte reached out and grasped Thomas’s hands in her own. “You don’t have to worry. Just concentrate on getting home safely. We look forward to seeing you again.”
He kissed her gently on both cheeks, then turned back to Ruby. They didn’t say anything; they just held each other’s gaze for a long moment and then leaned in for one more kiss.
“Be well, my love,” Thomas said. “I will see you again soon.”
Ruby smiled through her tears. “Remember the poppies.”
And then, far too soon, he was disappearing out the front door with Lucien, a hat pulled low over his eyes. He looked back, just once, and then he was gone down the stairs. Ruby and Charlotte held their breath until they heard the front door of the building open and close.
Ruby choked back a sob. “He’ll be back,” she said, wiping her eyes. And then, in the smallest of voices, she asked, “Won’t he?”
“I know he won’t rest until he’s with you again,” Charlotte said over the lump in her own throat.
Still, as Ruby retreated into her bedroom and shut the door behind her, Charlotte’s heart was heavy. Only Thomas’s return would bring Ruby back to life.
CHARLOTTE WAS STILL AWAKE ON the couch four hours later, when Lucien came back. He knocked lightly on the door and slipped into the apartment without another sound.
“She is asleep?” he asked, nodding toward Ruby’s door.
“I think so.”
Lucien sighed. “It is done. He’s in the hands of MI9 and their associates now.”
“Do you think he’ll get home?”
Lucien looked away. “I don’t know. This will be the very first run of the new line. There hasn’t been time to work out any problems.”
“Don’t say that. Losing Thomas would destroy Ruby.”
“This has been months in the making. I think it should be all right.”
“Thank you, Lucien, for doing this.”
“I’d like to think I’m your family, Charlotte,” Lucien said gently. “And that makes Ruby my family too. I’d do anything for you.”
Charlotte nodded, too choked up to reply.
“You know, I will protect you always. No matter what.”
“And I will protect you.” Charlotte had come to believe in her own power. No longer was she a little girl who had to wait for others to chart her course. She had transformed into someone else, someone she thought her parents might be very proud of.
“Charlotte?” Lucien said after a moment. “There’s something I must ask you. But I swore to myself that I wouldn’t put you in danger.”
“What is it?”
“The new escape line. They need more people they can trust. I told them about you and Ruby, how you’d worked on a line in the past, how you have the perfect apartment for harboring pilots.” He looked at the floor and then back up at Charlotte. “They want to know if you and Ruby would consider providing a safe house for the new line too.”
“Yes,” Charlotte said without hesitation. Lucien’s expression was concerned, and Charlotte knew he was already regretting asking. But helping out on the line would give Ruby a reason to get out of bed each day.
“Are you sure? This could be more dangerous than last time. The Nazis are cracking down.”
“It’s a risk I’m willing to take. And I know Ruby will feel the same way.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
January 1944
There were fifteen other pilots—most American, a few British—along for the journey west to Saint-Brieuc, a commune in Brittany situated on a bay that opened into the English Channel. As had been the case on his last journey out of Paris, Thomas was given a fake ID and a forged Ausweis travel permit as well as a change of clothes to make him look like a poor French farmworker. Giving up the garments he’d worn at Ruby’s was more wrenching than he’d expected; handing them over felt like giving away his last piece of her. But he was doing that anyhow by fleeing Paris, wasn’t he?
The men were divided randomly into groups of two or three and instructed not to speak with one another. They traveled separately to the Gare Montparnasse, not far from Ruby’s old apartment, and were warned to avoid eye contact, to stay silent, and to pretend to be asleep if officials passed through their compartment. The 250-mile journey through the French countryside was uneventful, and several hours later, all sixteen men exited the train and were met by couriers. Some of the pilots were lodged in Saint-Brieuc, but some, including Thomas, were sent on via a small local train to Plouha, an even smaller town just up the coast. Thomas found himself with two American pilots in the tiny attic of a farmhouse a mile inland.
Storms pounded Brittany for a week, and Thomas spent many hours sitting silently at the small attic window, which happened to look east to Paris, wondering about Ruby. Was she safe? Did she miss him? Had she meant the things she’d said about the future they’d share after the war? Each day, he made small talk with the other pilots and with their hosts; he was the only one among the refugees who spoke French, so he slipped once again into the role of translator. Each night, he lay awake, staring at the low-beamed ceiling as wind whistled by the house, and thought about Ruby’s field of poppies.
They’d been in the cottage for nearly two weeks when their hostess, a young woman named Marie, climbed into the attic late one afternoon and said in English, “It is time.” She turned to Thomas and, asking him to translate, quickly relayed the plan. They’d wait for full dark, then she’d take the pilots to another safe house. Later in the evening, they would be led down a steep cliff to a cove tucked against the rocks. From there, they’d be picked up by small British boats to take them across the Channel. “Godspeed,” Marie concluded in English, making eye contact with each of the men in turn.
An hour later, she brought them through the darkness across muddy fields and country lanes to a small cottage that overlooked the moonlit water. There were six pilots there already, and the others who had been on the train from Paris arrived shortly thereafter. They were joined by a Russian and two Frenchmen, all of whom were running from the Germans and would make the journey with them. The man who had interrogated Thomas in the bistro in Paris—who had introduced himself as Captain Hamilton—arrived just past ten-thirty to explain the plan. By morning, he said, if all went well, the men would be back home. “I’ll need your IDs and anything personal that could identify you,” he concluded.
Thomas lined up with the others to hand over the last of his effects, and then he waited. When Hamilton was done collecting everything, he went on to explain in a clipped tone exactly what would happen next. There would be six guides to lead the men to the cliff Marie had mentioned, and then they’d have to proceed, one by one, down the hundred-foot drop to the beach while making as little sound as possible.