The Moonlight Mistress. Victoria Janssen

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СКАЧАТЬ the pretending feels real.” Lucilla grabbed his wrist and turned it to see his wristwatch in the light from the window. Three o’clock. “It will be light soon,” she said. “If there are no trains, I had thought we might find someone with a wagon who would be willing to take us closer to the border. Perhaps one of the men who brought deliveries to the Institute. They will recognize me, and I have some money.”

      “If we can reach my colleague at the Institute, perhaps we can borrow his motorcar,” he said. “That is why I came here in the first place, to see him. Perhaps he will feel obligated.”

      “You sound doubtful.” Lucilla drew up her knees and rested her chin on them.

      Pascal turned to his side, facing her. “I was…dismayed, by Herr Doktor Professor Kauz. We had never met before last week, only corresponded. He requested I come here, insisted he must share a discovery of incalculable importance.”

      “Kauz,” Lucilla said, remembering a paper-skinned old man with wild hair and a cane. “A biologist as well as a chemist, with a grant from the kaiser’s special fund. He was rude to me.” In truth, he’d said a woman who worked alongside men was no better than—she’d had to research the German word he’d used, which turned out to mean whore. From his vicious tone when he’d said it, and his frequent vituperative glances, she hadn’t been surprised by the meaning.

      Pascal hesitated then said in a rush, “I did not like his laboratory. He used animals in ways that were cruel, even for science. He said I was soft, and all Frenchmen doubly so.”

      “You study—”

       “Everything,” he said, with no trace of arrogance that she could detect. “I have a special fondness for maths and engineering, but my work now, it is to find the new things in biology, on behalf of an agency in the government. Since I am paid for that, and I prefer to eat and provide a home for my cats, I cannot practice engineering as I would like. Though I find biology is something like engineering.”

      “The new things?” Lucilla asked, still wrestling with the image of Pascal with pet cats.

      “The things that will be of interest, that will reward further study. I report on these things to a board, and they decide who is to receive funding. I have met many…eccentrics, I suppose you would say, who believe their work is vital. None discomfited me like Herr Kauz.”

      “He’s vicious,” she said without thinking.

      Pascal stared at her for a moment, in silence, then he touched her leg, petting it idly. “Yes,” he said. “That is there, beneath the surface. Perhaps it is not a good idea to ask a favor of a man who is vicious, and who has a dislike of women and Frenchmen. But the others at the Institute do not know me, nor I them. I know where to find Kauz.”

      “We can only try,” Lucilla said. “A motor would be much better than our other choices, and there are not many available in this town. He can only say no.”

      “He could do far worse than that, I am sure,” Pascal said.

      “It might be worth the risk,” she said. “He need not know I am involved.” She paused. “If I am.”

      “You are certainly involved now,” Pascal said, sounding affronted. “I did not intend that we should fuck and part.”

      “I might swoon, that is so romantic,” Lucilla said.

      He glared at her. “I will see Herr Kauz alone. You will wait nearby. If he refuses us, then your plan will be next. Where will we begin?”

      “I’ll speak to Frau Greifen, at the coffeehouse across the road from the Institute. She must know someone who would be willing to help us. I saw enough deliverymen lounging there and smoking, every afternoon. If anyone could tell us how we could obtain a motor, or a wagon, surely they would know.”

      “Good,” Pascal said. “We should sleep now.”

      Lucilla spoke before she could lose her courage. “I don’t think I can.” She cupped his cheek in her hand and brushed his mustache with the edge of her thumb. “Perhaps you would help me.”

      He grinned. “And you, me.” He bore her down into the mattress.

       INTERLUDE

      CRISPIN DAGLISH LOOKED UP FROM THE STACK OF counterpoint exercises he was marking and froze. The new diction and deportment master held out a slip of yellow paper, a telegram. “Sorry, old chap,” he said. “Didn’t mean to read it.”

      Crispin snatched the paper from his hand and scanned it, then blew out his breath. It was not about his missing sister, Lucilla, at all. His hand shaking with relief, he laid down his pen and stood. “I’ve been called up,” he said. “Could you let Miss Tremblay know, so she can take my classes? I’ve got to talk to the headmistress, then I’m to be on a train tomorrow morning.”

      Diction and Deportment was extraordinarily beautiful, and the girls were already swooning over him in battalions, but Crispin had quickly and sadly discerned that he was selfcentered and not very bright. “We’re at war? With whom?”

      “Not yet,” Crispin assured him. “Perhaps you could glance at a newspaper to learn more about what’s happening in Europe. Your girls might have questions. Particularly the German ones.”

       At home, he spun his hat toward his bed, stripped off his suit jacket and tie, and unbuttoned his tweed waistcoat before ascending to the attic. He brought his trunk down and quickly threw together his kit. His uniforms had been laundered recently, and he regularly unpacked his pistol from its box for cleaning and oiling. Quickly, he polished his cap badge, which bore the device of a running wolf. All that was missing was his sister to give him a kiss goodbye.

      He thought he would know if anything had happened to her, but confirmation of her safety would have been nice. Perhaps his company captain, Wilks, could put in a word for him with Whitehall or the German ambassadorial offices. Or he could make the journey himself. He’d met some of the other lieutenants in his battalion before, albeit briefly. He particularly remembered the charismatic redhead Noel Ashby. Also the band’s leader, Lieutenant Meyer, a handsome blueeyed blond whose regimentals were uncommonly finely tailored. He could ask Meyer to go with him to London, he thought, and blushed, then was promptly ashamed of himself for thinking what he’d been thinking while his sister was trapped in Germany.

      He ought to be worrying about Lucilla, and of course he was, every minute, it had only been a silly fleeting thought.

      Regardless, he would at least send a telegram to the British embassy in Berlin. No doubt they’d be inundated with similar pleas. He’d had a tutor at King’s, though, who might be able to help. Still pondering, he assembled a duffel and pronounced himself ready.

      Ready for what, he wasn’t sure.

      Chapter Two

      LUCILLA WOKE WHEN PINK LIGHT BEAMED THROUGH the window. She was pinned beneath Pascal’s arm and one of his legs, her nose shoved into his shoulder. She’d had barely any sleep and had gotten quite a bit of unexpected exercise. Also, she was trapped in a country at war, with no easy way home. She felt better than she had in weeks. There was something to be said for meeting the body’s animal needs, when one wasn’t bound up with romance and love and СКАЧАТЬ