London house, p.1
London House, page 1
Dedication
MBR and MMR—
Thank you for the most extraordinary research trip.
Epigraph
We can only see a short distance ahead, but we can see plenty there that needs to be done.
—Alan Turing, from “Computing Machinery and Intelligence”
Contents
Cover
Title Page
Dedication
Epigraph
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Epilogue
Author Note
Discussion Questions
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Praise for Katherine Reay
Also by Katherine Reay
Copyright
Prologue
17 October 1941
Caro hugged Martine, whispering close to her ear. “I won’t be back. It’s too dangerous. Christophe is a threat to you now. You must see that. He’ll take his chance when he needs the money or the protection. He will turn you in.”
“Schiap keeps me safe.”
Martine had grown thin in the months since Caro left France. Her light auburn hair, usually pulled back into a neat chignon, hung loose. Her eyes, usually assessing and sharp, looked worn and narrowed with suspicion and fear.
Caro sensed Martine didn’t believe the lie she offered. She also knew how hard it was to lay down those lies. She had once believed them as well—that because Elsa Schiaparelli controlled every design, button, stitch, and memo; dotted every i within her domain; and directed her growing empire with swift efficiency, she wielded the same control outside it—and that her power was good, fair, and honest.
“Schiap’s gone. Anything she offered you is gone. This place?” Caro gestured to the four walls of the small workroom and beyond them to encompass every inch of the ninety-eight-room mansion that held the House of Schiaparelli. “It’s open because the Germans allow it to be so. They are the ones offering protection because their wives shop here. And it won’t last. Don’t be naive.”
She shoved the pouch, a thick canvas sack filled with seventy-five thousand francs, into Martine’s shaking hands. “Take this money, pay your contacts, then use the rest to get out. I’ve given you names and now you have money. Hurry and get it done.”
Tears filled Martine’s gray eyes. She pushed out a whisper. “This is my home.”
Caro gripped her shoulders hard. She could feel every bone. They’d grown more pronounced and Martine’s thick wool dress no longer hid their sharp angles. “Not now. Maybe someday again, but you have to live to see it.”
Martine cringed and tried to pull away.
Caro tightened her hold on her friend’s fragile frame. “Get to Spain. Use my name as your sponsor for the British. Promise me?”
A light shifted outside Martine’s workroom window. She clutched at Caro’s arm. “You need to go. Christophe is on security tonight. He’ll be back soon. That cut?” She looked to Caro’s covered forearm. “He’ll do worse now. Without thought.”
Martine dropped her voice and moved closer to Caro as if needing to whisper, despite their being the only two in the small room. “He’s open now. He flaunts their gifts, his new power. He—” Martine pressed her lips together, unable to finish her sentence.
“Collaborates.” Caro supplied the final word.
“It’s a dirty word, a dirty thing.”
“You’ve made my point.” Caro stepped even closer. “You’re running out of time. He will turn you in to the Germans. The stories of what they are doing to Jew—”
“Arrêtez.” Martine stiffened and wrapped her arms around herself. Her dress looked to swallow her small frame. “Do you think I do not know?”
“I’ve stayed overlong.” Caro studied her watch. “I’ve got to leave. I have somewhere I—” She stopped. “Use the money for your contacts, but save enough for you. Do you understand?”
“This is my home,” Martine repeated, shaking her head as if willing the changes in Paris and in life to disappear. Tears spilled down her cheeks. “I will try. I will—”
Caro hugged her friend tight. “Promise me, because I can’t come back. I need you to promise me.”
Martine nodded into her shoulder.
It was enough. It had to be.
Caro stepped out of Martine’s sewing room and into the salon’s back hall. The walls were covered with years of first draft sketches and photographs of gowns, workers, and opening shows. It was her favorite spot in the entire mansion.
For all the glitz and glamour encased within the House of Schiaparelli, this narrow hall, with original drawings pinned into the plaster and photographs of the seamstresses, designers, and mannequins who worked there, told the true story. It embodied the life of the House—Schiaparelli’s brilliance as well as the dedication and dogged determination of the team that supported her.
Caro stopped at her favorite drawing. Not the infamous Lobster Dress nor the design of Schiap’s famous perfume bottle. The Butterfly Dress. A soft, delicate creation from 1937 that embodied hope, life, and love in a whisper of pale-pink silk.
She slid the sketch from its pin. She had purchased one for Margo from the first batch stitched. Perhaps, she thought, Margo would like the drawing as well. Perhaps she’d wear the dress. Perhaps she’d believe in herself again and let in hope, life, and love once more. Perhaps . . .
Missing her twin . . . remembering . . . distractions dulled one’s senses. Caro blinked to focus her mind and bring herself back to the present.
A second late.
An unseen force hauled her to the ground.
Splayed on the cobblestones, palms cut by gravel, she looked up to Christophe’s cold, chiseled face. His eyes glinted like ice in the watery lamplight.
“I thought I got rid of you last time,” he growled.
“You’re rid of me now. I came to say goodbye to Martine. We were friends. Only friends.” In her fear, Caro realized she was offering unnecessary information. She silently chastised herself as she scrabbled backward, out from beneath him. “You’ll never see me again.” She rose and stepped back.
He lunged for her. His hand completely encircled her bicep and sent tingles down the length of her arm, numbing her fingers.
“Non.” He pushed her toward the courtyard’s entrance. “The Carlingue will get you this time. There’s good money in traitors.”
Caro pulled back. Her leather soles slipped on the cobblestones and she lost her footing. Christophe counterbalanced her move, hauling her upright and forward.
The French Gestapo, the Carlingue, was as brutish as the German iteration—perhaps more so in an effort to impress their occupiers. But what was worse, they would know her. Christophe would tell them exactly who she was and what she was. A prize.
This was why Dr. Hugh Dalton had not wanted her involved. This was why Sir Frank Nelson asked her to stop.
If she hurt the war effort . . . if her loss or death was used to promote anti-British propaganda . . . or worse, if she was tortured and the Germans publicized it for ransom, power, position, or trade concessions . . . To hurt the British effort and morale was more than she could bear.
Caro twisted in Christophe’s grip again. He squeezed tighter, to the point she thought her arm might break.
What had she done?
One
“A call came in. May I forward it to you?”
“Of course.” I’d quit asking the receptionist who was calling months ago. Mednex had a main line, but as we each had company cell phones, the CEO hadn’t put landline phones on our desks. She simply forwarded calls.
“Caroline Payne,” I announced at the click.
“Caroline? It’s Mat Hammond. I don’t know if you remember me from college, but—”
“Mat? Of course.” I felt myself straighten. “I remember you.”
Three simple words accompanied a complex picture. Mat Hammond. The Greek boy with the electric smile and the soft, dark eyes. Funny. Determined. Brilliant. Challenging . . . A close friend. Somehow I’d forgotten that last part, and it struck me with an odd note of longing.
“I wondered . . . I mean, I thought you might not.” He paused.
I waited, unsure how to step into the silence that followed his comment.
When it tipped toward uncomfortable, he rushed to fill it. “I’m working on a project for the Atlantic, and I need to ask you a few questions.”
“Oh. I’m sorry.” Oddly disappointed, I reached for a p
“It’s not about your company; it’s about you. Well, about Caroline Waite.”
“Who?” Surprise arced my voice. I recognized the name, but it could have no meaning to Mat or anyone outside my family.
“Your great-aunt? Twin sister to your grandmother, Margaret Waite Payne?”
“I know who my grandmother was, but why are you calling about her sister?”
“It might be easier if we met in person . . . I’m in the lobby.”
“What?” I stood and looked over the cubical partitions as if, eight floors up, I’d somehow see Mat’s lanky frame leaning against a doorjamb.
“I didn’t even know we were both in Boston until earlier this week,” he continued. “Please . . . this is no good over the phone and email is no better. It won’t take long.”
I dropped to my seat. “I’ll be down in a minute.”
Caroline Waite. That was a name I hadn’t heard in years—twenty years, to be exact. I’d been named after my great-aunt. But once I’d learned that she died in childhood from polio, I’d lost interest in her. Even at a young age, I thought it felt wrong to be named after someone best known for dying young.
Mat Hammond was another name I hadn’t heard in years—six, to be exact. He was the first boy I met on campus my freshman year. We bumped into each other entering the dorm. He, buried beneath a box of books. Me, swamped by a down comforter. We became friends, good friends—at least from his perspective. I’d always hoped . . .
I stepped off the elevator and scanned the lobby. Mat was momentarily forgotten as my chest filled with the same expansive feeling I got every time I stepped within it. I loved our building’s lobby. My father always said it didn’t matter where you lived or in what type of building you worked, but I disagreed. Buildings bore personalities. They held our secrets and carried the weight of our lives, our families, our work, and our dreams. The grandeur and significance of Mednex’s lobby had become symbolic of how I viewed Mednex’s work and my place within it—something small participating in something grand.
Ours was the newest company fighting one of humanity’s worst foes—cancer—with a groundbreaking protocol that supercharged the body’s cells as our latest weapon. There was something so fundamental and old school, yet cutting edge, about the idea that we could equip our bodies to withstand and conquer this most invasive assault.
Our building’s lobby embodied that synergy. Its 1920s art deco designs and lines, the pink marble-patterned floor and the dark wood and gold filigreed interior storefronts of the shops circling it gave it a dignity and gravitas missing from steel, glass, and concrete. It exuded history, stability, and solidity, while offering the latest amenities, including a security system that worked on a biometric scan . . . and the best coffee shop around.
It was next to this door I found Mat. He studied me rather than greeted me. I had anticipated a warm smile but banished the thought before my face reflected it. This was business. Friendship, it seemed, had died long ago.
Physically he looked the same, other than the slight curl to his hair around his ears. He certainly still had the same straight nose and jawline most women would die for—or pay thousands to obtain—and I knew full well his scruffy three-day shadow hid an equally chiseled chin.
That was one thing I hadn’t inherited from my grandmother—twin sister to the Caroline in question—her square jaw. With her dark hair, bright blue eyes, and that gorgeous Grace Kelly jaw, I saw her as the most beautiful woman in the world.
The saddest too.
As I crossed the lobby, Mat—looking every bit the academic I always suspected he’d be—pushed off the wall and met me midway. We stalled, side-shifted, then awkwardly stepped into a semi-hug and back-pat while our hands got stuck between us mid-handshake.
“You haven’t—”
“Wow. It’s been a lo—”
We stopped and started and sputtered to another stop. I opened my mouth to try again, but he stepped back and gestured first to my hand then to the coffee shop. “Your hand is freezing . . . Can I buy you a coffee?”
I nodded and rubbed my hands together, feeling both embarrassed and exposed. Within a few steps and no words, we stood in line. Two black drips later, we sat across from each other tucked next to a window.
“Okay . . . Where to begin.” He circled his cup with both hands.
It wasn’t a question, so I didn’t try to answer. It wasn’t congenial, so I didn’t start a round of “What have you been up to lately?” I simply sat and waited.
“I’m an adjunct instructor at BC, but I have a side job that, in the craziest of small world ways, leads me to you.”
He scrunched his nose. “That didn’t help . . . The humanities don’t pay much without tenure, so on the side I do research for families. I trace lineage, make albums, digital programs, anything they want to give Grandma for Christmas. It usually starts with 23andMe or something, and the wife discovers she’s German or English, and wouldn’t royalty be fun? Then a friend tells them about me because all these people seem to know each other, and I’ve been doing this for years. So I get hired to do a deep dive on the family and present their history with a big bright bow.”
Mat sucked in a gulp of air, as he hadn’t drawn a breath since “I’m an adjunct . . . ,” and I choked on my coffee. “Someone in my family hired you? How? Who?”
There was no way that could be true.
“No.” Mat watched as I swiped at the table between us with my napkin. “Your family name came up in my current project and . . . it’s an interesting story that, if I do it right, the Atlantic wants for a feature article. Not one about the Arnim family, who hired me, but about yours.”
His smile flattened into a vulnerable sheepish thing that made me wary.
“You’ve lost me. Can we start over?”
Mat took a sip of coffee. “A couple years ago, the Atlantic picked up some pieces I wrote on history and how we remember it. World War Two stories about all the monuments under construction at the time, both in England and here. My guess is that the look back was as commemorative as it was therapeutic . . . When people feel anxious about the future, and globally we’ve been through the wringer, they look to the past and tangible reminders that things ended well before and, therefore, can again. I—”
He pressed his lips shut as if realizing he’d gone off topic. “My current idea isn’t about the stories we want to remember. It’s a counterpoint perspective, featuring a story most—your family specifically—would rather forget. My belief is that those stories, your story, also provide a sense of hope. They assure us that when bad things happen, life continues, and that we humans are resilient and endure. Hope emerges from tragedy.”
He stalled and stared at me. Barely understanding, I stared back.
“In World War Two, no one can deny there was a real mix and mess of loyalties. It must have felt like the world was ending and life would never be the same. What’s more, the enemy was sometimes within your own home.” He dipped his hand toward me as if I could relate to that point. “In France, you’ve got Free France, Occupied France, brothers and sisters turning on each other. In England, you’ve got the Mitford sisters fawning over Hitler, Edward and Wallis Simpson, and even Edward’s agreement to the whole German plan to get him back on the throne before he got shipped off to the Bahamas . . . There are lots of stories that show family life was real and messy and carried consequences.”
“Okay?” I drew the question long.
“Your great-aunt is one of those stories. A woman, daughter of an earl, no less, who worked as a secretary for the Special Operations Executive, then crossed the great divide and ran away with her Nazi lover? You have to admit, it’s compelling.”
He took another sip, assessing me over the rim of his cup. When I said nothing, he set it down. “I didn’t do that well . . . I practiced how to reach out to you a million times this past week because, while I could hand it in as is, I know you. I didn’t want this to surprise you or hurt you if you read my name on it. I also hoped you might comment.”
“Comment how?” I sat back. “You’ve found the wrong Caroline Waite, Mat. My aunt died from polio in childhood. I’m named after her. I should know.”
