“Morning Colonel. Will you be away long?” Sapper Mullins peered into the Austin, curiosity and an indelible memory among the young man’s most valuable assets.

“I’m not sure, Sapper.” Gideon glanced down at the metal box in the seat beside him, suspicion making him finger the latch to confirm that it was fastened tightly. “I should be back by supper. I’ll send word if I’m staying overnight. Carry on, Mullins.”

Gideon returned the young man’s eager salute and sped off down the drive, wondering how the devil he would explain to Todd how and where he acquired the device. And possibly from whom, if the worst happened.

He could hear his old school chum now: “You’re mad, Gideon.”

Because this old school chum was Colonel Todd Nichols, the SOE liaison officer at the Royal Naval Air Station at Yeovilton, recipient of an OBE at the ripe old age of thirty-one for his essential contribution to the Royal Signals, brilliant engineer, holder of a dozen top-secret military patents, a man who had never spent a moment in combat, but who’d risen in the ranks because of his legendary intellect.

Remember, I’ve warned you, Gideon.

Josie’s confounding warning circled around inside Gideon’s head like a tune he couldn’t shake. A tune that stopped him at the bottom of the drive, just before entering the lane that would send him toward Yeovilton.

Just in case,” he heard himself say as he unlatched and opened the lid of the box, satisfied to see the shape of the device still wrapped inside the scarf. Just to be sure, he cupped his hand around the object, felt the now-familiar warmth, the sensual roundness that fit his palm as he had imagined Josie’s breast would fit. Perfectly, though this ‘orb’ was firm and unyielding and she would surely be soft and pliable and sweet—

“Oh, bloody hell!” He slammed and latched the lid, shoved the Austin into gear and swung into the lane, then onto Balesborough’s High Street.

He slowed long enough as he passed St. Æthelgar’s church to notice that Arcturus had left another chalked signal mark on the lych gate. Their drop system was working perfectly. But no time to retrieve it now, tonight would be soon and safe enough, after his top-secret errand. By then, he’d know better what he must do about Josie and her suspicious involvement with the device, a fear for her that flipped his stomach and made him question his own loyalty to King and Country.

He bounced along the rugged lanes toward the main roadway, slowing down to pass three horse-drawn wagons and wait for a tractor to sputter across the road into a field. The traffic along the A37 was far more busy as the sky began to lighten, with delivery vans in both directions and military and construction vehicles restricting his progress as he approached the security gate into the air station.

Even with his name noted on the list, one of the guards called ahead to confirm his appointment while the other stared across him to the box on the seat beside him. Had Gideon not been sporting the pips of a Lt. Colonel on his shoulder tabs, the sergeant would undoubtedly have insisted that he open it.

“You’re through then, sir.” The guard cradled the receiver and stepped toward the Austin, handing him a slip of paper with a time, a date and a location. “Colonel Nichols is expecting you. Building C is just beyond—“

“Thank you, gentlemen.” Gideon returned their salutes then drove past a long row of administration bungalows that looked brand new, as did every structure he passed.

A year ago the air station had been a series of badly-drained fields. Now it was a hive of activity. A single working runway, with more under construction, a half-dozen hangars, support buildings, as many civilian workers as uniformed military personnel.

He found Todd waiting for him on the steps of Bungalow C, a round-topped corrugated metal Nissen hut sitting on a wooden platform.

“Welcome, Gideon!” He hurried down the steps and met Gideon as he emerged from the Austin, offered a forearm handshake, then pulled him into a backslapping embrace before setting him at arm’s length. “Been too long!”

“Nearly two years, Todd. That bachelor’s party for Carson at the In and Out Club.” Gideon grinned at the memory. Old friends. Then remembered: two gone now, sacrificed to the war.

“I had a headache for a week.”

“Lots of water under the bridge since then.”

“Is that why you look like hell, old man? Not sleeping? A woman’s to blame, I’ll wager.”

“Not quite. But I’ll let you be the judge after you see what I’ve brought you.” Gideon reached into the car and retrieved the metal box from the passenger seat, relieved and not a little surprised that it was as hefty now, as it had been when he’d set it beside him “.”

“Well, now there’s a mystery! You sounded like a spy on the phone last night. Bring it inside, we’ll take a look.”

Todd hurried up the stairs and Gideon followed too quickly, took a wrong step in the gravel and twisted his knee hard enough to sting his nose. Damn it all! In his rush to leave Nimway Hall he’d forgotten his cane. But he carried on after Todd, more slowly, favoring his leg, limping slightly.

“Bad luck, that leg, Gid,” Todd said as he held the door open. “Still, it’s not the end of the world. You’re a crack engineer, best in my experience. SOE’s got you right where they want you, safely behind enemy lines where you can do the most good.”

Gideon flushed beneath his collar and hid his embarrassment behind a laugh as he entered. “You know me, Todd, I much prefer muddy ditches and bullets flying over my head than being stuck behind a desk, or, God-help me, training old men in the art of trade craft.”

The last of his words stuck suddenly, firmly in his throat. Bunged up by long forgotten knowledge that Colonel Todd Nichols had never been on a battlefield, not out of choice, but because he wasn’t able to hold a gun properly. A childhood accident that had broken his arm and partially paralyzed the thumb and index finger of his right hand. And yet the man out ranked him. Out honored him, ten-fold.

“You’ll be back in the hedgerows dodging bullets and catching Nazi spies with your bare hands in no time, Gid. For now, we’re both rowing the same boat, doing our duty behind the front lines. Come, show me what you’ve got there. I’m all agog!”

Todd led him toward the rear of the large hut, to a windowless room across the back, flicked on the harsh overhead lamps, then rapped on the metal wall with a knuckle. “Welcome to my office and workshop. Hotter than Hades in the summer and I’m thinking I’ll be freezing my balls off come winter. Frankly, not much different from my quarters in the officers’ barracks. Where are you billeted?”

“Posted to Nimway Hall about ten miles north, and quartered there. The estate is vast, the Hall is a bit smaller than High Starrow, but every inch as well-appointed.” Gideon laughed at himself as he set the box on the worktable. “I hate to admit it, but I’ve a suite of my own in the west wing and my headquarters is in the apparently legendary conservatory.”

“Tough quarters. But then we all eat from the same rations, don’t we? Side by side, the high and the low. It’s a funny old war, makes for strange bedfellows.”

“The exact words of my hostess.”

“You’re bedfellows, are you? Good work, old man! She’s a looker then?”

“Not bedfellows.” But more beautiful than Todd could possibly imagine. “Let’s just say that the woman presents a constant challenge. Speaking of beautiful, how is your wife? I haven’t seen Corrine since your wedding.”

“Still in Oxford for the time being.” Todd poured hot water from a kettle into a teapot. “Our wee Clark is two now and we’ve another on the way, none of which kept my brave girl from jumping feet first into the Women’s Volunteer Service the moment the war began. I miss her madly. Would love to have my family living nearby, but there’s nothing more scarce in the English countryside these days than lodging.”

“I can testify to that. But that’s not the reason I’m here.”

“Yes, yes! Your mystery box.” Todd joined him at the table. “Some sort of map case? A stash of cigars, maybe? I do miss our college smokers, Gid. A half-dozen great young minds gathered round the fire of an evening, discussing science, philosophy—”

“—and women, mostly, if I remember right. And there you were, Todd, at the same time, developing your inventor’s skill. I’ve followed your successes with immense pride and admiration. Which is the reason I came to you.”

“With your box.” Todd leaned on his elbows and peered at the utility box as though it were a Christmas pudding. “Don’t keep me waiting! Open it!”

“First, a bit of background. Uhm—” Gideon stared at the box, unable to decide where to begin. “I was posted to Nimway with a staff of four officers and five sappers. My orders are to site and build an OB and then recruit and train the Auxiliary Units who will man them—”

“In case of a German invasion. I’ve done the same with a Base here in Yeovilton.”

“Simple enough work. Proceeding on time. And then–“ no need yet to bring Josie into it “–this device appeared.”

“Appeared from where?”

“I don’t know exactly. It showed up twice, a week ago and then again last night.”

“Showed up? Where was it between times?”

“Good question.”

“You keep using the term ‘it’, Gid. Don’t you know what it is?”

“It’s a power device, I think.”

“What sort of power device?”

“That’s what I hope you can tell me. It’s a light source of some sort, nothing like I’ve ever seen before. Glows the color of the moon, pulses on its own with no sign of an accumulator or power storage. Whatever it is, I believe it has vast military possibilities as a weapon of war.”

“Good God, Gideon!” Todd laughed, then sobered. “You’re serious. How does it work?”

“No idea. But if it’s as powerful as I think it is, I’m certain it was stolen from a secret military research lab. Ours or theirs, I’m not certain which.”

“Damn you say!”

“And if anyone can tell me what it is, where it came from, and how to return it to the right place, it’s you.”

“You’ve caught me, Gid.” Todd moved in beside him. “Let’s see this marvel of modern warfare.”

“Don’t let its outward design throw you. For whatever reason, to disguise its purpose or perhaps to provide insulation, the inventor chose to house the light inside a—” he was going to sound as mad as a March hare “—a solid gold eagle’s talon.”

“He what?” Todd laughed.

“See for yourself.” Gideon carefully lifted the toggle latch, then the lid, and let it fall back against its hinges.

Gone. Bloody hell! Nothing left but the scarf he’d wrapped it in, lying neatly folded at the bottom.

“Is it under this?” Todd lifted the scarf out of the box, leaving them both staring into a completely empty, army-green utility box.

“Hell and damnation.”

Todd cast him a wry smile. “Did you run off and forget to bring your infernal device?”

Remember, I’ve warned you, Gideon.

He’d damn well left Nimway Hall with it. And unless he’d been waylaid by Nazi spies and administered a memory erasing drug, he’d had the box in his sight the entire journey, from his own floor safe into Todd’s office.

You do as you please. And so will the orb.

“Apologies, Todd. Seems I’ve been bamboozled.” Or enchanted. Or gone stark raving round the bend.

“You, Gideon? You were always the sharpest knife in the drawer when it came exposing plots and conspiracies, designing stratagems and infernal devices. No one can get past you.”

No one but Josie Stirling. “Except that I did drive all the way here with an empty box and an implausible story to tell you about an invisible apparatus that I thought might save the world.”

Todd nodded, clapped Gideon on the shoulder. “If you say this thing exists, this power device, then I believe you. And I trust that you’ll track down the culprit and straighten out the matter when you return to your lady at Nimway Hall.”

“She’s not my lady.” Could never be, for more reasons than he dared count.

“So you say, my friend. But I say we ought to head over to the officers’ dining hall and catch up over a plate of eggs and toast. I’ll bring along a pot of brambleberry jam made by the ladies of my Corrine’s WI and we can make short work of it.”

“Why not, Todd? I’m starving.” Chagrined. Staggered. And he damn well wasn’t looking forward to returning to the Hall, to confronting Josie about...about what, exactly? After all, she’d warned him that the device—the orb—would do exactly as it pleased. And it did. What the devil would he say to her? What could he, after accusing her of being a traitor? Good God, what a bloody pile he’d made of it. But at least he’d kept her name out of the matter.

He spent a surprisingly pleasant hour with his old friend, relaxing for the first time in years, laughing over their shared past and care-free college days, old friends, catching up with the present and even imagining what they each might contribute to ending the war sooner rather than later.

“Point of fact, Gideon,” Todd said through the open window of the Austin, “We could use a man with an artful mind and engineering skills like yours here at Yeovilton. You know yourself that there’s more to the SOE than foreign agents and digging holes for the bulldog’s secret army to hide in. Think on it. Seriously.”

Gideon did just that, thought about many things on his way back to Nimway Hall. Dismissed the notion of spending his days in a research lab when he was determined to return to combat as soon as he was able.

Thought about the nature of the peculiar device that had entranced him with its illusions and sent him on a fool’s errand.

But he thought longest and hardest about what he was going to say to Josie. And how to apologize without sounding as though he could ever possibly imagine she was anything but a woman to be admired for her intelligence, her strength of character and her devotion to the same cause that had driven him to be a soldier.

* * *

Josie had watched Gideon speed down the drive in the Austin until it was out of sight, then spent what would have been a thoroughly ordinary day, doing the same work as every other day since the war began.

The only difference was that today she found herself listening for his return, no matter where she was on the estate, or what she was doing. While walking the field furrows with the Land Girls, sitting in on the children’s reading lesson in the schoolhouse, helping Isaac grind a set of disk harrow blades, even while eating lunch in the kitchen with the household staff.

Not that she was keeping track, but by mid-afternoon, Gideon had been gone nearly six hours. He’d only gone to the air station in Yeovilton, barely ten miles distant. What could he have been doing all this time?

He was a proud and accomplished man, quite determined in his love of country to deliver the orb to the ‘proper authorities.’ Hopefully he hadn’t taken a plane to London without first opening the box. How embarrassing he’d be to discover the orb missing, in front of his superiors. At least, she assumed that it hadn’t traveled with him. The annoying thing was probably in the Hall somewhere, waiting to pounce on them the next time they were together in the same room. Which she hoped would be sometime today.

She was just walking back up the escarpment from the cider mill at mid-afternoon when she heard the children calling her name then saw them running toward her from the lake.

“Miss Josie! Look what we found!” Streaming out behind Molly was a large white cloud of fabric and strings. The boys flanked her, their legs wheeling as fast as hers.

“What have you got there?” She knew the answer even as she caught them in her arms before they could plummet down the slope and the billow of silk enfolded them all.

“A parachute!” They all shouted at once from inside their cocoon. Excited little faces and wide smiles, busy, berry-stained hands batting at the silk.

“I see it’s a parachute,” she said from inside the tent that had settled over them. “Where’d you find it?”

“Can we keep it?” Lucas asked, making a hood of the silk.

“Let’s make a fort with it!” Robbie shouted and jumped as he always did when the least bit excited.

“Let’s first find out where it came from,” Josie said, making a grab for the fluid fabric and the strings and plucking it off the children, finally gathering the bundle against her chest and pulling the silk off her own head. Her hair crackled and snapped with static electricity, wrapping her head in a web of curling strands that clung to her face.

“Helloooo, Mr. Colonel, sir!” the children bellowed as they gathered around her.

Oh, damn. Josie swept the hair out of her eyes and found Gideon standing not ten feet away, watching, his eyes bright with humor and some other emotion she couldn’t name.

“Good afternoon, Colonel Fletcher,” she said as she dropped the parachute on the ground in front of her and raked her fingers through her hair, attempting to tame it while the man stood silently watching. “We didn’t hear you come up.”

“Look what we found, Mr. Colonel!” Geordie said, gathering the bundle of silk that was nearly bigger than he and stumbling toward the man.

“A parachute,” Gideon said, a worried frown gathering on his brow as he knelt and caught the boy before he could fall. “Where’d you get this, Geordie?”

The children converged on Gideon with their stories: “Up there! Molly found it! It was caught in a tree!”

Gideon took up a fistful of the silk, looked closely then raised his eyes to Josie, as he asked the girl, “Which tree was that, Molly?”

“Up by the fort!” The girl looked pleased with herself beyond containment.

“Windmill Hill,” Josie said to Gideon, suddenly concerned by his serious study of the lines and the sturdy metal hardware.

“One set of suspension lines ending in a payload ring,” he said. “Rigged for equipment, not personnel. If I’m not mistaken—” he stood, closed the distance to Josie and whispered softly against her ear “—a gift from our foes across the Channel.”

“German?” she whispered back, “What’s a German parachute doing on Nimway property?”

“Indeed.” He turned to the children, standing close enough to Josie for her to feel his heat, to notice the muscle working in his jaw. “Did you find anything else near the ‘chute, Molly?”

“We didn’t look. I pulled it off the tree branch and then the boys took off running down here with it. I followed and then we brought it to Miss Josie.”

“That was probably for the best, Molly,” Gideon said, as he tucked the bundled parachute under the skirt of a sapling yew tree. “Can you lead us back to where you found it?”

“Oh, yes!” The children started running up the escarpment.

“Stay with us, please!” Gideon shouted after them. “We don’t want to get separated.” To Josie he said, “That ‘chute had a payload of some kind.”

“Pre-invasion supplies, do you think? Radios and maps, contact names, pound coins.”

He cast her a look of approval—or suspicion, she couldn’t tell which—as they caught up with the children on the hillside. “A pre-invasion drop. Yes, I do think that, Josie. Hopefully nothing more worrisome than that.”

Dear God. Explosives. Booby traps.

“Then we can’t allow the children to reach the site before we do.” Suddenly terrified, she ran ahead and caught them back as they entered the wood. “Come, children, we’ll pretend we’re scouting for enemy agents. Behind me, please, single-file, like soldiers. That’s it. Quiet now.”

She glanced back at Gideon as he fell into line behind them. He tipped her a smiling salute with a finger to his forehead and her heart swelled like a foolish girl’s at her first dance.

Something was definitely wrong with him. Or right with him. He was so...not angry, when she was certain he would have been raging when he returned. After all, he couldn’t have gotten very far down the road with the orb. Must have been livid to discover it was gone. Just as she had warned.

But why was he so calm, so amicable? So broad shouldered and handsome, so...bloody attractive as he scooped little Geordie off the trail when the boy stumbled, then set him back on his feet with a quiet word that made the boy giggle and catch up with Lucas.

Good thing she knew Balesboro Wood blindfolded or she’d have been stumbling up the trail and running into trees for all the attention she was paying to anything but the man bringing up the rear of their little squad.

“There it is! “ Robbie shouted, would have run ahead, if Josie hadn’t caught him around the waist.

“Wait, Robbie!” Josie stopped the rest of the group as they neared the ruined foundations of the old windmill. “Is this the place, Molly?”

“The parachute was hanging on that tree,” Molly said, pointing to a single birch standing free on the margins of a small clearing. “On a branch I had to break so I could get it down.”

“All right. Everyone stay here with me.” She met Gideon’s gaze and nodded. “Colonel Fletcher is going to go see if he can find anything else.”

The children clung to Josie as they all watched Gideon search the area in such a methodical way that she knew he’d done it many times before. Perhaps he wasn’t just a Royal Engineer. Of course he must have had some training and experience in the Royal Marines.

“All clear,” he said finally, standing over something in the thick understory, just a few yards from the base of the tree. “Come see what I found.”

The children dove into the thicket with him.

“It’s a suitcase, Miss Josie!” Molly said with a squeal, “a metal suitcase!”

Gideon caught Josie’s attention as she ducked through the bank of ferns, nodded at the object. “Just as we assumed,” he said quietly, “a pre-invasion kit. I’ll send a team of sappers to pick it up here and see that it gets to my contacts in London.”

“It feels just like an invasion in itself, Gideon,” she said, tears welling in her eyes as she dropped to her knees and opened the lid to the carefully packed and secured contents. A radio transmitter, a very old Baedeker map of Somerset, English pound coins, a notebook and pencil—everything an invader might need for comfort when he arrived. “Sobering, really. And makes me angry. That our enemy could be so certain of their victory over our fair land that they send their luggage ahead.”

“Can we keep the parachute, Miss Josie?” Lucas asked. “We can play paratroopers and jump out of the trees!”

Gideon laughed. “We’ll find out first if the Army wants it, Lucas–“

”—but there’ll be no jumping out of trees,” Josie said, “ever.”

“However, Miss Josie and I are quite proud of all of you for leading us to this very important piece of equipment.”

“Important, how, sir?” Geordie asked.

“Can you all keep a secret?” he asked. They nodded, whispering already as they surrounded him as though he were Father Christmas. “Good then, listen up and I will muster you into my secret force of loyal cadets.”

“Oh, good,” Geordie said, “I like mustard!”

“Then you will like the duty I am assigning to each of you. Very secret and very important.” He looked quite animated as began to enthrall the children with his plan. Though where he was going with it, she couldn’t imagine. “When you’re in the forest or the fields, or anywhere, you must be on the look out for just the sort of enemy drop that you found here. But next time, and every time afterward, I want you to mark where you found it with a kerchief—you carry kerchiefs, don’t you?”

“We don’t!” Wide-eyed, they all agreed.

“Then I’ll issue each of my loyal cadets an official white kerchief that you’re to carry always. So that when you find another parachute, a suitcase, or anything at all made of metal, anything that doesn’t belong where you found it, you’re not to touch it. You’re to tie a kerchief to the nearest tree, and all come running to find me. Or Miss Josie. Do you understand?”

Josie did. He was warning the children against UXBs. Nimway was on the Luftwaffe’s flight path to Bristol. Their pilots thought nothing of off-loading any bombs they hadn’t dropped during their raids, before returning to their bases in Germany. Most exploded upon impact and the damage was immediate. But the unexploded bombs lay in wait for innocent children playing in the forest.

She joined Gideon. “Children, you must swear a sacred oath to Colonel Fletcher that you will do exactly as he orders, just like good soldiers of the King’s Army. Do you swear?”

“We do!” Their little faces might be smudged from their play, but their raised hands and their eager nods gave her hope that they understood the gravity of Gideon’s warning.

“This is for you, Molly,” Josie said, drawing a clean pink floral kerchief from the pocket of her dungarees and handing it to Molly. “We’ll start with your brilliant discovery today. Molly, will you please tie this to a tree branch and then let’s head down to tea. You all deserve extra jam for your hard work today.”

Molly chose a branch and tied the kerchief to the end, grinning from ear to ear when she turned back to them. “Like that, Miss Josie?”

“Just like that!” Josie said, relieved beyond measure that the children would be safer when they were playing. “I think Colonel Fletcher’s men will have no trouble at all finding the metal kit and bringing it back to their headquarters for examination.”

“Then it’s tea time, sir?” Robbie asked of Gideon, on pins and needles.

“Dismissed!” Gideon said with a sharp salute. “Now, to your tea, troops.”

Off they sped, out of sight among the trees in a moment.

Josie closed her eyes, suddenly weary with old responsibilities and a brand new worry. Nimway Hall had always been a given, then came the war with its demands on the farm. Now the children. Until this moment they were just lodgers — dear and sweet and funny, but somehow outside her worry. Now she wondered how the devil she’d be able to let them run free when danger lurked in the very wood she loved and trusted with her life.

“You surprised me, Josie.”

She laughed and scrubbed her fingers through her hair. “That I carry a kerchief?”

“That you are not only a trained plane spotter and a civil defense warden, but you just now rattled off the contents of a pre-invasion enemy drop.”

“Air Raid Protection printed circulars for every eventuality. All required of me as head of a large estate like Nimway.” Better than elaborating on the true extent of her training—he wouldn’t approve. “And you, sir, did very well with your new recruits. I confess, I’m surprised.” A sudden thought came bursting out of her, “Are you married, Gideon? Do you have children of your own?” A question he’d never really answered.

“Not married—” the faintest dimple appeared at the corner of his mouth when he smiled “—no children. But I’m an uncle, many, many times over. Four nephews and five nieces ranging in age from three months to fifteen years.”

“Good grief!” And how odd to be so relieved that he wasn’t married. He seemed a solitary man to have such a large family waiting for him at home. “So our houseful here isn’t so very unusual for you?”

“Not at all. Nimway Hall and High Starrow are of pair, even in the time of war. You should see the place at Christmas.”

The statement landed hard between them, an invitation that would never be offered, let alone accepted. So Josie walked beside and behind and ahead of him in shared silence as they negotiated a large stand of birch before rejoining the main pathway that dropped down toward the lake.

Where she finally found the courage to ask: “Your visit today to the air station—how did it go?” She felt suddenly, oddly shy, her stomach flipping at the intimacy between them, the secret knowledge they shared.

He took a long, long time to say, “We’ll talk about that later.”

Later? After all his steaming about, raging over the orb. His warning that she was in danger of treason, of stealing military secrets and abetting the enemy. Later! What an enigma Gideon was turning out to be!

“Just now I’d best return to work before my staff thinks I’ve gone on holiday.” He cast her a sideways glance, then gestured for her to take the lead and they continued down the trail toward the Hall.

* * *

‘Later’ turned out to be more days than Josie had imagined. Days filled with chores and responsibilities, nights when Gideon would beg off their meetings that she’d come to adore, then disappear with his staff until long after she had gone to bed.

Three whole days, in fact, without learning what had happened between the colonel and Aunt Freddy’s Orb of True Love.

With the coming of autumn, daylight hours were beginning to diminish, the plowing schedules lengthening into the night. Meals at Nimway came and went in a rush, Jenny decided to have her calf during an air raid, and the children were gleefully anticipating four new evacuees—new friends, they said—making plans to invite them into their company.

Which was the reason that three nights after Gideon had returned from Yeovilton, Josie found herself dashing between the Spitfire Fund Fete committee in the parlor, the Knit for a Knight ladies in the library, and the Christmas Box Committee in the dining room, their donated goods spread out across the table in piles of wool scarves, boxes of sweets, small tins of tea, all to be packed and sent to soldiers posted in far away places.

And no sign of Gideon. The last time she’d seen him was late that afternoon; he and his staff officers were heading down the drive in a canvas-covered military lorry. The third such trip in the past two days. He must have found a site for one of his anti-tank islands.

To top off Josie’s responsibilities for the evening, the Balesborough Home Guard was training in the old threshing barn and she’d promised Mr. Peak she would deliver him a supply of pencils and a leather bound notebook for each member.

She finally excused herself to each committee, explaining that she’d be back in a quarter hour, then set out to the barn with the supplies, lighting her way with the shielded electric torch Gideon had given her.

It’s dangerous out there at night with your candle lantern, Josie, he’d explained in a note she’d discovered yesterday morning in the middle of her desk. The first time she remembered seeing his handwriting, bold, block letters with a precision that surprised her.

The humpbacked roof of the old barn loomed ahead in the utter darkness, its few, high windows painted black for the duration. The only sign of life was the sound of voices from within. One voice in particular reaching out before she opened the door and let herself through the blackout curtain.

“It’s vital to remember, gentlemen—” Gideon was standing in front of a group of men seated on benches at the far end of the barn. He was lit by a single overhead lamp, holding a branch of yew over his face “—that carelessness in the use of camouflage, such as tracks in the earth or even the most subtle movement—” he lowered the branch “—may give away a well concealed position to the enemy. Now, let’s all have a go at not being seen.”

The men broke into spirited chatter and nods of agreement, a few stood. Mr. Peak, the company captain. Isaac, Mr. Broadfoot, the blacksmith, the vicar. Familiar profiles and silhouettes. One profile in particular. Quite familiar, quite famous in his day, for being the toast of London and the sensation of Europe.

“Father! What are you doing here?” In the middle of a Home Guard training session, she was tempted to add.

“Josie, Bear!” He turned his famous grin on her, waved a hand, his cheeks and forehead smudged with finger-streaks of soot and grime, laurel branches sticking every which way from his brown uniform shirt. “Glad you’re here.”

“Can you see me here in my twigs, Miss Josie?” the elderly Mr. Short waggled his arms at her.

“I can, Mr. Short, but not very well.” Every man in the room looked as though they’d just walked off the stage of a pagan play in the role of the Green Man, equally smudged, equally bristling with greenery.

And at the center of the madness was Lt. Colonel Gideon Fletcher, looking quite pleased with himself, doing a wicked bad job of hiding that know-it-all smile of his.

“Welcome to our camouflage training meeting, Miss Stirling,” he said, “I didn’t realize you were coming.”

“Neither did I.”

“You’ll be glad to hear that the Balesborough Parish Home Guard, under the command of Mr. Peak here, are a crack bunch of fighters.”

“I know that, Colonel,” Josie said, trying to keep her outrage tucked under her hat. “May I speak with you? Alone.”

“Of course. Gentlemen, continue your camouflage exercise. I’ll return in a moment and we’ll practice fitting out your puggarees with lichen and moss.” He caught Josie by the elbow and led her back to the door. “Now, Josie, how can I help you?”

She grabbed the knot of his tie and brought him close enough to whisper, “You can tell me why you recruited my father for the Home Guard!”

He wrapped his hand around hers and leaned in even closer. “I asked and he agreed, quite readily, I might add.”

“Of course, Father agreed to this madness! What man wouldn’t love marching around all day with a loaded rifle, playing soldier?”

“Protecting his country, feeling useful. Is that what you think of the Home Guard? That these men are playing at war?”

A swift blow to her argument, her own words stinging like nettles. “My father is a man of arts and refinement—” she caught sight of him tucking another branch under his lapel and groaned in disgust and terror. “He knows nothing at all about guns or warfare.”

Gideon straightened, still holding her hand against his chest. “Are you so sure of that?”

“He’s my father; he wouldn’t know a bullet from a cuff-link. I’ll not have you putting him in harm’s way—”

“Edward Stirling joined the Home Guard, Josie, not the Expeditionary Forces. He wants to serve.”

“Then I’ll appoint him to the Parish Invasion Committee.”

“You’ll appoint me to what, Daughter?” Her father came to stand between her and Gideon, a frown creasing the smear on his brow.

“Father, you can’t honestly mean that you want to serve with the Home Guard. ”

“Why the devil not?”

“Frankly, Father, this is hard for me to say but—you’re too old.”

“Ha! I thank you not very much for that, my dear girl. But what nonsense! Just look around. Half the men in this barn are older than I. And, as I’ve informed the colonel here—” he lifted one of his patented eyebrows toward Gideon “—far, far less experienced at military matters. You’ll have to do better than that if you want to keep me in the upstairs nursery.” He turned on his heel and made a dramatic retreat, returning to his comrades. “Gentlemen, let me demonstrate for you a trick I remember from the Great War.”

“What does he mean by that?” Josie stared after her father, blinked up at Gideon. “What have you been saying to him?”

Again, Gideon smiled away his bloody secrets, his face half in shadow. “Now, Miss Josie, if you’ve nothing more to add to our meeting then I need to get back to—”

The air raid siren in Balesborough began to wail. A shrill, harrowing sound that chilled her to the marrow, even as it set her heart to racing.

“You know what to do, company,” Mr. Peak shouted from their midst, a commander once more, “to your posts.”

“Good work tonight, gentlemen,” Gideon called over the tumult, pulling Josie backward, out the stream of men in camouflage who were spilling into the darkness, to the distant but unmistakable rumble of airplane engines.

She caught her father’s arm before he could follow. “Where are you off to in this? Tell me, so I can worry.”

He cupped her chin in his warm hand, eyes glittering with a passion that she hadn’t seen in years. “To guard the bridge on the Brue, Josie Bear. Let’s catch up at breakfast, shall we?” With a kiss on her cheek, he was gone into the howling night.

“Do you plan to find shelter, Josie, or take your chances inside this medieval tinderbox?”

“It’s Jacobean, and no,” she said, dropping the notebooks and bundle of pencils on the table by the door. “I’m warden for the Hall and at this moment I have three minutes to shepherd nearly fifty people into the air raid shelter before the bombers arrive. You’re welcome to join the party.”

“Wouldn’t miss it for the world.”