The Sea Before Us Read online

  “From that . . .” Dorothy’s ankle throbbed anew.

  “I knew what she’d done.” His hands balled up. “I knew where she’d gone, to whom she’d gone, and my solicitor in Edinburgh confirmed it.”

  She hugged Charlie tighter. “But we—we had a funeral.”

  Papa raised hardened eyes. “She is legally dead. In my eyes and the eyes of the crown, Margaret Fairfax no longer exists. I no longer have a wife.”

  “How could you—you let Gil and me think she’d died.” She spat out the word.

  “Wasn’t that better? Gil died believing his mother was a tragic victim of the Blitz. Wasn’t it better when you thought she was dead? Why did you have to find her? Why did you go to Edinburgh?”

  Her mouth tightened at his deception. “I went to save your company.”

  “Pardon?”

  She stretched her chin high. “A few months ago, Mr. Montague contacted me. The company is losing money, and he was concerned because you hadn’t investigated.”

  “Mr. Montague?” Papa rose to his feet, his fists by his sides. “How dare he?”

  “He wanted to save the company, save you, and save his own job, by the way. So we talked to Wyatt, and he—”

  “Wyatt? Wyatt Paxton? Whatever made you involve him in such a thing?”

  “He’s an accountant. We thought he could look at the books with fresh eyes, and he did.”

  Papa’s mouth gaped as if he were trying to swallow too much at once. “How dare he? How dare you? Going behind my back as if I were an invalid, an imbecile. I trusted that man.”

  “He wanted to help.” Her heart wrenched at the thought of the man she loved, the man she could never have. “And he—he did help. He realized something was wrong in the Edinburgh office. That’s where we went this weekend, and we found the embezzler.”

  Papa trudged down the last few stairs and into the drawing room, as bent as the invalid he claimed not to be. He lowered himself into his armchair. “Who is it?”

  Dorothy sat across the room in her chair by the window. Charlie squirmed, and she set him on the floor. “Wyatt found multiple invoices from a company called Forthwright Business Services, all rather vague. Wyatt and I went to the address for Forthwright—it’s that house. Mr. MacLeod’s guesthouse.”

  Papa’s fingers clenched like claws on the armrests, his face like stone, his eyes a stormy sea.

  Dorothy leaned forward on her knees. “Don’t you see, Papa? Something good came out of this ghastly weekend. Now we can stop the theft. Now we can save your company.”

  “No, we can’t.” His words came out in a sharp staccato.

  “Of course, we can. And we will.”

  “He knows I can’t stop him. He knows I won’t.”

  She shook her head slightly, trying to clear her ears and her eyes. “What do you mean? You have to stop him before he destroys your company.”

  His eyes slipped shut. “So that’s why he keeps her. I’d wondered. He has plenty of women, all younger than your mother. My solicitor keeps me informed. Why her?”

  “He—he loves her?”

  Papa snorted. “Hardly. She’s insurance. If I expose him as the embezzler, he’ll expose her. And the scandal . . .”

  Her mind whirled, her mouth dry and empty, her eyes open and hurting.

  Papa’s hands went limp, and he hung his head. “My wife left me—faked her own death to leave me. Isn’t that enough to suffer? If the world knew? I—I couldn’t—it would undo me.”

  “But he’ll get away with it. He’ll keep stealing. Your company—”

  “He’ll destroy it, and I’ll be ruined.”

  “So stop him. Have him arrested.”

  His head swung in refusal. “I can suffer financial ruin better than scandal and humiliation. He knows that, and she does too. It would—it would . . .”

  It would kill him. Dorothy clutched her head. Her mother was a part of this. Wasn’t it bad enough that she’d cheated on her husband and abandoned him? But to slowly, deliberately bleed him to death? What sort of monster was this woman, this mother of hers?

  She gulped back a sob. When the company went bankrupt, Papa would be destitute, dependent on Dorothy’s provision for the rest of his life. Didn’t Mum think about what her actions would do to Dorothy, the child she’d once called her favorite?

  “Mum doesn’t love me either,” she choked out. No one truly loved her but Wyatt. Now he’d seen her mother, seen what Dorothy had come from, what she could become. He’d lose respect for her, and his love would wither away.

  And Lawrence? He’d never love her true self.

  Her head, her stomach—everything spun—and her fingers dug into her skull.

  No one. No one.

  A sob erupted. “My own mother—she doesn’t love me. Art and Gil—they loved me, but they’re gone. And you—you lost the only two children you loved.”

  Papa snapped up his head, his eyes stark and wide.

  Dorothy struggled to her feet. “I know why you don’t love me, why you can’t stand the sight of me. Because I remind you of her. I thought it was pain you felt. Now I know it’s disgust.”

  “Dor—Dor—”

  “Don’t.” She stumbled for her valise, her handbag, her hat. “I—I have a train to catch. I have to report for duty. I have duties. I won’t be back for—for a while.”

  “Dorothy!” His voice climbed and warbled.

  “Good-bye.” She bolted out the door and wiped her eyes so she could see.

  See? See? She saw clearly for the first time since the war began, and she longed to be blind again.

  36

  USS Oglesby, Weymouth Bay, England

  Sunday, May 28, 1944

  By the red light on the bridge of the Oglesby, Wyatt studied Map GSGS 4490, sheet 79, showing the western sector of Omaha Beach around Vierville-sur-Mer in large 1:7920 scale.

  On May 25 while in Belfast, the destroyer crews had been instructed to open Operation Plan No. 2-44 of the Western Naval Task Force, Allied Naval Expeditionary Force—hundreds of pages of orders and tables and maps for Operation Neptune.

  D-day was set for June 5. It had been announced to those who needed to know. Only eight days away.

  As junior officer of the watch for the mid-watch from midnight to 0400, Wyatt had already completed his first inspection topside. Now he had little to do but study.

  The map was a marvel. Blue for water, black for roads and buildings, green for trees and hedgerows, brown for bluffs, and red for military features—minefields, barricades, and obstacles. Gridlines showed the coordinates. Wyatt had marked the map’s transparent overlay with the Oglesby’s assigned and potential targets, but he knew each feature by heart.

  In a long band below the main map and above the legend, a panoramic sketch showed how the landing beaches would look from sea level, noting landmarks and their grid coordinates.

  Wyatt traced his finger along the sketch as if he could feel Dorothy’s fingerprints. Her work had helped make this possible.

  A ring of pain constricted his chest. Only eight days earlier, he’d held her close. The memory of their kiss begged to be savored, begged to be forgotten.

  At first he’d resisted her kiss, thinking of Eaton’s hold on her. Then he’d decided the kiss meant she’d broken that hold—and he’d returned her kiss with abandon.

  His face heated, and he glanced out the porthole to the moonless night sky. He’d been wrong. Dorothy hadn’t given up Eaton. She’d meant to have both men. Why? So she could use Wyatt’s love to make Eaton jealous?

  He rubbed the space between his eyebrows. Of course that wasn’t true. He knew her better than that. But still, he had too much self-respect to be one of many. All or nothing at all.

  If only he hadn’t picked that stupid, insulting bread analogy.

  Not that it mattered anymore. The discovery of her mother had wrecked everything.

  “Tired, Mr. Paxton?”

  He blinked at the executive officer, Lt. Grover E
llis, who had the conn on this watch. “Tired? How could I be tired with the US Navy’s finest coffee by my side?” He hefted up his mug of lukewarm coffee and a grin.

  “Good to hear.” Ellis turned back to the helm. A skeleton crew manned the bridge and the most vital stations while the rest of the crew slept.

  In Weymouth Bay, the eight remaining destroyers of DesRon 18 slept darkened at their moorings. On the cruise back from Belfast, the USS Endicott had been damaged in a collision with a freighter. The Emmons was being sent to replace her for Neptune.

  The bay teemed with over five hundred ships preparing for the invasion. Every major port in southern England contained a similar number of ships.

  The map drew his attention again, one little black square standing out with a tiny green circle nearby and a bold black line in front of it. Dorothy’s house and tree and the seawall she’d climbed when her family was whole.

  In eight days, that house would lie in ruins, the symbol joining the reality.

  The mother gone. The sons dead. The father broken. The daughter . . .

  Wyatt squeezed his eyes shut and prayed hard. Dorothy had been devastated by her mother’s double betrayal. Would the crisis draw her to God—or push her away? Everything in him longed to run to Southwick House, but he respected her too much to defy her wishes and he respected himself too much to continue the pursuit. Besides, since the invasion orders had been opened, all personnel were sealed on their ships. No contact, no phone calls, no telegrams.

  All he could do—the best thing he could do—was pray.

  If only he could have fixed Dorothy’s family, but he’d failed.

  He’d failed to fix his family too. Why hadn’t he mailed the letters to his brothers while he was in Greenock or Belfast? But no, he’d wanted to make the letters perfect. By the time he’d returned to Weymouth, all mail was being held to keep Operation Overlord secret.

  Adler and Clay wouldn’t receive their letters until after D-day. If they survived.

  As usual, Wyatt had failed.

  The radio crackled, and the radioman pressed one hand over his earphones. Then he looked up. “Mr. Ellis, sir. Air raid alert.”

  “Sound general quarters,” Mr. Ellis said.

  The boatswain’s mate of the watch sounded his pipe into the loudspeaker. “All hands, man your battle stations.”

  Wyatt stashed away his map and made a notation in the log—“0103—Air raid alert.”

  A quiet, orderly rush consumed the ship as almost three hundred men dashed to their stations. Captain Adams emerged from his sea cabin behind the pilothouse, tugging on his mackinaw.

  With Wyatt on the bridge, the gunnery officer, Lt. Wayne Holoch, would head up to the gun director. All four 5-inch guns would be manned, as well as the 40-mm and 20-mm antiaircraft guns.

  Wyatt stepped out onto the wing of the bridge and inspected the clear black sky. Temperature in the mid-fifties, gentle breeze from the northeast, and enemy engine sounds overhead.

  He gripped the rails. Searchlights slashed the sky, and flashes lit up the shore as German bombs fell and British antiaircraft batteries responded.

  When were the ships going to shoot back? Wyatt ducked in the pilothouse.

  “All guns manned and ready, Captain,” the talker said.

  “Stand by.” Captain Adams caught Wyatt’s eye. “All ships have been ordered to hold fire.”

  Protests roared inside, but a dreadful understanding took their place. If the ships opened fire, they’d reveal their positions, reveal the enormous invasion fleet sitting helpless at anchor.

  Wyatt gave the captain a stiff nod and headed back outside.

  A flare descended and landed in the water, about a hundred feet ahead, sending out an illuminating glow. “Rats.”

  “Lower the whaleboat,” Captain Adams shouted. “Get a crew out there and sink that flare.”

  “Aye aye, Captain.” Orders flew, and on the main deck men hoisted the whaleboat down to the water.

  A bomb whistled above, and Wyatt clutched the railing. A loud rumble, and a geyser of water shot up a hundred yards off the starboard quarter. The Oglesby rocked and creaked from the impact.

  “Stand by to up anchor,” Adams called.

  Scattered bombs fell in the water in the distance, but no fires or explosions marred the harbor. The bombers hadn’t hit any ships.

  If only Wyatt could say the same about the shore. Multiple fires flickered in yellow and orange. How many innocents would die tonight?

  His jaw clenched at the Ogie’s silent guns, and his fingers stretched out as if he could man the trigger himself.

  If they opened fire, they might down a few planes—but the Germans could sink ships vital to the invasion. And the carefully guarded secret of the invasion and its size could be revealed.

  They had to remain silent, invisible, powerless.

  Everything in him wanted to reach out and protect the people on shore, but for the greater good, he must not do so.

  Grief pooled in his gut, and once again he withdrew his hand.

  37

  Southwick House

  Tuesday, May 30, 1944

  Even with her normal appetite, Dorothy would have found the greasy soup an unappealing lunch. She stirred, taking the occasional spoonful to deflect attention.

  “Dorothy, are you all right?” Gwen asked with a wrinkled brow. “You haven’t been yourself.”

  Muriel leaned forward. “Please tell us what’s happening.”

  In the past week, they’d pried half a dozen times. “As I said, private family matters. And this beastly heat.”

  Gwen sipped her tea. “I’m sorry your father isn’t well.”

  Grief and worry heaved inside. Papa wouldn’t be well at all. Not only was he carrying his usual burden, but now he knew his wife and his former best friend were defrauding his company. Dorothy’s dismay at discovering her mother’s secret would only compound his turmoil.

  Due to the lockdown for D-day, Dorothy hadn’t been able to go home the past weekend. Had Papa eaten even one morsel since she’d left? The poor man.

  Her friends’ scrutiny pressed hard and had to be removed.

  “My father is English. He will prevail.” Dorothy hefted up a smile as false as her confidence in her words.

  Gwen and Muriel smiled and returned to their soup.

  Dorothy changed her stirring from clockwise to counterclockwise. Papa had to be all right. He was all she had, all she would ever have.

  After the company went bankrupt, she’d lose her inheritance and no man of any standing would have her. When the WRNS was disbanded or gutted after the war, she’d have to find employment. But what kind of work? Although she’d studied art, she was no artist, and her wartime skills had no peacetime purpose.

  Dorothy forced down soup to avoid the crime of wasting food, and then headed back to the office with her friends.

  At the top of the stairs, she almost bumped into Lawrence going the other direction.

  “Good day, Second Officer Fairfax.”

  “Good day, sir.” Somehow her voice behaved.

  With a crisp nod, he trotted downstairs.

  Thank goodness he’d been away from headquarters lately. Despite his assertion that he’d come to London solely for their date, he’d also had meetings and had only returned to Southwick this past weekend.

  Muriel grabbed Dorothy’s arm and tugged her close by the wall. “What is happening?”

  “Did you have an argument?” Gwen whispered.

  Dorothy freed her elbow. “Must you know every private detail of my life?”

  Her friends edged back, eyes wide.

  A sigh washed out. After all, she’d inundated Gwen and Muriel with private details for years. “I apologize. With D-day coming, I don’t wish to talk about such trivial matters.”

  Her friends nodded and stepped into the office.

  Dorothy followed. Her problems with Lawrence were indeed trivial. Oddly, she hadn’t missed him. They didn’t have
a true friendship, and his kisses, while tantalizing, were showy and detached. Mere crumbs to keep her at his feet.

  The thought wrenched her heart.

  Wyatt’s kiss was the opposite—rough, unstudied, genuine, his heart and soul poured out for her alone. The whole loaf or nothing at all.

  His absence gnawed more than her half-empty stomach. She loved him so much.

  But she loved him too much to allow him to be ruined.

  She could still see him in the taxi in Edinburgh, pulling his hand away as she’d asked. He hadn’t spoken again until his brief good-bye.

  He must have seen the truth. Why would he want a melodramatic woman curled up in a sniveling, unseemly ball? Why would he want the daughter of a scheming, thieving adulteress? Mum chased after excitement, after a rogue, and so did Dorothy. Wyatt must have put the puzzle pieces together. In time, he’d be grateful he’d escaped.

  Leading Wren Stella Dodds handed her a report, and Dorothy signed where indicated.

  “Watch out,” Muriel hissed. “Here comes the battleship.”

  Dorothy sucked in a breath. Ever since the Wrens had learned the Americans used the designation “BB” for their battleships, Bliss-Baldwin had earned a new nickname.

  Sure enough, the blonde came steaming full speed, guns blazing at Dorothy. “Second Officer Fairfax, I need a word.”

  “Yes, ma’am.” She hurried to match her commanding officer’s pace. Oh dear. Had she made a mistake due to her despondency? In the private office, Dorothy shut the door.

  The first officer stood behind her desk, glaring as if Dorothy were a lowly scullery maid caught stealing her mistress’s jewels. “How dare you?”

  Dorothy’s mouth drifted open, bereft of words.

  Bliss-Baldwin slapped her desk. “How dare you complain about me to Commander Pringle?”

  She searched the woman’s face. “I—ma’am, I never—I haven’t talked to him in weeks.”

  Her tiny jaw jutted forward. “Commander Pringle reprimanded me. He received a complaint that I was flirting on duty with an officer, that I’d forced the transfer of a girl under my command out of jealousy over that officer, and that I’d forbidden another Wren to see that same officer. We both know who that Wren is.”