Laine Harkness.” Though he spoke in a quiet undertone, she didn’t care for his unnerving emphasis on her rank. “Did you know that the head woman at a nearby temple recognized one of two female kidnappers today as a member of the Queen Alexandra Nursing Corp? The other woman, smaller in stature and clearly Indian, did not wear a kumkum dot on her forehead, and is not a Hindu. The police suspect she may be a Christian.”
He arched a brow. “Don’t give me that wide-eyed look of innocence. I know you too well. Guilt is written all over you. Really, Laine, instead of assisting Eshana in this hare-brained scheme you should have been talking her out of it. You’re older than her and should know better.”
“I hate to break this to you, Geoff, but Eshana is not a child. Though she’s an angel of mercy, she’s got more backbone in her than anyone I know. Besides, angels of mercy need to be tough as nails.”
Geoff’s brows arched higher. “So you admit it. Up to this moment I’d hoped and prayed my suspicions were wrong.”
“I’m admitting nothing.”
At that his brows creased together.
Abby placed a hand on Geoff’s. “Darling, do stop brow-beating her. I’m certain this will all blow over. Go to the mission now. Give Eshana a good talking to. And give her another hug from me. Right now I want to spend some time alone with Laine.”
At Abby’s words Geoff’s frown melted. “You’re right, of course, as usual.” A softness infused his eyes as he leaned down to grasp the arms of Abby’s chair, to rest his lips against hers for a moment.
Only a moment, yet Laine choked on her breath at the love that flowed between them. She couldn’t be happier for these two friends, but emptiness yawed inside her, and she reached for a thought. Any thought to fill her mind. The garden, the club...the mission today. Perhaps Geoff was right. She might have to scale down on these escapades with Eshana.
Geoff straightened and gave a weak smile to Abby and then to Laine. He gently squeezed Laine’s shoulder as he left them. “Do be careful, old friend. You are as dear to us as Eshana and the rest of the inhabitants of Miriam’s mission. Remember that.”
Abby leaned back in her chair as Geoff made his way through the party inside. She swept Laine with a speculative gaze. “It’s been said today’s perpetrators used live snakes to create confusion. How on earth would two women have the pluck to do that, I wonder?”
Laine pulled a strand of hair toward her chin. “It’s truly amazing what one can purchase in an Indian bazaar. It was a trick I learned from a boy I grew up with. If we wanted to sneak out of choir practice, Adam said there was nothing to empty a place quicker than a rat snake. It looks like a cobra. Did the trick all right. One sighting of the snake, the vicar cancelled choir practice, and Adam and I scampered off down to the marina in Madras to buy sweets and walk along the beach.”
“Mmm, so that’s how it was done. What are Eshana’s plans for this girl you kidnapped?”
“Depends on the girl’s recovery. We had to take the baby by surgery.... Dr. Kaur was brilliant. And, Abby, I’m sure our darling Eshana is smitten with him, and he with her.”
“No!” Abby leaned forward. “Not Eshana. Well, I wonder.” She tilted her head and studied Laine. “You got here late. I’d lined up a rather attractive man for you. Apparently he lives to dance. Still over there by the gramophone, putting on disk after disk of that Dixieland jazz you like.”
Laine bit into a curry puff and licked a glob of cream from the corner of her mouth. “Good gracious, save me from well-meaning match-makers.”
“Nonsense. You’ve told me for years you want a man.”
“Abby, an intelligent lady like you...you shouldn’t believe everything you hear.”
“Oh, Laine, do stop bantering. It was Reese dying like that, wasn’t it?” Abby lost her jovial tone. “Poor Reese, he’d made it through the war, and then to die in that stupid struggle with Afghanistan afterward. You and he really hit it off, didn’t you?”
Laine gave the only response she could, a slight shrug. Something had started to bud between her and Reese. Love? Perhaps for him. Given time they probably would have made it to the altar. Dear, riotous, red-haired Reese. He’d made her laugh. Almost made her forget her first love. Then dash it all, Reese’s plane had crashed in some desert in Waziristan. It had hurt dreadfully.
Abby’s teasing voice tugged her back. “Is that your goal in life, like Eshana, to be a single woman nursing the sick? Somehow I never saw this missionary spirit in you.”
“Missionary spirit, my eye.” A rare sigh escaped her. “Abby, I’m going to miss you. A whole year of you and Geoff and the children off in Singapore. Why does Geoff have to be so indispensible to the powers-that-be that they have to send him to another political hot spot? As if India isn’t hot enough already.”
“Will you write me, Laine?” An unfamiliar fearful tone entered Abby’s voice. “I’ll need to hear from you.”
“Of course, darling. You can’t possibly think old Laine will abandon you. But lead on. Take me to that damp-bottomed little princess of yours.”
She followed Abby into the club and down to the library where a pram took up a darkened corner. The pram jiggled, setting the toys and trinkets attached to the hood to jingle and clatter. In response, a soft coo issued from within, along with two woolen, booty-covered feet kicking and setting the toys to tinkle again. The little rascal was awake.
Abby leaned in and picked up Cam’s nine-month-old sister, Miriam. After kissing the corn-silk hair, she passed the baby to Laine.
Squeezing the chubby arms and legs, Laine breathed in the talcum-powder scent and sweetness of baby skin. “Miri, why are you going so far away?” She sent an accusing glance at the child’s mother.
Abby put up her hands. “Don’t blame me. It’s neither my desire nor Geoff’s to go to China.” She straightened Miri’s nightgown down over her nappy. “It’s only a year, and then we’ll be home.”
The baby snuggled closer, and a tight pain constricted Laine’s chest. Abby and Geoff’s offspring were the closest to a family of her own as she would ever get. But it was time to end this before she did something foolish and broke down in tears. At thirty, and the rate she was going, she was rapidly reaching the point of being too old to have the joys of children. Besides, who was there to marry? Thanks to the war to end all wars, there was an atrocious shortage of men.
Not that it mattered to a woman like her, who might find herself in jail come sun up.
FOUR
There were exactly twenty-three paces from the office to the window at the end of the hallway, and back again to the office of the Principal Matron, Ada McFarlane, of the Queen Alexandra’s Imperial Military Nursing Corp.
Matron couldn’t possibly have found out about yesterday’s abduction. It must be Geoff’s over-protective lecture that made Laine see tigers in the closet. Still, something was up, otherwise she wouldn’t feel as though a tribe of monkeys were using her stomach as a trampoline.
Laine rapped on the glass panel of Matron’s door and received the command to enter. With a quick straightening of her gray-sleeved
