Elizabeth surprised herself by waking, bathing, and making an appearance at the breakfast table. She had to carry on.

The Rogers' maid was back from her day off. The woman brought out a platter still sizzling from the pan, and placed it on the table. Mickie brightened at the sight, having picked at his plate before, and said what to Elizabeth sounded like 'meat,' though she couldn't be sure. Beatrice picked up a sausage and cut it into pieces for him.

No mention was made about the mission with the maid back. John and Beatrice discussed a few household matters while everyone ate. Elizabeth wondered what she would do during the day, every day, as she waited for William and to see her uncle after years of imprisonment.

"Well, cousin dear, are you ready for a drive? The weather should be in our favor today. I can drive you around the island and let you see Shetland since you're here for a visit." John Rogers' voice boomed around the dining room. Elizabeth couldn't help turning quickly to stare at him in perplexity. He raised an eyebrow in return.

"A drive would be lovely," she answered as comprehension dawned.

"Excellent. Meet me in the hall in ten minutes," he said, rising from the table. As she made her way upstairs to wash quickly and pull on a cardigan, Elizabeth realized that she needed a cover story. The Rogers had to explain why a young woman was staying at their house. A friend coming to restricted Shetland wasn't plausible, so she must be related to them somehow.

Elizabeth thought that she had established some footing with Beatrice the day before, but now she felt upended with a silent companion as the car headed north. The fields outside the windows were green, though some were spotted with boulders. Every available space that could be farmed was tilled and appeared prepped for planting. When they passed a small body of water, Colonel Rogers told her the name of the loch; he finally began to talk.

"It was Bea's idea that you're my cousin," he said. "Her family is too close by and well-known that if we produced you and suddenly claimed you as her cousin, folks around here would know. Her family is from Aberdeen; that's almost the next village over," he chuckled. "Mine is from the south of England. I can have all the mysterious cousins I want without raising eyebrows."

"What about William and Eugene?" she asked as they drove. The colonel slowed as he approached a hill. On one side was a graveyard; the grass next to the headstones was brilliant, emerald green. The site was old, but it was a jarring reminder of what William and the mission faced if they failed. Also, her uncle's outcome if sent to Germany.

"Maeve, the maid, is discreet, though we don't share much. But she doesn't know that two men visited the house yesterday. And you have come to us because your husband is missing and you're distraught as you wait for word of his fate. You'll be ecstatic when Major Darcy returns," he explained.

"I've known someone who waited to hear about her husband's fate," she said. "Thankfully, it was a good outcome, and he came home in time for Christmas."

Mostly they drove in silence. There were rolling green hills dotted with houses, farms, and sheep to admire, but the sights weren't unwelcome. Elizabeth didn't get lost in thought. Just when some idea threatened to take hold, the colonel would speak up to share a town's name or point out some feature. Once, as they drove up a slight hill, the clouds parted, and the sun shone directly at them, blinding them, and yet it seemed to her a sign of hope.

The two of them drove for hours, first on straight roads through the middle of the main island, but then turning off and following slow, twisting paths along what she assumed was the coastline.

"Do we have a destination?" she asked finally as Elizabeth sensed that Colonel Rogers wasn't driving without purpose.

"We do. Since you're part of the team, I thought I would show you where the original Shetland operations were based. When we first set up the team, we worried about security and secrecy, so we picked a remote location, though the harbor was excellent. Turned out to be too remote. If we needed repairs, we were out of luck, and the men got lonely," he explained. She appreciated being taken into his confidence, though Elizabeth wasn't sure that she needed a day-long car ride to be shown that he considered her trustworthy.

The location wasn't remarkable; it was a grand house that could accommodate a large team of men near a harbor where boats could shelter. She shivered, thinking about spending days on end there as missions crossed the North Sea to Norway and back. On the return drive, the colonel explained that Scalloway had taken them into its confidence, sheltering their operations from the rest of the island, even from nearby Lerwick. As a bonus, they had a boat repair shop now.

They were silent for most of the return trip, though at one point, Elizabeth asked a question to clarify their fictitious relationship.

"We're related through our mothers," he answered and then lapsed into thought. She supposed he had many issues that weighed on his mind.

The colonel provided no commentary about the landscape as they drove home, and Elizabeth found herself fiddling with the ring on her finger. The flowers alternated rose-daisy-rose-daisy, and she discovered tiny latches that opened panels behind the daisies to reveal writing in French. Her school-girl days of French were long ago, but she could translate the words which read: 'I love you a little, a lot, passionately, and not at all.'

She wondered if William knew about the hidden words but assumed he did. Elizabeth likened the words and the fact that they were behind the daisies and not the roses to the game that all young girls play by picking a daisy to pluck the petals off one-by-one, saying 'he loves me, he loves me not.' She thought again about how much he loved her.

Tea was laid out when they returned; both Colonel Rogers and Elizabeth were hungry as they hadn't stopped for lunch. The family then gathered in front of a fire. Mickie played with toys while John read the paper. Beatrice was a knitter. Elizabeth hadn't thought to bring a book; she hadn't considered that she needed something to distract her or even that she needed an occupation while she would be away.

Bea had a small library; among them, Elizabeth discovered The Body in the Library, the book that Thelma had mentioned. She opened it as a distraction.


The three of them went to church the next day; it was a different experience for her as it was a Church of Scotland service. Then, feeling bold, she asked Beatrice if there was any reason against her walking in the area. The rain that threatened still hadn't appeared and Elizabeth wrapped up properly and set off to walk by the bay. The harbor lay across the voe, and the wind picked up the smell of fish and carried it to her. Fishing boats were done for the night and anchored, waiting to return to sea at nightfall.

She didn't encounter anyone and only saw sheep and birds. Elizabeth wondered how the Shetland Bus was doing and whether they were nearing Norway. They would need the cover of darkness to approach the coast because of German patrols. All indications were that the weather had been favorable, despite horrid conditions for weeks on end through that winter.

She hoped William had found the note she had written and slipped in his pack.

Sometimes, fire scorches the earth, and all seems lost, but it takes intense heat to make certain seeds crack open and bloom. My heart is yours —Elizabeth.

The road from Rose Cottage followed the edge of the voe. The bay narrowed, grew shallow and muddy, and ended at the road that stretched from Lerwick to Scalloway. She turned back and retraced her steps. He has to come back; the mission has to be successful, she thought.

Rain began to fall shortly after she returned, and she curled up in the parlor with her novel. The weather occupied her mind, though the team was more than a hundred and fifty nautical miles away. Her mind ran a gamut of worries, considering bad outcomes merely due to the weather, then she blew out a breath and let them fall away. There was nothing Elizabeth could do, and she returned to her book.


By the next morning, she had finished the novel and was surprised how drawn in she was to the story, characters, and writing. Beatrice had other Agatha Christie novels and she opened The A.B.C Murders. As it rained all day, Elizabeth couldn't get outside for another walk. The new story was complicated and somehow not to her liking; she wasn't sure that she liked the detective, Hercule Poirot.

She and Beatrice talked, and their conversations grew easier though Elizabeth still felt uneasy about staying with them. After dinner, Bea invited her to help bathe Mickie, which wasn't anything similar to how adults bathed but appeared to be play, but with water. She had an idea that her hostess was training her in domestic arts, in a way, especially when she asked if Elizabeth considered whether she would have children soon.

"We're not actually married, you know," she blurted out. Beatrice was kneeling on a towel near the tub in her bathroom while Elizabeth perched on the shut toilet lid. Bea looked up from Mickie to her.

"I know. The war creates situations that would have been unimaginable before. We were told to treat you as a married couple for purposes of the mission. It's been so before." Beatrice paused, and Elizabeth believed she was recalling past scenarios. "But you don't have to pretend to be Mrs. Darcy; I've seen how much in love you are. Time will solve when that ring you wear becomes official."

"Thank you," she said. Mickie splashed and giggled at how high the water flew; Bea turned back to her son, and Lizzy asked. "Do you have any paper I might use to make a boat?" Her hostess told her to use any blank paper in the desk in the adjoining room. Elizabeth found two sheets of typing paper and brought them back. Folding as carefully as she could on her lap, she made a paper boat.

So far, Mickie hadn't been interested in her, though Elizabeth hadn't been overly interested in the boy. Except for her small cousins, she wasn't that taken with small children. But his face lit up at the sight of the crafted paper boat for his bath, and he squealed in delight, throwing a, "tank you," at the end. When the first one got too wet to play with, she made him another. After that, Beatrice insisted the water was too cold, and he was pulled out. Mickie appointed Elizabeth his helper to dress and tuck him in bed.

After she had little arms give her a tight hug, Elizabeth turned off his light and made her way downstairs. Nothing before had burned a desire into her for children despite Jane reiterating multiple times over the years how much she wanted to marry and have babies. But babies weren't little boys who loved boats and smelled clean and were bundles of sweetness and happiness in a crazy world.

"I hear you've seduced my son," said John as Elizabeth sat in a chair by the fire and picked up her book. He sat with papers and a drink.

"My father made paper boats for us one summer when we were at the family estate. I never knew such a trick would come in handy," she answered, then found where she had left off in the book.


A/N: I didn't invent the ring, I found it doing a search for, I think, Victorian rings—maybe it's at the V&A?

But while I kept a massive amount of facts for this project, like the weather for all the months from the war, or details like when the movie Casablanca premiered (January 23, 1943 in the US—then never finagled it into the story), or pages of notes about the German invasion of Greece, I somehow have lost all my notes about the ring. I can tell you all about Jane's ring, still have the picture!

One of those interesting facts was coming across the publication date for The Body in the Library (February 1942). At first I simply noted it and had Thelma mention it eons ago, but then I got to worm it back into the story as Elizabeth reads Agatha Christie novels while she waits for William to return and to hear how the mission has gone.