By Tuesday morning, Elizabeth assumed that if the team had been successful on their mission, they should have the prisoners and be headed back for Shetland. It would be too late to attempt anything during the day, and the boat for Germany was to leave from Bergen, Norway, that evening.

During the night, she heard sounds from the radio wafting across the upstairs hall. Her sleep had been fitful, and the squawks and murmuring of John Rogers' voice indicated that he had received or sent transmissions.

She eagerly looked at her host when she walked into the dining room, but he was reading the newspaper. Maeve came in with a rack of toast. Elizabeth waited until the maid left, hoping he would share any news, but he was focused on his paper.

When she looked at Beatrice, her hostess only shook her head. Elizabeth didn't know what that meant: no news or don't ask? She had difficulty getting a piece of toast down, but her heart sank when the colonel left abruptly. Rain still pelted down outside; her only recourse was to sit by the fire with a new novel perched on her lap to distract herself.

Beatrice brought Mickie in to play, and he pestered her to make him a new paper boat. Once she handed it over, he happily played with his wooden and paper boats, unmindful of their different sizes or materials. The scene heartened Elizabeth.

"You must be pleased to be deployed with your husband and allowed to have your son along," she said, glancing at Beatrice. Something cracked on the woman's face, a pained expression thinned her lips, and her eyes narrowed as if in grief. "What is it?" Elizabeth asked softly.

"I live in fear every day," Beatrice whispered; Lizzy got the sense she wouldn't normally have spoken with the maid still clearing the dining room just next door, but something inside had to be shared. "We fear that the Germans might invade at any time, or overrun this town. John has a cyanide pill in his signet ring. But I was given a pistol with two bullets." She looked at Michael, who had stacked the paper boat on top of the wooden one and was pushing it on the carpet. "I've been instructed to shoot my son first before shooting myself if they come, to prevent them torturing me for information. Or using him…"

Elizabeth went cold inside despite the fire next to her. Beatrice Rogers didn't need to finish her sentence. She didn't break down any further or show tears. She felt alternately sick and numb at the same time. Despite having worked in Special Operations for years, Elizabeth wasn't confident that she could continue. Being in a field situation had opened her eyes to the genuine hardship that the men and women who chose the branch faced. Not that the regular armed forces were easier, but they were less convoluted, less covert, less horrific.

"I'm sorry. I hadn't realized…" she broke off from offering any platitudes. "William mentioned staying on with Special Operations, and I've considered whether we might be deployed in a similar fashion. I'm not sure I could do it. He's also thinking of transferring to the army," she said.

"Nothing these days is easy; currently, the country is only achieving small victories. The big push has yet to occur, but we must fight," said Beatrice. Elizabeth nodded, and they changed the subject.

Colonel Rogers didn't return until teatime. Elizabeth had to wait until after the meal when they settled in the parlor to discover that the midnight chatter on the radio hadn't been about their mission.

"The big Norwegian mission we've been working on for months has begun. RAF-towed gliders carrying men and equipment were successfully deployed," he explained.

"Was there any chatter from the Germans?" she asked. "Did they notice?"

"We wouldn't expect any. That mission isn't expected to be completed for a week or more." John Rogers wouldn't say anything else but indicated that if their mission were successful, he would hear that the prison transport had failed to deliver their prisoners to Bergen. "So we'll know the Germans were interrupted, though still not if our men were successful."

Elizabeth could only nod in understanding. She finished her Hercule Poirot novel, and decided that while she liked the story, she wasn't an admirer of the detective, she would pick out another story without him in it.


Another night of indifferent sleep was interrupted by the sounds of the radio. Hope propelled her from bed—an overly large one when it was simply her—to appear at the breakfast table. She could hear the maid in the kitchen as she sat down and looked at her hosts.

John looked up from his paper and said, "Baker Street reports no chatter of interest." His tone was kind. Elizabeth wondered if information about the larger mission had been passed on in that late-night radio transmission. She glanced toward the kitchen and then back.

"Have they, perhaps, not had a chance to decipher?" she asked.

"It's possible," he answered. "We're all anxious and want to know." As much as her new book was a distraction, Elizabeth didn't believe that she could remain inside. As the rain had stopped, after breakfast, she asked Beatrice whether it was permissible to walk around the bay to the harbor and if the locals would think it odd of her to go.

"There's the castle ruins to look at. I'm sure they wouldn't think it unusual for you to examine them, but there isn't much else. Perhaps you can stop at the Kiers and post this letter for me?"

That was sufficient inducement to get outside even if the lane was muddy, and her shoes would need to be cleaned when she returned. The fresh air improved her mood and outlook as she breathed in heavy lungfuls of it and pushed away all her worries as she kept a good pace, warmed her muscles, and loosened her joints. The team might return tomorrow or take days yet, but she wouldn't fret. Elizabeth had new friends and could only live in the moment.

But she thought back to those previous dark days of living in the moment. Those were days when she couldn't think that there would be a tomorrow before she believed in a future. Elizabeth knew she had things to look forward to; there was a future because William was part of it. No longer could she think that she could live as if there was no tomorrow.

Once turning onto the road towards Scalloway, she passed several cottages before coming to a concentration of attached houses and reaching the harbor. This was a different wharf than the one the Shetland Bus moored at; it was larger, and the Scalloway fishing fleet docked around it. The smell of fish was overwhelming, and rather than turning away, Elizabeth walked toward the scent where intense activity took place. Women worked to gut, salt, and pack fish in an open area just past the wharf. She couldn't make sense of their rapid activity but watched and listened from a distance as they spoke rapidly in thick accents as they processed the previous night's catch.

Beatrice's letter was posted at Kier's Grocers. An older woman took the note, looked at the return address, and said in the local accent, "you must be Mr. Rogers' cousin, come to visit?" Elizabeth nodded. "Having a good visit, dear?"

"Yes. It's been pleasant to catch up." She paused, "and to see how much Michael has grown."

"Such a sweet, quiet boy. Anything else?" Mrs. Kier prompted. A woman stepped into the shop, so Elizabeth was able to exit gracefully and not be grilled. She strolled past homes and shops towards the castle, which stood tall and thin at the bay's headland. It was small (more of a keep than a sprawling castle) and in ruins with high walls and nothing else to hold her interest. Crossing the wet and potentially boggy grass to step inside wasn't worth the trouble, and she headed home.

Beatrice only had one other Miss Marple story, but she did have a few non-Hercule Poirot stories by Agatha Christie. Elizabeth lined three up next to the chair that had become her place of refuge in the family parlor and cracked open the first novel. She managed to distract herself for the rest of the day.

When they gathered in the parlor after dinner, John indicated that reports were still vague. The ship carrying prisoners had left Bergen for northern Germany, and a transport hadn't shown up in time to transfer prisoners from 'Little London' (what the Germans called Alesund because of its resistance ties) to the waiting ship.

"So they were able to disrupt it; they must have," Elizabeth asserted.

"We must hope," said John. It was the only thing she could do. For the rest of Wednesday and all through Thursday, she held onto the feeling that events would turn out for the best, despite a renewal of the rain which prevented any more walks. She finished one novel and picked up the next, focusing on the words and not herself. Mickie insisted that she build him a new boat if the current one became tangled or damaged; there was talking to Beatrice about little things, though somehow that seemed essential.

Only when Elizabeth finished the last of the books in her stack, just before lunch on Friday, did her insides begin to twist and turn, and her mouth dry up. She didn't think she could eat. It had been a week since William left; she hoped that there would be contact when the ship got close, but there had been no word or indication from overheard German transmissions about their fate.

She could only nibble at her plate and declare that she would walk to the harbor to see the fishwives at work again. Since it was Maeve's day off, Beatrice asked her to bring back a few items from the store. When she stopped to observe the women of the harbor, they were working diligently to gut and pack the fish, all the while talking. Elizabeth noticed that they didn't wear gloves but wrapped fabric around each finger and the palms of their hands. She didn't know why, but also knew she felt hot-tempered and disagreeable because her patience was wearing down, so she didn't speak to them. Mrs. Kier had other customers, and she was spared the need to gossip before heading home.

Home, it had begun to feel familiar, a routine of meals, talking to Beatrice, and playing with Mickie. Elizabeth hadn't given her work at Baker Street much thought, nor had she considered her family, even contacting them. She supposed her father somehow kept tabs on what was happening, but Elizabeth wasn't sure how she could pick up where she had left off if the outcome wasn't ideal.

She moved through the routines of tea and dinner, then helped with the washing up, as if waiting to hear a storm finally break. Michael had another bath, and Elizabeth was invited to play boats. She focused on watching his delight at having a boat to play with, and his frustration as water slowly seeped into the paper. When the bath was over, she again carried a sweet-smelling bundle wrapped in a towel to his room to dress him in pajamas and kiss him goodnight.

His little arms hugged her, and Mickie whispered unintelligible but sweet words in her ear before easing back, content, and happy, onto his pillow. She smoothed his damp hair and whispered gentle words to him in return. Beatrice stood in the doorway and came to press a kiss on his brow before turning off the light.

She slowly closed the door then looked with a question on her brow at Elizabeth. "What is it, my dear?"

"I'm tired, I think I shall retire early if you'll tell the colonel," she said, turning. Elizabeth stopped and asked, "maybe I should borrow one more book, in case I wake and can't sleep?"

"I'll bring one by," her hostess assured her, tapping on the door minutes later, even before Elizabeth could change. "You've been comfortable here?" Bea asked, placing the book on the nightstand. There were signs of her week at Rose Cottage, with woolen stockings on a chair back, her personal items on the dresser top, and her robe flung at the bed's end.

"I have. I can't thank you or the colonel enough for allowing me to stay," said Elizabeth.

"I'm pleased to hear that," her hostess answered and said goodnight. Elizabeth bathed and settled in bed to read, knowing sleep wouldn't come yet. She had only read one chapter when there was another knock on the door, and Beatrice poked her head in.

"John thought you might want a glass of something to help you sleep." She held up a glass with a deep red liquid, and Bea walked over to put it on the nightstand next to the lamp.

"Thank you, that, and the book will do wonders," said Elizabeth. Beatrice smiled down at her and then reached down to pull an errant strand of hair off Elizabeth's forehead with the same loving touch she used with her son. She said goodnight again and left.

Between the book, which wasn't as interesting as the previous ones, and the port, Elizabeth found she could sleep. She didn't hear Colonel Rogers using the radio in the middle of the night, and he had to knock rather forcefully on her door to wake her.

"The men are coming home," he said through the door.


A/N: The Rogers were an actual couple, and I kept their surname as it was a fictitious one since they were undercover. (The first names are my invention.) But they were stationed in Shetland to oversee covert operations for SOE. The family's real name was Howarth. David Howarth wrote a book about the Shetland Bus after the war ended (he also wrote other histories and novels).

But it was true about the 'powers that be' issuing him a cyanide pill, but giving his wife a pistol with two bullets in it with instructions to shoot their son, Stephen, and then herself should the Germans overrun the island. I saw an interview with their son who talked about his mother sharing this story with him. Women are frankly stronger than men.

And about Elizabeth's letter to William: this seems to have concerned a number of you, but it was a throw-away item, added at the last minute merely to illustrate her coming into love. It's got no other role. So if you're worried about what happened to it, let's say he found it before he left, read it when he was repacking his items from his case to his duffel, and destroyed it.

In answer to another reviewer, no I am not a WW2 expert, so did a ton of research for this story. I had a little background from having read a few novels (Elizabeth Wein's Code Name Verity is one of my yearly reads) but ended up with stacks of books to read and consult, and videos to watch after I stumbled on Churchill's Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare: The Mavericks Who Plotted Hitler's Defeat which is a recent book about the Special Operations Executive branch.


Addendum A/N: issues with the chapter and its not appearing had to do with the site and my going in to put a copyright statement on each of my stories.

On Friday a faithful reader let me know that someone had stolen Naughty Elisabetta and put it on sale on Amazon claiming it as their own. Word is, this is one of (last I heard) twenty-one stolen Pride and Prejudice stories and affects many fanfiction authors.

I am not certain what I will do going forward. I filed a take-down notice with Amazon. My brother-in-law works for Amazon and my father-in-law is a retired federal lawyer. Not sure if I will pursue further action. I have spoken to one other of the affected authors, and may speak to other authors as I feel it was the same person who did this vile deed (all the stories appeared on the same day).

Like my Elizabeth in this story, I am feeling betrayed. I have enjoyed crafting these stories as we all enjoy this world. I enjoy attempting to find a different twist or take on this timeless story and to share it. I always post a story in its entirety here and leave it up for many months before I publish, if I decide to publish. In fact, it was only at the encouragement of some readers that I ever considered publishing in the first part.

I just don't know if I will write in this arena again. Yes, I'm all raw nerves, but 2020 hasn't been kind; I spent most of October dealing with a cancer scare. Writing this WW2 story for readers has been one of my few happinesses this year, but that's been wiped away.