Munro and Carter were still sitting by the fire when she went in, talking in low tones. Sarah said, “No one told me my name.”
“Anne-Marie Latour,” Carter said automatically and then looked up. “Good God!” he said.
Munro was far more positive. “I like it. Like it very much indeed.” Sarah pirouetted. “Yes, they’ll go for you in the German officers’ club in St. Helier.”
“Or in the Army and Navy in London, I should have thought,” Carter said dryly.
The door opened and Martineau entered. She turned to face him, hands on hips in a deliberate challenge. “Well?” she demanded.
“Well, what?”
“Oh, damn you.” She was cross enough to stamp a foot. “You’re the most infuriating man I’ve ever met. Is there a village near here with a pub?” ù
“Yes.”
“Will you take me for a drink?”
“Like that?”
“You mean I don’t look nice enough?”
“Actually, you transcend all Mrs. Moon’s efforts. You couldn’t be a tart if you tried, brat. I’ll see you in the hall in fifteen minutes,” and he turned and went out.
There was a spring fete on in the village in aid of war charities. Stalls and sideshows on the village green and a couple of old-fashioned roundabouts. Sarah wore a coat over the dress and hung onto his arm. She was obviously enjoying herself as they moved through the noisy and good-humored crowd.
There was a tent marked Fortunes-Gypsy Sara. “Sara without the H,” he said. “Let’s give it a try.”
“All right,” he said, humoring her.
Surprisingly, the woman inside had dispensed with the usual gypsy trappings, the headscarf and the earrings. She was about forty with a sallow face, neat black hair and wore a smart gabardine suit. She took the girl’s hand. “Just you, lady, or your gentleman as well?”
“But he isn’t my gentleman,” she protested.
“He’ll never belong to anyone else, never know another woman.”
She took a deep breath as if trying to clear her head, and Martineau said, “Now let’s hear the good news.”
She handed a tarot pack to Sarah, folded her own hands over Sarah’s, then shuffled the pack several times and extracted three cards.
The first was Fortitude, a young woman grasping the jaws of a lion. “There is an opportunity to put an important plan into action if one will take risks,” Gypsy Sara said.
The next card was the Star, a naked girl kneeling by a pool. “I see flre and water, mingling at the same time. A contradiction and yet you come through both unscathed.”
Sarah turned to Martineau. “I had that last month at the Cromwell. Incendiary bombs on the nurses’ quarters and water everywhere from the flre hoses.”
The third card was the Hanged Man. The woman said,
“He will not change however long he hangs in the tree. He cannot alter the mirror image, however much he fears it. You must journey on alone. Adversity will always be your strength. You will find love only by not seeking it, that is the lesson you must learn.”
Sarah said to Martineau, “Now you.”
Gypsy Sara gathered up the cards. “There is nothing I can tell the gentleman that he does not know already.”
“Best thing IVe heard since the Brothers Grimm.” Martineau pushed a pound across the table and stood up. “Let’s go.”
“Are you angry?” Sarah demanded as they pushed through the crowd to the village pub.
“Why should I be?”
“It was only a bit of fun. Nothing to be taken seriously.”
“Oh, but I take everything seriously,” he assured her.
The bar was crowded but they managed to find a couple of seats in the corner by the fire, and he ordered her a shandy and had a scotch for himself. “Well, what do you think of it so far?” he asked.
“Rather more interesting than the wards at the Cromwell.”
“In other circumstances you’d be trained for about six weeks,” he said. “The Scottish Highlands to toughen you up. Courses in unarmed combat and so on. Twelve ways of killing someone with your bare hands.”
“That sounds very gruesome.”
“But effective. I remember one of our agents, a journalist in civilian life, who stopped going into pubs when he was home. He was afraid to get into an argument because of what he might do.”