prologue

How quickly Marie had become used to her new routine. Breakfast for two in the morning—porridge cooked on the hob with water since milk was already becoming scarce. On days when she wasn't working, she would tidy up and do any necessary food shopping before a small lunch. And, without fail, just around two o'clock, she'd listen for the brass flap of the letter box to squeak open and the second post to drop with a satisfying thunk onto the polished entryway floor.

Now she sat wrapped in a blanket in the corner of the big rose-patterned sofa that faced the mews she'd come to think of as home. She'd somehow managed to forget everything—the war, her worries, her fears—

and relax into the pages of her book, a Rosamond Lehmann novel she'd borrowed from the built-in shelf next to the fireplace. Forbidden at her aunt and uncle's flat, it seemed less daring here, as though she were the sort of woman who read about divorce and affairs every day.

Marie was so caught up that it was only when the letter box flap rattled back into place that she realized the post had arrived. Setting her book and blanket aside, she slipped her stockinged feet into a well-loved pair of slippers and rose.

Shivering, she pulled her light blue cardigan tighter as she stepped into the corridor and crouched to scoop up the scattered letters. She began flipping through them, looking for her name. She may technically have been a guest in this house, but she still received a letter or two a day.

Marie set aside two brown envelopes on the little sideboard. Three large square envelopes followed those. Then she saw her neatly typed name on a slim white envelope. She ripped it open.

Her hand began to tremble even as she stared down at the cheap paper, willing the sentences to rearrange themselves. Desperate for them to say something else. But there was no denying the typed words.

Her legs buckled under her, and she crumpled to the floor.

SAMANTHA

Now

one

Samantha clutched her passport, shifting from foot to foot as the line inched forward. All around her, her fellow passengers from the red-eye to London yawned, stretched, and blinked against the fluorescent light of the immigration hall. She hardly noticed the jostle of bodies, her attention fully fixed on the weight of the package and the half-scribbled notes in her brown leather shoulder bag.

She should have ma