Aware that Violet was talking to her, Elizabeth tore her gaze from the newspaper. “I beg your pardon?”

Violet crossed her arms. “I was asking if you and your major will be having dinner in the dining room tonight. What’s in that paper that’s so interesting, anyway?”

Elizabeth read the report out loud. “I feel sorry for the poor man,” she said when she was finished. “He looked so young, hardly more than a boy, and he was obviously terrified.”

“I should think so. I’d be terrified, too, if I saw Rita Crumm and her mob rushing at me. Enough to scare Hitler hisself, that woman.” Violet tilted her head to one side. “You never answered me about your major.”

“He’s not my major, Violet.” Elizabeth folded the newspaper and laid it next to her knife. “And I’d appreciate it if you would stop calling him that. You know how impressionable Polly is-I really don’t want any silly gossip going around. Especially now that Major Monroe is staying at the manor.”

Violet nodded. “So is he coming to dinner or not?”

“I haven’t asked him yet.”

“Well, would you mind getting on with it? That’s where you should be eating your meals, anyway. It isn’t proper for a lady of the manor to be taking her meals with the servants in the kitchen.”

Elizabeth sighed at the familiar argument. “You know very well how much I hate eating all alone at that enormous table in the dining room. Besides, as you also know very well, I don’t think of you and Martin as servants. I consider you both family.”

Violet’s cheeks turned pink. “That’s lovely, Lizzie, but your mother wouldn’t like that.”

“She wouldn’t like you calling me Lizzie, either, but since she’s not here, and I am, I think we can stop worrying about her approval and just do what we think is right.”

“If you say so.” Violet looked inordinately pleased. “Now, about dinner tonight. I need to know what to buy at the butcher’s this morning. Thank goodness we still have enough coupons left in the ration books for a decent meal.”