She had almost finished her porridge when the telephone jangled loudly across the kitchen, making Violet drop the saucepan she was drying onto the tiled kitchen counter.

“Blasted telephone,” Violet grumbled as she reached for it. “I wish there was some way we could turn down the noise it makes. I jump every time it rings.” She held the receiver to her ear. “Hello?”

Elizabeth watched her face for some clue as to who might be ringing at this early hour. To her dismay, she heard Violet gasp. “Go on! No, I don’t believe it. Yes, of course I’ll tell her. Oh, my Gawd, what dreadful news!”

On her feet now, Elizabeth stared at Violet as she replaced the receiver and turned slowly to face her. All kinds of scenarios raced through her mind… the uppermost being the possibility that the Germans had launched the long-expected invasion. She waited, afraid to ask the question that hovered on her lips.

“You’re never going to believe this,” Violet said hoarsely, “but that was Marlene. She wanted to warn Polly. That scared young German pilot you felt so sorry for has gone and killed one of the land girls from Macclesby’s farm. They just found her dead body in Hawthorn Woods.”

Polly sat back on her heels and wiped the sweat from her brow. Scrubbing bathrooms was the thing she hated most about her job. She often wondered why she didn’t pack it in and go down to the canning factory. From what the other girls said, working there was a lot of fun. ’Course, she’d have to lie about her age. You had to be seventeen to work at the factory, and she was only fifteen. But then she was used to lying about her age. She’d been doing it for almost two years down at the pub, and only last week she’d lied to that nice Yank she’d met. Told him she was twenty. He’d believed her, too.

Polly smiled as she wrung out her mop. Good-looking, that Sam. Had to be at least twenty-four. Stolen her heart right away he had, with his dark-brown bedroom eyes and that thick, black, curly hair. Proper man all right. She’d had to lie about her job, too. She didn’t want him thinking she was just a crummy servant. She’d told him she was Lady Elizabeth’s secretary. Good job he couldn’t see her now, on her knees scrubbing the loo.