The Wartime Matchmakers, page 1
THE WARTIME MATCHMAKERS
LAUREN SMITH
CONTENTS
Preface
Prologue
Part I
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Part II
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Part III
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Epilogue
Historical Note
Acknowledgments
Bibliography
About the Author
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.
Copyright © 2022 by Lauren Smith
Cover art by Alan Ayers
Cover Design by Forever After Romance Designs
All rights reserved. In accordance with the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, the scanning, uploading, and electronic sharing of any part of this book without the permission of the publisher constitutes unlawful piracy and theft of the author’s intellectual property. If you would like to use material from the book (other than for review purposes), prior written permission must be obtained by contacting the publisher at lauren@laurensmithbooks.com. Thank you for your support of the author’s rights.
The publisher is not responsible for websites (or their content) that are not owned by the publisher.
ISBN: 978-1-956227-81-9 (ebook)
ISBN:978-1-956227-82-6 (print)
PREFACE
This story is inspired by true events and people. I have relied heavily on firsthand accounts from the people who witnessed or experienced the events. As you read, you may think some things must certainly be fictional, and you will be surprised at the parts that are based in fact. At the end of this book, I have written a brief historical note where I explain my research and break down the truth versus fiction of this story. I’ve also included a detailed bibliography of the books I read while researching this story. Please note that while this is a story set in Britain, I have used American spellings.
I have changed the names of almost all the characters from their real names, and I have used names that are personal to me and names that I have lovingly used with permission from the families of my wonderful readers. These readers’ family members served or lived during the 1930s and 1940s and experienced the war. It was an honor to use these names, and where possible, I have given these men and women happy endings because we all deserve a little more light and joy in our lives.
This is a story about war, about a changing landscape of human experience, and it is about love. This emotion is so often disregarded, especially when it comes to romance, yet it is the force that motivates humans to the greatest acts of courage and compassion. The best stories, the best myths, the best legends, all involve love in its many forms. It is my hope that someday the two real matchmakers, Heather Jenner and Mary Oliver, become legendary for their actions during such a dark time. By bringing people together while the world tore itself apart, they were unsung heroes. Now, dear reader, turn the page to finally hear their song.
PROLOGUE
But if we fail, then the whole world, including the United States, including all that we have known and cared for, will sink into the abyss of a new Dark Age made more sinister, and perhaps more protracted, by the lights of perverted science. Let us therefore brace ourselves to our duties, and so bear ourselves that, if the British Empire and its Commonwealth last for a thousand years, men will still say, “This was their finest hour.”
—Winston Churchill
House of Commons
June 18, 1940
London
September 7, 1940
It was the silence between air-raid drills that frightened Elizabeth Mowbray the most. The deathly hush this particular afternoon had transformed London from a bustling city to an eerie stillness that made Elizabeth pause and strain her ears to listen to the world outside the tiny grocer’s shop on King Street.
“Everything all right?” a middle-aged woman in a dull maroon frock asked as she packed the handful of goods into Elizabeth’s cloth bag.
“What? Oh, yes. I’m so sorry,” Elizabeth murmured as she glanced through the tiny crack between the blackout curtains draped in front of the grocer’s store window. The funereal cloth was in some small way better than black-painted glass or boards—at least the curtains could be drawn back during the day to let sunlight in, when one remembered. This shop, like many others, left their curtains closed over the windows, despite it being the middle of the day and no need to black out the light of the shop’s interior.
Elizabeth handed over a few ration coupons to the grocer before she collected the bag and turned to leave. A few people had stopped on the pavement outside, their eyes turned toward the Thames. One man removed his black trilby hat and squinted at the sky. His face drained of color before he smashed his hat back on his head and turned to run.
Time slowed around Elizabeth as she saw more and more people stop on the street and turn to face the sky. Silence had settled over the city, like fog upon the ground in a graveyard, coiling like phantom vipers around the craggy tombstones.
A dozen black flecks appeared over the Thames on the horizon. Air-raid sirens suddenly split through the bustling crowds of King Street.
German planes.
Her mind wanted to convince her that they were just a flock of birds rather than the impending doom her heart warned was coming.
As one, the crowds around her turned away from the Thames. The hum of distant bombers was drowned out by the sirens. The screaming sirens dug into her skull, leaving her with a fierce ache as Elizabeth tried to flee with those around her. Clutching her small bag of precious food, she was swept away by the crowds and flattened against a wall in an alley not far from the grocer’s shop. The hard stone bit into her back as dozens of men and women pushed past her. Her cry of pain went unheard.
Shelter . . . must find a shelter.
Like the rest of England, she’d grown used to the sounds of sirens and empty skies in the previous months. There were the repeated nights and even some days spent cramped and cold in the Anderson shelters both in London and in the back garden of Cunningham House, the rambling old manor house that she spent her time at when not in London.
Those nights in the curved metal shelter were intolerable; it smelled of decayed earth, and she had to tuck her dressing gown up around her night slippers to avoid the rainwater that filled the bottom of the shelter. Now she might pay with her life for not respecting the endless drills. Even the government had relaxed its insistence on carrying a gas mask wherever one went. She’d left hers back at her office on Bond Street. She was trapped, terrified, frozen as the crowds threatened to crush anyone who didn’t move quickly.
The planes were already here, the roar of the engines now overpowering the sirens. Something inside Elizabeth jolted her back into motion. She forced herself away from the alley wall just as a man in a blue Royal Air Force uniform passed by. Her shoe caught upon a rock, and she cried out, stumbling. She braced for the impact, but it never came.
“I’ve got you!” A strong arm banded around her waist, catching her and pulling her upright. She briefly saw a striking masculine face with blond hair and bright blue eyes beneath the RAF cap.
“Nathan, take a right!” he bellowed at another man in an RAF uniform just ahead of them who was moving briskly through the crowd despite using a cane. Elizabeth had no choice but to be swept along at the pilot’s side as they exited the alley and moved toward a darkened doorway of a shop.
“Get inside!” The pilot pushed her through the doorway. Crowded racks of clothing filled the small space, and the scent of musty cloth made her nose wrinkle with an impending sneeze. A stout shopkeeper with gray hair held the door of his shop open, frantically waving to everyone on the street.
“Stay there!” the pilot told Elizabeth before he dashed back outside, catching hold of a young woman carrying a small child in her arms and hauling her inside. “This way—there’s a shelter.”
The shopkeeper closed the shop door behind them just as the first bombs struck the river in the distance.
The one called Nathan with dark brown hair and light brown eyes leaned heavily against the nearest clothing rack, his cane braced before him. “They’ve hit the docks, Philip!” Behind him, the shopkeeper fumbled to open the metal door that led to the bomb shelter. At least a dozen or so people crowded together in the shop, their breath coming hard, with eyes wide and fearful as they waited for the door to open.
“Christ, they have, haven’t they?” Philip’s face turned toward the windows of the clothing store, which had been boarded up. No one could see outside. They could only hear the thunder of explosions. Each impact vibrated through the floor hard enough to rattle Elizabeth’s bones.
“Madam, this way,” Nathan said to the young mother, who was clutching her child to her breast, her eyes tearful. The door to the shelter creaked open. “I’ll follow you down,” Nathan assured her, ambling on his cane as he went down the steps after her and disappeared into the dark along with the others who had crowded behind them to get to safety.
“How big is your shelter?” Philip asked the shopkeeper.
The man adjusted his spectacles. “Fifteen people . . . it’s more of a basement, really.”
“It’s stocked with torches and potable water?” Philip pressed as the roof above them rumbled ominously.
“Y-yes.”
“Good. You go on down. I’ll seal us in.” Philip nudged Elizabeth and the shopkeeper down into the basement and closed the door behind him, sealing them all inside. Its heavy, metallic clang made Elizabeth halt halfway down the stairs in a sudden panic at being enclosed in such a tiny dark space. She gripped the rough-hewn wood railing so hard her knuckles were white as bone in the low light. Below her, torches moved as the occupants of the shelter swung them about, their beams bouncing off the walls at odd angles. Lanterns hung from hooks on the ceiling, illuminating the pilot’s face as he came down the steps to meet her.
“Go on and have a seat somewhere. We’re bound to be here awhile.” He offered her a smile, but she didn’t miss the strain in his eyes. Her throat tightened as another wave of fear swept through her. They were trapped in this tiny room, dozens of feet below the ground. If a bomb struck, they’d be crushed to death . . . starved of air . . .
“Breathe deep, darling,” the pilot whispered to her. “Focus on the air moving in your lungs and nothing else.”
Elizabeth closed her eyes and did so, filling her lungs with air. The fear subsided a little, and she opened her eyes again to stare at the man who’d taken charge of the moment. The man who’d saved her. Lines of worry were carved across his striking face as he tilted his cap back on his head.
She turned away from him to check on the other occupants of the shelter. Twelve huddled figures had taken refuge with them, some settled on a few creaky folding chairs set against the walls. The young mother held her toddler in her arms, tears streaming in rivulets down her cheeks until they shone in the dim light. Her child was quiet, his eyes wide and solemn as he gazed up at Elizabeth and the pilot as they descended the last few steps.
“Should we have left the door open?” the shopkeeper asked the pilot, gravitating toward him as the natural leader of their small group.
“We couldn’t—those bombs that hit the docks will burn hot and long. The flames will draw other bombers in like beacons. If you can feel the bombing”—he paused and put a hand on the stone wall of the basement—“then you’re too close. Better to close the door and wait.”
“The RAF will take care of them,” one man said, his tone confident, but no one else said anything for a long moment afterward.
Would they take care of the German bombers? Elizabeth hadn’t let herself think of the oncoming war, not wanting to accept the reality, yet here it was.
“I should be up there with them,” Philip muttered to himself, grief in his eyes as he looked at the people in the room.
The man called Nathan hobbled over to the pilot, one fist gripping the head of his cane tightly. “You mustn’t torture yourself. You were on leave. You couldn’t have known they’d come. You’ve saved London enough times already. Today it’s someone else’s turn.”
“Will is out there at the bloody front—he doesn’t come home for leave. And here I am, stuck below,” Philip said as he started to pace. “I have no control down here. We’re just . . . helpless.” He halted on the word, seeming to realize too late that he shouldn’t have said it.
“We aren’t helpless. You know your men will fight like the devil today. You need to survive today to fly tomorrow,” Nathan reminded him in a soothing voice. “Getting yourself killed won’t help Will. We both know that he’s a St. Laurent, with that temper of his, the Nazis will be running in the other direction with their tails tucked between their legs.”
Philip calmed a little and met his friend’s eyes. “They should have made you the group captain instead of a flight instructor after your injury, Nathan.”
Nathan chuckled. “Perhaps.”
Another explosion, this one closer, rattled the trio of lanterns that hung from hooks on the ceiling, and dust rained down on the occupants of the basement. The mother held her child close. Philip stopped pacing and seemed to notice Elizabeth staring at him.
“Would you please sit? You look ready to fall down.” He urged her toward the wall, and she crumpled to her knees on the floor near the mother and child. She hadn’t realized until that moment that her legs had been shaking violently, barely holding her up.
Everyone was silent for a long moment, listening to the sounds above.
“Mama, I’m hungry,” the tiny toddler whispered against his mother’s neck. The young woman opened her eyes, her tearful gaze meeting Elizabeth’s.
“I know you are, sweetie,” the mother soothed. “I know. We shall eat later, all right?” She ran a hand over the child’s dark curls. The boy’s lip quivered, but he didn’t cry.
Such a brave little thing.
The world above them could very well be ablaze. That realization made Elizabeth sick, but she buried her nausea beneath a practicality that she always managed to summon when she needed it most. Her fist still gripped the cloth shopping bag. Suddenly she remembered that the bag held food.
“Would your little boy like some savory biscuits? I have some cheese and canned meat. It isn’t much, but if he’s hungry . . .” Elizabeth opened the bag and dug around in the contents.
“We couldn’t . . . ,” the mother began.
“Of course you can.” Elizabeth’s fingertips brushed over the tin of savory biscuits and a bit of cheese as she pulled them out and handed them to the mother.
“Look, Henry, some biscuits.” The woman smiled gratefully at Elizabeth before offering the food to her son. The little boy began to take hesitant bites before letting out a tiny sigh, his shoulders dropping as he relaxed. Elizabeth knew how he felt. The ache of an empty belly was something no one liked to endure. Ever since the rationing began, there had been quite a few nights when she had gone hungry, and the grumbling had formed that awful pit in her stomach, sometimes keeping her up until dawn.
The sounds of the bombing continued above them. Perhaps it was her imagination, but each impact seemed to get closer. No one spoke again, each of them sitting in their own agonized silence, holding their collective breath. No one was prepared. All of the drills, carrying gas masks about in leather cases, the disruption of lovely gardens with Anderson shelters, and sirens going off at odd hours—nothing had prepared her for this moment, waiting in a dark, musty basement as the world above was bathed in fire.
The man with the cane walked over to sit beside her. He used the wall to carefully lower himself down, as though he was still unused to not having full use of his leg. She wondered what had happened to him. He seemed healthy, despite his injury, and he was handsome to look at, and it was clear from the cut of his suit that he was quite well muscled. He was a fitting match to the pilot, who leaned against the opposite wall, scowling, with his arms crossed over his chest.
