Read Online Enticing the Spymaster (War Girls) by Julie Rowe - Free Book Online Page A

think Father married her? She has friends everywhere.”
    “I think I’ve been a fool. I should have been recruiting women to act as spies.”
    “Indeed. Now do you understand why Father let me do this?”
    “Don’t put words into my mouth. A certain kind of woman, not you.”
    “Why not me?”
    “Because.”
    “Oh for heaven’s sake. Why? ”
    “Because you’re too valuable to be put in harm’s way.”
    “How is my value more or less than any other woman?”
    “You said it yourself. Your father’s unofficial position as royal advisor and your mother’s proximity to the Belgian crown.” She opened her mouth to tell him how idiotic she thought his statement was, but he kept talking. “How did you get stationed as a nurse in the palace?”
    His clenched jaw convinced her to allow the conversation to move forward. She didn’t want him to burst a blood vessel.
    “There was a lot of confusion at the beginning of the war. After it became clear that no one was going to win quickly, I decided to work with Rose Culver. She’d been my teacher and mentor, and I felt relatively safe with her. When the German army set up the hospital in the palace, they came to Rose and told her to supply Belgian nurses to staff it. I volunteered.”
    “Your father didn’t know you’d end up working under the noses of the German command.”
    “He had no idea I’d end up so close to them.”
    “Luck,” he growled. “That’s the only thing that’s kept you out of harm’s way.”
    “Perhaps. But regardless of how, I’ve been able to learn things about German military plans that would otherwise go unknown until far too late.”
    “You spoke of poisoned gas.”
    “Yes. I nearly vomited when I realised what they’d done. It’s a gas that burns the eyes and lungs. It kills, but often slowly. Painfully. A soldier afflicted by it will drown in his own fluids.”
    “You’ve seen the results?”
    “Yes, it was horrible.”
    “When will they use it?”
    “Five days I believe, soon to be four. They have some sort of attack planned.”
    Michael shook his head. “It seems inhuman to use a weapon so indiscriminate. Can they control the gas? Make it go where they want it to go?”
    “How could one control a gas?”
    “You can’t. What are they so afraid of that they would stoop to this?” His whisper seemed rhetorical, so she remained silent. She didn’t have an answer at any rate. He stood. “I’m going to see if there’s any food to be had. Lock the door and don’t open it to anyone but me.”
    “Of course.”
    The expression he turned on her before leaving was nearly hostile.
    She locked the door behind him.
    One thing was certain. She hadn’t answered his questions to his satisfaction and it was unlikely she ever would.
    A few minutes later, a knock sounded at the door and Michael called out his name. She let him in. In his hands were a basket covered with a thin cloth and a small jug.
    “Bread, cheese and water,” he told her, handing her the basket. “The train is full of soldiers on rotation. They get several days in Liege or Cologne, then it’s back to the trenches for who knows how long.”
    She took a piece of bread and a bit of cheese. “The wounded who come from the trenches are damaged more than just physically.”
    “Shell shock, they’re calling it.” Michael ate some bread. “We’re getting reports of men incapacitated but without a mark on them. Command has had some tried as cowards or deserters and shot.”
    “Do you think they’re cowards?”
    “No. There’s horror in war that some men can’t bear. Not because they’re lesser men, but because they care too much. Not everyone is capable of facing the gruesome reality of death the way they’re being forced to now.”
    “They come into the hospital covered in dirt, blood and God knows what, their clothes infested with lice, ticks and fleas. But it’s their faces that tell me how horrible it is.” She would never get those expressions