“No one will accuse you of anything, Gwen; especially since you’re the one who’s handing over the evidence. The women in the village loathe him.”

“They hate me, too.” Gwendoline’s heart sank. “I wasn’t always terribly pleasant to them.” Memories of her arrogance and little put-downs cascaded into her mind. “Reggie told me I was too good for them, and I chose to believe it. Now I can see that it was just easier for him if I wasn’t friends with the local women.”

“Once they know the whole story, I’m sure they’ll come around.”

But Gwendoline had realized with a tremendous thud inside that the things she had been striving for—the status and social success—were all for nothing. She was back at square one.

She sank to the ground.

Audrey sat down beside her.

“It’ll be all right. Just give it a bit of time, and you’ll see. Busy yourself with the cooking contest. You could still win.”

    “You’re the cook, Aude. That’s your talent, your skill. I can’t compete with you.”

“But what about your other skills? You’re very good at running a business.”

She shrugged. “Reggie never let me get involved, but I suppose I learned a few things by observing.”

Audrey got up, pulling Gwendoline up beside her. “You’ll see. Sir Strickland and all of this”—she tapped the book—“will be a thing of the past.”

“But I don’t know how I’m going to get through it.”

“Sometimes things seem to drown us. When Matthew died, I thought it was the end of everything, but then one day becomes a week, and then a month, and slowly you begin to get on with life. The world readjusts around you, and you find new skills and talents you never knew you had.”

“What did you find?”

“I found that contentment—happiness even—comes in all kinds of ways. Sometimes you shouldn’t wait for things to be perfect. You just need to enjoy the small things, every little moment that makes you smile.” She leaned back, looking down over the village from the hill—down to their home, Zelda in the garden gathering vegetables for the Cornish pasties. “I also discovered that it’s all right to admit that you can’t do everything, to accept help from friends.” She grinned. “And sisters, too.”

With a little hesitation, she reached out her hand and took Gwendoline’s, and the pair of them set off down the hill to Willow Lodge, just as they had so many years before.

Nell was in the kitchen waiting for them with tea made from the old tea leaves in the pot—tea rations equated to only three normal cups a day, followed by progressively weaker ones.

“Did you get the account book?”

Gwendoline flopped the book out of the bag onto the table. “It was right there, exactly where you said it would be. Let’s see whether it has what we need.”

    They sat down around it, Gwendoline flipping open the front. It looked like any ordinary accounts book.

But then the figures began to paint a picture.

“Look, a ton of grain to M. Harwich.”

“And here, forty-eight fresh eggs sold to Frank Fisk.”

The door banged open, and they all flew around in panic.

But it was Zelda, carrying a bunch of carrots. “I know Frank Fisk,” she said as she sat down. “He’s a black marketeer in Middleton.”

“Frank Fisk is doing quite a business with Fenley Farm.” Gwendoline glanced back at the book. “As are Fred Bains, M. Harwich, and someone simply called Pete.” She flipped over a few pages. “Look, a few rows don’t have names, here at the bottom. Given the amount of meat and game I’d say this was for the household at Fenley Hall.” She passed it over to Nell to verify.

“A whole pig last month—that would be for the large dinner party, where some men from the Ministry of Defense came to discuss troop food contracts.” Nell raised an eyebrow. “Mrs. Quince always said he’d be caught sooner or later.”

Gwendoline pursed her lips. “I’ll telephone my demonstration superior at the Ministry of Food, take the book up to show them.” She paused, feeling her heart pounding with the sheer weight of what she was proposing. “I’ve never done something like this,” she murmured. “I know it’s only fair, but it feels such a massive step—a step that I can never take back. It’s so disloyal.”

Audrey went pale. “But he was never loyal to you, Gwen? He’d do anything to stop you from living a normal life without him. Even if we somehow find a way to pay back his loan, he’ll find some other way to grind you down; and failing that, he might even try to make you disappear.”

They watched Gwendoline for a moment, her hand slowly going to her throat, her soft fingers lightly touching the bruises.

Audrey was right. Her departure was an embarrassment for him. If she couldn’t be coerced to go back to him of her own accord, he would start to force her hand—perhaps the repossession of the house where she lived was the first of such measures, destined to become progressively worse. Did she want to spend the rest of her life running?

    Suddenly she stood up. “Let’s do it. I’ll never get him away from us otherwise.”

Zelda got up beside her. “Bravo, Gwendoline. I’m with you.”

“And so am I,” Nell said. “Surely a group of four women is far more powerful than one man.”

“Hear, hear!” Audrey stood up alongside them, raising her teacup. “Here’s to us, the four friends.”

And as one, they brought their teacups into the middle of the table with a collective cheer.

“To the four friends.”

Nell

Nell, Gwendoline, and Zelda sat in a row in the train carriage, each wearing their best clothes—or some borrowed from Gwendoline. In a prim, blue skirt suit, Nell felt herself sitting taller, more self-assured. Her presence was needed so that she could testify about the use of the pig and so forth in the hall kitchen, Zelda’s was to explain how the factory rules were being ignored. Audrey had stayed at home to look after the boys and keep up with the pie orders.

They’d set off early, the trains being so immensely unreliable due to the movement of troops and equipment, and they sat impatiently as the train stopped for a whole hour at one station, waiting for a long troop train to pass on its way to the coast. Inside, new recruits—lads of just eighteen—waved cheerily to them from carriage windows. They could be heading to places they’d never imagined—the deserts of North Africa or the embattled island of Malta—to experience the horrors of the Nazi war machine firsthand.

At last, the train drew into Charing Cross Station, and they walked together through Trafalgar Square, the usual buses and cars interspersed with military vehicles and trucks. The pavement was hectic with pedestrians, many of them in uniform, no one dallying. War, the bombing raids, and a shortage of office workers meant long, busy hours. As they headed down Parliament Street, a bombed Victorian terrace had a craggy hole, the insides disintegrating under the elements. So many beautiful old buildings destroyed as randomly as pins in a bowling game. London would never be the same.

    The Ministry of Food was located in one of the imposing ministry buildings in Westminster.

“Do you think Mr. Churchill is in one of these buildings?” Nell murmured as they entered the grand vestibule. “I think I can smell cigar smoke.”

“He has special underground war cabinet rooms somewhere,” Gwendoline said. “I’ve heard he works all hours. They even installed a bathroom for him as he insists on taking a bath several times a day.”

They hurried to the reception desk, where a bespectacled middle-aged woman pompously led them up the grand central staircase, then down a corridor to an ornate meeting room. Before them lay a long mahogany table, the smell of polish heavy in the air. They were directed to take seats at one end, and each of them perched nervously on the red velvet upholstery.

“What are we supposed to do?” Nell whispered to Gwendoline.

“We have to wait and see who they’ve invited to the meeting. By the number of chairs, we might have caused a bit of a stir.” She pulled the black accounts book out of her bag, sliding it onto the table in front of her.

The door opened, and several suited men came in speaking in low voices among themselves. One strode up to Gwendoline, a smile on his face. “Lady Strickland, how good of you to come.”

She returned his smile, polite yet businesslike. “Thank you, Mr. Alloway. I felt it my duty.”

One by one, she introduced him to the others, and then he introduced them to the men around the room. The first three were from the Ministry of Agriculture, another two from the Ministry of Food.

“It seems there is already a file open on Sir Strickland,” Mr. Alloway said as he introduced her to the other two gentlemen. The first was an officer from an enforcement bureau, which had been set up to investigate black-market crimes, and ominously, the other was a senior police detective from Scotland Yard.

    They took their seats, and Mr. Alloway took out a folder. “Right, let’s begin, shall we?”