“And still, you try.”

“Because you like a challenge. I bet Billy didn’t challenge you.”

He didn’t, not really, but that’s beside the point.

“Billy was lovely. Billy’s mother less so.”

“She didn’t approve.”

“Hardly.”

“Why?”

“Do you really have to ask?”

“You’re likable enough.”

“Such effusive praise,” I snort.

“So why didn’t Mrs. Worthington II like you?”

“She probably thought I’d thoroughly corrupt her son. Scandal can be contagious.”

“I thought scandals were regular occurrences around your set.”

“Not my sort of scandal. People want to gossip about you when you’re high enough for them to envy you, but when you fall, they want nothing more than to forget you.”

“They were afraid,” Sam says. “Afraid your family’s misfortunes would be contagious.”

“Perhaps. When all else fails, be a cautionary tale.” I shrug. “It’s ridiculous, really. The Depression has largely avoided families like the Worthingtons and their ilk. Fate is a capricious thing; there’s no accounting for whom it affects. One family is spared, while the next is utterly decimated.”

“If he’d loved you, Billy would have stood by you.”

I laugh. “Does knowing that make it any easier?”

“If you’d loved Billy, you would have never let him give you up.”

“And how would I have achieved that? If a man’s made his mind up to go, I very much doubt there’s anything a woman can do to stop him.”

“Then you underestimate yourself. I don’t believe any man can walk away from you without regretting it.”

I open my mouth to speak—

Confounding man.

“Besides, look at you now. You’ve come all the way down here searching for a man. That’s not someone who’s easily deterred. So if Billy was the great love and you’ve given him up, what’s brought you down here? The fiancé? Did he run off before you could walk down the aisle?”

“I’m trying to find my brother. Half brother, actually. His mother was my father’s first wife.”

She died of cancer; my father married my mother a scandalous eight months later.

“We lost touch with him a few years ago,” I add. “The war—he wasn’t the same when he came back from the war. He sent letters occasionally, but he disappeared from our lives.”

“You couldn’t have been more than a little girl when he left.”

“I was. I remember what he was like before, though. Flashes of memories, at least. He was my hero. He had the best laugh. He was always bringing me treats, sneaking me sweets my mother didn’t want me to have.”

“What did he do over there?” Sam asks.

“He was a doctor when he volunteered. He went into medical service.”

“He must have seen a great deal of death.”

Almost forty million people died during the course of the Great War, and I’ve often wondered how many saw my brother in their final hours.

“He must have. He never spoke of it to anyone, though. When the war was over, we waited and waited for him to come home, and he never did. We received a letter postmarked from London that arrived much later saying he was alive. A few years passed and he showed up on our doorstep. I barely recognized him. He stayed for a night or two and he was gone again. Over the years, he would show up unexpectedly and disappear again. Finally, he stopped coming around.”

“Do you know where he was living during that time?”

“No.”

“And then you got a letter from him with a Key West postmark.”

“Yes.”

“And you thought the prudent thing was to board a train and drag him home yourself?”

“There were exigent circumstances.”

“Such as?”

“That’s enough of my secrets,” I answer instead.

“Why is it so important you find your brother?”

“He’s all I have left.”

“You have no one else?”

“My mother isn’t well,” I say in a tone that makes it clear I’m done sharing.

“When did you last hear from your brother?” Sam asks.

“A month ago.”

I don’t add how the letter appeared on the same afternoon Frank proposed, or tell him how I felt when I opened it and saw my brother’s familiar handwriting, how it seemed like the answer to all of my prayers, as though my big brother could sense my distress and was rescuing me like he did all those times when we were younger.

I don’t tell him my brother is the only thing standing between me and a marriage I’m desperately trying to escape.

“There’s the camp up ahead,” Sam says.

* * *

—

At first glance, the camp on Windley Key—Camp One—is a soulless place devoid of color, everything arranged in cold, austere angles with military precision. Upon deeper examination, it’s a soulless place devoid of color that stinks to high heaven.

“I heard the conditions were rough,” Sam admits. “But I wasn’t expecting this.”

I don’t speak as he parks the car, my gaze on the camp, my heart sinking at the sight before me. A few tents dot the landscape in rows, meager-looking shacks with canvas-covered roofs beside them doing little to improve the conditions.

Men walk around, their shirts grimy and soaked with sweat, the cheap fabric sticking to their bodies. A faint buzzing fills the air, and a man slaps at his skin, killing a mosquito with the flat of his hand.

What kind of disease breeds in a place like this with all manner of vermin crawling about, men crammed in such tight and unsanitary quarters?

There’s a uniformity to the men—they all appear tired and worn down, as though they are one tragedy away from losing everything.

I wait while Sam turns off the car, comes around the side, and opens the door for me. The heel of my sandal sinks into the ground as I get out of the car, and Sam supports me, his palm warm against my skin.

I lean into him, taking a deep breath, the air in the camp heavy and cloying.