Read The Last Camellia: A Novel for Free Online

miserable, and I was feeling increasingly wary about the job ahead of me.
    “Flora?” I recognized Georgia’s voice, muffled by the door.
    I sat up in bed. Vertigo instantly set in, and I steadied myself on the bedside table, then quickly smoothed my hair.
    “Flora, are you in there?”
    I looked at my face in the oval mirror on the wall. Pale and plain. I hadn’t bothered to dress. Georgia knocked again, this time louder, more determined.
    “Just a minute,” I called out, reaching for my pink robe on the hook near the door. I turned the doorknob and pressed my nose to the opening.
    “Oh, good,” she said. “I was getting worried.” She barreled past me.
    She looked at me as if seeing me for the first time. “Are you well?”
    “No,” I said, feeling annoyed.
    “I thought you might like some reading material.”
    “Yes,” I replied. “I’ve been staring at this wall for far too long.”
    “Good, then,” she said, depositing a regal-looking dark blue leather-bound volume in my hands. I turned over the spine, reading the words: “
The Years
by Virginia Woolf.”
    “I think you’ll like it,” Georgia said. “I read it the first time I traveled from New York to London.
    “Anything to take my mind off this seasickness.” I opened the book to the first page. “It was an uncertain spring,” the first line read.
Yes
, it was.

    April 14, 1940
    Having nothing to do but read for the rest of the voyage, I finished the book on the final day at sea, and it wasn’t until the last page that I flipped back to the beginning and saw the inscription Georgia had written on the inside cover: “Flora, the truth of the matter is that we always know the right thing to do. The hard part is doing it. Love, Georgia.”
    I tucked the book into my bag, and as I packed my suitcase, I thought of how much I’d changed even in the short time of the voyage. In New York, there was a right and a wrong. But now? Now, even despite Georgia’s prodding, I had come to realize that maybe sometimes there’s a gray. I hated what I was about to do, but I had committed to it, for Mama and Papa. And now that I was this far along, I couldn’t turn back, even if Georgia believed I could.
    I pulled the brim of my hat lower on my forehead and ventured out, first collecting my train tickets from the front desk, then finding my way to the debarkation deck. Mr. Price had arranged for a cab to take me to the train station, where I’d board a train to London, and from London I’d take a cab to Clivebrook, to the manor. Part of me hoped to see Desmond once more, but I’d heeded Mr. Price’s advice and had kept to myself the rest of the voyage. I wondered if Desmond had looked for me, but there was no sense in thinking about him anymore. I had a job to do, and I’d never see him again.
    I was happy not to find Georgia on the train from Liverpool to London. I’d already made up my mind. As I stared out the window at the foggy countryside whizzing past, I smiled at a young mother across the aisle, who had just pulled a loaf of bread from her bag. She broke off a piece and handed it to her tiny son, seated next to her. He wore a cap and overalls and promptly stuffed the chunk in his mouth. She then held up the loaf to me. “Care for a bit of bread, miss?”
    I noticed the patch on the elbow of her dress and shook my head with a smile. “No, thank you. You’re very kind, but I’m fine. I ate breakfast on the ship.”
    The little boy peeked at me from beside his mother and smiled.
What would they think if they knew what type of person I really was, if they knew I was coming to their country to help commit a crime?
I bit the edge of my lip. I wouldn’t be stealing, exactly. Mr. Price had said I was only to identify the rare camellia and report back. That was different, I told myself. And yet the guilt grew in me like a cancer.
    When the train arrived in London, I gathered my bags and walked to the street, slowly, on leaden legs. I retrieved