A Brighter Tomorrow
Page 32
‘There’s no telling when he’ll manage to get through on the telephone next,’ Skye said, more firmly now. ‘So we must carry on normally, Celia. Dinner will be at the usual time, and with so many of us in the house, you could do worse than to keep busy and help Cook with the preparations.’
‘I don’t think so, Mom, unless you want me to chop my fingers along with the cabbages,’ she said shakily. ‘I couldn’t concentrate on anything at all right now, and I need to be alone with my thoughts. Please understand.’
She fled upstairs to her bedroom before anyone could argue. In a little while, God willing, she would hear Stefan’s voice again, and she would know instantly if everything was still the same.
But dinner came and went, and the day softened into twilight and then darkness, and still the telephone hadn’t rung. Celia toyed with the meal, eating no more than morsels of food, in an agony of suspense.
At last the shrill sound of the instrument shattered the quiet of the evening.
Her heart pounded as she rushed to answer it. She made herself take deep breaths and held on to the receiver as tightly as if it was a lifeline. And then she heard his voice.
‘Celia, at last, my liebling. Mein Gott, the waiting has been so long. I began to think I would never hear your voice again.’
‘Is it really you, Stefan? Please tell me I’m not dreaming,’ she stuttered, knowing how inane she must sound, and not caring. ‘I can hardly believe it’s true. I’ve imagined this moment for so long—’
There was a mechanical delay at each end before either of them could hear the other’s reply, and Celia held her breath as she waited for him to speak again.
‘No one could have imagined it more than I, my sweet darling. I can picture you now, standing in the hallway of that lovely house. Take a moment to look out of the window, my Celia, and tell me what you see.’
She looked to where the long French windows reached the floor. Outside, the night had deepened to a soft velvet blue, and shining high above was a shimmering silver star, brighter than all the rest. The breath caught in her throat.
‘I see a star…’
In the small enforced silence, she tried to collect her senses, but it was almost impossible, knowing their thoughts were still so in tune, despite the distance between them.
‘So now we know it isn’t all a dream, and that our lives together can begin at last,’ he said gently.
‘But where are you? Are you still in Germany? In Berlin? What’s happened to you all this time? I heard you had been interned, Stefan, and about your lovely estate.’
She had so often wondered how much he mourned for all that had happened to his old home in the intervening years.
‘It’s no longer mine, Celia, and I’m no longer in Germany, although I remained in Berlin for a long while in the care of the Vogls.’
She gasped, and would have asked more, but he went on speaking gravely.
‘Their son is dead, my love, serving his country, but the Vogls took great care of me when I became seriously ill. If it had not been so, I would have contacted you much sooner. But when everything seemed to be over, I decided to wait just a little while longer until I could offer you what we always dreamed about.’
He paused, but before she could say any more, his voice became a touch more tentative than before. She could hear the strain in it, as if he too wondered if the time spent apart had changed them irrevocably.
‘So how soon can you come to Gstaad, liebling?’
‘You’re in Gstaad?’ she repeated stupidly, hardly able to take in all that he was saying.
‘In a certain hotel that in due course, I hope, will have my name over the entrance, Celia. Our name.’
She swallowed. Everything was happening so fast that she couldn’t think straight. But one thing was certain. She hadn’t waited all this time to be put off by the little matter of finding transport. The old mercurial Celia asserted herself.
‘I’ll come as soon as I can get a flight, Stefan. I’ll telephone the hotel to let you know the time of my arrival.’
‘I’ll be waiting,’ he said. ‘And there’s something I haven’t told you yet. I love you with all my heart.’
‘I love you too,’ she choked. ‘So very much.’
* * *
It was a little while before she felt able to join her family in the drawing room and speak sensibly.
‘Was it your feller then?’ Butch said daringly.
‘Come on, Celia, tell us what’s been happening to him, and put us out of our misery,’ Olly said, with a hint of impatience in his voice. All the attention had been his until now, and Celia guessed that with the selfishness of the invalid, he wanted to get this new drama over and done with. She didn’t blame him. It was the war…
Wenna looked more anxious, knowing how very important this was to her sister. She and Olly both had their own futures assured now with loves of their own, but for Celia there had been so much uncertainty. And none of them would readily forget, she thought uneasily, that Stefan was German, and that these two ex-airmen had been doing their best to bomb his country out of existence.
But none of that was going to stop Celia’s resolve, and it was to her mother that she looked for reassurance.
‘Tell us your fiancé’s news, darling,’ Skye said softly, bringing him into the family circle with one simple word, and daring anyone to dispute it.
‘He’s in Gstaad, Mom. He’s been very ill, but the Vogls have been looking after him. Can you believe that? And he says that Franz Vogl was killed, so they had their casualties too.’
She didn’t mean to make it sound as if that compensated for the fact that Stefan was a German, but if they took it that way, so be it. Her voice was jerky as she went on.
‘I have to get in touch with Moonie as quickly as possible. I need to go to Gstaad to be with him, Mom, and I’m sure Moonie will be able to organise a flight for me. I have to go. You know that, don’t you? All of you?’
Her eyes pleaded with them to understand. She needed the approval of her family. They were important to her, but Stefan was her love, her everything, no matter what else he was. If they couldn’t see that, then she would be estranged from them for ever, because she could never give him up.
‘Cor. I reckon your feller must be somebody special,’ Butch said in a hushed voice.
‘He is,’ Skye told him, and then turned to her daughter. ‘You go and contact Captain Moon right away, darling.’
Nick added his piece. ‘And when it’s settled, we’ll drink a toast to the good times ahead of us all, to wash away old hurts, and to welcome a long and lasting peace.’
‘Amen to that,’ said Skye. To Celia’s enormous relief, nobody questioned it.
And it was Olly who moved across to her and kissed her, his tender cheek bearing witness to the fact that if he could forgive an old enemy, so could anyone.
‘I love you all,’ she said in a choked voice, before she rushed out of the room again to telephone Moonie.
* * *
A week later, she stepped out of the rickety train that had sawed its way into Gstaad, and breathed in the sweet summer air of the mountains and the flower-strewn meadows. She had contacted the hotel to say what time she was arriving, but nothing was reliable these days, and the train was inevitably very late, causing even more frustration in Celia’s heart.
Just then she saw him, standing by the gate, as dear and handsome as ever, if older. Oh yes, he looked older. But so did she, thought Celia. No one had come out of this war unscathed, however peripheral a part they had played in it.
And then all thinking was over, as they ran towards each other and were caught in one another’s arms. His kiss was sweet on her lips, the same as ever, and yet never so fresh or so cherished as in those first emotional moments.
‘I’ve missed you so much, Stefan,’ she sobbed against his shoulder. ‘I’ve longed for you so much, and I never gave up hope for a single moment—’
‘No more did I, my darli
ng,’ he said unsteadily. ‘How could I, with our star never failing to appear? But we mustn’t stand here entertaining the local folk. Let’s go home.’
A porter picked up her luggage as they walked outside the station still hugging one another, and Stefan drove them to the picturesque hotel in the soft shadow of the mountains that she remembered so well.
The hotel where they had met and had afternoon tea together, when the darkly handsome German had interviewed the beautiful blue-eyed Cornish girl for an employment post, during what seemed like a lifetime ago. They had both known then that it was destined to be far more than a business meeting.
Now she learned that the hotel was actually going to belong to them, and there was a sweet sense of inevitability about it that was as Cornish as her name. They explored every bit of it, renewing themselves through memory, and talking long into the afternoon about all that had happened since their enforced parting. Learning about one other all over again, taking it slowly, and exulting in knowing that nothing had changed. Their love was still as bright and new as ever.
Celia turned to him with shimmering eyes, holding his hands tightly as they reached Stefan’s bedroom.
‘I asked for your luggage to be brought in here,’ Stefan said carefully. ‘Or was I presuming too much, too soon? You must tell me if it’s so, my love, and I’ll understand.’
She put her fingers to his lips, smiling into his eyes, and she was at once the old assertive Celia he adored, who had always known exactly what she wanted.
‘Will you? Well, I would not! Do you think I’ve waited all this time, and longed for you with all my heart, for us to worry about petty conventions? Whose hotel is this, anyway?’
‘Yours and mine very soon, sweetheart,’ Stefan said, with the laugh that she remembered that could warm her heart.
Then the look in his eyes deepened into something far more intimate and sensual as he lifted her in his arms and walked purposefully towards the huge four-poster bed.
‘I think it’s more than time I showed you just how much I’ve missed you,’ he went on, his voice deepening with desire. ‘Or is that too presumptuous a suggestion so early in the evening?’
‘Of course not,’ she whispered, her senses soaring to meet his. ‘Now that we’re together, we have no more need to watch for the stars to come out, my love.’
‘Except that when they do, I shall want to make love to you all over again,’ he told her, as he began to unfasten her blouse, teasing every bit of newly exposed flesh with small, erotic kisses. ‘Tonight and every night, for the rest of our lives, until I’m far too old and weak to do so.’
‘May that day be never,’ Celia said softly, as her feverish undressing matched his now.
Their mutual need overcame any thought of strangeness after being so long apart, and her arms reached out to draw him down to her. And then all the waiting was over as Stefan covered her and filled her with himself, and she surrendered to the exquisite fulfilment of belonging.
For them, tomorrow had already begun.
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A Brighter Tomorrow
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First published in the USA in 2000 by Severn House Publishers Inc
This edition published in the United Kingdom in 2019 by
Canelo Digital Publishing Limited
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Beaconsfield, Bucks HP9 2DU
United Kingdom
Copyright © Rowena Summers, 2000
The moral right of Rowena Summers to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN 9781788634748
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places and events are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
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