Wives of War

by Soraya M. Lane

  ‘What?’ Scarlet stared at him, reaching for his mother’s hand to help her from her sprawled position on the carpet. ‘What did you say?’ she managed, the thumping of her head beating like a pulse.

  ‘You heard me. I said get out,’ Thomas repeated.

  Scarlet stood there, recoiling as much from his words as his punch. She should have told him that the house had belonged to her parents, that it was their wedding gift to her and therefore was as much her home as his. But she didn’t. Her mouth opened and no words came out.

  Scarlet gingerly touched her fingertips to her cheek. She was better than this. She was a nurse who’d saved numerous lives and cared for so many men. Served her country and survived. Searched tirelessly for the fiancé she’d so desperately wanted to marry. She deserved more, and she was not a woman who could suffer a marriage like this and be told to leave her own home.

  ‘Fine,’ she said, a warm sense of calm settling upon her. ‘Fine.’

  Thomas was back to staring out of the window again.

  ‘This is your last chance, Thomas. You say sorry, you apologise for the way you’ve treated me since we returned, for hitting me just then. I’ve done everything I can to show you love and affection, to care for you and prove how dedicated I am to making this marriage work. But I can only put up with so much.’

  Thomas said nothing – just continued to stare blankly out of the window.

  Scarlet’s mother-in-law was also silent, and the only guilt Scarlet felt in that moment was for leaving her to care for her son. But he was her son, he was the boy she’d raised into a man, and if anyone should care for him, then it should be her.

  ‘I’m sorry, Mary, but I can’t stay here,’ Scarlet said as she folded her hands together. ‘If Thomas wants me gone that badly, then I shall go and stay with a friend.’

  ‘Scarlet, please, I . . .’ Mary’s eyes pleaded with her, but she never finished her sentence. Scarlet was certain it was because she didn’t know what to say. What could she possibly come up with that would make her want to stay? They both knew the reality of living with Thomas, and no matter how many times Mary apologised for him, it didn’t mean anything if it wasn’t coming from him.

  She embraced Mary quickly, before walking out and up the stairs to her bedroom. Scarlet never looked back at her husband, thinking only of packing her case and taking her essential belongings with her. Then it struck her that if she would never return then she would have to make sure she had everything she needed. Changing her mind, she found her leather carryall that she’d taken to Normandy, deciding to fill that as well. She went to her bedside table and took out the letter she’d kept in there, the one she’d carried for Ellie all those months. She needed to take it with her.

  Scarlet hurriedly packed her things, not bothering to fold them. It was still only morning, which meant she had plenty of time to make her way to the station and be on her way. She would sit in a train all day and night if she had to; anything would be better than staying here. She carefully slid her ring off, the engagement ring she’d missed so much in France, and left it on the table.

  Once she was done, Scarlet took her bag and case, hurrying down the stairs and out of the house without a backward glance. She didn’t call out goodbye, didn’t think about what she was leaving behind, although the muffled crying of her mother-in-law was impossible not to hear, and she was certain the sound of her sobs would haunt her for ever.

  She was never coming back.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  Lucy

  ‘Your young man is back. Please don’t let me see him waiting all day again to see you.’

  Lucy peered out of the window, surprised to see Jack standing there. She’d started to wonder if she really had misheard him – couldn’t understand why he’d want to come back to see her again. Maybe he wanted to thank her for saving his life, to talk about that day. She knew many people preferred to keep everything they’d experienced at war bottled up inside, like she did about that awful day of the blast, but perhaps Jack needed to ask her questions. They’d talked so much at the hospital, before she’d even known who he was, but that was a year ago when he’d been struggling with his memory.

  She checked her hair was in place and studied her face for a moment before heading out to greet him. She’d been up early, preparing herself in case he did, in fact, appear, but now that he was here she felt anything but prepared. It was one thing to be brave in the dark, like she had been the night before, and another thing entirely to front up to Jack in broad daylight.

  She swung open the door, certain her mother would be eavesdropping from nearby. The last few months had been terribly hard for her mother, and Lucy was still working on her proper apology. She’d put her through a lot simply because she’d been easy to take her frustration out on, and she wished she could take back every curt word.

  ‘Good morning,’ she said, eyes meeting Jack’s dark gaze.

  ‘Good morning,’ he replied, taking his hand from behind his back and passing her a large bunch of assorted flowers. They were tied rather crudely with a piece of thin grass.

  ‘Oh, they’re beautiful.’ Lucy reached for them, using her right hand and forgetting for a split second that she’d meant to keep it hidden. She went to snatch it back before Jack could see her ugly deep pink scars, the marred skin, but he deftly caught her around the wrist.

  ‘Almost as beautiful as you,’ he said smoothly, his words low and only for her.

  ‘Jack, please. You don’t have to say things like that to me now,’ she protested.

  ‘I like telling the truth,’ he said with a grin. ‘You see, I stole these flowers from your neighbours. The truth.’

  She laughed. ‘You didn’t!’

  ‘You are beautiful. Another truth.’

  Lucy laughed as he dropped the flowers on to the floor of the porch and caught her other wrist, gently sliding his fingers to her hands.

  ‘Does that hurt? Touching the skin?’

  She blinked up at him, all joking aside. ‘Not like that, no.’

  Jack smiled and lifted her left hand first, kissing her wrist, lips so soft as they brushed her skin. Then he lifted her right, pausing when she flinched, before pressing a soft kiss there, too.

  ‘My memory slowly came back,’ Jack said, voice more serious now. ‘My sister would never have forgiven me if I’d never remembered her. And it was just as well. I needed someone to write to about you, and I told her all about the beautiful nurse who’d cared for me until my unit found me.’

  ‘You did?’ Lucy asked, wishing she was still that same girl who’d nursed him, the one who was brave and courageous, no matter what.

  ‘Do you know what she said to me?’

  Lucy shook her head, holding Jack’s hands back, looking into his eyes and thinking how easily she could become lost in that welcoming gaze.

  ‘She told me that once the war was over, I was to find you. No argument. I was to go to the address you’d given me and camp outside your house until . . .’

  She smiled. ‘So that’s why you stayed for so long yesterday. Because your sister told you to?’ Lucy sighed. ‘She couldn’t have known about what happened to me, Jack, so I’m sure she’d release you from that promise.’

  Jack ignored her words, dropping to one knee in front of her. ‘Until I could convince you to marry me,’ he finished, as if she hadn’t even spoken. ‘So here I am, asking you, Lucy, to be my wife.’

  ‘Jack, no!’ Lucy tried to pull her hands from his but he didn’t let go. ‘Get up!’

  ‘Marry me, Lucy. Do me the honour of becoming my wife.’

  She cried then, tears falling heavily down her cheeks, her eyes so moist she couldn’t see through the blur. ‘You don’t want to marry me. Not like this,’ she sobbed.

  ‘Yes, yes I do,’ Jack whispered, carefully stroking her skin and wiping the tears from her face as he stood up. ‘And you’re wrong about my sister. She wouldn’t care less about some burns – scars that are a constant r
eminder of how brave you were during the war. Don’t you see?’ he said. ‘They show what kind of woman you are, and I will kiss those burns every single day if you’ll say yes to me. If you’ll marry me.’

  Lucy finally lifted her head, looked at Jack again. ‘After all this, after . . .’ Her voice broke. ‘You still want to marry me?’

  He grinned. ‘Yes. Is it that hard to believe?’

  ‘Yes,’ she admitted. ‘I don’t know if I’ll ever believe it. Why didn’t you walk away after you saw me last night? You never had to see me again. You could have disappeared.’

  He shook his head. ‘I couldn’t walk away from you, Lucy. Don’t you see? I fell in love with you before I could see you, when my head was bandaged and all I could hear was your voice because my head was so blurry. And we have so many dates to go on! We’re starting backwards, but we need to go out for lunch and dinner, to the pictures, on walks. I promise you I’ll be romantic.’

  ‘Truly?’ she asked.

  ‘You’re not taking her back to America with you. Please tell me you’re not going to America with him?’

  Lucy spun in Jack’s arms, her mother’s voice taking her by surprise. So she’d been listening all that time after all.

  ‘Jack?’ Lucy asked, turning back to him instead of scolding her mother for listening in. Why had she never thought of that? ‘If I married you, would you want us to go back to America?’

  He stared at her long and hard. ‘London is your home. Perhaps it can be mine, too.’

  She would move for him. When all was said and done he’d come back for her, and she’d never felt love before she’d met him. Lucy had always been the one laughing at other nurses falling head over heels for soldiers or doctors. She’d always been too focused on her work, more concerned about doing her job well and caring for others. But from the day she’d helped to save Jack, something inside her had changed.

  ‘Mother?’ Lucy said, looking back at her standing there in the open doorway.

  ‘I think you’d make a lovely couple, but before we go talking about a wedding, it’s high time you invited this man inside.’

  Lucy didn’t get time to reply before Jack took her arm. ‘Another piece of that delicious pie would be nice, Mrs Anderson,’ he said with a grin.

  Her mother laughed at the same time as she did.

  ‘You Yanks and your charm,’ she said, cheeks flushing, which amused Lucy. ‘No wonder you like my Lucy. She’s probably the only girl who didn’t fall for your fancy words – made you try a little harder.’

  ‘Mother!’ Lucy protested. But her mother wasn’t wrong and she knew it.

  Jack let go of Lucy, winking at her before taking her mother’s arm instead. ‘Your Lucy was as brave as a soldier in Normandy. I hope you have all day because I have a lot of stories to tell about her. Did you know how we met?’

  Lucy groaned. It was one thing him proposing on her doorstep, and another entirely to have him in her own home, telling her mother all sorts of tales about their time in France.

  ‘Do we have to go back there?’ She understood why so many soldiers didn’t like to talk about what they’d been through. She stopped, the hot blast rushing back to her, the feeling of her skin crawling with fire.

  ‘Lucy?’ Jack was at her side, hand on her arm.

  ‘It’s . . .’ she breathed, pushed the memories away. Her burns were the physical reminder, but her memories were equally as bad – the way they surprised her when she was least expecting them, like a wave crashing through her mind out of the blue.

  ‘We all have skeletons in our closet, Lucy,’ he said gently, stroking her arm as he looked into her eyes, not afraid of whatever she was going through. Her mother was so kind, tried so hard, but she didn’t know what to do when Lucy was hit with an attack like this. Jack’s soft, smooth words started to soothe her, his fingers a steady rhythm against her. ‘Acknowledge them, remember the pain, then don’t let it back in. Don’t let it take hold.’

  She shook as he held her, his arms circling her now, embracing her even though her mother was standing quietly only a few steps away.

  ‘We don’t ever want to forget the things we did. They make us who we are, each and every one of us,’ he told her. ‘The men I killed will haunt me for ever, just like the day you got your burns will for you. But we survived, Lucy. We survived it and we’re getting our second chance.’

  She looked back up, came back to the present, away from the memories and the pain. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Yes to marrying you, and yes to living again.’

  He lifted her hand and kissed her red raw skin, something she was going to have to get used to accepting instead of flinching away from.

  ‘Good,’ he replied with another wink. ‘Now, let’s stop scaring your mother and go and tell her all about how we met, and how you nursed me back to health.’

  Lucy clutched his arm, drawing on his strength, wondering how on earth she’d been fortunate enough to meet a man like Jack. He was right, though; she did need to get on with living. She needed to help returned soldiers and put her nursing skills to good use; she needed to talk to women about what their husbands and sons might have experienced so they could better understand them; and most of all she needed to believe in herself. Jack said he loved her, and instead of doubting him and letting herself be plagued with questions, she needed to believe in him. Instead of running for the hills when he’d seen her, burns and all, he’d returned with open arms, and that wasn’t something she’d ever expected.

  ‘Jack, you’ll have to ask Lucy’s father’s permission. He won’t have you asking her on the porch like that as a proper proposal.’ Her mother tut-tutted.

  ‘It can be our little secret,’ he said with a laugh. ‘Can I call you Mother?’ he asked, putting on a hilarious English accent.

  They went inside and Lucy dropped into a chair at the table as her mother almost tripped over her own feet reaching for the teacups.

  Jack was definitely the breath of fresh air her family needed after putting up with her for the better part of six months, that was for sure.

  ‘Oh, and sweetheart? I’m not like other men,’ Jack said with a grin. ‘If my fiancée still wants to be a doctor, then she has my blessing.’ He laughed. ‘I haven’t forgotten all the things you told me when I was slipping in and out of consciousness and you were keeping a bedside vigil.’

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  Scarlet

  She couldn’t do it. Scarlet’s hand hovered, but she couldn’t bring herself to knock. Why was she here? What had she done?

  She lowered her hand and fisted it to stop it from shaking. What if he’d met someone else by now? What if he no longer felt the same way, despite the letter he’d sent her? What if . . . ?

  ‘Scarlet?’

  She dropped the bag she’d been holding in her other hand the moment she heard his voice. Scarlet turned, and when she saw him, everything changed. All the fears disappeared when James ran the distance between them and embraced her, arms around her as he lifted her from the ground and swung her around. She was safe in his embrace; wanted, loved, needed. All the things she’d been craving and desperate for she knew were now within her grasp, yet not from the man she was married to.

  ‘You have your bags,’ James stated when he finally set her back on her feet, staring down at her, mouth so close to hers as he glanced from her eyes to her lips and back again. ‘Does that mean . . . ?’

  Scarlet nodded, braving his gaze, refusing to look away even though the pull to do so was strong. She’d spent so many long months trying not to think about him, refusing to acknowledge that she’d made the wrong decision. Yet here she was, with James instead of Thomas.

  ‘Did he do this to you?’ James asked, reaching up so carefully to skim his fingers across her cheek, the pain in his expression impossible not to notice.

  Scarlet nodded. ‘He doesn’t know I’ve left him,’ she said, voice quavering. ‘I, well, your mother was there and he was yelling at both of us. When he told m
e to go I left, but I said I was staying with a friend.’

  James shook his head. ‘I’m not your friend.’

  She blinked twice, staring at him. ‘What? I mean . . .’ She’d said ‘friend’ as a cover when she’d left, but still she thought he’d consider himself her friend.

  He moved closer, into her space again, his hands running down her upper arms as he ducked his head, lips closing the distance left between them as he kissed her. Scarlet let him, didn’t consider pulling away as her mouth hungrily met his, kissing him like she hadn’t kissed a man since the night on the boat, when she’d been wide-eyed and innocent about what awaited them in France. Thomas hadn’t kissed her like this even on the day they’d been married. But James . . . James made her feel alive. James made her want to live instead of hide herself away from the world, trapped inside that house. Only she wasn’t trapped any longer.

  ‘I don’t want to be your friend,’ James said when his lips parted from hers. ‘I have no interest in being friends.’

  She saw the glint in his eye, understood his words. ‘I’m married,’ she whispered. ‘Nothing can change that.’

  He pressed his forehead to hers. ‘I don’t care. And if you cared, you wouldn’t have turned up here, unaccompanied, with your bags packed.’

  He was right. Of course he was right. But she was realistic enough to know that their families mattered to them both, and a woman from a good family didn’t walk away from a marriage and take up with another man. Certainly not her husband’s brother!

  ‘Your mother will never forgive me.’ Her mother would never forgive her.

  ‘She will,’ he insisted. ‘And if our parents don’t, then it doesn’t matter.’

  They stood together, so close, outside his house. She hadn’t even had time to acknowledge how pretty it was, with a big garden, away from other houses. It was pretty and perfect – a home rather than a house, despite the fact that he lived here alone.

  ‘What now?’ she asked, looking up at him expectantly, hoping he had all the answers. He’d lured her here, told her that he’d be waiting, so she could only expect he’d figured everything out.