‘I think my parents are starting to understand my intentions,’ James murmured as he strode towards her, footsteps light on the carpet. ‘My mother gave me a very knowing smile earlier.’
‘And what exactly are your intentions, James?’ she asked in her most demure tone.
‘To have my wicked way with you,’ he muttered, one hand lost in her hair as the other wrapped around her waist, tugging her to him.
‘I’m not sure this is what your mother had in mind when she decided to leave us alone together.’ Scarlet laughed, lips finding his and kissing him hungrily.
‘Let’s not waste time then,’ he said, pulling away for a moment before kissing her again, the warmth of his lips, the press of his body making her want even more of him. They’d gone weeks without seeing one another after the funeral, but he’d been calling on her in the past several weeks, and she’d loved every moment with him, loved feeling like herself again after so long.
‘James, stop,’ she whispered back, hearing a noise and pushing him away. She ran her hands against her hair to check it was in place around her face. ‘I’m pregnant.’
James went silent, stepping back as his mother cleared her throat in the hallway, obviously wanting to alert them to the fact that they were about to be disturbed.
‘Lovely garden out there, my dear,’ she called out. ‘It will be delightful in spring.’
James was still staring at her and Scarlet didn’t know whether to laugh or feel sorry for him. She’d never seen a man look so shocked.
‘Mother, Father,’ he called out, standing straighter and no longer looking so daunted by the news she’d just shared with him.
His father ambled into the room, followed by his mother.
‘Scarlet and I have news to share,’ James said.
Scarlet shook her head. He wasn’t? Oh no, surely he wouldn’t . . . ‘James,’ she cautioned.
‘I know it’s soon after Thomas, but my intention is to ask Scarlet to marry me. I cannot see the point in delaying simply for the sake of being polite, because in the weeks that have passed I’ve realised what Thomas couldn’t.’ He smiled. ‘This woman deserves a husband to adore her, and that man is me.’
She let out a breath. For a moment there she’d been certain he was going to share that she was pregnant!
‘Oh, that’s wonderful news,’ his mother enthused, stepping forward to envelop Scarlet in a hug. ‘I will never forget my Thomas, but, my dear, after what he put you through . . .’ She sighed. ‘I didn’t raise my son to treat a woman the way he treated you, and even though I know he saw and experienced so many horrors over there, it doesn’t mean I ever accepted the man he returned as.’
Scarlet held her tight. ‘We don’t need to speak of it,’ she said, not wanting to delve back into the past. ‘Let’s all remember the man we knew before the war rather than the one at the end.’
‘You were a good wife to him, Scarlet. Better than good,’ the other woman whispered. ‘You deserve to be happy.’
Scarlet looked at James over his mother’s head, receiving a devilish wink in reply, and a smile that made him look like the cat with the cream before he hugged his father.
He was a devil, her James, but he was hers, and for the first time since she’d met him, she no longer had to hide it. It didn’t mean they would ever forget Thomas, or the man he could have been. But Thomas was gone now, and she wasn’t going to spend the rest of her life wondering what could have been.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
Ellie
‘Anybody home?’
Ellie heard the man’s voice call out, and she carefully slid her baby into her cot, wondering who it would be, coming in unannounced like that. It sounded so like her husband, but . . . She walked on light feet out of the nursery, not quite closing the door behind her. And then she saw him.
‘Spencer?’ His name was only a whisper on her lips; she could hardly believe her own eyes. ‘Spencer!’
He dropped his bag and strode down the hall as she ran down the stairs into his arms, looping her legs and arms around him as she squealed and showered him with kisses.
‘Hello, wife,’ he said, voice husky as he held her back.
‘Oh my goodness! Spencer!’ Ellie squealed, forgetting all about her sleeping baby. ‘What are you doing here? You were supposed to be another day away.’
‘Well, I’m here,’ he said, and she noticed for the first time how weary he looked. ‘And you . . .’
She looked down at herself, realised in horror that she was covered in baby sick, all over her shoulder and now all over Spencer. She probably smelt horrendous, too, and her hair was a mess.
‘You’re not pregnant,’ he blurted, still staring at her. ‘I mean, I know you’re not still pregnant, it’s just that’s how I’ve imagined you all this time, with a rounded stomach.’
‘No! But I’m a mess to look at, aren’t I?’ Ellie shook her head, annoyed with herself that Spencer had arrived home to find her so dishevelled.
He reached for her, smiling, but he paused when a soft cry rang out. It quickly turned into a wail and Ellie sighed, exhausted.
‘You’d better come meet your baby girl, then,’ she said.
‘I can’t believe we have a daughter!’ he said, eyes wide.
‘Yes, darling, we have a daughter, and she has a set of lungs on her that she exercises all day and night.’
He grinned, looping his arm around her and dropping a kiss into her hair. ‘Poor little girl has just been waiting for her daddy to get home, that’s all. I’ll bet she’ll be quiet as a mouse now.’
Ellie laughed and hugged him tight to her side. Spencer was home, they had a healthy baby girl, and the war was over. Finally, everything was back in its rightful place.
EPILOGUE
Scarlet
New Year’s Eve, 1945
The day was unseasonably warm, the sun shining down on them all as they stood outside the church. A gentle breeze touched Scarlet’s cheeks. It had been a beautiful service – a small gathering, which had made it feel intimate – and there was not a person in the church with dry eyes after watching the happy couple recite their vows and celebrate with an exuberant kiss.
‘Ready to help me celebrate?’ Lucy asked as her hand landed on Scarlet’s shoulder.
Scarlet smiled at her, beyond happy for her friend. They’d been through such a lot together, and to know how much Lucy had suffered and how much she’d overcome to even be here today brought fresh tears to Scarlet’s eyes.
‘You look so beautiful,’ Scarlet told her. ‘I know I’ve told you already, but you do.’
Lucy sighed. ‘I feel like everyone is telling me that to make me feel better about my scars,’ she said.
‘I know you think that, but it’s not true,’ Scarlet told her, eyes sweeping over Lucy’s flushed cheeks, hair down and curled rather than fashioned into an updo, so as to cover her neck. It was true that her hand and wrist were an ugly deep red, as was a large part of her neck and jawline, but none of that detracted from how pretty she looked in her beautiful off-white gown. ‘You look alive today, truly alive, so happy and content.’
‘How do you feel?’ Lucy asked in a low voice so no one else could hear. ‘You’re not woozy or anything?’
Scarlet shook her head, smiling. Lucy and Ellie were the only two people, other than her husband, who knew that she was pregnant. They were waiting to tell everyone, wanted to wait a few more weeks since they’d only just been married. It had been a small ceremony, only their parents had been there to witness it, and given what had happened to Thomas, it was what Scarlet had wanted. Lucy’s wedding today had made her a little sad that she hadn’t had her own lovely ceremony in a church, wearing an amazing dress, but it didn’t matter. She looked past Lucy to James, saw him standing there talking to Spencer. She might not have had the fairy-tale wedding, but she had James, and that was what mattered.
‘Come on, let’s get you to your reception.’
The church was within
walking distance of Lucy’s family home, where the wedding breakfast was being held. Scarlet lifted Lucy’s train and held it off the ground.
‘Wait for me!’ Ellie called out, hurrying down to walk with them. ‘I’m ready for champagne.’
Scarlet laughed. ‘We weren’t going to celebrate without you.’
‘It seems like such a long time since we were all together. I don’t want to miss a moment,’ Ellie said.
Lucy turned back, her smile wide. ‘I was as excited about seeing you two today as I was about marrying Jack.’
To anyone else, her words might have seemed peculiar, but after all they’d been through together, what they’d seen and done side by side during the hardest months of their lives, it made complete sense to Scarlet.
‘I have something of yours,’ Scarlet said to Ellie as they walked.
‘Me too.’
They walked to Lucy’s house, the groom having run along to join in and link his arm through Lucy’s. It was a picture-perfect moment for Scarlet, seeing her friend with her new husband, knowing how they’d met and for how many painful days they’d seen Lucy caring so much for a man without knowing his name or whether he was already promised to another.
Once they were at the house, with Lucy’s family and other friends filling up the interior and heading straight through to the large table that was being set for a feast, Scarlet waved Ellie over and they made their way outside. There was a seat in the garden, and Scarlet sat down in it, wishing her dress wasn’t so tight around the middle. Everything was starting to feel a little snug, although she hadn’t only the baby to blame. Since they’d been home and with more food than they’d had in France, she’d been making up for lost time and enjoying every meal, and it wasn’t doing her figure any favours. Ellie sat down next to her.
‘This is for you,’ Scarlet said, reaching inside her brassiere for the letter that had spent most of its life close to her body. ‘I’m so pleased that I never had to find your family to give it to them.’
Ellie did the same, holding out the letter that she’d held for safekeeping. ‘Do you ever wonder how we made it? I mean, did you ever truly imagine it could be that bad?’
Scarlet leaned against her friend, dropping her head to her shoulder. ‘Never. Not for a moment.’
‘Do you ever think about how many men we lost?’ Ellie asked her, her voice quavering. ‘On our watch?’
Scarlet put her arm around her and squeezed. ‘I have certain patients who haunt me, I suppose they always will, but most days I think about the ones we saved. I have to think happy thoughts, especially after Thomas.’
‘Do you still blame yourself?’ Ellie asked.
Scarlet didn’t sit up; she didn’t want to look at Ellie and let the emotion hit her hard, as she knew it would, so instead she kept her head on her shoulder. ‘I don’t think that’s something I’ll ever move past, but I try not to think about it.’ What she did often think about was that letter she’d written to Thomas, the one she’d let be taken by the wind, never to be posted to him. Then, she’d thought nursing would be fun, that it would be nothing more than character-building, that she’d find Thomas and they could get on with being married and living happily ever after. She’d been so wrong. But then again, when she looked at James, everything felt somehow right, as if she’d lived the journey that had been made for her.
‘I feel like we started out as girls and somehow became women, even though that sounds so silly and we didn’t exactly behave like typical teenagers back then.’
‘But we were girls, in a way,’ Scarlet said, her gaze settling on a pretty robin perched on the fence. Sitting there, looking out at the garden, it was almost possible to believe that the war had never happened. In the city and the streets where she worked, the war had touched everything; there was evidence everywhere of what they’d been through, what London and all her people had suffered. But not here, in this quiet garden. ‘I was so certain that I knew what I wanted, what my future looked like back then.’
‘And now?’ Ellie asked.
‘It’s a different kind of future,’ Scarlet replied, shifting to look at her friend. ‘I’m content, but I’m still . . .’ She wasn’t sure how to finish her sentence.
‘You’re still haunted by what happened, aren’t you?’ Ellie said.
‘Yes,’ Scarlet agreed. ‘Yes, I am.’
‘I think we all are. I honestly don’t think anyone could have seen what we saw and not be kept awake at night thinking about it,’ Ellie said as she unfolded her letter. Scarlet watched as she stared at the words. ‘When we wrote these, we had no idea what we were about to face, but we knew there was a chance we wouldn’t make it home.’
‘Girls!’ a breathless Lucy called out to them from the door. ‘I’ve been looking everywhere for you.’
Scarlet touched Ellie’s shoulder and then tucked her little folded-up letter into her hand, holding it tight. ‘We were just reminiscing.’
‘Well, come and reminisce inside,’ Lucy said. ‘The food is almost ready, but Jack and I are going to have our first dance now.’
Scarlet smiled to herself. Trust Lucy to already be in her husband’s arms. It was lovely to see her smiling again, after everything that had happened to her, after all they’d been through.
‘Come on,’ Scarlet said to Ellie. ‘We have men to dance with.’
‘I’m missing Rose,’ Ellie said, frowning. ‘It’s the first time I’ve left her.’
‘And her grandmother will be in heaven having her all to herself,’ Scarlet scolded. ‘It’s high time you enjoyed a few hours out with your friends. We might not all be together again for a while.’
They followed Lucy in, watched as Jack pulled her into his arms, dipping her back and kissing her. Scarlet had studied him, seen the way he looked at Lucy. She knew there were men who’d have been repulsed by Lucy’s burns; they were horrific and they would mark her for life. But Lucy had saved Jack; she’d been his lifeline when he’d woken up not knowing who he was or where he was from. She deserved him like no woman had ever deserved happiness before, because she was Lucy. She was the nurse who’d braved fire to save another’s life, and they were all lucky to have her in their lives.
‘Hello, beautiful.’ James surprised her, catching her in his arms from behind and whispering into her ear. They stood there, Scarlet leaning back into him as Lucy enjoyed her first dance as a married woman. All the furniture had been pushed back to make way for the happy couple. Scarlet waved at them, and when they laughingly asked them to join her, James twirled her around so they could dance, too.
‘Are you happy?’ he asked, murmuring against her cheek, his skin pressed to hers.
‘Yes,’ she answered, honestly. ‘I am.’ She wasn’t stretching the truth, either. She would forever shoulder some responsibility for Thomas’s death, warranted or not, but she was happy, and she needed to stop feeling guilty and let herself enjoy her future. If James had pushed past it, then so could she.
‘Good,’ he said simply.
Scarlet curled her arms around his neck, held her new husband close. Past his shoulder she could see Ellie dancing with Spencer, holding him tight. Anyone looking at them all now would have no idea what they’d been through, how far they’d all been pushed. She shut her eyes and listened to the steady beat of James’s heart. She’d found her happy place, and she only hoped they’d never have to face another war ever again.
Scarlet looked up when someone tapped a spoon to a glass. She’d been leaning past her husband to chat to Ellie and Lucy since they’d all swapped chairs after the meal, but it seemed the groom was ready to make a speech.
‘On behalf of my lovely new wife,’ Jack said, his American drawl making Scarlet smile, it sounded so smooth, ‘I’d like to thank you all for joining us today.’
Scarlet raised her glass of champagne, one of a few bottles that Lucy’s father had brought up from the cellar where he’d had them hidden since before the war. She took a slow sip.
‘My
family would have loved to be here today from New York, in fact they’d love to meet my beautiful wife, period, but I was in a bit of a hurry to marry this gorgeous girl before she realised what a mistake she was making.’ He laughed. ‘The truth is that they couldn’t make it here due to my sister expecting her first baby any day, but they’ll be visiting as soon as they can.’
Scarlet smiled along with everyone else seated around the table. Jack was always entertaining; he had been even when he’d been lying on a hospital bed without his memory and so obviously trying to court Lucy, the one nurse who’d always been immune to a soldier’s charm.
‘Anyway, my sister sent a letter, and she wanted me to read it today, so here goes. To my future sister-in-law, thank you for marrying my brother. If you’re anything like he’s told me, we’re both lucky to have you in our lives, and I can’t wait to meet you one day. I wish you a lifetime of happiness, and I want to thank you with all my heart for your bravery. I know that you are the reason he’s here today. Without you, he wouldn’t be alive, and I will forever be thankful for your decision that day to help save him. He’s told me you have scars, that you were badly burnt, but he’s also told me that they’re a sign of your bravery and of what you went through. I don’t even know you yet, but I do know that I’m proud to call you my sister. Yours truly, Susie.’
Scarlet wiped her eyes, smiled through her tears as she reached for her glass. She stood, urging Ellie to do the same. She wasn’t one to speak in front of others, but this was different. This was Lucy’s wedding, and they were surrounded only by her family and a handful of her other friends. This was something she needed to do.
‘Lucy is one of the bravest and most talented nurses we met in France, and we are so happy that she found Jack. We suffered through her constant worries about this man, certain that a photo in his pocket was his sweetheart, when in fact it was this lovely new sister of hers, Susie.’ Everyone laughed and Scarlet smiled over at Lucy. ‘One day the memories of what we saw over there will start to fade, but I will never forget you or Ellie. I am forever grateful to have met you both, and I am so, so happy to be here today to see you marry Jack.’
Wives of War Page 31
