by Gloria Cook
‘I’ve got something for you.’ He reached inside his tunic and pulled out a box. ‘It’s a necklace made of local freshwater pearls. Wear it often, and wherever you go I’ll be right along there with you.’
Lottie sat up so he could fasten his gift round her neck. ‘It’s the most perfect thing in the world.’
He smiled deep into her eyes. They moved in at the same moment for their next kiss. After a long time, it was he who pulled away. She tugged him back to her. ‘Don’t stop.’
‘We should think carefully before getting into something we, you I mean, might regret.’ He kept a distance although his voice was raw with desire.
She lay down again and gazed up at him, loving him even more for the anxiety he showed for her. ‘I could never regret loving with you, Nate. Where could be better than here in our special place?’
‘You’re so young, Lottie. I’ve got to be responsible.’
‘Darling, we don’t know how long we’ll have to be together.’
‘I know, but right now you’re upset over your brother. Making love and the possibility of babies is a serious matter, Lottie.’
‘I know what you’re saying, Nate. It’s good and noble of you. But what does a wedding ring matter?’
‘It would be everything to you if I end up dead and you with a baby. It’ll ruin your life, Lottie. I’ve seen it happen to other young women. I can’t do that to you. I won’t risk it.’
She traced her fingers along his frowning brow. ‘You really are the most wonderful of men. You don’t mind if I tell you that I love you?’
‘Not if you don’t mind me saying the same to you. I love you absolutely, Lottie. Now let me get you safely home.’
* * *
Out in the lane, by the light of a dim torch, Tom opened the back-seat door of the taxicab that Louisa arrived in. He helped her to alight and pushed a ten-shilling note at the driver and told him to keep the change. He’d gone back to work shortly after the memorial service and was still in his work clothes but had been careful to scrub himself fresh and clean.
He made his voice nonchalant, as if it was the same as every other time she had come here. ‘Glad you could make it, Lou.’ Glad the day is over and you’re here at last! He’d spent the days since taking her the news of Will’s death wondering if the birth of the intense attraction between them would die a natural death. It hadn’t. Not at all. It was the reverse. It was getting stronger all the time. So strong it was almost painful. But it was the way he wanted it.
‘How are you, Tom?’ she asked, as always. Have you been waiting for these moments as much as I have? She had gone over and over the strange beauty of their new relationship. Was Tom’s grief part of the reason for the new ground they had covered? It must be. She still loved David. Had never thought to care about another man. She couldn’t possibly feel the same way about Tom. Good old, considerate Tom, her former playmate. Yet it seemed she did. For the nearness of him was wonderful. And now he had taken her arm, pressed it inside his, and fantastic little shivers were racing up and down her flesh. ‘And the family? I was so upset that I couldn’t be at the church, but there was no question of Ada getting time off and I couldn’t leave Mr Ash alone. I feel bad about fibbing to Aunt Em about my reason.’
Tom had escorted her to the front door many times before. One did this to Louisa, so dear and sweetly refined and seemingly delicate, leading her to the front door rather than through the dirt and smells of the farmyard. Louisa brought the protective nature out in a man. Inspired the desire to treat her as a princess. God above, she was special. Utterly special and utterly divine. Why had he never seen it before? Wasted so much time dallying about like a he-goat?
Louisa was glad to be taken the long way round to the front door. It gave them more time to spend alone. She had been alone with Tom many times, but not until a few days ago had she enjoyed the masculinity of him. He was powerfully built, good looking, eligible, vital and virile. It was no wonder women flocked to be with him. Now, she wanted to be the only woman he’d ever be interested in again.
They got to the door. He turned his back to it. ‘Louisa?’
‘Yes, Tom?’
The door was opened. Disappointment cut into them both. ‘Saw you coming. Well, bring Louisa inside, Tom,’ Emilia said.
It was hard for him to obey his mother, to relinquish Louisa to her, to watch them hug and kiss cheeks, to hear his mother thank her for coming, to even hear them cry for a while over Will, when all he wanted to do was to be alone with Louisa. Alone, and to lay a claim on her.
Louisa stared into the almost empty sitting room. Only Perry was there, a black armband on the sleeve of his white shirt, and Lottie, in her coverall, sitting astride a chair and leaning dreamily on her arms. ‘Is your Uncle Tristan here?’ She peered anxiously into each corner, as if he would suddenly loom out at her and besiege her with disapproving looks.
Emilia ushered her to a chair. ‘Don’t worry, he’s gone back to Tremore. You’re hardly going to believe who with.’ She launched into the family’s surprise and delight about Faye and her baby. ‘We’ve told her not to hide herself away. She’ll have to face a lot of tittle-tattle and some outright criticism, but she’s made friends since she’s been here and they won’t be judgemental. She’s proud of her son and shouldn’t be shy in showing him off.’
Louisa hoped the distraction of Faye’s baby in his life at Tremore would detract some of Tristan’s antipathy from herself when next they met.
It seemed an age to Tom before he got his wish, when Lottie went upstairs to chat to a very subdued Jill, and Perry insisted on escorting his mother up for an early night. ‘I bet you wish my Uncle Tris wasn’t in Hennaford at all. You mustn’t mind him anyway.’
‘It’s not important what he thinks about me.’ Louisa aimed a convincing smile at him.
He imprinted that lovely smile in his mind. ‘Is it important what I think of you?’
Asked a question like this before and she would have lowered her gaze. Not this time. ‘Very important.’
‘Your taxi’s not due yet. Lou, we need to talk. Don’t you agree?’
‘Yes, Tom, I do.’
‘We can’t stay here. Someone might come down for a glass of water or something.’ He clenched his hands nervously. ‘Will you slip up the back stairs to my room? No one will know if we creep carefully past Jill’s room. Just for a while. Is that all right?’ Louisa was dressed too well to suggest somewhere outside and it was very cold. He’d never expect her to suffer discomfort.
She fiddled with her handbag. ‘That will be fine, Tom.’
Tom preferred to have his room in the older part of the house, where he had greater privacy and could keep a better eye on the yards. He lit a lantern and Louisa looked around the messy confines. ‘I’ve never been one to stand on ceremony,’ he explained, chewing his lip.
‘I know. That’s what I like about you,’ she smiled into his eyes.
He paced the rug, for the first time shy with a woman. ‘Well, this is all very strange. I never thought this would happen… I mean, us. There is an us, isn’t there, Lou?’ He was so anxious she’d answer otherwise.
She stretched up and stroked his burning cheek. ‘Yes, Tom. I rather think there is.’
They reached for each other. The first touch of their lips bred love and a desire that was urgent and fierce and unstoppable. Louisa had made her husband wait for intimacy until their wedding night, but with Tom, while keeping her lips against his and kissing him hungrily, she was pulling off her cardigan and kicking off her shoes. Tom would have been happy just to have her with him, to talk to her, but her need for him caused him to be consumed with need. As they opened up more and more to each other, dragging off clothes, mouth hard against mouth, they couldn’t wait to be entirely naked and fell down on the bed and quickly found each other in the deepest places.
They didn’t know if they were being noisy. During their joining, every exquisite, writhing moment of it, they thought about n
othing else except the other. Loving and living and being in the most precious and fulfilling way. It seemed they were united and moving entirely together for minutes and for eternity.
Panting, laughing softly, Tom lay over her body, supporting himself on his forearms. ‘I thought I might fall in love one day but not for some years, and not with you, darling Lou. It frightens me now that I might have missed out on being with you. I love you. I’ve said that to girls before, just to get my way with them, but I really do love you. You do believe me? You do want me to be in love with you? You do want me too? Please don’t say this is a mistake.’
She pushed a damp muddle of his thick hair, turned a burnished reddish-brown in the lantern light, off his forehead. ‘The only mistake I could have made was not going along with my feelings for you, Tom. I love you.’
Replete and content he lay beside her, jamming her between his arms. ‘I think Will would have been very surprised but happy for us. With you at my side, I feel able to take on whatever life will throw at me. I wish you could stay all night.’
She snuggled into him. ‘Me too, but apart from shocking everyone I must get back for my guest.’
‘Oh, yes, Mr John Ash. I’m most eager to meet him.’
Prickles of unease made worms wriggle in her stomach. ‘He’s a very private man, Tom.’
He kissed the crown of her head, caressed the soft skin of her neck. ‘It won’t hurt to say a quick hello. Will it?’
‘I suppose not. But I insist that only you can speak to him, Tom. I’m asking you again to keep his presence in my house a secret.’
Chapter Fifteen
In the cold early hours, Ben lay on the narrow camp bed, smoking, trying to unwind. He studied his hands, hands now trained to kill in two rapid shots if necessary. He marvelled that they were steady, for it wasn’t at all how he was feeling. He was in a state of exhilaration, nervous anticipation. His greatest hopes were about to be realized, to serve his country, to play a part in freeing Europe of Nazi tyranny, to help open up the Second Front.
He would have liked to write to Tris, just about general things, but secrecy and security was paramount. Tris had to be wondering where the hell he was and what he was up to; although he might have taken a guess from the small clue he’d left behind on his desk prior to departure – old correspondence from a vineyard he’d had dealings with in Bordeaux before the war. Tris had been an officer of many years standing, he knew about the machinations of war; perhaps Tris had surmised that he’d been asked – due to his extensive personal knowledge of the French countryside – to join the French Section of the War Office. If he had, hopefully he’d tell Faye not to think too badly of him over his long, silent absence.
He wanted to write to Faye. It was nearly Christmas. He didn’t want her to believe he’d abandoned her again and had no wish to contact her at all during this family-orientated time of the year. He wanted to telephone Faye, hear her voice. Ask her to call him Father. He had developed a fondness for her in the long, lonely hours of rest following the rigorous daily training, of scaling assault courses, learning how to pass on coded messages, the horrors of mock but realistic interrogation, and how to adopt a totally new personality, all for operations behind enemy-occupied lines. The training was tough, it required strong mental application, a positive attitude, a passion to do the job, and learning to care for his daughter hadn’t been difficult in comparison. He couldn’t altogether say he loved Faye, and yet he had to. He kept thinking about her. She was his child. His flesh and blood.
Merely because he’d longed for a son he hadn’t loved her enough. What a shallow man he was, if he could call himself a man. He had hoped for glory in the last war, but through one unfortunate occurrence, a silly little happening really, he had sought refuge in hurt and bitterness. How cowardly of him. He had forsaken his dear, good-natured wife by setting her hopes and aspirations aside, and then he had looked again at Emilia. In another act of small-mindedness he had chosen to hate Emilia simply for not loving him again. During his clash with her she had hurled at him how he had once been. It cut through him like a sword now to remember what it had felt like to be truly happy and content.
He had sought a contentment of sorts up here in a secret location in the Highlands, unaware that, although many miles away from Faye, how much closer she had been. Other training had involved learning the preparation and setting of explosives, picking up weapons dropped from a plane. There had been a short parachute fall off a high tower; tomorrow would come the real thing. He could never become a soldier but he was to operate as an SOE (Special Operations Executive) agent, a member of ‘the Firm’.
There was no contentment now. He felt he was disintegrating. Pain and confusion was fragmenting him. He’d missed out on the greater part of Faye’s life. If he was killed he’d never see her again. He sat up on the edge of the bed and stubbed out the cigarette. God, how he wanted to see Faye. To throw his arms round her and tell her he loved her. She’d said she was leaving Tremore for a while. She might never come back. She probably hated him. Oh God, why did I waste my life?
In the terrible dark void of total loneliness he wept blisteringly hot tears, rocking, hugging himself. He pictured Faye in the hallway of his house, saying goodbye. Goodbye perhaps for ever. If he got back, if she wasn’t there, he might spend the rest of his life searching for her, only to find she’d reject him… If that was to happen, he hoped, he prayed, he’d serve well in France and be killed.
‘Dad?’
What was that? It was as if someone had spoken. Faye? It was a memory of her. In the hall, the last time he’d seen her, yes! Dear God, yes! She’d called him Dad! She’d asked him if he was all right. For days after the clash with Emilia, everything had been a blur. He’d forgotten what Faye had said to him. Forgotten those wonderful words. She did care for him. Faye cared for him! He was laughing and crying now. ‘I love you, Faye. Please, God, let me live so I can tell her.’
He’d been told that in the event of his death, some time afterwards, his next of kin would be informed of his service. He had already lodged a letter to Tristan with his solicitor. He could tell Faye he loved her. He still had time to write a letter. Leaping up, without bothering to mop his face dry, he went to the room of a fellow trainee to beg some stationery.
Chapter Sixteen
Jill, Lottie and Emilia were busy in the flour house plucking poultry, most of which would find their way on to the festive plates of the local hotels and restaurants, the infirmary and cottage hospitals, and as soup in military canteens. The birds were hanging up outside by their legs in a long line; the heads of the hens and cockerels newly pulled; the geese, ducks and turkeys newly decapitated; a swift, merciful end at Tom’s mastery.
Lottie had insisted Jill be excused this task. Then Tom had baffled Lottie by insisting on seeing to it all himself. ‘What are you talking about, Tom? Mum and I have killed many a bird or beast.’
‘Let Tom do it. It’s his way of looking after us,’ Emilia had said, quickly looking away. ‘Since Will…’
Lottie had choked back a lump of grief. Sometimes she didn’t know how she’d get through if she hadn’t met Nate. Sometimes, as now, she didn’t know how to look at Jill – there was still no news from Ronnie. The not knowing was beginning to drag Jill down. Now that she had Nate, and Tom and Louisa were courting, Lottie thought it must seem doubly hard for her. She had hugged her mother. ‘Are you sure you’re up to this, Mum? Perry says you need to rest. You’re so big now. Why don’t you go inside into the warm and put your feet up? We can manage here.’
‘Go inside and darn a few socks, you mean?’ Emilia had smiled. ‘I might be waddling around like an old duck but I’ve not turned into an old dear, Lottie Harvey. I’ll sit down here out of the draughts.’ She headed for an old circular-seated chair. Tom had put a cushion on it. It helped ease her crushing sorrow, having her remaining children fussing over her.
As the women worked, they chatted about mundane things, normal things, pu
tting in nothing about the war, the subject so often on everyone’s lips. The boxes for the feathers and down, which would be saved for other use, were steadily being filled. When a dozen birds had been plucked, Emilia said, ‘You girls can carry these along to the kitchen. Tilda will help me with the cleaning and trussing.’
‘Poor Mum,’ Lottie said, when she and Jill were back in the flour house. With deft wrist actions, she started denuding a duck of its soft white down. ‘She must be remembering all the fun we had in the old days, times like when Will pushed handfuls of feathers down the back of my dress and threatened to tar and feather me, treacle being the tar. I was a right little pest to him back then. Once, Tom nearly choked on a mouthful of down. Will dragged him outside and thought he was doing the right thing by pumping cold water over his face. I think it was the only time I saw Tom cry. He couldn’t breathe and he said he’d been very scared. Will called him a baby. Mum took Tom inside and dried him off and gave him a big slice of saffron cake. Will was disgusted. He called Tom soft for that and he was bloody furious with him for not sharing the cake. Mum and Tom have always had a special closeness. So have I with her. Will always seemed a little remote from us, like my dad. I wonder if Mum feels guilty over it. She’s got no reason to, of course, but death does that to you, makes you feel guilty about things you wish you’d done or hadn’t done, things you wish you could change. Mind you, Will could be an awkward so-and-so. Bless him.’
‘It’s good that you’re enjoying memories of Will,’ Jill said, working on a hen at a slower rate than Lottie, her inexperienced fingers and thumbs aching, her nose clogged with the coppery smell of blood. ‘I wish I had brothers or sisters.’
