Army of You & Me (8 page)

They sat before a beautiful spread on fine, rose-printed china, delicately arranged with finger sandwiches, scones, little tartlets, and cakes. “Tea?” Major Goldsmith blustered. “Where’s the booze?”

Cain had barely sat down. “I’ll get it. Rose?”

“For starters,” his father declared.

Madeline gazed at Major Goldsmith for a moment before blurting, “I hope you don’t feel bad about what happened.”

He lowered his gaze, reaching for the teapot and pouring the molasses-coloured liquid into the cup closest to her. “I do, Madeline. As I said, you’re the only good thing I did there. It was a terrible, terrible mission.”

She sighed. “I’m not going to blame you for the politics of the people who were giving you orders. You saved my life. My dad’s life.”

“How is he?”

Madeline smiled with pride. “Amazing. He retrained as a nurse. Works like a beast, even now. He’s not ready to retire.”

“Don’t blame him.” Major Goldsmith added milk to her cup. “Bet he’d have no idea what he’d do with himself otherwise.”

Cain returned with two beaded bottles of rose wine. “Does this need to happen with you two being emotional?”

Madeline and Major Goldsmith sent Cain dirty looks. “Just divvy up the wine and stop being such a smart-arse, boy.”

“Good to know you’re like that with everyone,” Madeline added.

Cain sent her a wink. “Absolutely not. You’re special.”

Major Goldsmith reached over and gave her hand a gentle squeeze. “Yes, she is.” His wife entered the conservatory, wiping her hands on a cloth.

“How many of those truffles did you bring with you, Madeline?”

“Five boxes of twelve.”

“Ah. Well, someone is going to be spending a lot of time at the gym after today. Come along, Nathaniel. Start pouring the tea for everyone else.”

Major Goldsmith and Cain blinked. “Which Nathaniel are you addressing?”

Mrs. Goldsmith sank into a chair and opened another box of truffles. “Whichever one is closest to the teapot.”

“Told you,” Cain said, uncorking the wine and pouring Madeline a generous glass. “You had nothing to worry about.”

Feeling warm all over, Madeline picked up her teacup to take a sip. Maybe slow wasn’t bad at all.

***

“Well?” Major Goldsmith demanded. “Are you driving her home?”

Cain blinked in surprise, glancing at his watch. In between tea, finger sandwiches, and mini Battenberg cakes, Madeline and Major Goldsmith had talked over each other in rambles, and sometimes they fell into French. His mother had watched in mild amusement then had been sucked into the conversation, explaining what it was like being a military wife and mother. She thoroughly embarrassed all of them with photographs of various parades and ceremonies.

Tea turned into a late lunch, which turned into dinner. They’d all been talking so much, time had run away from them. In between courses, which Madeline helped to prepare, to his mother’s endless surprise, they’d walked about the grounds and taken a well-deserved siesta on the lawn under heated lamps. Dinner had been a languid, four-hour affair which was only now winding down.

“Dad, it’s almost midnight,” Cain grumbled. “And we’ve all been drinking.” Drinking seemed a mild term for the amount of liquor they’d put away. A few bottles of rosé had been consumed with tea, white with lunch, and several bottles of red with dinner. Not to mention the brandy Madeline had brought with her, opened by his mother against Madeline’s protest to keep it for a special occasion.

“This is a special occasion, silly girl!” his mother chided, before popping open the corked lid. “If we wait for something else, it’ll never get drunk.”

His father shook his head. “Damned sly you are. She’s not sleeping in your room.”

Cain felt a pain behind his left eye. “And suddenly it’s 1996.”

“That girl is here under my roof and my protection,” his father retorted. “You’re not taking advantage.”

“She’s an adult. Strangely enough, so am I.” Cain glanced over to where Madeline had finished her brandy and, after a nudge from his mother, picked up a second. It was very odd. His mother didn’t like anyone. She’d despised his ex-wife with a passion, but she was all over Madeline like a bad rash. His mother had a sweet tooth, and the truffles Madeline had brought with her were probably little more than cocaine to an addict like Elspeth Goldsmith.

“No funny business, Nathaniel,” his father warned him.

Rolling his eyes, he marched over to Madeline and his mother. “Bed time.”

Madeline choked on the brandy. “I…what?”

“It’s rather late. We should sort a room for you.”

Elspeth put her hands up. “Oh, God, you must think I’m a terrible hostess. Nathaniel, you know where the linens are. What do you prefer? Nightgowns or pyjamas?”

Madeline seemed stumped. “I didn’t bring anything with me.”

“Nathaniel, you settle Madeline in the Rose Room. I’m going to get her some nightwear.”

Fair enough.
Cain caught Madeline by the hand and lifted her in his arms with ease. Light, little thing. “I can’t stay here!” she whispered. “I didn’t realise the time. I can get a cab and get the last train.”

Cain’s arms tightened around her. “You know full well that’s not happening. You’re staying here, and that’s the end of it.”

The Rose Room was adjacent to the one Cain had been camped out in for the last month. Convenient. It was the main guest bedroom, kitted with Green & Spring toiletries and fluffy towels. Cain gently placed Madeline down in the room and opened the nearest door. “Bathroom.” He crossed the other side. “My room.”

Madeline folded her arms. “What are you going to do if I push that chest of drawers in front of the door?”

He thought for a moment. “I think I’ve got grenades somewhere. I won’t need them, though,” he said over her laughter.

The smile faded from her face. There was the panic again. Slowly, he reached out and brushed her cheek with the tips of his fingers. “You never look like that after I kiss you.”

“Aren’t kisses meant to be safe?”

That tickled him. “Nothing about you and me is safe.”

A brief knock at the door was followed by his mother breezing into the room. “Are you happy, dear? I’ve brought you this nightgown. It’s Egyptian cotton, just like the bed sheets. And these pyjamas. They are flannel, but it does get a bit chilly in this room at night. Nathaniel Cain, you can take yourself to your own room.”

Elspeth gave Madeline a kiss on each cheek. “Sleep well.”

“Thank you. Goodnight.”

Cain leaned down and gave her a lingering kiss on the lips. “Sweet dreams.”

The look she sent him after that kiss... She was not sleeping in that bed by herself tonight. No way, no how.

Madeline was wide awake. She’d washed her face, cleaned her teeth, and tugged on the cotton nightgown. It still had the price tag on, and Madeline’s eyebrows nearly shot off to space. No one needed to spend several hundred pounds on a nightgown. The bed was huge and the sheets were brushed silk-soft. And yet she was wide awake. After all the food and the wine
—
white, rosé and red
—
and the brandy she was wide awake. Because Cain had caught her with a gaze that seared her with promise.

I’m coming to your bed, and I dare anyone to stop me
. Old houses tended to creak and move. She focused on those sounds, as everything else was deathly quiet. How did anyone sleep in this tomb? The connecting door creaked open and a topless Cain slipped through the crack. Madeline lost her breath. Holy God, he was so beautiful.

“Fucking freezing,” he whispered, diving under the covers and snuggling against her. She could smell the mint of his toothpaste and the warmth of his soap from a shower. Against her arm, his chest hair was short and ticklish. Temptation to examine his body for wounds was overwhelming, but the good girl in her remembered that they were in his parents’ home.

“Where are your pyjamas?” she hissed, trying to untangle his thick, corded arms from her body.

“Somewhere in my bag. Box. Suitcase. Something. I don’t know.” He brushed his mouth over the pulse in her neck and she trembled. If he did that again, her resolve was going straight out the window and they’d both be naked.

“Cain...”

“Yes, sweetheart?”

His mouth travelled over her neck, tracing the seam of the nightgown. She felt warm waves of his breath drifting over her skin. “Your parents said no.”

“Then how are you going to sleep?” he asked, lifting his head from her décolletage to lightly kiss her ear and temple.

“What are you talking about?”

Cain shifted so she was looking up at him. “You need those meditation tapes to sleep. I don’t have any of that. It sounds like some God-awful hippie claptrap. I’m your alternative.”

“You can make whale noises?”

“I can talk. For God and King Richard, I can talk.”

She laughed until tears ran down her face. He was so silly. Resting her head on his shoulder, she draped an arm over his chest. “Talk, then.”

And he did. He ran commentary on everything. From how his mother didn’t like anyone but seemed to like Madeline a lot, to his father being all gooey-eyed over her. He told her how his childhood was littered with the very same sweets she’d sent him, running amok in the fields, learning to drive in near darkness and Maypole dancing. “You can’t tell anyone I did that though,” he warned her. The delicious rumble of his voice was like the smooth running of an expensive car

“Why? Did you have a whole outfit?”

“With knee high socks, yes. There are pictures that have never and will never see the light of day.”

“That’s good.” She yawned widely. He’d been right. She’d never have been able to sleep without him. “Don’t worry, though.”

“Why not? It’s abominable that my parents trussed me up like a ballet dancer without them taking photos as well.”

“I still love you,” she mumbled. The sound of his heartbeat against her ear, the heat of his body, and the hardness of the muscle under her touch soothed her like the whale music never had. Within moments of declaring her love, Madeline was fast asleep, dreaming of a little boy who looked identical to Cain but with her skin tone, skipping around a Maypole.

***

Cain was awake at six, purely as a matter of habit. Carefully, he slipped a still-sleeping Madeline onto the mattress and pulled the covers up to her neck. On the pretence that he had slept there all night, he remade his bed with perfect corners. He had a shower and dressed. All the time, Madeline’s words before she fell asleep played in his head.
I still love you
.

Despite that, he was lulled into the best night’s sleep he’d ever had. In the overt quiet of Cambridgeshire, Madeline’s little piglet snores was all the noise he needed to rest. But in the stark light of morning, he was wide awake. He was overwhelmed by her emotions. Humbled by them. In awe that she thought he was worthy of that. Christ, she’d been right to warn him about her feelings. They’d sat in that restaurant after viewing the house in Dulwich Village and she’d told him straight. What the hell would they do when he had to report?

Being in the army was all he’d wanted to do. All he could do. God only knew what his father would have done to him, had he tried to become an actor or, God forbid, a musician. Disownment would have been the lease of Cain’s worries. Yet with the work, the discipline, the camaraderie between him and people he never otherwise would have crossed paths with, the British Army had fulfilled each and every one of his expectations and more.