Home for Christmas (27 page)

‘Rose Cottage,’ Lydia informed him, adding that she was a nurse and could stay and look after her friend.

‘No need. I have a nurse. My wife, you see,’ he said in a Welsh accent of the kind that bellows from the pulpit. ‘It’s our hospital. You drive on back to Rose Cottage. Your friend will be fine.’

‘I’m afraid I can’t drive a car. I’ll have to leave it here and walk back,’ she explained.

‘There’s a storm coming. You’ll be soaked through by the time you get back to Rose Cottage. I’ll arrange a lift in a pony and trap. Will that be all right?’

Lydia told the doctor that it would suit her fine.

The weighty clouds let loose their rain. It poured down.

Hair dripping water, droplets falling from her nose, Lydia held on to the cardboard box of groceries on her lap with both hands. The brim of her hat was becoming sodden, raindrops falling off like crystal pearls and running down her neck. Her clothes were wet through.

She wished she could have stayed with Agnes regardless of the doctor’s reluctance, but she’d left windows open back at the cottage. Agnes is resilient, she reminded herself.

She’d barely darted inside the front door before lightning flashed and a peel of thunder rolled overhead. Startled, she let go the bottom of the box, soggy and soft now thanks to the downpour. Cheese, bread, bacon and a mix of eggs and brown paper bag fell out and on to the floor.

Soaked through and tired, Lydia sat down on a chair, buried her face in her hands and howled. Nothing had gone right with this trip. She had come here hoping to be with Robert before his posting came through. Would she see him again before he went to France? She dearly hoped so.

Lightning flashed and thunder rolled again before wind-driven rain lashed the window.

Lydia leapt to her feet. She’d closed the downstairs window, but the one upstairs in her bedroom was still open. She ran up the stairs, not relishing the prospect of sleeping in a sodden bed – before remembering that Agnes’s bed was empty. So much for her friend acting as a chaperone. Not that it mattered. Robert had been unable to come anyway.

Saved by the overhanging eaves, the bedroom was quite dry except for a few windblown rose petals.

Taking a deep breath, Lydia sat herself half on to the window ledge, leaned forward and stared at the sky. Thunderstorms had always fascinated her, the way the lightning flashed across the sky, the thunder crashing like great waves upon a rocky shore.

Fear had replaced fascination. She knew little about cannons, but the comparison was obvious. A cannon flashed then a thunderous crack occurred before the shell was despatched. That’s what it would be like when the guns opened up on the other side of the English Channel.

Supper was bread and cheese washed down with hot milk. Worrying about whether Robert was already in France, and with Agnes in a hospital bed, she didn’t have much of an appetite.

After stripping off her wet clothes, she sank thankfully into bed. She lay with her arms crossed behind her head thinking. The bedside candle threw flickering shadows over the lime-washed walls. Some of those shadows thrown by ordinary objects, a jug, a vase, a hairbrush, turned into something else, something more frightening.

She imagined them as machines of war, crawling over the ground. She reminded herself that Robert would be flying and safe from all that.

Just as she was about to put out the candle flame, a moth flew into it. Its wings burst into flame. It fell, twitched and moved no more.

The storm abated and she fell asleep. Dreams came and went and for a moment she thought that Robert was there, standing at the side of the bed, telling her he wouldn’t go to France unless she went too. ‘I will,’ she said in her dream. ‘Yes. I will.’

Someone called her name.

‘Lydia? Lydia?’

She woke up in an instant. The wind. The thunderstorm was over; it could only be the wind.

Raising herself on to one elbow, she looked around the room but the darkness was impenetrable. It was as though somebody had placed a black screen before her eyes, or painted the room and everything in it with black paint. No light seeped through the curtains because there was none; no street lamp, no light from a neighbour’s window. The cottage stood alone at the end of a narrow track.

There was a creaking sound, perhaps an opening door, perhaps the branch of an aged oak moving in the wind.

She pulled the bedclothes up higher whilst telling herself not to be frightened. It
was
only the wind, just the wind whistling round the house.

Another creak, then another. She held her breath. The sound was coming from the stairwell. Footsteps!

The door creaked open, the sudden fluttering of a candle lifting the total blackness.

‘Who is it? Who’s there?’

A dark figure came into view, the light from the candle accentuating his jawline, high cheekbones and deep-set eyes.

‘Lydia! I called you, but when you didn’t answer, I thought you were asleep. I took off my boots before climbing the stairs. I didn’t mean to scare you. I just wanted to see you, look at you one last time before I leave.’

It wasn’t a dream. It was really him.

‘I saw flying machines in the sky over London. I thought you were already gone.’

She gave him no time to answer, flying from the bed, flinging her arms around Robert’s neck.

‘Careful,’ he said, holding the candle as steady as he could.

He quickly set it down. A spot of wax dripped and he cried out when it burned his finger.

‘What is it?’

‘Just wax.’

‘I’m sorry.’

His smile was wide and brave. ‘It’s worth the pain, my love. Well worth the pain.’

He wrapped both arms around her, hugging her tightly and burying his face in her hair.

‘Didn’t you hear my car?’

‘No.’

‘Better be careful we don’t wake Agnes. I didn’t see your car outside.’

‘She’s not here,’ said Lydia, shaking her head, not realising that just the sight of her loose hair, the smell of her body so warm inside her long linen nightgown, was the most erotic thing he’d ever encountered.

He stroked her face as she told him about what had happened.

‘She’s going to be all right?’

Lydia nodded. ‘She’ll be fine.’ She paused. ‘We’re here alone.’

She said it softly, huskily and full of meaning.

He looked down into her face. She felt his biceps tense as though he were hesitating whilst he thought through exactly what she was saying.

Waiting for him to make the next move was sheer torture. She realised she had to make it plain.

‘I have no chaperone,’ she heard herself saying. Reputation, her father and everyone else no longer mattered. There was only today. Tomorrow might never come.

Gather ye rosebuds while ye may …

Every contour of his body was discernible. The candle flickered over his muscles, the line of his shoulder.

He ran one hand down her arm, over her breast and over her hip.

The moment his lips crushed hers, she knew there was no going back. He couldn’t – wouldn’t – resist her. She herself was beyond resistance. She felt light headed, not just because she’d feared those noises in the night, but because she knew this was the man she wanted and would not resist. The attraction was too strong.

He took off his jacket, slung down his braces and unbuttoned his trousers, all done with his lips still clamped to hers.

She unbuttoned his shirt and, trembling, helped him remove his vest. His smell too was somehow familiar, a sweet maleness that when she breathed it in almost made her dizzy.

The message got through, the pressure of his hardening penis almost painful as well as exciting.

Echoing her excitement, he tugged at the six small pearl buttons fastening her nightgown. In his haste, one button popped off.

‘Sorry. I’m too clumsy,’ he murmured, his voice thick with desire.

‘Let me.’

She pushed his fingers away, her own trembling as she undid each button in turn, pulling the sleeves halfway down her upper arms so her shoulders, her breastbone, and then her breasts were exposed.

The nightgown tumbled in tiers around her ankles. The heat of his chest, a sprinkling of hairs dividing each breast, surprised her, and yet she relished it.

He cupped each of her breasts, lowering his head, his voice smothered with groans of desire and exclamations of how beautiful she was. The touch of his hands, large hands with warm palms and sensitive fingers, made her skin tingle.

She felt his breath on her body as his lips moved upwards, dotting her flesh with fiery kisses, licking the dip beneath her throat whilst stumbling sideways in his attempt to remove his trousers and underwear.

Laughing, Lydia held on to him to stop him from falling. They stood like statues amongst the discarded clothing, two lovers who had been instantly attracted to each other, now about to venture further, to claim the final prize.

He wrapped his arms around her and clasped her tightly to his chest, breast against breast, belly against belly, thighs against thighs.

‘I can feel you all the way down,’ he whispered.

‘I can feel …’ She took a deep breath, arched her back and pressed closer. ‘You!’

Tentatively, she reached down between them, touching the tip of his penis with her fingers.

Robert groaned and closed his eyes.

Lydia whispered in his ear, ‘The bed’s getting cold.’ Without another word, he picked her up and set her down in the middle of the feather mattress.

The candle cast a subtle light, not that they had need of light. They had looked at each other long enough to know what they were getting.

‘I love you, Robert Ravening,’ she said to him. The words came out without warning but were heartfelt.

He smiled down at her, drinking in the expressive face, the round breasts, the narrow waist, the flared hips and the downy patch between her legs.

‘I’m going to marry you, Lydia Miller, and don’t you forget it.’

The sight of him, the feel of him and this wonderful night; that, she decided, is what I will never forget. And we will marry. When this dreadful war is over, we will marry.

The next morning saw them periodically smiling at each other over breakfast of bacon, bread and tea.

Lydia scraped butter and marmalade across a slice of toast. That would have been all she might have eaten if Robert hadn’t arrived.

She glanced around the table at the extra dishes and frowned.

Robert noticed. ‘You’re frowning. What’s the matter?’

Lydia got up, poured more water from the kettle into the teapot and came back to the table, standing just behind him. ‘I was thinking of Agnes. I think it best we don’t tell her that you were here – under the circumstances. She’s had an accident and it’s ruined her weekend. She was so looking forward to it,’ she stated, studying the back of her lover’s head whilst pouring him a second cup of tea. He had a strong neck, solid, like the trunk of a tree. Looking at it, she couldn’t resist brushing her fingers through the soft down at the nape of his neck. ‘Besides that, she was supposed to be my chaperone. It wouldn’t have happened if she’d been here. She might feel guilty – or resentful about it.’

Robert’s eyebrows rose as he smiled a lopsided smile.

‘Wouldn’t it?’

She stroked his hair. ‘Perhaps. Perhaps not.’

Robert wrapped his arm around her waist and looked up at her.

‘I’ve known Agnes all my life. She’s very capable. I’m sure she’ll cope, but … I’ll stand by your decision. By the time she gets back here I’ll be gone.’

Lydia didn’t elaborate that she did sometimes feel a little guilty that she had ended up with Robert when Agnes had loved him so much.

She took the teapot to the sink, then began collecting up the dishes.

‘I’ll go into the village and see how she is. I’m hoping she’s recovered. I think she will have recovered by lunchtime. Anyway,’ she said with a knowing grin, ‘I doubt she’ll leave that car outside unattended for too long. You know what she is like.’

Robert laughed. ‘How about I give you a lift?’

Lydia shook her head. ‘I think it best if I walk. The woman in the village shop asks questions of everyone and doesn’t miss a thing. Questions will be asked. Reputations will be ruined.’

She laughed, not caring whether her reputation was tarnished or not.

The last dishes were placed in the sink. An awkward silence fell between them. It was as though each was concerned that the next word uttered would be goodbye. Both of them were endeavouring to put off the dreaded moment for as long as possible. Tomorrow and all the days after would be very different days from today.

Lydia stayed at the sink, although the washing-up itself was just about finished. Hands clenched over the sink’s cold ridge, she stared out of the kitchen window on to a garden of flowers, bees and whispering grass.

The legs of Robert’s chair scraped across the uneven flagstones. She closed her eyes when he came and stood behind her. Even though they were both clothed, she could feel the heat of his body. She took a deep breath; she wanted to remember the smell as well as the look of him. It might be all they would have.

‘I wish I could stay,’ he said softly.

She nodded mutely, knowing that if she opened her mouth to say anything, she would beg him to stay. After that, she would cry.

She steeled herself to him leaving, refusing to wave him goodbye from the garden gate.

‘I prefer to busy myself putting these dishes away rather than do that. That way I can pretend you’ve only gone outside for a smoke or to dig up a lettuce from the garden or a bunch of flowers – anything. Anything rather than say goodbye.’

It was odd the way they didn’t touch, but said their goodbyes in the time between washing up and putting the dishes away.

She’d asked him if the bed was turned down. He’d shaken his head and told her he would go up and check, but what did ‘turned down’ actually mean?

They’d both gone back up to the bedroom, undressing swiftly, carelessly throwing their clothes to the floor, not giving themselves time to get to the bed, but breathlessly, impatiently, falling to the floor, writhing amongst the clothes, too impatient for the formality of a comfortable bed.