part of me was full of relief.’
‘So I should hope,’ she said crisply. ‘That merely shows you have common sense.’
He stared. ‘You’re not ashamed of me.’
‘No,’ she said, almost in tears. ‘There’s nothing to be ashamed of. Oh, please, Mark, forget all this. You did your bit. You served your country and it nearly killed you. You should be proud, not ashamed. You have a life ahead of you and when you’re fully recovered you’ll find a way to live it.’
He glanced down at his disfigured chest. ‘That will be hard when women can’t bear to look at me,’ he said.
‘That silly girl this afternoon doesn’t count. A woman who cared about you wouldn’t be troubled by this.’
Suddenly she became aware of a new tension in his manner, and the way his eyes flickered away from her. Looking down, she saw why. She was wearing pyjamas, and in her agitation she’d forgotten to check that the front was properly buttoned up. It had fallen open, revealing her naked breasts.
He was still averting his gaze. She took a quick decision.
‘Perhaps it’s
‘You know better than that.’
‘But I don’t,’ she said softly. ‘How could I know?’
Slowly, he turned his gaze back to linger over her breasts, shadowed by the soft lamplight. Then he lay without moving and for a horrible moment she wondered if he was shocked by her forwardness, but at last he reached up to her.
At the soft touch of his fingertips on her breast she felt a blazing excitement go through her, unlike anything she had ever known before. It was the merest whispering caress, but it brought her to life in a way she’d never dreamed of. She heard a long gasp and only dimly realised that it came from herself.
She didn’t know how or where the pyjama jacket went, but suddenly he was touching her with both hands, taking her to another world where all the virtuous precepts of her rearing vanished without trace, and there was only this man and her desire for him.
Now all the textbooks were useless. Only her instincts could guide her, and they told her that he was coming to life, pulling away the rest of her pyjamas, then his own, infused with some feeling that made him forget caution, reticence, fear-forget everything except that he wanted and needed her.
For just one second reality seemed to pierce his dream, making him tense as he became conscious again of his scarred chest. Her answer was to lay her lips tenderly against it. She doubted if he could feel the gesture as his burns would have destroyed the nerves, but he would see it, and know that she was glad to reach out to him. When she looked up at his face again, she saw in it a look of wonder.
Then he was pressing her gently back on the bed, moving over her, parting her legs. She gasped at the moment of his entry, clutching him to her, silently saying that the infusion of new life was for him and only him. The moment when they became one was staggering, alarming, like being carried in a roller coaster, higher and higher, up to the heavens, until the devastating peak, and then the giddying descent, holding on to him for safety.
But there was no safety in this new world. There would never be safety again as long as she lived. And with all her soul she rejoiced at it.
She looked up at him, her chest heaving with pleasure, but, to her surprise and disappointment, he seemed troubled.
‘I’m sorry,’ he groaned.
‘But why? Why should you be sorry?’
‘It was your first time, wasn’t it? Oh, Lord, what have I done? I didn’t mean to…I never thought…’
‘Neither did I,’ she said. ‘And I’m glad I never thought. Thought has no place here. Mark, I’m happy. I wanted this. Don’t spoil it.’
‘Do you mean that?’ he asked cautiously.
She gave a smile full of delicious memory. ‘Yes, I mean it. Oh, yes, I mean it.’
‘Dee, I-’ He stopped, choking. Words had always come easily to him, but that was for trivialities, jokes, chatter. Now he longed to tell her of his fear that his skills as a lover had died in the fire and his passionate gratitude to her for helping him rediscover them, and he was suddenly dumbfounded.
‘Tell me,’ she said.
‘It’s nothing-nothing-as long as you’re all right.’
‘Yes, I’m all right,’ she assured him seriously. ‘I’m more than all right.’
‘You weren’t just-being a good nurse?’
‘Oh, Mark, stop it! You’re talking nonsense. As though I would.’
He managed a pale smile. ‘I don’t know. You take such good care of me, better than anyone else has ever done, ever, in all my life.’ He said the last words with an air of wondrous discovery.
‘Just the same, there are lengths even a good nurse won’t go,’ she assured him. Her physical sensations had come swiftly down to earth, but her emotions were still up there, dazed with the joy of being in his arms, feeling at one with him.
Perhaps he felt the same for he suddenly grinned. There was happiness in his smile, but also relief.
Suddenly, Dee chuckled. ‘You’ll have to marry me now,’ she teased.
At once his smile faded and he shook his head. ‘Oh, no, I can’t do that. I couldn’t do you such harm.’
‘Harm?’
‘Look, I understand that you were only joking, but we both know that I’d be a useless husband. Bottom of the class. The last resort. I only have a job now because of your father’s charity, and you’d have to nurse me for ever. I’d be a burden on you, and I can’t do that. Just don’t make jokes like that any more. All right?’
‘All right,’ she said with a little sigh that he didn’t hear. ‘Now, perhaps I’d better go back to my room. The patient has had too much excitement for one night.’
She scrambled back into her pyjamas and was gone without giving him the chance to say anything. After that, there was nothing to do but dive into her bed, hide as far as possible under the covers and curse her own clumsiness.
Why on earth did you have to say that about getting married? What happened to your common sense?
At last she pushed the clothes aside and sat up, eyes blazing into the darkness as she came to a decision.
This was no time for common sense! She had loved him hopelessly for five years, and it was now or never. And if it meant being a ‘bad girl’, so what? Hadn’t her own mother shown the way?
In the corridor outside, Joe stood tentatively glancing back and forth between the doors of Mark’s bedroom and Dee’s, both of which he’d heard open and close. He hesitated, as though uncertain what a good father would do at this point. When it finally became clear to him, he crept back into his own room and quietly closed the door.
Dee was late home the next evening, to find Mark at the bus stop.
‘Have you been there long?’ she asked. ‘You shouldn’t. It’s bad for you to stand about.’
‘Joe and I were concerned, even after you called to say you had extra duty. He’s got the kettle on.’
‘Mmm,’ she said blissfully, taking the arm he offered. ‘How lovely to be pampered!’
‘You can’t always be the one doing the looking after,’ he observed.
‘I’m not complaining,’ she assured him.
At home, she ate the egg Joe had boiled for her while they all discussed their day. Then they listened to the radio together. In some ways the news was heartening. The Allies had gone on to the attack, taking the airborne fight to the enemy and beginning to land forces in the occupied countries. But this carried a terrible cost.
‘How many aircraft have they lost?’ Joe murmured sympathetically.
‘Over a thousand,’ Dee sighed.
Mark cocked an eyebrow at her. ‘Did Mr Royce tell you that?’
‘I hear things from the patients.’
‘Ah, yes, of course.’ Mark said no more but his mood became a little glum.
Soon after that, she went to bed and lay listening. She heard the two men climbing the stairs, saying goodnight, going their different ways. After a while she heard Joe cross the landing to the bathroom, then the clank of pipes as he turned on the taps for a quick wash and finally the return to his room. A few minutes later the sounds were repeated with Mark.
