you, won’t I?’
‘It’s a deal.’
Then there was a pause, during which neither of them knew what to say.
‘I can hear Joe coming home.’ Mark sounded relieved. ‘We’d better go and tell him.’
‘Yes, let’s.’
That was their betrothal.
CHAPTER TWELVE
THEY married a month later in the church where the others were buried. Joe, bursting with pride and triumph, gave the bride away, and afterwards Dee laid her bouquet of buttercups on her mother’s grave.
A few of Mark’s comrades from the Air Force were guests at the tiny reception held at home. These days, there were constant air offensives, taking the battle to the enemy, and hope for victory was daily growing.
Dee fell into conversation with Harry, a pleasant man who’d been a good friend of Mark’s and was his best man today.
‘Dashed if I ever thought Mark would find a woman who could tolerate him,’ he confided, laughing.
‘I come from a family whose women are renowned for being long-suffering,’ she assured him in the same tone.
‘Good for you! I say, look at that.’ He pointed to a small toy high on a shelf. It was the Mad Bruin, brought out to enjoy the occasion.
‘Mark won it for me at a funfair,’ she said.
‘It’s very like his, except that his had a frilly skirt.’
‘You’ve seen his?’ she asked, startled.
‘I used to. Not recently of course, because it went down with his plane.’
‘Mark took it with him when he flew into battle?’ she asked, scarcely able to breathe.
‘Yes, but don’t tell him I told you that. He smuggled it in secret and none of us were supposed to know, but I think it was his good luck charm, and it really did seem as though he had a charmed life. But in the end they got him, too.’
Someone called him and he turned away, leaving her free to think. Now she was a mass of confusion. Mark had treasured her gift so much that he’d taken it with him while he’d risked his life, and had continued to do so even after she’d broken their engagement. That knowledge caused a glow of happiness to go through her.
But he’d concealed it from her. So many times he could have told her; when they became engaged, when they were making love. Yet he’d chosen not to, showing that there was still a distance between them. Emotionally, he still hadn’t turned to her as much as she’d hoped.
And had their encounters really been love-making? On her side, yes, but on his? Hadn’t he yielded to desire because he needed to know whether his skills as a lover had survived? And hadn’t he married her because, although not exactly what he wanted, it was the best option now available in a devastated life?
But surely she’d always known this? She, too, was settling for what she could get because anything was better than life without him. She would be his wife and the mother of his children. He would never be romantically ‘in love’ with her. It was too late for that. But his affection would deepen and they would grow close.
She must simply hope for that.
But she refused to be discouraged. She had once promised to love him to the end, no matter what happened, and it was time to keep that promise.
She was taking a risk but it was one she had to take, otherwise her vow of love was meaningless. True love meant keeping on even when the actual emotion was hard to feel.
‘Hey, where are you? Dee?’
It was Mark, looking unbelievably handsome, just as she’d once dreamed he would look on their wedding day.
‘What’s the idea of wandering off alone?’ he chided. ‘They’re ready for the speeches.’
‘I’m coming.’
‘You’re all right, aren’t you?’ He looked worriedly into her face.
‘Yes, I’m fine,’ she said brightly.
‘Not sorry you married me?’
‘Of course not.’
‘No regrets? Sure about that?’
She touched his face. ‘I’ll never regret marrying you, as long as I live. Now, let’s go and join the others.’
The rest of the reception went splendidly. There were toasts and speeches, cheers and laughter. That night they made love gently, then lay contentedly together. It was a happiness she’d once thought she would never know.
But she had dreamed of how, on their wedding night, she could finally tell him that she was deeply, passionately, romantically in love with him. Now she knew that she couldn’t do it. She would have to wait longer for the right moment. It might be years in coming. Or it might never come.
His pride in his approaching fatherhood was immense. He was home every evening, something that made her an object of envy among her friends, and his whole attitude towards his wife, and marriage generally, exuded contentment. Dee knew that she was lucky, and that it was sheer perversity that made her long for some sign that she was more to him than just the mother of his baby, that he’d married her for more than the refuge she offered.
At last it was time for her to leave her job. On the last day there was a small party in the early evening, with speeches from Sister, Matron and even Mr Royce, who’d found the time to drop in. While he was toasting her, Dee looked up to see Mark standing in the door, a glowering expression on his face that she’d never seen before.
Now she recalled how he’d said that Mr Royce was in love with her, even advised her to catch him and make a ‘good’ marriage. But that was nonsense, wasn’t it? Surely Mark had abandoned that fantasy?
But his scowling face said otherwise.
‘I see that your husband has come to collect you,’ Mr Royce said genially. ‘Take her home, sir, and take the best possible care of her, because she means the world to all of us.’
Mark’s smile seemed fixed on by rivets. ‘I don’t need to be told to take care of my wife,’ he said in a soft voice that only Dee and Mr Royce could hear. ‘Are you ready to go?’
‘Yes, quite ready.’
He drove her home in the battered second-hand car that he’d bought to celebrate her pregnancy.
‘You should go to bed now,’ he said as they entered the house.
‘I’d like some supper first.’
‘All right, but then you go to bed. You need all the rest you can get.’
‘Excuse me, are you instructing me in a medical matter?’ she asked indignantly.
‘This isn’t medical, it’s husband and wife,’ he said illogically.
Joe was out that evening, which was just as well, she thought, considering Mark’s temper.
‘You’re not still making a fuss about Mr Royce, surely?’ she demanded, annoyed in her turn, and perfectly ready to have a row if that was what he wanted.
‘Shouldn’t I be? Do you really think he’s over you?’
‘I’m not sure there was ever anything for him to get over. It was just in your imagination.’
‘Like hell it was! Do you think I’ve forgotten that he’s the man you ought to have married?’
‘Who says?’
‘We both know it’s true.’
‘Then why didn’t I marry him?’
Astonishment held her silent. After a moment he turned to see her properly.
‘We both know it’s true,’ he said. ‘Once I’d made you pregnant you didn’t have a choice. That’s what I was
