counting on.’
‘You were…counting…?’ She was groping for answers, trying to come to terms with this.
‘Why do you think I came to you night after night-?’ he growled.
‘Or I came to you.’
‘I was trying to make you pregnant, so that I could marry you.’
It took a moment for the full glorious truth of this to burst on her.
‘You wanted to-you actually wanted to marry me?’
‘Don’t pretend you didn’t know.’
‘I’ve never known. Why didn’t you just propose?’
‘Because I had no right. What kind of prospect was I? Nothing to offer you beyond a damaged body and a load of nightmares. I didn’t have the nerve to ask. But if you were pregnant it would be my duty to marry you, and I could square it with my conscience that way.’
Dee listened to this with mounting disbelief.
‘Don’t glare at me,’ he said. ‘Are you angry?’
‘Angry? Mark, have you
‘I had to do it, to force your hand.’
‘Do you mean that you…that while I was trying to force…that all the time you were…is that what you’re saying?’
‘Yes,’ she said through twitching lips. ‘That’s exactly what I’m saying. At least, I think it is. Oh, darling, it’s crazy. We each wanted to get married, and we forced each other. And all this time-’
The last words were almost drowned by his shout of laughter. ‘Come here,’ he cried. ‘Come here.’
Crowing with delight, she threw herself into his arms, kissing his face madly, fumbling for his buttons.
‘Let’s go upstairs,’ she urged. ‘We have to celebrate this in the proper way.’
But the words acted like a douche of cold water on him, making him freeze in mid-gesture and step back from her.
‘What am I doing?’ he groaned. ‘I must be out of my mind to even think of…I’m sorry-forgive me.’
‘Darling, it’s all right. We can go ahead.’
‘You’re pregnant. It could harm you-or our baby.’
‘Trust me to know about that. There’s a little time left before we have to stop, I promise you.’
She thought she’d swayed him. He reached for her with desperate hands, then snatched them back, groaning.
‘No, you’re just indulging me, but I won’t risk your health. Stay away. Don’t tempt me.’
He ran, and a few moments later she heard him in the garage.
She wanted to scream her frustration to the heavens. They had taken one more step along the road, potentially a happy step. He wanted her. He’d wanted to marry her.
True, he hadn’t actually said he loved her, but that would come, surely, the first time she could tempt him back into her arms? But he’d made it clear that the baby meant more to him than she did, so for the moment she would have to be patient again.
But she was so tired of being patient.
After her busy life, it was pleasant to have time for herself and to be cared for by two concerned men. In the afternoons she began putting her feet up, regarding her growing bump with placid contentment.
She was half dozing like this one day when there was a knock on the door. Opening it, she found Harry, the airman who’d been a guest at the wedding.
‘I’m afraid Mark’s not here,’ she told him. ‘He’s working on a car at the owner’s home.’
‘It doesn’t matter. I just wanted to deliver this.’ He held out a large envelope. ‘It seems that all Mark’s things weren’t cleared out when he left and they found this recently. Very sorry. Can’t stop, I’m in a hurry.’
He blew her a friendly kiss and departed.
The envelope wasn’t sealed and she tipped the contents out onto the table. There were a couple of stray socks and a few papers concerned with his time in the service. It was while sorting through these that she came across the letter he’d written her and never sent:
…You were right to break it off. I’m a useless character and I’d be no good for you…
The touch of humility took her breath away. He’d spoken like that once before, after his injury, but this had been written before. Had he felt like this even back then? Surely in those days he’d been different, more at ease behind the mask of bonhomie?
From the garage came the sound of clanking as Joe worked away. Mark would be back soon. Gathering everything together, she hurried up to her room and shut the door. Safely alone, she resumed reading the letter.
…Do you still have the Mad Bruin?…let him remind you of me sometimes; even if it’s only the annoying things…never seem to understand when you want to be left alone…
But I never wanted you to leave me alone, she thought sadly. I wanted more of you, not less.
The letter became disjointed, suggesting that he’d returned to it often, while never finishing it.
Dee threw herself back on the bed, trying to come to terms with the discovery. Her heart was touched by the man she found here, a vulnerable man, not the cockily self-confident loudmouth he tried to present to the world. But someone who was secretly waiting for love to let him down-as it always had done, going back to his earliest days.
This was the true Mark, the lovable Mark, but still the one he concealed from her. The letter had never been sent. She closed her eyes, conjuring him up in the darkness, trying to see him as he must have looked when he was writing. Had he murmured her name?
‘Dee-Dee-’
She opened her eyes to find him sitting on the bed beside her, frowning in concern.
‘I was just dozing,’ she said, looking up at him from the pillow. She saw him looking at the letter in her hand. ‘Harry brought some of your things that weren’t returned before, and this was among them.’
‘So that’s what happened to it. So many things vanished, including my little bear.’
‘Harry said you had her in the cockpit with you when you went down. He told me that at the wedding. I wish you’d told me yourself.’
He took the letter and she watched his face. He looked sad and strangely older than only a few hours ago.
‘Perhaps I shouldn’t have read it,’ she said. ‘You never wanted me to see it, did you?’
‘Not then. I didn’t know how to face you. There was so much I wanted to say but I couldn’t find the words.’ He gave a wry smile. ‘I was angry. You dumped me and it was a shock. My pride was hurt. This-’ he indicated the letter ‘-was me trying to say so and making a mess of it. It’s probably just as well I didn’t send it to you.’
‘Or maybe it’s a pity. Who knows what might have happened? I might have come to visit you.’ There was just a hint of hope in her voice.
‘Or you could have had an attack of common sense and stayed well clear of me.’
‘Does that mean you’re sorry we’re together, Mark?’
He frowned, as though not understanding the question. ‘How can you say that?’ he asked, laying a hand on her stomach. ‘Everything that’s worthwhile in my life, in the whole world, is here. All hope is here, all love is here, all life.’
He laid his face against her for a moment, then raised it and said gently, ‘I’ll make you a cup of tea.’
He hurried away, taking the letter with him and leaving her smiling. There was joy to be found in his words, his all-embracing acceptance of her as the hope of his life. She tried to ignore a faint niggling disappointment that his affection seemed to lack the other dimension that would have meant so much. He’d turned to her as a refuge from horrors, something she knew was common to many men who’d been involved in fighting. It was more than she might have expected and if it wasn’t what she’d hoped for, so what? With the years stretching out ahead of them, it was time to be realistic.
Wasn’t it?
