The Temptation Trap

Fate sent Rose Norman home on leave on the same train, helping with the wounded on the journey. When she came across Harry he was light-headed and obviously feeling wretched, but utterly delighted to see her again. They were able to talk only briefly, but Harry begged her home address, and the moment he was discharged from the hospital in Denmark Hill called to see Rose on a day when her mother was helping Rose’s sister, Amelia, with the children’s measles in Kensington.

Far into the night Rosanna lay in the same bedroom her grandmother had occupied as a girl, riveted by the account of a love affair all the more passionate and poignant for the modest, unaffected style of Rose Norman’s letters. Referring to the diary from time to time, Rosanna read how Harry cut short his stay with his parents, and saw Rose every day, courtesy of the measles which focussed her mother’s attention away from her younger daughter.

When Harry asked her to marry him, Rose, still shadowed by the loss of one fiancé, was superstitious, and implored him to wait until the war was over.

‘But in the meantime,’ wrote Rose, ‘we are madly, wildly in love, and alive.

‘Today,’ said the next entry succinctly, ‘we became lovers.’

The diary was blank after that until Rose arrived back in France, not earlier than scheduled due to curtailed leave, as she told her mother, but on the due date after a week of illicit bliss with Harry in a Brighton hotel.

Their next meeting was in France, when Rose managed to get time off to stay with Harry in a pension in Rouen before he went up to the front. When they parted Harry gave his love a brooch in the shape of a gold rose, and kissed Rose’s tears away when she sobbed in his arms.

Rosanna slept late the following morning, and woke to a feeling of guilt. Overnight she’d had time for regrets, very much aware that there was no real necessity for Ewen to bring back the papers in person. Any future dealings with him could have been done by post. But she liked him. In fact, after just one meeting she felt as though she’d known Ewen for years. Or in some other life. Which was dangerous. It stemmed from Harry and Rose, of course. Their love story had fostered an intimacy that would never have happened if she’d met Ewen in other circumstances.

Ewen Fraser was an attractive, intelligent man loaded with charm. But, Rosanna reminded herself, apart from his great-uncle and his success as a writer she knew very little about him. Women, if the press were to be believed, flocked around Ewen Fraser in droves. For all she knew he might even be married. Not that it was any concern of hers if he had a wife or an entire harem.

The day was hot, and Rosanna spent most of it in the garden, topping up her tan. And later, after a quick salad supper, she took time with her appearance, choosing clothes that would show off her newly acquired glow. Some of which, she realised, eyeing her reflection, wasn’t entirely due to the sun. She’d left her hair to lie loose and glossy on her shoulders, and in sharp contrast with the demure look of the night before wore a sleeveless pink shirt and brief denim skirt. Knowing she looked her best heightened anticipation hard to control as she went downstairs to wait for Ewen Fraser.

He arrived punctual to the minute, dressed in a thin white cotton shirt and pale khakis, and presented Rosanna with a bunch of roses, making no attempt to hide the pleasure he took at the sight of her.

‘Hello, Rosanna. You look different with your hair down.’ He smiled and handed over the flowers. ‘Your garden’s probably full of these, but nothing else seemed suitable.’

‘Why, thank you. How kind.’ Rosanna’s smile masked the now familiar leap in her blood. ‘I’ve been lazing in the garden. Would you like a drink out there before we tackle any more papers?’

Ewen agreed with alacrity, and Rosanna sent him off to sit in a garden chair while she put the roses in water. She took her time, breathing in their heady scent, feeling light-headed. There was no mistake, after all. During the day she’d tried to convince herself that Ewen Fraser was just a pleasant, rather clever young man, but nothing out of the ordinary. One look at him again tonight had scotched that theory. He wasn’t handsome exactly, but his tall, rangy body and slanted gold eyes were just as appealing on second acquaintance as at first. Ordinary he was not. Rosanna went out into the garden with Ewen’s beer, and sat down in one of the other deck chairs.

‘You read the letters?’ she asked at once, to emphasize that they were here for a purpose.

‘Yes. I couldn’t resist reading them last night after all,’ he said ruefully. ‘I couldn’t get to sleep for hours. They were a revelation. Harry’s love for Rose was blazingly physical, yet at the same time it’s plain he absolutely worshipped her.’

‘It was mutual.’ Rosanna touched the gold rose pinned to the lapel of her shirt. ‘This is the brooch he gave her in Rouen, the last time they saw each other.’

Ewen leaned closer to examine the pin, close enough for Rosanna to breathe in the scent of expensive soap and healthy male, and she moved away instinctively. He drew back at once, and for a moment there was an awkward silence. They broke it at the same time, then stopped and laughed a little.

‘You first,’ said Rosanna.

Ewen breathed in deeply. ‘I was about to say I’ve already done the major part of the research—war records, and historians and war poets of the time. But Harry’s diaries and the letters he wrote to Rose are even more valuable in some ways. They conjure up the mood and atmosphere of the time so vividly I felt I was living it with them.’

‘I know what you mean,’ she replied with feeling. ‘Rose was a well-brought-up girl sheltered from the squalor and suffering she soon witnessed, but she was so determined she even lied about her age to get accepted. It’s clear from her diary that she found rich rewards in helping the wounded.’ She sighed. ‘It makes my life seem horribly trivial.’

Ewen reached out a hand and took hers. ‘Not in the least trivial, Rosanna. You’re educating the next generation. And my aim is to make sure Harry and Rose’s generation is never forgotten.’

‘Amen to that.’ Rosanna detached her hand swiftly, before he discovered her pulse was racing.

‘I’m very grateful to Harry and Rose,’ said Ewen, his voice deepening. ‘Without them I might never have met you.’

Rosanna cast a wary glance at him.

‘I felt I knew Rose already, of course,’ he went on. ‘But I never imagined I’d meet her in the flesh, in the person of her granddaughter.’

‘I may resemble her a little, but otherwise I’m nothing like her,’ warned Rosanna sharply, worried about where this was leading. ‘She was very much a woman of her time. I’m totally different. I could never have been as noble as Rose. When Gerald Rivers turned up out of the blue, shell-shocked and minus an arm, Rose felt she had no option other than to marry him. So she wrote that heart-rending letter to Harry.’

‘Who did his level best to get killed after receiving it. But in the usual way of things, of course, he got himself decorated instead.’ Ewen shook his head. ‘If this were fiction, Rose would have had his child, Gerald Rivers would have brought it up as his own and you and I, Rosanna Carey, would be related.’

His eyes locked with hers. Something molten in their depths touched a dangerous, responsive chord, and she looked away quickly, shaking her head.

‘In actual fact my mother wasn’t born until the thirties. Though she hardly remembers her father. He died when she was four.’

The silence which followed was so protracted, Rosanna grew restless at last and got up to break it. ‘Shall we make a start?’

Ewen followed her through the sitting room into the hall. Rosanna was suddenly so burningly conscious of his physical presence in the confined space that she tripped on a rug and his hands shot out to save her, closing on her waist. He drew in a sharp, unsteady breath and turned her to face him. For a long, tense moment they stared into each other’s eyes, then Ewen Fraser pulled her into his arms and kissed her.

‘I’ve been wanting to do that from the first moment I saw you,’ he muttered against her mouth, and kissed her again, his lips parting hers with such hunger she was shaken to the depths. She yielded helplessly, lost in the overpowering intimacy of the sensation as his tongue caressed hers, and he held her so tightly she could feel the powerful urgency surging through his body into hers like an electric charge. He raised his head at last, breathing unevenly, and stared down into her dazed, astonished eyes. ‘Are you going to show me the door, Rosanna?’ he asked hoarsely.

Appalled to find she was trembling from head to foot, she raised her chin militantly. ‘Why? It was only a kiss.’

‘Was it?’ he said harshly.

‘Yes,’ she said in desperation, and broke free to precede him into the kitchen, where the bright overhead light dispersed any remnants of intimacy. Rosanna faced him, suddenly angry with herself. And with Ewen. ‘I admit it’s my fault as much as yours,’ she said, her eyes stormy. ‘I obviously misled you by letting you come here again tonight. I’ve got some information you want, and most of it you can have. But that’s as far as it goes.’

‘Then why the hell did you let me kiss you like that?’ he demanded hotly.

Rosanna’s face fell. ‘You took me by surprise,’ she muttered.

‘You could have called a halt long before you did.’

‘I’m aware of that.’ She shrugged. ‘I suppose I was a bit beglamoured by what happened to Harry and Rose. Some of it must have rubbed off. Would you have preferred a slap in the face?’

‘Damn right I would,’ he said bitterly, and held her chair for her. ‘Right. Down to business. Let’s get this over with.’

The tension lay heavy in the air between them, but they worked quickly. An hour later a pile of neatly correlated research material was stacked beside the boxes.

‘Now comes the awkward bit,’ said Rosanna, squaring her shoulders. ‘I need a favour.’

Ewen ran a hand through his hair, eyeing her narrowly. ‘What kind of favour?’

‘Would you agree to an exchange?’ she asked reluctantly. ‘Rose’s letters for Harry’s? I want to try my hand at a novel. Not a serious, historical novel like yours. Just a romantic story about two star-crossed lovers in the past whose descendants get it together in the present.’

Ewen was silent for some time before he raised a daunting eyebrow. ‘Have you ever had anything published?’

‘No.’

‘Have you ever tried your hand at fiction before?’

‘No.’

‘Then I wish you luck.’ Ewen lounged back in his chair negligently, long legs crossed at the ankle. He shrugged. ‘All right. You can keep Rose’s letters. I haven’t seen her diary, of course, but that’s likely to be more use to you than to me, anyway, if you’re concocting a romance. My focus will be on the Great War itself, following the lives of two friends, once students together in Heidelberg, now soldiers in opposing armies. Only a small section will be devoted to the doomed love affair. As a final twist the lovers are torn apart, but the friends are reunited after the war.’