Kitty’s War

‘I didn’t want you to think we’re abandoning you.’

‘Don’t worry. Really.’

‘I’ll arrange for a driver to take you to the ferry. I’ll try and get some leave once Will’s able to return.’

‘That’ll be nice.’

‘Aye.’

‘So, then,’ I said, at the same time as he said, ‘Right.’ We looked at each other and smiled, a little hesitantly, but the smiles were real.

‘I’ll write,’ he said, holding out his hand, then bent to pick up my hat and handed it to me. ‘Sorry about this.’

I pushed away the thundering memory of how it had felt when he’d taken it off me, and took it, then looked back down at the ground, where his own cap still lay. ‘Don’t you want that?’

He picked it up, and gave it a pointless dusting-off, smearing the mud across the flat crown. He shrugged and grinned. ‘Ah well, could be worse.’

‘Archie?’ He raised an eyebrow, and my voice was soft. ‘Come back safe next time, too.’

‘Nae bother,’ he said, exaggerating his own accent, and this time the kiss was as chaste and brotherly as they had been all my life. ‘Don’t work too hard; you’re not up to it yet.’

And he turned away, leaving me standing in the street with the memory of our first and last kiss tingling on my lips.

Chapter Five (#ulink_d2dcf555-b703-5ed0-aa5a-2efe0aec75ec)

Dark River Farm, May 1917

He did manage four days’ leave, when Will came home, two of which were spent at the farm, and they had been two days filled with relief and happiness, and the warmth of our old friendship. But there was something new between us now as well, something beautiful and helpless, and doomed. Tomorrow morning would see him leaving again for Belgium and his other life, and while the largest part of me battled with the terror of it, and the longing for him to stay, some smaller, hidden part accepted the relief of knowing his attention was no longer on me. On what I could not give him.

Evie, Will and Lizzy were in the kitchen on this last evening, and I knew they’d start talking about us as soon as one of them glanced out of the window and saw Archie had come into the yard to find me. As always, I watched his approach with the same mixture of longing and apprehension, fixing a smile on my face and hoping I’d find the strength, once again, to resist touching him.

‘Young Kittlington,’ he said, and his voice was almost enough to break down that resistance; he sounded tired, exhausted even, and I knew this short leave had not provided the rest he needed. He’d spent most of his time helping Mrs Adams do various jobs, and the rest in talking to me—I was much the harder work of the two; I knew that. I also knew I was the reason he’d come here at all, instead of going home to Scotland.

‘Captain Buchanan,’ I returned, leaning slightly away to discourage contact, but broadening my smile to compensate. ‘Are you all set?’

‘Aye. Not much to pack,’ he pointed out, and turned to lean on the fence. He seemed absorbed by the high-stepping chickens as they pecked at the food I’d just thrown them, and didn’t speak for a moment, so I joined him at the fence; it was easier to stand beside him and not have to look at his face.

After a while he cleared his throat. ‘Look, Kitty, I know you understand how my feelings for you have changed, grown into something else.’

‘Archie—’

‘No, wait. Please. All these years you’ve been Oli’s sister. Sweet, but just a child. Even when Evie told me what had happened to you, who we thought did it, and I wanted to rip Drewe’s driver limb from limb, I was feeling it as the shock of someone hurting my family. The anger blinded me to everything else. At first.’

‘And what of your devotion to Evie?’ I couldn’t help saying. ‘Did she feel like family too?’

A flush touched his neck. ‘I thought I loved her. Perhaps I did, and perhaps I still do, but not in that way.’ His voice dropped, became urgent. ‘Kitty, that time I came to find you at the hotel, and I saw you concentrating so hard on your gloves, you looked so intense, but so sad. It hit me harder than I’ve ever thought possible, but I couldn’t accept it. It felt wrong, and I thought I’d frighten you if I told you how I felt—I know you’ve always looked on me as a brother. I’d have hated more than anything to lose your trust.’ He sighed and rubbed his face with both hands, pressing his fingers to his closed eyes. ‘That’s why I lied, and arranged for someone else to bring you back when Uncle Jack asked me. It’s why I let you come back alone, when all I wanted to do was take hold of you and never let you out of my sight again.’ He dropped his hands away from his face and fixed his eyes on mine again. ‘I have never felt so…fiercely, about anyone, the way I feel about you. Now I’ve accepted it, and let it in, it actually hurts.’

‘It does, doesn’t it?’ I whispered, without meaning to. I couldn’t look away, but my eyes burned.

Archie searched my face, and finally asked, in almost a whisper, ‘Do you think you could ever feel the same way about me?’

I couldn’t speak. Didn’t he realise? Didn’t it blaze from my eyes, the way I felt it in every part of me? He caught my hands in his, and I was too startled to pull away.

‘Will you wait for me, when all this is over?’ He let out a ragged breath. ‘Kitty Maitland, will you marry me?’

I could have wept for all the years I’d longed to hear him say it, and more than anything I wanted selfishly to entrust myself to those familiar arms which, I knew without a doubt now, would keep me safe for ever. But I never could, and I couldn’t even tell him why; he would only persuade me I was wrong, and that would ruin him because I would believe him. His trembling uncertainty of my love for him formed the words I heard falling into the tense silence.

‘I’m sorry, but no.’

The pain on his face was echoed in my heart, and I hated myself for putting it there. Almost more, I hated the fact that it was not a surprised pain; his face just paled, and his eyes closed briefly, and the resigned look that drew his brows together told of someone hearing what they’d already braced themselves to hear.

‘I understand,’ he said in a low voice, but he didn’t let go of my hands. I wanted to tell him he didn’t understand, not at all, not if he believed it was because my feelings were not every bit as fierce, and every bit as hopeless.

‘We’ll still be friends though, aye?’ he said, and his mouth flickered into a smile, although his eyes remained shadowed.

‘I hope so,’ I said in a small voice. He touched my cheek, and while I fought every instinct I possessed not to lean into his hand, I told myself this was the right thing to do. He deserved someone unspoilt and respectable, someone he could be proud of, someone bright and lively who could make him laugh… God knows he needed that, after all he’d seen. Yes, I was doing the right thing.

I wondered when I’d start to believe it.

Dark River Farm, June 1917

‘What’s that?’ Belinda stubbed out her freshly lit cigarette on the floor of the barn, and I turned to the door, my mind racing; if Mrs Adams caught us drinking and smoking we’d be given vile jobs to do tomorrow, but even worse, for me at least, would be her disapproval.

‘Is someone out there?’ I hissed.

A light cough confirmed it, and Bel went to the open door and peered across the yard towards the house. ‘No-one’s come out,’ she called back in a low voice, while I patted around for the cork to stop up the wine bottle again. My fuzzy-headedness had faded quickly with the sudden shock of possible discovery, and I stood and picked up the long-handled broom with which I’d been beating rats out of the pile of sacks. Although who would believe we’d been working, when we could barely see to—

‘Oh!’ Bel turned, and in the near-complete darkness I saw the gleam of her teeth as she grinned. ‘It’s him!’

‘Who?’

‘The chap who gave me the wine! He’s coming over. Quick, light the lamp.’

I stared, unable to move. A man was coming to the barn? And she knew him? ‘Who is he?’

‘I met him earlier today in town. We talked a bit but I didn’t think he’d—’

‘Well well,’ a pleasant voice said, ‘it’s the beautiful blonde Belinda. Hello again. I was about to knock at the house when I heard voices out here.’ The man who appeared in the doorway was little more than a silhouette, but I saw him lean to look around Belinda and straight at me. ‘Good evening, and what’s your name?’

‘The lamp!’ Bel urged, and drew the stranger into the barn. ‘Mr Beresford, this is Kitty Maitland. She’s sort of Land Army too.’

‘Nice to meet you, Miss Maitland. Sort of Land Army?’

Belinda had given up waiting for me to light the paraffin lamp, and bent to do it herself. ‘She’s more like the family really.’ She straightened and turned to me. ‘I met Mr Beresford in town today, and in exchange for some advice on where to stay, he gave me that wine you’re enjoying so much.’

‘Ah, glad it’s being put to good use anyway,’ Mr Beresford said, and in the newly flickering light I noticed he was quite short, but exceptionally good-looking. He held out his hand to me, and, without thinking, I put mine in it ready to shake. But he lifted it to his lips instead.

‘I’m actually rather glad I was unable to find room at the hotel you told me about, or I should never have come here and met two such stunning girls.’