LITMIR.BIZ

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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.’

      I didn’t know what to say, but it didn’t matter; Bel was happy to chatter for both of us. She quickly ascertained that Mr Beresford was hoping to find accommodation under the roof of Mrs Adams, of whom he had heard such warm things. ‘I’m more than happy to pay my way,’ he said earnestly. ‘It’d just be for a night or two, then I go back to France.’

      ‘Wonderful!’ Bel clapped her hands together. ‘There’s a spare room at the back of the house; it’s where Mr Adams used to keep all his wet-weather clothing. It has a bed too. Only a camp bed, but—’

      ‘That sounds perfect,’ Mr Beresford said. ‘I’m arranging for funds to be sent through to the bank, and I expect Mrs Adams would be glad of some extra money in a couple of days when it comes through. Besides, I don’t eat much.’ He patted his flat stomach and grinned. ‘Have to stay fighting fit, after all.’

      ‘Are you home on leave?’ I asked, looking for his bags.

      ‘Yes. I’m afraid I met with some regrettable thuggery on my journey though, and practically all my belongings were stolen.’

      ‘Oh!’

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