A Kestrel Rising (35 page)

She wished that Aislinn had not been singing that song because now it was caught in her head. “I’ll be seeing you,” she whispered, her throat tight.

“I’m an idiot, Maeve. A complete and utter idiot.”

Maeve sighed and continued to doze while Golly ran riot in the woods, barking because he’d probably found a hole worth widening. Ilona hoped that the terrier would not be bitten again. His muzzle was crisscrossed with scars from the bites of angry animals that he’d unwisely disturbed in the past. He was a terrible patient and she knew that she would be the one that would have to wrestle with him to dress his latest wound. She waited for the inevitable yelp of pain and indignation that was sure to follow but, instead, he kept barking. Maeve lifted her shaggy head, her tail thumped softly on the chamomile, releasing perfume from the bruised leaves.

“What is it, old girl?” Ilona asked, as the dog climbed to her feet and stared along the track. Golly was in a frenzy of barking and she began to think that he might have got himself stuck in a burrow, which he sometimes managed to do. She stood with a sigh. “I suppose we’d better go and see what the fuss is about.”

Maeve loped down the track, barking once.

Francis walked up the slope toward her, ignoring Golly, who wove frantic circles around his legs. His eyes were brilliant and the breeze tugged at his hair. He wore his uniform and the vague sunlight glinted dully on the Major’s pins and on the wings on his tunic. For a moment, she froze to the spot and just watched him. Then, somehow, she found the presence of mind to walk toward him and he swept her up into his arms and held her tightly in silence for a long time, while Golly clamored around them and Maeve yawned and returned to the bench.

“Ah, God, Ilke,” he whispered into her hair. “Ilke.”

She breathed in the scent of his skin and clung to him, weeping.

He stepped back and took her face in his hands. “Don’t cry, my darling,” he whispered. “Please don’t cry.”

“All right, I’ll try, I really will.”

“I’m sorry that I haven’t written. I wanted to, but it’s just been too busy. I haven’t had time to draw breath and as I said in my last letter, everything that I wanted to say to you, I wanted to tell you myself.” He kissed her. “I’m sorry if I upset you.”

“I
was
hurt. I’ve been spending the last three weeks trying to figure out what I had done wrong.”

“You’ve done nothing wrong, my love. Believe me.”

He put his arm around her waist and they walked back to the bench. He pulled her gently down beside him. “I should have known I’d find you here. Ash told me that you’d gone for a walk. I should have looked here first.” He touched her face. “I haven’t got a lot of time, darling, but I have a lot to say so please be patient and bear with me.”

“I will.”

He took her hand. “There’s something about this place. It’s like a confessional. I always seem to end up telling you everything here.” He looked at the sky and swallowed. “Nearly six years ago, I realized that I was my father’s son after all. I don’t have his gift with words. I don’t have his calm or his common sense but it seems that in one thing, I’m just like him. When I came here, it was because I loved flying and I’d wanted nothing more than to join the RAF. Then, one day, I came to this big, rambling house set in big, rambling grounds. The place was so old that it looked like it had grown out of the soil like the trees that surrounded it. To me, it was just another social call. I remember standing there in the hall, surrounded by hugging relatives and milling dogs and not looking forward to making polite conversation, yet again. Then I looked up the stairs and I was lost. That’s how I knew that I was my father’s son. I don’t even remember seeing Aislinn. All I saw was you in that green dress. There was fire in your hair and I knew exactly how Dad had felt when he’d seen my mom for the first time. I’m not like my father because I’d lacked the wit to say anything that would make you see me. I turned into a complete wordless idiot. The more I tried to think of something to say, the angrier I got with myself and the more it made me look like an arrogant jerk. It was very clear that you weren’t impressed and that made me feel even worse.” He shook his head. “I walked back to my grandparents kicking myself and wondering how I could make amends. When you turned up two days later I thought, perhaps, I could get things right. That’s why I invited myself to go with you to the village, but I made a hash of that too. Then, to top it all off, instead of just saying goodbye to you that night, like a normal person, I had to make my parting words sound like a bloody threat.” He rolled his eyes and smiled. “I was a real idiot, darling. I’m sorry.”

“You were.” She touched his face.

“I was happy to get away to the RAF and start flying again. I figured that, in time, maybe I could have another go. In the meantime, I kept myself busy and tried my best to forget about you. When I heard, through the family grapevine, that you were engaged, I thought, ‘Right. That’s it’. I threw myself into by job. I told myself that I loved you enough to be happy for you, because you deserved a good life.” He trailed his hand across her cheek. “I was genuinely sorry to hear what happened to your fiancé, and I knew I had to stay away, as much as I loved you, as much as I wanted nothing more than to comfort you. I also knew that the last thing you needed was another pilot pining for you. I thought that I did pretty well. I slipped up that once, by sending you that record. Part of me didn’t want you to forget me, and I just couldn’t forget you. Then, just when I thought I could do it, you walked into that hospital ward, cross and soaking wet from the rain. You’re even beautiful when you’ve been caught out in the rain, my love. I knew I had to put things right between us. I had to try I couldn’t bear the thought of you walking out of my life again. I can’t tell you how relieved I was when you agreed to letting me write to you. I knew I stood a chance.” His lips lingered on her palm and her wrist.

She closed her eyes, reeling in the knowledge that he really did love her.

“That Christmas was wonderful and the day we spent in Cambridge, I wanted to tell you, even then, that I loved you, but I was afraid. I didn’t want to spoil what was good between us. I nearly gave it away, that evening in Duxford. It was so hard not to, standing there in the twilight.” He kissed her. “Kissing you like this with the birds swooping overhead. You kissed me back and I had some hope for the first time in years. Then, there was the whole mess of Dieppe and those four lost months. All I wanted to do was get back to you. I only hoped that you knew I was alive”—another kiss—“I loved coming home to you that Christmas and I knew that I had to find some way to keep you, to bring us closer. When you said that you would go away with me and that you needed as me as much as I said I needed you, I could have danced and cheered, and you made me very happy. Those five days were the happiest days of my life, making love to you, being with no one but you. I didn’t think it was possible to fall so completely in love with someone, but I did. I just can’t believe how stupid I was to hurt you the way I did. I still can’t believe what a selfish idiot I was, what an absolute, stubborn fool. I hurt so many people after that. Poor Harry, I’m sure that he wanted to clout me more than once because I was a bastard. I can’t believe that he stuck by me and put up with my temper and my sulks, but that’s Harry for you, patient to the last.” He rested his forehead against hers. “As for you, my darling, I can’t thank you enough for not giving up on me, and for finding it in your heart to forgive me. If you had told me to get lost, it would have only been what I deserved.” His breath was soft on her skin.

Ilona wanted the moment to last, to cherish Francis’ touch. “I couldn’t do that because I loved you. I couldn’t have given up, even if I’d tried. I’ve wanted to tell you that for a long time, Francis. I have stopped myself so many times from telling you because I didn’t think you’d want to hear it, not until the war was over, and I didn’t want to scare you off.”

He smiled. “It’s all right, and you didn’t have to say anything. Didn’t I say that I knew you better than you know yourself? Your face is very easy to read, my love. I’ve always known, probably even before you realized it.”

“You did?”

“I did, and I have waited nearly six years to say this. Ilke, I love you.”

“I love you too.” She kissed him.

He gathered her into his arms as a kestrel rose out of the barley and soared away, calling out into the late morning silence.

After a while, he spoke again into her hair. “Now we have to think about the future, my love.”

“I know.”

“I’m going home tomorrow. I’ve done more hours than I should have done, so they’re shipping me back and I’ll be resigning my commission. I’m done with it and I’m ready for a quiet life now. Dad is ready to retire and he wants me to take over the factory. I’ll be spending the rest of my life in Mayville, making furniture, and I think it’s what I need to do. I’ve done more and seen more than I could have ever hoped to. I’ve flown the finest planes I could have ever hoped to fly and, in them, I was lucky enough to leave the earth behind me. I’ve flown under a bomber’s moon and found my way home by the stars. I had the privilege of serving with brave men and I survived when many of them didn’t. Then there was Blakeslee, who was the best of all the COs I flew with.”

He picked up her hand once more and traced the lines on her palm with his fingers.

“Now I have a house of my own to go back to. Mom and Dad moved in with Dad’s parents a couple of years ago, before they passed away, and they’ve given their old house to me. Now the choice is yours, Ilke. I want you to marry me.”

He turned and put his finger on her lips. “But don’t answer me now. I want you to think about this. You’ve spent the last few years working. I’d be asking you to give that all up. It will be a quiet life, darling. There isn’t much to Mayville. For four or five months of the year, at least, you won’t see the ground for all the snow. There’ll be days when you won’t be able to leave the house. I don’t want you to answer now, because there’s a lot to think about. I don’t want you to say yes, because it’s something to do or because it’s a choice that you didn’t have before. You will be leaving all that you have known behind and living in a strange land. I know how much you love this place and your family and it’s a big leap in the dark. We’ve spent a handful of nights together in the midst of war. In peace, it’ll be different. I won’t be a fighter pilot any more. I’ll just be plain old Francis Robson, maker of furniture—an ordinary man with an ordinary life. You know what I’m like, and you’ve never backed away. You, alone, know how scared I was, how I hated the pain. If it wasn’t for you, I would’ve crashed that plane in a fireball in a field in France, but you gave me a reason to get back.”

“There is nothing ordinary about you, Francis Robson,” she replied, touching his face. “But I’ll do what you ask. I’ll think about it, carefully. I promise.” Ilona didn’t care if he lived in a shed and collected newspapers for a living. She would live with him anywhere. “I will really think about it.”

“Don’t write to me,” he told her. “Your parents will be coming to visit mine soon. If you decide that you want to spend the rest of your life with me, just come with them. Because, if you decide that you can’t, I don’t think I want to know. If you said no, there’s nothing you could say that would make me feel better. If you come with them, we can get married while they’re there. It’s still only twenty-four hours’ notice in New York. We can do what my parents did, because I think we’ve waited long enough. I want to spend the rest of my life with you without having to worry about snatching a night here or a day there. I want to know that at the end of every day, you will be there.”

She nodded and he stood up, pulling her to her feet.

“I told you that I didn’t have long. I have to get back to Debden tonight. You’d think that they’d be more generous with the leave, since we’re finished here, but nope. I would’ve loved to have stayed but we didn’t get much notice that we were flying out tomorrow.”

“But you only just got here.”

“I know, but I had to see you again and say my piece.”

“You’ve certainly done that.”

“You look stunned, my love.”

“I am. It’s not every day that the man that I love turns up out of the blue, tells me he’s loved me all along and then asks me to marry him, before being whisked off again.”

He grinned, a cheeky, boyish grin. “But confess… It was fun, wasn’t it?”

“It was wonderful. I want to dance and I want you to make love to me, but I suppose we had better get you back to the station.”

They walked hand in hand back to the house. Ilona’s head was still spinning. She found it incredible that he had traveled halfway across the country just for those few, brief, precious minutes. Had he not been holding her hand, she would have thought it a dream.

“By the way,” he said, as they left the woods, “I did ask your father’s permission.”

“You did?”

“Of course. I wanted to do it properly and I told him that I wanted you to think about your answer and he was very impressed.”

“You never cease to amaze me. What did he say?”

“He said, ‘It’s about time you made an honest woman of her, son. Her mother and I will make sure she makes the right decision, the one that’s best for her.’ He shook my hand, your mother cried and wished me luck, and that was it.”

She spotted the sitting room curtain twitching as they strolled across the lawn. “I think they’re waiting.”

They were waiting, hovering anxiously on the edge of the settee in the small sitting room.

“Well?” her mother asked.

“I’ve said that I will give serious thought to Francis’ proposal.”

This was followed by a lot of hugging and tears then Francis said that he needed to catch his train or there would be hell to pay if he didn’t get back to Debden on time. Ilona drove him to the station and they stood on the empty platform as they had many times before.

“I’ll miss you,” he whispered as he drew her into his arms.

“I’ll miss you too.” She leaned against him, holding him as he sighed into her hair. The previous hour had been a mad dream and now reality was arriving in the shape of a train and an uncertain separation. It was one thing to be separated by a matter of miles and a war, but the prospect of an entire ocean between them was something entirely different.