Kissing Kin (42 page)

“Mmmm?”

“I—never meant to m-marry anybody.”

“Neither did I, but the hell with that now, we’re wasting time!”

And a long minute later, when he had kissed her and both of them recognized with surprise that it was real and right and should have happened long ago, she said with a sort of timidity that wrung his heart, “You’re sure about the m-marrying part?”

His arms tightened round her so that she gasped and wilted against him to ease the pressure on her ribs.

“This is for keeps,” he said. “Yes or No?”

“Yes, Johnny,” she said faintly, and added, with her face hidden, “We’d feel awful fools, wouldn’t we, if there wasn’t
a war after all! I mean—if we had more than four years to go!’

He shook with laughter, and rocked her in his arms with a cradling, reassuring movement, his cheek hard against hers, so that she laughed too, confidently, recklessly, feeling young and adventuresome and gay again, not empty, not frightened at what might be ahead, nor alone.

“We’ll chance it,” said Johnny. “We can’t lose.”

Kissing
Kin
is among the most satisfying, historically vivid, and stirring stories Elswyth Thane has written, and therefore fits
gracefully
into the intricate pattern of the
Williamsburg
books.

The Richmond twins, Calvert and Camilla, are central figures in
Kissing
Kin.
The story follows the adventurous course of their separate loves, and introduces Raymond, the born airman; Jenny, the English VAD. who had promised herself never to walk the plank again for any man; and Victor, the young Nazi.

It is a tight and moving narrative of people trying to live their lives against catastrophic odds; of real and heart-warming people demanding their right to happiness in
whatever
time was left to them and creating for each other little pockets of security and laughter in the midst of strain and
uncertainty
. Elswyth Thane again reveals her mastery of historical materials, her deep knowledge of man’s character, and an artist’s instinct for the enduring values of a civilized way of life.