Secrets of Nanreath Hall (26 page)

She nodded, drawn back by the sound of his voice, the strength of his clasp, the warmth of his body beside hers. She scrubbed her face until her cheeks tingled before curling her knees to her chest, arms wrapped round them. Stared dead-eyed out to sea.

“Do you want to tell me?” Tony asked.

“Not really.”

He gave a half smile and a sheepish shrug. “Numbing yourself to life isn't the answer, Anna. And it may be self-serving, but I want you feeling everything to its fullest.”

“Oh?”

He leaned closer and before she knew it, he kissed her forehead. Then his mouth moved from her hair to her cheek to her lips. Gentle, almost shy at first, until she responded, then the heat between them increased until she felt it down her spine, between her breasts, along her inner thighs.

“Oh,” she repeated breathlessly.

Anna ached to touch him and be touched. To find solace in his hand on her waist, her rib cage, the line of her back. She laid a hand on his chest, which rose and fell with quick, shallow breaths. He murmured into her hair. She knew this was wrong, but for so long she'd felt nothing, that even guilt was a welcome emotion. Emotion and sensation merged into a maelstrom of experience from the tingling gooseflesh lifting the hairs on her arms to the damp ache between her legs to the slam of her heart against her rib cage. He was the cause. She couldn't let him go. She wouldn't make him stop.

He came to his senses when she could not. “Not that I wouldn't happily finish what I've started, but this is neither the time nor the place.” His eyes burned dark, lips swollen from her kisses, shirttails hanging loose, and his dark hair adorably stuck up like a rooster's comb.

She dropped her eyes, all too conscious now of what she'd almost done. How far she might have traveled down that path if he hadn't stopped them. Like mother, like daughter? And look how that had turned out.

As if reading her thoughts, Tony caressed her cheek before tipping her chin to meet his gaze. “You're not Lady Katherine. I'm not Simon Halliday. And we're not doomed to repeat their mistakes, Anna.”

She nodded, escaping the intensity of his stare by following the track of a lone seabird rising and falling on the warm sea drafts.

He seemed to accept her silence. He lit a cigarette, drawing a soothing pull into his lungs. “I wish . . .” She closed her eyes, her voice trailing off in a sigh, unable to put her dreams into words.

“What do you wish?”

She inhaled the crisp air and let it out on a breath, sidling away as if that might protect her from this new and almost painful awareness of him. “It doesn't matter. Wishes are for birthdays and evening stars.” She shivered in the lengthening shadows. The day's magic faded with the sun. “I have to get back.” She rose on shaky legs to begin the slow, careful climb down from their perch. She had only made it a few steps before ducking back behind the arch.

“What's wrong?” Tony asked.

“It's Tilly and Hugh,” she whispered. “And she's crying.”

January 1916

T
he New Year dawned with no end to the war in sight. Every day brought new stories of tragedy until we became numb to the pain. Life went on, but it had lost its optimistic exuberance. We endured because we must, but no one was immune from the shroud of sorrow hanging over the world. Of those I was closest to, Miss Ferndale-Branch lost a brother to chlorine gas, Jane's merchant seaman went down with his ship in the Med, and Agnes's new husband—she gave up her dreams of a duke to settle for a corporal in the Royal Irish fusiliers—succumbed to trench fever. Our tragedies did not set us apart in any way. Color seemed to seep from the world, leaving only dreary shades of widow's weed black.

William had been posted to the French frontier near Lille while Simon continued in training at Grimsby with the Fourth Suffolk, though he anticipated a transfer to the front by spring. It got so I dreaded the step of the postman on the stair and shrank from telegram boys as if they carried plague.

Money grew tight. I survived on beans and toast, tinned beef, and gallons of Horlicks. Simon sent what he could, and once a letter from William contained a five-pound note. I hated to accept his charity, but the landlord was blustering and I decided a roof over my head meant more to me than my tattered pride.

Then Miss F-B decided to join up as a Red Cross nurse. I pondered whether to accompany her into the service, or perhaps take a job in a munitions factory, as so many women my age were doing, but in the end my health was too fragile. Twice, I had been brought low with a recurrence of scarlet fever, which the chilly damp only seemed to exacerbate. I would be little use to either endeavor, saddled as I was with weak lungs and a fluttering heart.

I laid aside my studies at the Byam in my determination to find a new position. I could not crawl home a second time. That part of my life was a closed door.

A man on the corner bought women's hair for wigs. His sign said eight shillings a head. One evening after my bath, I stared hard at myself in the mirror, my red-gold curls tumbling glossy almost to my waist. Could I go through with such a desecration? What would Simon say when he saw me?

As winter closed in and the days grew darker, shorter, and colder, my desperation increased. I slowed each afternoon before that sign, my pockets all but empty. Before I had to make a decision, Jane offered to introduce me to her employer. Madame Duchamp owned a fashionable dress shop in Soho and was on the prowl for new girls to act as mannequins. While I didn't relish the idea of parading about in front of strangers, my continuing work as an artist's model gave me some experience of being on display. Besides, my options were shrinking to nothing.

The morning of my interview dawned wet and cold with a spitting sleet that iced the pavement and made walking perilous, but
I couldn't waste precious coins on the bus. Thus, by the time I arrived, my dress was drenched and muddy from being splashed by a passing tram, and the wind and rain had frizzed my already wildly curly hair.

“I'm surprised you came. I wagered Agnes a half crown you'd shy off.” Jane eyed me doubtfully from beneath a drippy umbrella. I couldn't blame her. I was hardly the stuff of fashionable elegance.

I tried straightening my wilted hat. A trickle of cold water slithered under my collar and down my back. “I can't afford to be timid. If I don't find something soon, I'll be out on the street and out of ideas.”

Jane led me, not toward the main entrance, but through an alley to a set of stone steps leading down to a wooden door and then into a narrow passageway. “Be sure to talk to her in that posh way of yours. She'll hire you on the spot. She's always looking for girls with a bit of polish.”

“I hope you're right.” I followed Jane and the clamor of voices through an archway into an enormous set of dressing rooms.

After a quick neatening of my hair and a rather ineffective brush at my muddy skirts, I followed Jane through to a spacious office papered in cream and green with thick Turkey carpets on the floor and heavy damask draperies at the window. A desk took up one wall. A large worktable took up the other. Bolts of colorful fabrics leaned in corners or were spread out on a wide chintz-covered couch as if recently used. A comfortable set of chairs flanked a cheerful pink marble fireplace.

“Good luck,” Jane whispered as she closed the door behind her.

I threw a strained smile over my shoulder as I smoothed my hands down my skirts and tucked a stray curl behind my ear. Elegance may have been beyond me at this point, but I could at least strive for presentable.

I had not noticed the small side door papered to blend into the surrounding wall until it swung open and Madame Duchamp entered as if making her entrance upon the stage. She wore a stylish outfit of brown and gold and her blond hair was perfectly waved and dressed. A pair of wire spectacles hung on a chain around her neck. She waved me to a chair.

I ignored my squirming stomach and faced her boldly, trying to meet her austere elegance with a measure of calm. She was my last hope, though I'd not give her the satisfaction of knowing it. “I was told you were looking for young women to work in your showroom.”

After a long silence that had me mentally squirming in my seat, she finally spoke. “I must say when I agreed to this interview you were the last person I expected.” She made a great show of lighting a cigarette, closing her eyes on a sigh as she blew a stream of smoke before leaning back in her chair. “The infamous Red-Haired Wanton working as one of my mannequins? The idea is delightfully intriguing.”

I sat up. “You know who I am?”

“Everyone who's anyone knows, my dear. You're quite notorious.” She continued to eye me from behind a veil of blue smoke. My cheeks burned, but I refused to cower or squirm.

“Who would have thought the daughter of such a well-respected member of Parliament as Lord Melcombe would end up on display half-naked and obviously more than”—she smiled—“fulfilled.”

I bit back on the words rising to my lips, and instead, offered her a practiced smile. “A good businesswoman might use that notoriety to their advantage.”

“I like your thinking, Lady Katherine, but alas our partnership is not to be. You see, I need a girl who can display herself and her wardrobe to perfection, without upstaging the outfit she wears.” Her smile was cool as she tapped the ash from her cigarette into a
cut-crystal ashtray. “When the girl overshadows my clothing, she is no longer effective and thus no longer of use to me.”

I clenched my empty handbag and tried not to glance toward the crowded tray of food. I hadn't eaten since last night.

“Someone like yourself . . . well . . . there would be talk, but it would not be about the cut of my gown or the drape of a sleeve. Surely you can see how that would serve neither my needs nor yours.”

“Of course.” I tried to keep the disappointment from my voice as I rose to take my leave. “Thank you for your time.”

She gave a small moue of sympathy. “A piece of advice, if I may? It can be a slippery slope for a girl in your situation. But there are always ways to claw your way back to the top if you're willing to do what it takes.” She handed me a small white calling card. “I know people. With your reputation, you could make a tidy sum.”

I laid the card back on her desk. “Thank you, but I have to decline the offer.”

Her gaze narrowed, her manner chill. “Please yourself, but don't say you weren't given a chance.”

That evening, I passed the smashed and shuttered German bakery on the corner, the disapproving baker and his wife long since sent away, and paused in front of the wig maker's sign. I closed my eyes, said a prayer, and entered the shop.

A half hour later when I stepped back out onto the pavement, the wind froze the back of my exposed neck, but I was eight whole shillings wealthier.

September 1941

L
isten to this, Anna. ‘
The details are secret, but I can say that in general terms it means that by using a great number of small radio sets of modern design, technicians posted at ground points all over the British Isles will be able to detect enemy airplanes in the air and direct antiaircraft fire with deadly precision.
' What do you think of that? I reckon that'll stick a fork in old Hitler's eye, eh?”

Anna was scrubbing out the sink in the ward scullery. Tilly was supposed to be piling a trolley with dishes to transfer down to the main kitchens but had lapsed into reading an abandoned newspaper.

Both had been on duty since seven thirty that morning and had another four hours to go before the night staff relieved them. But at least the day had been quiet.

“I say it's a tiny bright spot within a dismal summer, but at this point, I'm happy to cheer about anything.”

September seemed to cap off a season of mounting losses by
their so-called allies as the Jerries rolled through Lithuania, Latvia, Ukraine, and Belarus on their way toward Moscow. Every time Anna turned on the news another city had fallen, more troops had surrendered. At this rate, the Germans would reach the Pacific by Christmas.

“Speaking of the Air Ministry, did you ever hear back from that friend of yours?”

Tilly's head snapped up. “What friend?”

“The one you were writing to last week. You said she worked at the Air Ministry.”

“Oh, right . . . her. No, she hasn't written. I suppose she's too busy. We weren't that close anyway. A bit of a slag, if you ask me.” She buried herself back in her newspaper.

Strange, but then Tilly had been acting strange for the last few weeks; almost secretive. Letters she didn't want Anna to see, frequent trips alone into the village. And more recently, Anna had woken to soft weeping into a pillow.

“Tilly, is anything wrong?”

“Why do you ask?”

“I don't know. You seem . . . preoccupied. Unhappy.”

“It's nothing,” she replied before relaxing into a reassuring smile. “Just run off my bloody feet. What I wouldn't give for a nice long holiday by the seashore with oodles of good-looking men fawning over me.”

Anna knew she was being put off. “If you're certain . . .”

“Jones,” Sister Murphy snapped, standing hands on ample hips in the doorway, veil twitching. “When you're finished daydreaming, that trolley should have been down to the kitchens ages ago. Then get back here double-quick. If you're so interested in rooms full of men, I've an entire ward of them who need their bedpans emptied.”

“Every girl's fantasy.” Tilly leaped off the counter. “TTFN,
Anna dear.” She hustled out of the scullery, pushing the squeaky trolley ahead of her.

“Don't think you're getting off scot-free, Trenowyth,” Sister Murphy growled. “I need you to change the dressing on Greenwood in Ward B.”

“Greenwood, Sister?”

“Are you deaf or just lazy? I've got a list of duties long as your arm, and not near enough staff to see to it all. You have more experience than any of the other girls. So get cracking, or do I need to bring you up on a charge of disobedience, Your Highness?”

“No, ma'am.” Moments like these made her almost miss waiting on Lady Boxley.

She stopped at the dispensary to gather her supplies, trying not to recall Greenwood's last dressing change. The VAD who'd attempted it had ended with three stitches in her head.

The young airman had been admitted to Nanreath Hall, allegedly to recover from an emergency appendectomy, though most of the staff agreed his wounds ran much deeper than the incision in his abdomen. Unlike most of the boys, who were cheerful and cooperative, if a bit cheeky, Greenwood was stony and disobliging. He never smiled. Never spoke. And spent his days staring blindly out the long windows toward the northern wood. But that was better than those unpredictable moments when he snapped into a blind rage and it took orderlies and an occasional guard to subdue him.

Ah, well. She couldn't get out of it, and as Prue always said, “soonest begun, soonest done.”

Most of the up-patients in Ward B were in the salon or taking tea across the main hall, so the room was almost empty. Greenwood's bed was at the far end of the room. His dour attitude normally kept his corner unoccupied; even the other soldiers steered clear of him. So Anna was surprised to see Hugh sitting beside his
bed, the two engaged in conversation. Greenwood was even smiling. She didn't know the man had teeth.

“. . . got sick in his oxygen mask,” Greenwood recounted. “Froze straightaway, of course, and he nearly passed out before they got him free of it, idiot bugger.”

“I can top that,” Hugh replied. “My first solo flight, I pissed myself at twenty-five thousand feet. Was nearly castrated peeling off my trousers.”

Greenwood laughed, losing at least twenty years in the process. He was actually a nice-looking boy when he wasn't threatening to rip one's head off. Come to think of it, Hugh seemed more relaxed, as well. His usual waxen pallor from too many hours spent hunched over a whiskey at the village pub had brightened to an almost healthy pinkish glow. Both chatted and laughed as they traded stories with a soldier's grim gallows humor.

“The run to Haamstede was the worst,” Greenwood said. “Lost four planes from my squadron the first time. Seven the second. Could have walked on all the ack-ack the Jerries put up.”

“Wish I could say I had been there. Had a smashup during the Norway campaign last spring and lost the blasted leg.”

“Do you miss it, sir?”

“The flying or the leg?”

Greenwood cracked a smile. “Either, I suppose.”

Anna hated to intrude. She hovered just beyond the edge of their conversation until Hugh glanced up and spied her. “If it isn't the lovely and talented Nurse Trenowyth.”

“It's time for a dressing change. Sister's orders.” She held up her tray to prove her innocent intent.

As if someone flipped a switch, Greenwood's face shut down, his body stiffened, and he turned away to stare once more out the window.

“The MO says you're doing splendidly,” she said, striving for professional yet friendly and nonthreatening. “A few more days and you'll be released back to your unit. I'm sure you'll be glad to see your mates.”

Greenwood didn't answer.

“I'll toddle off now,” Hugh said, standing up, “but let me know when you're leaving, Sergeant. We'll toast the skies before you go.”

“Wait.” Anna and Greenwood spoke nearly in unison.

Greenwood's face was nearly the color of pea soup, his eyes wide and hard. He licked his dry lips. “Please, sir. I mean . . . I don't mind if you stay. I . . . was enjoying . . . I mean you understand what it's like, sir. You . . .” His gaze dropped to Hugh's leg. “You survived, didn't you?”

“Most of me anyway,” Hugh answered grimly.

Anna offered Hugh a look of near entreaty. “This won't take long. If Sergeant Greenwood wants you here, I don't see why you can't stay.”

“Right.” He smiled and gave a quick bite of laughter. “I'll stay, but you'll be sorry, old chap. You might have had Nurse all to yourself. Now you've got me to contend with, and I've had a soft spot for this one since she arrived. I'm not sure but I think I'm wearing her down.”

“I suppose she's pretty,” Greenwood reluctantly offered, though he remained pinch-lipped and scowling. “A bit old for me, though.”

“Why, thank you, Sergeant—I think.” She smiled, drawing up a stool and laying out her supplies beside her. “Let's have a look, shall we?”

She unbuttoned his pajama shirt and carefully peeled back the old dressing on Greenwood's abdomen. As the cool air hit his stitches, he twitched, his chest heaving as he sucked in a breath. Out of the corner of her eye, Anna saw his hands close to fists. He was
a tall boy, not bulky but definitely strong enough to snap her like a pencil should the desire arise. Hopefully Hugh's presence would suppress his more violent tendencies.

“Where are you from, Sergeant?” Hugh asked.

Silence met his opening gambit.

“How about you, Nurse Trenowyth?” Hugh continued smoothly.

“London,” Anna replied automatically, working as quickly as she could. “Aldersgate.”

Tension threaded Greenwood's body. Sweat glistened in the hollow of his throat and dripped from his temples. She felt every jump of his muscles and every hitch in his breathing. As quickly as she could, she bathed the area with warm water, noting the fluid seeping from the wound as she examined it for signs of infection. Nothing out of the ordinary. She began the process of packing the incision with gauze.

“I flew with a lad from Brixton. His name was . . . Jim . . . Jim . . .” Hugh rubbed a hand over his chin. “Damn if I can remember his last name, but I can see his face clear as day.” He glanced at Greenwood, whose lips were pulled back from teeth clenched tight enough to crack. “I was in London this past summer. The Jerries certainly have made a mess of things. Guess they figure to pound us into surrender. Bloody Krauts don't realize the more bombs they drop, the more determined we are to keep fighting. Only wish I could still land a few blows of my own. Damned satisfying feeling to know you're making the bastards duck and run.”

His steady stream of babble steadied her nerves. Anna hoped it did the same for her patient.

As she inched the gauze carefully into the incision, Greenwood's back arched off the bed. Faster than Anna could react, he had her by the hair. His left arm came around her neck to choke off her breath.
His face was close to hers, his breath hot on her cheek, hoarse and frightened.

Her lungs burned, but she didn't flail or fight back. That would only make him worse. She forced her body to go limp and sought to gain Hugh's attention with a weak, keep-him-talking gesture.

Hugh gave an almost imperceptible nod as he struggled for words. “So . . . uh . . . Nurse is from Aldersgate, you're remaining coy and keeping your hometown to yourself. Me . . . I'm from here . . . a jolly place to be from, I always say. Of course, everyone thinks owning a great heap like this place means I'm rolling in the blunt, but have you ever tried buying coal enough to heat sixty-five rooms?”

Greenwood's hold wasn't easing, but it wasn't tightening, either. Anna could just manage a thin stream of air if she held her chin just so and to the left. At least she wasn't in danger of strangulation. On the other hand, a broken neck might still be a possibility.

By now she noticed through the spots dancing at the edges of her vision that Tilly and Sister Murphy had come at the first notice of trouble. A few patients milled uncertainly nearby. And was that really Lady Boxley just beneath the archway, hands clasped under her breasts, eyes wide in a frozen expression of worry? Couldn't be. She hated the wards.

Anna blinked, trying to force more oxygen to her brain to keep the hallucinations at bay. No. Still there.

Over the roaring in her ears, she heard Hugh, still in that even, calm voice. “Let Nurse go, and you and I can continue our chat. Let me tell you about the attack on the airfield at Stavanger.”

Greenwood's grip loosened slightly.

“That's right. Nurse Trenowyth's a good egg.” Hugh eased his way closer. “She'll have you fixed right as rain. Just settle down. We're all friends here. No one wants to hurt you.”

She felt the tension slowly ebbing from Greenwood's body, though he remained jittery. “I'm from . . . from . . . Manchester,” he muttered. “My mum still . . . lives there with my younger sister. Ain't got a dad.”

“Me, neither,” Hugh chirped, his manner overly hearty. “I've heard they're extremely overrated.” He placed a hand on Greenwood's shoulder and shot Anna a look. “What's your sister's name?”

Anna gasped as she slid free of Greenwood's grip. She didn't care if it was against the rules, she slumped down on the next bed in the row. Her knees shook. Her hands trembled, and she had a horrible urge to either burst into tears or laugh hysterically. Instead, after a few calming minutes, she resumed her stool and her work.

“Gladys.” Greenwood sagged back against the pillows, sobs shaking his body. “Her name's Gladys.”

Hugh never missed a beat, continuing his steady patter as Anna inspected the wound in case the sergeant had dislodged something in his struggle, her movements slow but her hands steady as she concentrated on covering all with the new bandage and securing it. When she finished and had buttoned him back into his pajama shirt and drawn the sheet back over him, she rose as calmly as if this were just another task.

“There now,” Anna said. “I'll have one of the orderlies bring you a nice cup of tea and I believe we even have some Brown Betty left over from dinner last night. After that, I want you to have a nap. Be right as rain afterward.”

Greenwood didn't answer. He had a hand over his face. His white-blond hair was dark where sweat plastered it to his scalp.

She stood to leave, ignoring a few concerned and muttering patients and Sister Murphy, who continued to glare but remained blessedly silent.

“Are you all right?” Tilly asked. “He could have broken your neck like a toothpick.”

Anna gave a weak nod.

“I need a drink, and so do you,” Hugh said, catching Anna under her arm just before her wobbly knees gave way. He hustled her out of the ward before she could resist. “That was amazing, you know.”

“You were pretty amazing yourself.” Adrenaline continued firing, so every breath felt as if her heart might leap from her chest. She slumped on a chair in the scullery, suddenly too tired to even fill the kettle.

Hugh moved deftly to fill the kettle and set it to boil. “I don't want to think about what Mother's going to say when she hears.”