Somewhere in France: A Novel of the Great War (23 page)

Chapter 44

A
s Lilly had predicted, the meal was marvelous. Ignoring the raised eyebrows of the brasserie’s other patrons, their waiter—Lilly had discovered his name was Guillaume—first delivered a heaping basket of bread to their table, two stemmed glasses, and a half liter of rough but perfectly drinkable red wine.

Guillaume next deposited a wee pot of something that looked, to Robbie’s eyes, disconcertingly like uncooked haggis innards. His alarm faded when Lilly clapped her hands in delight and spread some of the concoction on a slice of baguette.

“
Rillettes!
Oh, Robbie, you must try some.”

“What is it?”

“Have you ever had pâté de foie gras? No? Well, this is the countrified version. Rather like potted meat, but much nicer. Do try.” She prepared another piece of baguette and handed it to him.

He took a cautious bite, and found it was as delicious as she had promised, tasting richly of goose fat, garlic, and thyme. He washed it down with several mouthfuls of the wine, noting as he did so that the alcohol was going straight to his head. He’d have to take care or risk falling flat on his face the minute they rose from the table.

Their main course arrived: braised rabbit, instead of the chicken that Lilly had predicted, with glazed carrots and a generous heap of scalloped potatoes. Robbie had eaten rabbit often enough as a boy, but it had never tasted like this, the meat so tender he had no need of his knife.

A steady, lulling stream of conversation flowed between them as they ate. They spoke of the peace negotiations taking place between the Bolsheviks and the Central Powers, the effect the Americans were having on the commission of the war, the whisperings that the Germans had developed some new weapon, worse than poison gas, worse than Gotha bombers, to force the Allies into submission. Careful, neutral conversation, suitable for the fragile peace between them.

Guillaume brought them a simple pudding, baked apples with a tiny jug of cream to pour over. To accompany their dessert he offered strong black coffee, which Robbie alone accepted. Last of all, he produced a bottle of caramel-colored spirits and two small snifters.

“We should like to offer you this, as compliments of the house.” The waiter uncorked the bottle and poured two modest measures of liquid into the glasses. “It is our last bottle of Armagnac from the 1890 vintage. I hope you enjoy it.”

Robbie took an experimental sip: the brandy was beautifully smooth, the alcohol evaporating on his tongue almost before he could swallow it. Lilly seemed to enjoy it, too, though he noticed she only took the tiniest sips from her glass.

Thinking he might draw strength from the eau-de-vie, he drained his glass and was rewarded by a gratifying sensation of warmth and bravado. They were almost finished with their meal, and soon enough would have to return to the hotel. And then?

“I meant what I said earlier,” he said. “I was wrong to adopt the stance that I did.”

“I told you I didn’t want any apologies,” she answered, her eyes on the remaining brandy in her glass.

“Just hear me out,” he insisted. “I haven’t changed the way I feel. I still wish you would accept a transfer, but I know you won’t change your mind. And though you may not believe me, I respect you for it. You are doing your duty, as am I.”

“What are you saying, Robbie? That we’re friends again? That you’ll deign to speak with me when we return to camp?”

He deplored the edge of sarcasm in her voice, though he knew he’d earned it. “Yes. Although I think we’d better not resume our visits to the garage.”

“Why? Did anyone else know? Are you worried we might be found out?”

“Not especially. And I don’t think anyone knew, so you can put that out of your mind. It’s just that I’m not sure I could manage it.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Don’t you? Week after week you tried to get me to kiss you, to continue where we left off on the night of the ceilidh.”

“And you weren’t interested. I understand, Robbie, really I do. I ought not to have persisted as I did.”

“I was interested.”

“What? I mean . . . what?”

“I was interested. I still am. Those meetings in the garage almost killed me. They certainly pushed me to the brink of insanity.”

“What was stopping you? You knew my feelings well enough.” She looked up, finally, and he was overwhelmed by the unabashed desire he saw in her eyes.

“If it were simple lust,” he whispered, hoping to God that no one else in the restaurant spoke English, “and nothing more, then I would have made love to you the night of the ceilidh. But it’s not.”

He reached for her hands, enfolded them in his. “There’s something more than that between us, Lilly, and I have to respect it.”

She frowned at him, incomprehension clouding her gaze. “How can you respect it if you deny it? That doesn’t make any sense.”

“It does if you stop to consider the gulf between us. I can offer you so little, Lilly, certainly far less than you deserve.”

“You’re speaking to a common worker in the WAAC, Robbie, with hardly a penny to her name. I’m the one who has nothing to offer, apart from myself.”

“But when the war is over, and the rift with your parents is repaired—”

“It will never be repaired as long as they deny me the right to live my life as I wish. To work if I wish it, and to serve my country as well.”

Shame enveloped him, for his actions over the past months had been no different from those of her parents. When Lilly had stood her ground, when she’d insisted that she had as much right to do her duty as did he, how had he reacted?

He, too, had disowned her.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “Truly sorry.” Such a pitifully inadequate apology.

“I told you already that I don’t want your apologies. What I want is to get on with my life. I’m done with looking backward, saying to myself, ‘If only I had done this, my life would be different.’ I want to look ahead, not far ahead, not when-the-war-is-over ahead. Just to the next pleasant thing that is waiting for me. It may only be a cup of tea on a cold day, but I’m glad of it all the same. And I wouldn’t change a thing about my life in the past year. Nothing, except the break with you.”

He found himself agreeing with her. The past was the past, the future was unknowable, but now, this moment, this evening—
that
they could hold in their hands, savor, treasure.

He scanned the dining room, trying to catch the waiter’s eye. When, at last, Guillaume looked in their direction, Robbie beckoned him over and asked for their bill.

Guillaume scribbled down a figure on the corner of the brown paper table covering, tore it off, and handed it to Robbie as if it were a card made of the finest bond linen. The entire meal came to nine francs.

Robbie paid up, shook hands with Guillaume, and helped Lilly into her coat, feeling more than a hint of regret as she disappeared into its tentlike embrace. She turned to look up at him, an enigmatic smile on her face. Why was she smiling at him like that? It was so hard to think when she wore that expression; as if she knew all his secrets, but liked him all the same. Liked him more, even.

It was no more than a ten-minute walk, back along rue Saint-Honoré, across the empty expanse of the Place Vendôme, and, finally, to the welcoming embrace of the Ritz. They strolled in silence through the darkened streets, her arm tucked in the crook of his elbow, the silence so profound that he could mark every breath she took. Was it his imagination or had her breathing quickened?

He longed to kiss her now, propriety be buggered. He hadn’t exaggerated when he’d told her their meetings in the garage had nearly unhinged him. Knowing she would deny him nothing, but also knowing he had to hold back, had been the purest form of torture.

What was honor compared to the doubt he saw in her eyes? She thought herself undesirable, though the truth, the truth he hadn’t dared to tell her, was quite the opposite.

I’ve never known a woman lovelier than you,
he ached to confess.
I’ve never wanted a woman more than I want you
.

He wished he could say to hell with propriety, to hell with honor, and to hell with everything that stood between them. But he couldn’t, not without risking everything Lilly had worked for over the past year. He’d no means of protecting her from the consequences of lovemaking, and no way to find a reliable form of birth control at this late hour.

So he would tell her the truth. Confess that he wanted her but could not, in good conscience, do anything about it. It was sure to be a dispiriting conversation, not least because Lilly, assuming his suspicions were correct, had only the haziest notion of what lovemaking involved. So it would fall to him, lucky man that he was, to explain.

He would explain, make sure she understood, kiss her good night. And then he would retreat to the luxurious, solitary, torturous embrace of the suite’s second bedroom.

That, indeed, was what passed for luck from where he stood.

Chapter 45

O
ne sip. She ought to have stopped at one sip of the Armagnac. But it had been so delicious, so unlike any other spirit she had ever tasted. And she hadn’t wanted to offend Guillaume and Chef Jérôme.

So she had drunk it down, sip after entrancing sip, and it had gone straight to her head. Yet it didn’t seem to be affecting her as did champagne, for she felt perfectly solid on her feet, perfectly in control of herself.

The limitless euphoria that she remembered from evenings when she’d been a bit tipsy was missing, too. In its stead was a singular feeling of anticipation, of nervous excitement. Rather as if she were about to begin a race, and were waiting to hear the starter’s pistol go off.

It was a shock to walk through the front doors of the hotel, from the quiet of the darkened streets, and be faced with the noise and lights and convivial atmosphere of the Ritz’s opulent lobby. As if sensing her unease, Robbie wasted no time in steering them directly to a waiting lift.

The attendant, recognizing them from earlier, didn’t trouble to ask for their floor. Lilly welcomed the silence, though it meant she’d no alternative but to listen to the roar of her heartbeat, so thunderous that she stole a look at Robbie, just the once, to see if he’d noticed.

The lift doors opened and they exited, Robbie pressing a coin into the attendant’s hand. She heard the clank and hiss of, but didn’t turn to watch, the doors as they closed.

They walked, still arm in arm, to the end of the corridor. He stepped away, and a disagreeable rush of cool air replaced his presence at her side. He unlocked the door, ushered her through, and locked the door behind them.

She thought, then, that he might reach for her, but his hands were busy with the buckles of his Sam Browne belt, which he hung on the hatstand by the door. His uniform jacket, hat, and tie followed, and then he turned to her.

He bent his head, stooping a little, and began to rain kisses on her upturned face. Whisper-soft kisses, never quite landing on her mouth, though one or two grazed the corners of her lips.

She felt her hat being lifted away, then the buttons of her greatcoat coming undone. He took her by the hand and led her to an occasional chair in the sitting room.

As she sat, he knelt before her. She reached out, intending to frame his face with her hands, but he sat back on his heels before she could touch him.

“Robbie,” she pleaded.

“I know, Lilly. But we need to stop now.”

“You haven’t even kissed me yet, not properly. Have I done something wrong?”

“Of course you haven’t.” He took her hands, pressed kisses to each palm, and bent his head to them, his brow resting on her knees.

“You know that I never expected this,” he said. “Never imagined you would be here. So I find myself unprepared . . .”

“Of course you are. So am I.” She felt the curve of his smile against her knee, just for an instant, before he looked up.

“I mean unprepared in a practical sense,” he clarified. Seeing that she still didn’t understand, he pressed on, his discomfort evident in the flush of color along the high planes of his cheekbones. “There are measures I feel obliged to take. But the chemists are all closed at this hour, and I hesitate to ask the concierge. So I’m afraid—”

Not until he said the word
chemist
did she understand. But was she brave enough to admit the truth? She took a deep breath, shut her eyes, and confessed.

“I have it. Them. The measures you are talking about.”

Through narrowed eyelids she watched his reaction. If he were to be disgusted, or offended, she was certain she would die of shame.

His eyes widened, but he made no other reaction. Perhaps he thought he had misunderstood.

“Before I left, Bridget gave me a tin. She said it was a French letter. She said it was just in case, and that you would know what to do.”

He sat back on his heels, heavily, and his shoulders began to shake.

“Robbie, is anything the matter—”

He looked up, tears at the corners of his eyes, and for a dreadful instant she thought he was crying. And then she noticed how he smiled, as he wiped his eyes, and she realized that he was laughing so hard that he could hardly catch his breath.

“Thank God for Bridget,” he gasped. “I wonder if I’ll ever have the courage to thank her.”

He looked up at Lilly, his expression tender yet grave, and she knew that he had cast his doubts aside.

“Will you come to me?”

She threw herself into his arms, desperate for his kiss, and he responded with a naked fervor that she ought to have found shocking, even alarming. His mouth pressed down on hers, relentlessly pushing her lips apart, his tongue searching inside, seeking some answering contact. She let her tongue dart forward, dip into his mouth, learn the contours of his lips.

He stood, his mouth never leaving hers, and gathered her up as if she were made of swansdown. Striding across the sitting room, he pushed open the door to her bedroom with his shoulder and carried her to the bed. Not until he had set her down did he break their kiss.

He stepped back, mere inches really, but Lilly felt bereft all the same. She was about to stand and reach for him again when he began to undress.

He cast off his leather gaiters, then his boots and socks. Next he pushed his suspenders aside, untucked his shirt, felt at his throat for his collar button. And then he stopped.

“Will you help me?” he asked, his voice husky.

She stood, reaching for the button, and it seemed to her that he held his breath as she undid it.

“And the others?” he prompted.

Her fingers flew over the remaining buttons. When she was done, he held up his wrists so she could undo his cuffs. Without waiting for any further direction, she pushed the shirt off his shoulders and let it drop to the floor.

Feeling wonderfully bold, she pulled off his identity tags, which hung from a thin leather cord around his neck, and moved to unfasten the buttons at the neck of his short-sleeved Henley undershirt. But before she could begin, he pushed her hands away.

She felt his fingers at the nape of her neck, searching carefully for the pins that held her chignon in place. He pulled them out, setting them on the bedside table, and ran his hands through the waterfall of hair that cascaded down her back.

“I had no idea it was so long,” he murmured. “Has it never been cut?”

“My mother didn’t approve of girls who cut their hair. I thought of cutting it, after I left home, but never got around to it.”

He said nothing, just smiled at her, his fingers combing steadily, reverently, through her hair.

“My sisters always had much prettier hair,” she said, feeling she ought to fill the silence. “When I was little I longed to look like Alice and Mary.”

And still he smiled at her, his thoughts unknowable. She met his gaze, a wisp of worry beginning to coil in her stomach. It was true, what she had said about her sisters. If only she were beautiful, like them—

His touch at the collar of her gown halted all rational thought. There were so many buttons, far more than on his shirt, but he unfastened them all in a matter of seconds. Her dress came open, and then fell away as he eased it off her shoulders.

A tug at her waist told her that he had loosened the string of her single petticoat. It puddled around her shoes, and as she went to step free of it he took her hands to steady her.

It seemed odd to still be wearing her shoes, so she kicked them off, pushing them aside with one foot. Now she wore only her stockings and combinations. They were clean, thank goodness, but bore no resemblance to the pretty lingerie she knew men expected to discover at such moments.

“You don’t need satin and ribbons,” he said, somehow guessing her thoughts. “You’re perfect as you are. Everything about you is perfect.”

She steeled herself for the moment when he would begin to unfasten the bodice of her combinations, but instead he sat on the bed and pulled her into his arms, his knees drawn wide so he could embrace her fully.

“Why aren’t you wearing a corset?” he asked, his face pressed into the curve of her neck. The stubble on his cheeks felt wonderfully abrasive against her skin.

“I used to. But it got in the way. Do you mind?”

“God, no. Corsets are an abomination.”

He pressed a single kiss to the pulse at the base of her throat, his lips a brand upon her skin. Then he pulled away, reached for the hem of his undershirt, and pulled it over his head.

Lilly had never been so close to a man’s naked chest. She knew men had nipples, knew they sometimes had hair there, but the difference between knowing something and actually
seeing
it was awfully large.

Hair the color of spun gold covered Robbie’s chest, stretching from nipple to nipple and narrowing to a thin line at his navel. She touched him tentatively, marveling at the softness of the hair, at the way it tickled her fingers.

He was so warm. She let her fingers trail along the corded muscles of his shoulders, then his arms, which he spread wide for her, inviting her inspection. Her fingers drifted lower, skipping over the flat planes of his belly, tracing the curve of muscle at one hip, then the other.

His nipples had drawn up on themselves, just as hers did when she was chilled, though it was far from cold in the room. His skin shivered, too, wherever she touched him. Perhaps she was doing something wrong. Perhaps she ought to stop, or wait for him to direct her.

“Lilly?” he asked, his voice gentle. She glanced up and saw that his eyes were closed.

“Yes? I’m getting it all wrong, aren’t I?”

“Quite the opposite. Let me hold you some more.”

His arms enveloped her, holding her so tightly that it was difficult to breathe properly. She could feel his every breath, almost feel his pulse racing. And she could feel something else, pressing insistently against the juncture of her thighs.

So
this
was what Bridget and Annie talked of after lights-out.
This
was the something that nice girls only discovered the truth of on their wedding night.

“Lilly?” he prompted, his voice infinitely soothing. “Do you know what’s next?”

She nodded her head, a little frantically. “Annie and Bridget talk about it, quite often. Although there are some, ah, parts that I’m not entirely sure about. And I was never brave enough to ask.”

“It’s not the easiest thing to talk about. Few people do.”

“What if I make a mistake?”

He laughed, softly, and pressed a reassuring kiss to her mouth. “It’s not a maths exam, Lilly. And I promise there’s nothing to be frightened of.”

“My sisters . . . I overheard them talking about it once. They said it was unpleasant. Revolting, even.”

“You should pity them, Lilly. For they’ll never know the truth of it.” He looked up at her, his eyes glittering. “Now, what about these clothes? Shall we try getting rid of them?”