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Her eye fell on the last task. Sign off paperwork and complete handover. If they kept to the tight schedule Geraint had set up, that would be in just a few weeks time. Glen Massan House would be a fully operational military training school, and their time in no man’s land would come to an end. ‘Carpe diem,’ Flora muttered to herself. ‘Seize the day. That’s what we’ll all have to do while this dreadful war rages on. And I intend to do just that.’
* * *
The list of tasks was nearing completion by the middle of November, the requisition proceeding exactly to schedule. ‘There, now, what did I tell you, is this not the most spectacular view?’ Flora pointed down at Glen Massan House, several hundred feet below.
They were at the peak of Ben Massan, a short but steep climb. Her eyes were sparkling, her cheeks flushed, her hair blowing in wild, fiery tendrils around her face. She wore an old mackintosh coat that was far too large for her, the sleeves turned up to form a cuff, the hem flapping around her ankles. On her feet were sturdy brown brogues, much worn and eminently practical.
‘Spectacular, but not as pretty as you,’ Geraint said, pulling her into his arms and kissing her hard.
Laughing, she put her arms around his neck and pulled him closer. Her lips were cold, but her tongue was warm. She kissed him back as fiercely as he kissed her. He felt the familiar rush of blood to his groin and reluctantly let her go.
‘Why do you do that?’ Flora was staring up at him, her expression hurt. ‘Stop kissing me, I mean. Don’t you like kissing me?’
It hadn’t occurred to him that she wouldn’t understand. ‘Don’t look at me like that,’ Geraint said, putting his arm around her, pulling her onto the soft, peaty ground in the lea of the cairn that marked the summit. ‘It’s because I like it too much.’ He cupped her face, smoothing her hair away from her cheeks. ‘Flora, it’s all very well to joke about being in no man’s land, to talk about seizing the day, but we have to be careful. We have to see this for what it is, a bit of fun.’
‘Fun.’ She said it as if she were turning the word over, inspecting it from every angle. ‘What you really mean is that there’s no future in it. I already know that, Geraint. There is no need to warn me off.’
But there seemed to be a need to remind himself of that salient fact. ‘When the war is over, I intend to go into politics,’ he said. ‘Things need to change for the better for ordinary working people.’
She smiled wryly. ‘You mean we shall end up on opposite sides again.’
‘Something like that.’
‘And because of that you don’t want to take advantage of the situation,’ she said with a crooked smile. ‘I know,’ she said, putting her fingers over his mouth to prevent him replying, ‘that the idea of being called a gentleman appals you, but nevertheless, your sense of honour would put a lot of so-called gentlemen to shame. And I suppose I should be embarrassed now, for I have admitted to a very unladylike wish that you would not behave so very honourably.’
‘Which I am delighted to hear,’ Geraint said with a gruff laugh, ‘because behaving honourably is just about killing me.’ He pulled her to him, running his thumb over the soft, sensual skin of her lower lip. ‘The things I imagine us doing together would make you blush to the roots of your hair.’
She caught his hand, closing her mouth around his thumb, pulling it into the moist heat of her mouth before releasing him. ‘Tell me,’ she said.
He shook his head. ‘Certainly not. That would be most ungentlemanly.’
‘I already told you that I feel most unladylike. Please tell me, Geraint. I know we cannot, but I would like to know what it would be like if we could.’
She was smiling, one of those smiles that did strange things to his guts, and he thought he had never found any woman more irresistible. In the throes of passion, he had been able to ask—Do you like this? Do you want this? Harder? Slower? Faster?—but he had never before articulated his own desires. I want to know what it would be like if we could. He pulled Flora closer to him out of the wind, resting his chin on the silky mass of her hair. ‘The reality could never match my imaginings,’ he said, willing himself to believe it.
‘I would still like to know.’
She had slipped her arms under his greatcoat, wrapping them around his waist. Geraint closed his eyes, drinking in the scent of her perfume, her soap, the fresh Highland air and the intangible something else that made the heady mixture uniquely Flora. ‘When we kiss,’ he whispered, ‘I feel like I am diving into a deep, dark pool. And the more we kiss the deeper I want to dive.’ His fingers found the warm, delicate skin at the nape of her neck. ‘I want to touch you. All of you. I want to taste you, every part of you.’
Flora shuddered. He pulled her closer so that she lay half over him, her leg between his. ‘I want to kiss your mouth,’ he said, unable to stop himself doing just that. ‘I want to kiss your breasts.’ He undid her coat, cupping her through the soft wool of her dress. She rolled onto her back. He covered her with his body. ‘I want to kiss your breasts until you can’t take any more,’ he said, his voice ragged, his thumbs stroking her nipples.
Flora arched under him, her eyes glazing over. ‘What else, Geraint? What else would you do?’
He was already hard. ‘I would kiss your belly.’ He flattened his palm, sliding it over her. ‘I would kiss the inside of your thighs. Soft, your skin would be. So soft and so warm. When I kiss you there, I can feel you want me, feel it here,’ he said, pressing down on the taut muscles of her stomach, then farther down. ‘I want you every bit as much, but I don’t want it to be over too soon, so I touch you. Here.’ Flat palm gliding over her sex. Flora’s hands on him, clutching at his tunic. Her eyes wide, dark, her cheeks bright with colour. Her breath shallow, fast. ‘I have never wanted anyone as I want you,’ he whispered.
‘Never. Not ever,’ she answered.
‘I want to taste you. Here. This. I want to taste all of you.’ The words, shocking, stark, raw with need, formed without thinking. He touched her, just covered her, through her dress, and felt her arch up under him just as he had dreamed. ‘I taste you,’ Geraint said, his eyes fixed on hers, stroking now, just stroking, ‘and I kiss you. Here. Like this.’
Her mouth under his. Her lips soft, velvet, clinging. Tongues tangling. His erection throbbed. She bucked under him, moaning softly as he kissed her, as he touched her until she shuddered. She was going to come. He saw it in the faraway look, felt it in the way her body reacted. And if he did not stop...
He rolled abruptly away, closing his eyes tight, thinking of cold snow, of army drill, and when that did not work, of the cramped recesses of the mine workings. Sweat of a different sort broke out on his brow, and the danger passed.
Flora sat up, pulling her coat around her, feeling as if she had been caught, yanked back at the last moment from falling. No, it was more like a dream where she fell and fell, and woke up just before she hit the ground. Beside her, Geraint had his eyes screwed shut. She stared down into the glen at her home. Her former home.
Geraint got to his feet, holding his hand out to help her up. ‘Well, I think that rather proved the point,’ he said shakily.
‘That reality is no match for your imaginings?’ she asked, still keeping her eyes on the view.
‘I think we had better stop this before we get in too deep.’
She turned to face him. His mouth was set, resolute. Before we get in too deep. It would pain him to know it was already too late. It would be painful for her, much more painful, if she let herself fall any deeper. ‘You’re right,’ she said, summoning a bright smile and rummaging in her capacious coat pocket for her notebook. ‘We should concentrate on what we came up here for before the light fades. Tell me, then, which parts of the grounds do you think best suited for target practice.’
* * *
‘So, given the two new sections that have arrived, and with the main body of men due on the seventh of December, which is next week, we felt it prudent to establish a regular patrol in the village.’
Flora glanced up from her notes at her parents, who were seated opposite her at the dining table in the Lodge. She would have held the meeting in the parlour over tea. She would not have called it a meeting, but a chat. It was Geraint who insisted she formalise matters. ‘Else they will not take you seriously,’ he had told her. ‘You need to stamp your authority on this, make them realise that the decisions are already made, and not up for discussion.’
‘Wouldn’t it be better if you did it?’ she’d asked him, but he shook his head.
‘I’m not the one with something to prove.’
And he had been quite right, on all fronts. ‘I see no need to patrol the village,’ her father said. ‘Simply keep it out of bounds to the men, and there ends the problem.’
He spoke in his don’t-be-a-silly-girl voice. Flora counted to three and made sure to reply in her well-rehearsed voice of reason. ‘First, making the village out of bounds will only encourage the men to want to go there. It is human nature to wish to do what one is told one cannot.’ A lesson she had been learning on a daily basis, these past couple of weeks, since agreeing her pact with Geraint on top of Ben Massan. ‘Second, drawing demarcation lines between the village and the House will create unnecessary tension. We are all in this together, Father. Third, it is inevitable that without some sort of patrol as a safeguard, there will be trouble between the village lads and the Tommies. And that leads me to my next point. The Christmas concert and children’s party. We feel this will provide an ideal opportunity for the men to help maintain good relations with the village, so Corporal Cassell and I have decided...’
‘You and Corporal Cassell seem to have decided a great deal,’ Lady Carmichael interrupted. ‘I thought Colonel Aitchison was in charge.’
‘The colonel has naturally approved the details of the plan,’ Flora said, which was essentially true. The colonel having been given a brief summary by Geraint and listened to Flora’s assurances that the laird was in full agreement, had nodded, signed the latest batch of requisition orders and returned to his fishing.
‘You seem to have spent an inordinate amount of time with this corporal,’ Lady Carmichael said pointedly.
‘It has been necessary in order to carry out my duties.’ Which was true.
‘Duties you have discharged very thoroughly,’ the laird said. ‘I must say, Flora, you have surprised me.’
She had surprised herself, but she remembered just in time to suppress her gratified smile as her father got to his feet. Flora cleared her throat. ‘I am not quite finished yet, if you don’t mind.’ The laird sighed, but sat back down again. ‘The main convoy arrives next week, as I’ve said,’ Flora continued. ‘There will be a company of over two hundred men complete with a major, four lieutenants and a number of ancillary staff including officer trainers, cooks, medics and drivers.’ She paused, reminding herself not to sound apologetic. ‘The kitchen garden will form a shooting range. The high walls make it an ideal location. Artillery practice will be carried out on the grouse moor. And the croquet lawn—the croquet lawn will form the main area for parking and storage of large equipment.’
‘The croquet lawn?’ Lady Carmichael said icily.
Beneath the table, Flora clasped her hands together tightly. Despite not being the least bit interested in croquet herself, and the fact that the hoops had long been removed for the winter, Flora had been anguished, too, when Geraint raised the issue. Losing the beautifully manicured lawn set aside for the genteel pursuit seemed almost an act of vandalism. ‘Since the forecourt will be used for drilling the troops, this is the most convenient area.’
It was a full thirty seconds, which felt like thirty minutes, before her father broke the silence. ‘What about the cellars? All that valuable wine your brother Robbie has stored there?’
‘Corporal Cassell was equally concerned, so he had all the wine moved to the cellars here at the Lodge. There was just about enough space.’
Flora frowned, remembering how Geraint had been that day. The cellars at Glen Massan House were deep, a warren of narrow passageways from which various rooms led. ‘Like going down the mine,’ she had joked at the time, standing over the hatch, watching Geraint slowly descend alone, for she had no intention of encountering the rats she was certain lived down there. He had emerged no more than fifteen minutes later, sweating profusely, his pallor ghostlike. She thought he was going to faint, though he brushed her offer of water away, just as he also brushed away her concern. ‘Were there rats down there?’ she’d asked fearfully, foolishly staring at the wooden staircase as if they might have followed Geraint up. ‘I’ll get Hopkins to deal with this,’ he’d finally said, ignoring her question, pushing past her hurriedly and out of the basement.
There must have been rats after all, she had decided. And he simply didn’t want to admit his dislike of them. Although you’d think he’d be accustomed to rats, working down a mine. Presuming mines had rats.
‘Are we quite finished?’ the laird said, looking pointedly at his watch.
Flora dragged her mind away from Geraint and hastily consulted her list. ‘Unless you can think of anything we have omitted?’
He shook his head. ‘You have been most thorough. Forgive me, but I must— I need some air.’ The laird patted his wife’s shoulder as he got to his feet. ‘Flora has only done what was required of her. What is required of us is to accept these very painful decisions with good grace. Excuse me.’
The door closed behind him. ‘This bloody war,’ Lady Carmichael exclaimed. ‘I think the world going to hell in a handcart.’
Flora dropped her pencil, staring open-mouthed at her mother, who never swore.
‘I do not, as you know, have any time for those women who claim we females should be enfranchised,’ Lady Carmichael continued, ‘but I’m beginning to wonder, if we did have the vote, whether we’d have avoided this dreadful situation in the first place. I had a letter from your brother Alex this morning. He wants to leave school at the end of this term. Your father had a separate communication from him, asking permission to enlist.’
‘Oh, no!’
‘He will refuse, of course, but—I can’t bury my head in the sand for much longer. It is inevitable that my sons will join this war, and I do not want...’ Lady Carmichael dabbed frantically at her eyes.
Flora got up and knelt at her mother’s chair. ‘There’s nothing to apologise for—what you’re feeling is perfectly natural. We can be as patriotic as the next woman and still wish that our loved ones did not have to do what other people’s loved ones are doing.’
Her ladyship sniffed. ‘I am sure there is something quite flawed with the grammar of that sentence, but I must endorse the sentiment. Now the handover of Glen Massan House is nearing completion, I can admit that I have never been entirely comfortable with you having to be so much in the company of that corporal. A most intimidating young man, and insolent with it. It’s not so much in his words, but he has a way of looking at one. You will be able to spend more time with me again. I thought we could take a trip to Edinburgh next week, to do some Christmas shopping.’
Flora sighed. ‘Mother, you know that I am considering joining the VADs.’
‘You cannot, Flora. I need you here.’
‘Nonsense. These past few weeks while I have been working with Geraint, you have managed perfectly well without me.’
‘Geraint? You mean Corporal Cassell, I take it? You do realise, Flora, that he is not our sort. I sincerely hope that you have not allowed the man to take liberties.’
‘Geraint is not the sort of man to take unwelcome liberties,’ Flora said, which was true. Another thing Geraint had taught her—always tell the truth when confronted, even if you tailor it to suit your needs. And in fact, since that kiss on the top of Ben Massan they had both been at pains—extreme pains—to avoid anything but the most casual of contact.
‘Well, I am pleased to hear it,’ Lady Carmichael said. ‘I expect he will be posted somewhere else soon, in any event, since his task is nearly complete.’
‘I suppose so,’ Flora replied. She did not want to think about that. ‘Mother, what I’m trying to tell you is that I shall be looking for something else to do.’
‘Such as what, precisely? And please, Flora, do not persist with this notion that you can become a volunteer nurse. You are quite simply not cut out for it.’
‘I can learn. I do have some skills. I am an excellent organiser, and I am a good negotiator, too. It was I who agreed the terms of the regular local deliveries, and many of those coming from Glasgow. I did those on the telephone.’
‘Well! So it has come to that, my daughter discussing terms with tradesmen.’
Flora burst out laughing. ‘For heaven’s sake, Mother...’
‘It is not funny.’ Lady Carmichael pushed her chair back violently. ‘It is very far from funny. This war will not go on forever, Flora Carmichael. When it ends, if you are not careful, you will discover that you have become quite unsuited for real life. Think about that before you ruin your hands with carbolic soap and ruin your chances of making any sort of match by compromising your reputation nursing common soldiers.’
‘So much for my determination to have the last word,’ Flora said as the door swung shut behind her mother. Picking up her notebook and pencil, she got to her feet, staring out of the window at the darkening sky, all her pleasure in having completed her meeting exactly to plan quite spoiled by her mother’s reaction.
But beneath her mother’s bluster there was genuine concern. Leaving home, flying in the face of her parents’ wishes, would change things irrevocably between them. What was more, if the war continued as it seemed inevitable it would, into 1915 or even 1916, there was a good chance they would lose all of their children to it, one way or another.
Chapter Six (#ulink_5a043e52-a361-59d8-81ce-1bd39d0c5ad5)
Several days later, in the drawing room, Flora’s shoes echoed on the bare boards. It looked enormous without its furnishings, the last of which had been shrouded in old sheets and in placed in the stables. Dust motes danced in the air as a faint streak of winter sun penetrated the gloom. ‘Is it selfish of me,’ Flora asked Geraint, ‘to want to leave here just when my parents may need me the most?’
‘What about your needs?’
‘I need to leave,’ she replied without hesitation, ‘though it makes me feel horribly guilty just saying it.’
‘I know how that feels.’
‘Of course you do.’ She touched his arm sympathetically. ‘Do you regret it, Geraint?’
His hand covered hers briefly before he snatched it away. ‘It’s tough, walking away from the life you know, the people you love. I—I miss them.’
‘I find it appalling that you have not had sufficient leave to go to Wales since joining the army.’
Geraint flushed. ‘I haven’t been home in three years.’
‘Three years! But I thought— You said— I assumed...’
‘It’s not that we’re estranged. I write every week.’
Geraint was staring down at his boots, the toes of which were polished to a mirror-like smoothness, which, he had told her, severely compromised their waterproofing. ‘But you have not seen them since you enlisted,’ Flora said.
‘I told you, when I left the pit, they thought I was being disloyal.’
‘Don’t you think that perhaps the problem lies more with you, and not them? Geraint, they will surely be more hurt by your staying away than the fact that you left in the first place.’
When he finally looked up, his eyes were bleak. ‘You don’t understand,’ he said.
I don’t want to discuss it, his tone made very clear. Make me understand, explain it to me, Flora wanted to say, but the pain in his eyes stopped her. ‘The news from the front is as gloomy as the weather,’ she said instead. ‘The Battle of Ypres continues on into its fourth week, although the press claim that we have repulsed the last German attack.’
‘I saw the latest figures. Fifty thousand British casualties so far and the French have lost over eighty. Small consolation that Jerry has lost the same amount combined.’
‘And every one of them someone’s husband or brother or son,’ Flora said sadly. ‘In the village, the talk is all of the boys who enlisted alongside Ghillie McNair’s son, Peter. Ten of them in total, and no doubt hundreds more from the rest of the county, all now training with the Argyll and Southern Highlanders.’ She smiled weakly. ‘One piece of good news, if you can call it that. Mrs Oliphant’s son has rather miraculously turned up alive at a hospital in France, though he has lost a leg and the sight in one eye.’
Geraint grimaced. ‘It could have been much worse.’
‘My mother said that it would have been better if Ronnie had remained missing.’ Flora flushed with embarrassment at the memory. ‘She said that now he will forever be a burden to his family.’
‘Maybe she’s right, for once,’ Geraint said roughly.
‘You don’t mean that.’
‘I do, Flora, I mean it sincerely. Maybe not if it was just a leg, or just one eye, but if it was worse—and there’s an awful lot worse, from what I’ve heard—if it was me, I wouldn’t want to be packed off home to be looked after like a baby for the rest of my life. And if you’re honest, really honest, if it was your son or your husband, you wouldn’t want it, either.’
‘Don’t say that. Don’t talk like that.’
She covered her ears, knowing it was a childish gesture but unable to stop herself. Geraint pulled her hands down. ‘Imagine what it really means, to devote your entire life to a man who can’t lift his own fork, or who can’t eat anything but soup because he’s lost most of his face,’ he said brutally. ‘Think about how it would be, tied to a man who might not ever be a man in any real sense ever again.’
