She heard no movement.
Oh, bloody hell.
“Please, go away!”
Instead, she heard Paul come closer, and from the corner of her eye, she saw him crouch down a yard or so away, balancing himself with the crook.
“Let me help,” he said simply. “You look sad. Or perhaps you are just tired. It was a late night, yes?”
“How do you know how late I was?” she spat into her knees.
“I waited to know you were home,” he said, “to know you were safe.”
“Safe,” Lorna muttered. “Yes, I got home . . . safe.”
“But you were alone. Fräulein Nellie was not with you, and that worried me. I think your father was also not happy?”
“Dad doesn’t know. He was asleep when I got in. And you’d better not tell him, or . . .”
Lorna looked up at Paul then, ready to challenge him. But he seemed so concerned, so kind, so blond, so slim—so not like Ed—that Lorna wanted to throw herself at him. He might not have the brash self-confidence and matinee-idol looks that Ed had, nor the swarthy tan and the rugged jawline, but at that moment, Paul was so much more beautiful. Even the scars on his face were comforting in their familiarity. Lorna realized that all she wanted was for Paul’s arms to be around her, and for his long fingers to wind through her hair, to caress her aching head. She wanted to lay her face against his chest and to breathe him in, knowing he wouldn’t smell of sweat or gin or tobacco, but of wood and hay, of compassion and of home.
But she was too ashamed to move.
“Please don’t tell him,” she said.
Paul nodded slightly.
“I will say nothing. But please remember, Fräulein Nellie is not like you. She is more bold and less sensible. Yes?”
How much had he guessed?
“Will we walk back now?” Paul asked quietly.
He helped her to stand, holding her as she found her balance. And then, he did not let go.
He was right. Lorna did feel very sad and very tired. She fell against him and he wrapped his arms around her in a comforting embrace, and Lorna let the night before ebb away.
He took a breath as if he were about to say something but then remained silent. Resting against his soft sweater, Lorna knew that there was one thing about the evening before that she would share with him.
“Paul?” she murmured.
“Hmmm?” His reply was more a rumble under her cheek than a sound.
“I wouldn’t dance the waltz with him.”
Paul didn’t reply, but his arms tightened around her, and finally she could breathe again.
The next day, Mrs. Mack arrived early in the morning, eager for details of the dance, and at the school dinner break, Iris virtually pinned Lorna against the wall with questions. Lorna tried to be enthusiastic about the glamorous people, the decorations, the dancing bandleader, and the delicious lemonade—at least, the first glass of it—and the chocolate cake. She sidestepped all their questions about her partner, trying to erase Ed with mysterious smiles and half nods. Even if Iris didn’t seem to notice Lorna’s evasion, Mrs. Mack clearly knew something wasn’t right. But being Mrs. Mack, she didn’t press too hard. Lorna just hoped that she wouldn’t find the blue dress stuffed in the drawer where she’d left it, at least until Lorna had had time to stitch the ragged tear.
As for Nellie, when Lorna had left for school, Nellie had been dancing across the yard behind the herd, singing loudly and lightly tapping the beat on the rumps of the nearest cows with her stick. Still infuriatingly happy.
But Paul? That was more difficult. Lorna was embarrassed by the comfort she had found in his arms. In those moments, it hadn’t mattered to her who he was—her father’s farmhand, a German prisoner, the enemy, a friend—all she knew was that he understood and he cared that she was hurting.
The night before, she’d dreamed of being smothered and mauled, not by another person, but by something she couldn’t see but that she desperately feared. She’d lain awake trying to calm her heart until, unbidden, her imagination had flown her up into the hayloft, into the comfort of Paul’s arms.
And in school today, just as Paul’s fingers were caressing Lorna’s neck, and his body was swaying with hers in time to “The Blue Danube Waltz,” Iris had elbowed her hard, tapping on the geometry test paper sitting in front of them.
“Shhhh!” Iris had hissed. “Stop humming!”
Even so, Lorna felt unsettled about seeing Paul in person. What if he expected something more from her? Worse, what if he acted like nothing had happened at all? Knowing she could not avoid seeing him, she decided to get it over and done with.
After school, she went directly to the lambing shed. She found Paul with the older orphaned lambs. He looked up and smiled as she walked in.
“This little girl,” he said, “is almost ready to go out with the others. Nicht wahr, mein kleines Lamm?”
He rubbed the coat of the nearest lamb.
“About yesterday . . . ,” Lorna said.
Paul stood up and put his hands into his pockets.
“Yes,” he said, “about yesterday.”
Lorna noticed that the frown lines on his forehead were deep enough to pucker the tight, shiny skin, and she realized how little she consciously thought about the damage to his face anymore. He was now simply Paul.
“I wanted to say I’m sorry . . . ,” said Lorna.
“I must give you an apology,” said Paul, at exactly the same moment.
Lorna was caught by surprise. Why was Paul apologizing? She was the one who had made a fool of herself, not him.
“It was not right for me to dance with you,” Paul said. “And it was not right for me to . . . at the beach.”
How could he say that their dance, their “Blue Danube Waltz” in the barn, was not right? Or the way he had comforted her? How could that not have been right? And yet, wasn’t that why she was apologizing too, because she knew they’d stepped over some invisible line?
“No, no, please don’t apologize,” she stammered. “It was right, I mean, you were right, I mean . . . I mean, yesterday was all my fault. I was upset, and sad, and you were just being kind. I should be saying thank you.”
“But I should not have danced with—”
“I liked our dance.”
“I liked our dance also, but it should not happen again.” Paul studied her before speaking again. “Before the British allowed us to do farmwork, they gave us a paper to . . .”
Paul mimicked holding a pen and writing, looking at Lorna for the right word.
“To sign?”
“To sign, thank you,” Paul said. “They gave us a paper to sign. My English was good enough to know that we promised that we would not become friendly with the Scottish people on the farms.”
“Not become friendly?”
“Not make friends,” Paul corrected himself as if Lorna hadn’t understood his English, “with the Scottish people we will work for.”
He smiled at Lorna sheepishly. “I think I broke my promise, Lorna, because I think I am now friends with you.”
His smile broadened, and Lorna felt the first flush under her collar. What was Nellie’s favorite American word again? Cute?
Paul’s smile faded, and he was looking at her intently.
“Am I right, Lorna? Are we friends now, you and me?”
“Yes.” Lorna’s voice came out as a hoarse croak. “Yes. We are friends, you and me.”
And suddenly the pressure lifted. They were friends, and knowing that made Lorna happy.
Within the week, spring was showing winter the door. Drowsy snowdrops huddled just out of the frost’s reach, and the promise of the early blossoms stained pink the tips of the bare trees. She and Paul chatted when they saw each other, and she helped him with the lambs when her other chores allowed, but he did not try to touch her again, nor she him. And that was fine. They were just friends, after all.
But then the camp commander wrote to withdraw the overnight leave for prisoners, now t
hat the lambing was all but over, and a truck duly arrived from Gosford one evening to take Paul back to camp. As she watched him toss his kit bag into the truck, Lorna had a moment of panic that Paul would no longer be sleeping in the Craigielaw hayloft. How could her nighttime imagination find Paul if he was sleeping in a place she’d never seen, under armed guard, where he was the enemy, a prisoner, where he was not simply Paul?
Lorna had gladly let the evening of the dance fade into a story told to her by someone else, had let the grazes on her knees heal and the nightmares recede. But she kept a firm hold on those perfect stolen moments when she’d danced with Paul in the barn, and when he’d comforted her at the beach. She realized she’d been wrong to agree with Paul that they were just friends. Watching him leave that night, she knew she wanted to be more than that.
He had said he would not dance with her a second time, but now, as the truck rumbled away, she wished desperately that he would. She wanted, more than anything, to have Paul touch her again.
Sixteen
On the Wednesday before Easter, Lorna and Iris were leaving school, and Lorna was trying not to be annoyed at Iris for deliberately hanging back, waiting for William. She paused just outside the school gate, so Iris could catch up with her.
“So you’ve no hug for your big brother then, Lorna Jane?”
Lorna spun round at the sound of the gloriously familiar voice. John Jo was standing only yards away. His army greatcoat was hanging open, his Glengarry cap was pushed to the back of his head, and there was a stained canvas kit bag at his feet. Lorna ran and threw herself into his arms, pushing her hands inside his coat to hug him. John Jo wrapped his arms around her, enveloping her in his warmth.
“John!” she cried. “John Jo, you’re actually here?”
“No, lass. I’m just a figment of your deranged imagination.” John Jo laughed. “And it’s not April Fools’ Day until Sunday.”
Lorna looked up into John Jo’s handsome face, blinking away tears.
He had changed in the year since he’d last come home on leave. He looked fit and tanned, but somehow much older. The skin was loose around his jaw, and his brown eyes were underlined with dark gray smudges, but still, Lorna was glad to see that they hadn’t lost their sparkle.
“But how come they gave you leave just now?”
“Oh, you know, for special people like me—”
“John! I’m serious. We didn’t expect you home anytime soon.”
“It came as a surprise to us too. The lads and me had to escort a VIP cargo back to London, and they gave us a few days off for good behavior.”
John Jo bent and kissed Lorna’s head, and she caught a whiff of beer on his breath and pulled back, feigning incredulity.
“You’ve been to the pub already. You have been away from Aberlady more than a year and the first place you go is the Gowff?”
John Jo opened his arms wide, as if that would prove his innocence.
“Well, I had to find something to do for an hour until the school released you from its evil clutches, didn’t I? So yes, I dropped in at the Gowff for a quick one.”
John Jo belched, then smiled as Lorna waved her hand in front of her face in disgust.
“And it was the best pint, or three, that I’ve had in a very long time!”
John Jo glanced behind Lorna and his smile broadened even further.
“Now, who do we have here? I didn’t realize they’d evacuated Hollywood while I’ve been away and brought all the starlets to Aberlady.”
Iris choked back a giggle, flushing as red as Lorna had ever seen her. It was no secret that Iris had been besotted by John Jo since they were tiny—as Lorna had been with Gregor Murray—when she would follow him around like a puppy. Her adoration had never wavered, even when Lorna had told her she’d seen John Jo and Lizzy Crichton kissing behind the laurel bushes in the kirkyard one summer. All through those years, John Jo and his pals had gone to great lengths to escape their devotees’ attentions, but now he seemed to find it quite flattering and highly amusing.
“Hello, John. How nice to see you,” said Iris, speaking slow and low, enunciating each word clearly. Lorna could tell that she was trying to sound sophisticated, as if she were Ingrid Bergman in Casablanca, but the end result was more strangled than sultry.
John Jo stepped forward and whisked his cap off his head with a flourish. Then he took Iris’s hand and kissed it before replying.
“I am all the better for seeing you, my dear.”
Iris looked like she was about to explode with delight.
“Iris? Iris!”
From behind them, William appeared. Iris tried to pull her hand from John Jo’s grip, but he held on to it firmly, giving her no escape.
“Look, William, Lorna’s brother is home.” Iris’s sultry purr was now a panicked squeak. “Isn’t that . . . wonderful?”
A frown creased William’s high forehead.
“Yes, it’s always gratifying to see our lads home from the front.” William sounded like his father. He even offered a handshake to John Jo, who ignored it completely.
“Now, Iris.” William sounded shaky, his nervousness beginning to show. “I think it’s time to be getting home. Your mother will be expecting you.”
Iris tried to extract her hand again, but John Jo wasn’t giving it up.
“I think the young lady can decide for herself when she goes home, don’t you?” John Jo said, with undisguised contempt.
As if to prove his point, he winked lasciviously at Iris and kissed her hand again.
Lorna was tempted to laugh as Iris seemed to both melt with pleasure and freeze in horror. But at the same time, Lorna wanted to tell John Jo to stop, to let Iris go if she wanted him to.
William stepped forward and put his hand on Iris’s other arm as if to pull her away.
“I don’t think that Iris . . .”
William’s voice was not as strong as Lorna suspected he’d like it to be, and he was shorter than her brother by a good couple of inches; slighter too. And John Jo was a man now, and a soldier, and William was still only a schoolboy, for all his posturing. William Urquhart did not measure up to John Anderson in any way. And he knew it.
“You don’t think that Iris, what?” John Jo’s voice was suddenly hard and aggressive. “Who the hell are you, anyway?”
The two men—or rather, the man and the boy—continued to grip Iris as if she were a disputed toy train, each challenging the other to dare to hold on. Iris stood between them, glancing from one to the other.
Lorna could see that Iris was getting anxious, and indeed she could feel her own breath shortening as if it were her own hand held against her will.
“John Jo,” she said quietly, “please let Iris go. And William, just step back.”
William held John Jo’s glare longer than Lorna had expected. After all, William had just been one of the young runts when John Jo, Gregor, and their gang had the run of the village. Ultimately, William wasn’t up to it, though, and he let his hand fall from Iris’s arm.
It was as if the sun had come out from behind a rain cloud. John Jo burst out laughing, raucous and loud, and let Iris’s hand drop. Then he launched himself at William, clapping him on the back and shaking his hand fervently. William flinched at the strength of the handshake.
“Good lad, good lad.” John Jo playfully punched William in the chest. “I was kidding you, wasn’t I? Just having a joke! You make sure you’re doing the right thing with this lovely young lady. She’s a pearl, you know, a diamond.”
John Jo grabbed Iris’s hand again, but this time he pressed it into William’s hand and held it there, almost as if he were the minister marrying them.
“You look after her now, Little Willie,” John Jo said earnestly, and William flinched again, “because you’ll answer to me if you don’t.”
John Jo gave William and Iris another broad smile, patted their heads, and ushered them on their way with calls of “Bless you both.”
As Iris
let William walk her away, she looked back to Lorna in total confusion.
All Lorna could do was shrug. Iris must remember how much John Jo always loved to tease the younger kids. This time, however, Lorna couldn’t help but think it didn’t feel the same.
But whatever it was about, her John Jo was home, and she would not think about William Urquhart a second longer.
John Jo lifted his kit bag from the ground, and it clanked.
“What on earth have you got in there?”
“Just a bottle or two for the old man and me. You wouldn’t have me come home empty-handed, would you?”
John Jo slung the kit bag over his shoulder, grabbed Lorna under the other arm, and they set off toward Craigielaw.
“How long are you staying? Can you stay until my birthday?”
John Jo shook his head.
“Sorry, Patch,” he said, using the nickname he’d given to her as a newborn when he’d told his mother he’d rather they’d given him a puppy than a sister. “I’ll have to be away by Sunday lunchtime.”
Although she was disappointed, it didn’t lessen Lorna’s excitement that he was here.
“So we’ll have to celebrate your birthday tonight instead,” John Jo said, giving the bottles in his bag an extra tuneless shake. “Now, tell me what you’ve been up to.”
At the corner, as they turned onto the High Street, something made Lorna turn back to look at the school. Mrs. Murray stood on the sidewalk, her hand to her throat, staring after them.
When she saw Lorna looking at her, Mrs. Murray lifted her hand to wave, and Lorna remembered about Gregor.
“Was Gregor with you on the escort to London?” she asked John Jo.
“Aye, he was. Why?”
He glanced back to see what Lorna was looking at and lifted his own hand to wave, but he kept on walking.
“You mean, did Gregor come home too?” he asked.
“Well, did he?”
“No, Patch,” John Jo said with a sigh. “As far as I know, Gregor stayed on in London with the other lads. He’ll not be coming home. Not this time.”
“Poor Mrs. Murray, she’ll be so disappointed,” Lorna said. “Didn’t you fancy spending your leave in the bright lights of London?”
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