Page 13 of The Last Kiss

“Yes, it’s — ”

Behind them, the gate gave a startling squeal. Dalton yanked his hand free and Harry spun around to see a sullen lad in shirtsleeves and waistcoat slouching towards them, all skinny legs and arms. He was maybe seventeen. Harry had seen boys like him taken apart by shellfire, scattered to the wind so there was nothing left to bury. “Mr Ashleigh?” The lad’s Hampshire burr rounded his words. “Sir Arthur’s asking for you. Says to see him in his study.”

Dalton gave a tight nod, not looking up from fussing with his knapsack. “Very well. Thank you, John, p-p-please tell him I’ll be along d-directly.”

John gave an obedient nod, but Harry didn’t miss his watchful expression, nor the insolent tilt of his hips as he stood there staring at them. “You heard Mr Ashleigh,” he said, wanting rid of the lad. “Go on with you.” Dalton glanced up at that, surprised, and the boy turned to go, giving Harry an unfriendly eye as he left.

Trouble, that one, Harry thought.

But the notion didn’t linger. More pressing was the way Dalton had pulled his hand away, the slight flush still tinting his cheeks. It suggested what they’d been doing needed concealing. It suggested it was something more than simple comfort between old comrades.

And that set Harry’s heart pounding like a howitzer.

CHAPTERSIX

Ash directed West to the stables, pausing to watch his friend stride away before heading back to the house and his father. West walked with a rolling swagger, the confident gait of a confident man, and Ash remembered pacing beside him, striding out through Rouen in search of a bar, their steps matched and both high on the exhilaration of being away from the guns with forty-eight hours leave. He remembered how their hands had brushed, the sound of West’s laughter and the weight of his arm slung around Ash’s shoulders. Comrades, friends, brothers-in-arms. Closer than brothers.

He could still hardly believe West was here. Just thinking about it made his heart race, a hot sensation burning behind his breastbone. The idea of West working for the family made him uncomfortable, but it did have the single enormous advantage of bringing them together in a way Ash had never dared dream. He’d see West all the time and the thought of having his friend so close, of having someone near whoknewwithout him having to explain, was an enormous relief. He was surprised at how happy it made him, and then he was surprised that he barely remembered the feeling. Had he felt happy once since he’d returned from the war?

Perhaps not, but he was happy now and smiled helplessly as he watched Harry swing his bag over one shoulder, the muscles in his arm bunching beneath his coat. He looked so hale, so strong and whole. Ash’s chest squeezed, the physical admiration he’d always felt for West pressing against his ribs, swelling into something rather painful. Compared with his own spare frame, West was everything a man should be: a golden-haired, broad-chested, smiling Adonis. There’d been a time when Ash would have given his right arm to look like Harry West. Or to touch him…

“Mr Ashleigh?” John Pierson slouched in front of the French doors that stood open to the garden room and Ash waved him on, embarrassed to have been caught so blatantly admiring his friend. He should be more circumspect.

John slipped into the house, swallowed by its shadows. He was the housekeeper’s son and as frustrated a young man as Ash had ever known. Longing to go to war like his brother, John had yet to recover from the injustice of the armistice having been signed before he was old enough to be blown to bits in service to his country.

Ash made his careful way across the gravel, listening to the uneven crunch of his steps, the alien third tap of his cane. He tried not to long for the days when he and West strode out together, step for step. Tried not to regret their passing, nor to think how he must look to West — broken and disfigured.

After the bright spring sunshine, the darkness of the house felt stifling and he paused to let his eyes adjust. The garden room sat still and empty, the clock on the mantelpiece ticking, a fire unlit in the grate. It might have stood like this for a hundred years. He felt its stillness, the unchanging permanence of the room pressing in on him, and for a moment it was difficult to take a breath. He half turned back to the door, longing to be outside again with West. But from deeper within the house came the sound of his mother’s laughter; she and the Allens must be in the front parlour, where the light was better in the afternoon. Ash hesitated, knowing he had to see his father, wanting to run until his lungs burned. But he couldn’t run anymore and a pang of sympathy for Olive, stranded with the stifling old matrons, returned him to his duty. He at least owed her an apology for abandoning her in favour of West. Once he’d spoken to his father, he’d rescue Olive. She’d like West, he was sure. Ash would take her to the stables and introduce them.

Fortified by that thought, he turned towards his father’s study, passing his makeshift bedroom on the way. It had been the breakfast parlour but Mother converted it to a bedroom when Ash was first discharged from hospital, so he didn’t need to bother with the stairs. He still wasn’t fond of stairs. He couldn’t put enough weight on his injured leg to climb them normally, so it took an age. Coming down was more painful still.

Stopping outside his father’s study, Ash knocked and waited for the curt “Come” before entering. He tried not to feel like a boy summoned into his father’s presence.

Sir Arthur sat behind his large mahogany desk, a pair of spectacles perched on his nose, mutton chops neatly trimmed and only slightly overflowing his high wing collar. Born and bred a Victorian, Ash’s father had not adapted well to the advent of the twentieth century. In point of fact, he hadn’t adapted at all — with the possible exception of his love of motor cars.

“Ashleigh,” he said, removing his spectacles. “You know why I wished to see you, of course.”

He imagined it had something to do with West. “I’m afraid not, sir.”

His father gestured for him to sit, an accommodation to his leg that felt like a pointed reminder of his limitations. Perhaps he was over-sensitive to such things. He was over-sensitive to many things these days. Either way, Ash didn’t insult him by continuing to stand and lowered himself carefully onto the offered chair. “Thank you.”

“This West fellow,” Sir Arthur said. “What do you make of him turning up here asking for work?”

Ash set his jaw. “Sir, you must understand, Harry West is my friend — ”

“Nonsense.” Sir Arthur’s moustache bristled. “I understand what it’s like among fighting men, Ashleigh, the comradeship etcetera — very much like school days — and no doubt you feel a certain responsibility toward one of your men. But I don’t like the way that fellow came here, sniffing about for money.”

“He didn’t!” Ash flushed angrily. “Sir, West is the b-best man I ever knew. He didn’t come here looking for money or — ”

“Podsnappery, Ashleigh! The only reason I didn’t turn him out on his ear was because of” — he gestured awkwardly at Ash’s leg — “the service you say he rendered.” He folded his hands on the desk. “But to greet him as you did…”

“I greeted him as a f-friend.”

“Quite. And in front of the staff. For a fellow officer I could forgive your… yoursentimentality. But you simply can’t go aboutembracingthe lower orders. It won’t do. Look at all the trouble it’s caused in Russia.”

Ash stared, at a loss, a desperate bubble of laughter expanding in his chest. He tamped it down hard. “D-do you mean — ? Are you referring to the B-Bolsheviks, sir?”

“If that’s what they call themselves. Started with too much fraternisation between the ranks, a disruption of the social order.”

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