Page 17 of The Last Kiss

“B-barely.”

“Barely’s all you need. We’ve got through worse together.”

His lips parted as if on a silent word, then he said, “Together.”

Harry’s mind erupted with a wild wish to pull Dalton into his arms, to feel his body, hard and lean beneath the warm wool of his jacket. His heart cramped in sudden, formless longing.

“Sometimes,” Dalton said with a laugh like thin ice, “I’m certain I’m going stark raving m-mad. If you knew the things running through m-my head, West!”

Would they be the same things running through mine?

He dropped his hand from Dalton’s wrist to take a step back, still feeling the heat of the man’s skin against his palm and curling his fingers into the fading warmth. “I, uh, meant what I said before.” His mouth moved clumsily around the words. “I reckon you could ride again. Reckon it would be good for you, an’ all. Good exercise.”

Dalton dragged on the end of his fag and dropped it into the gravel, using the tip of his cane to stub it out. “W-would you help me?” His gaze fixed on something distant in the garden. Or beyond it, perhaps, in a darker place.

“Course I would. Maybe we could ride out together?”

A flicker of a smile, warmer than before. “I’d like that. I’d like t-to ride in the forest again.”

“Then we will,” Harry promised and turned at the crunch of approaching footsteps. It was Olive leaving the stables with what sounded like deliberately heavy footsteps. She smiled awkwardly when she caught his eye and he retreated another step from Dalton, giving a formal tug of his cap. Dalton’s expression tightened in displeasure, but how else was Harry supposed to behave in front of people? “Come and find me anytime you’re ready to try.” He nodded to Olive and again to Dalton. “Miss Allen. Mr Ashleigh.”

And then he retreated to the stables, Dalton’s eyes on his back the whole way.

CHAPTERSEVEN

It should probably have felt unmanning to let himself be driven by a woman, but Olive was so confident behind the wheel — she drove ambulances, too — that Ash didn’t give it much thought as they swung out through the gate and onto the narrow lane beyond. No doubt his father would have an opinion on the matter.

West watched from the paddock where he was exercising Bella and turned as they passed, his rolled-up sleeves and the open neck of his shirt catching Ash’s eye. When Ash lifted his hand to wave, West nodded and turned to watch the car leave. For the past few days, Ash had avoided him, partly in response to that wretched interview with his father but mostly because he hadn’t liked West seeing him rattled and stammering. Bad enough about his leg without having his other infirmities on display. He’d prefer West saw him as the officer he’d once been, not the man he’d become.

“I’m glad you agreed to see Major Edwards,” Olive said as they left the house behind. “He’s a good doctor. I’m sure he can help with the pain.”

Ash wasn’t convinced, but Olive had been nagging him for weeks and he didn’t have any better ideas. “The d-doctor in Calais said it’s because they used a guillotine at the clearing station. Damages the n-nerves, apparently. Well” — he laughed — “d-damages them more, I suppose. But b-better than gangrene.”

“Yes.” From the corner of his eye he saw her lips pinch. “I think it’s worth you seeing him anyway. He’s always reading about the latest research.” She glanced at him, taking her eyes completely off the road for a moment. “About all sorts of things.”

There was a look in her eye as she said it that put Ash on edge. Olive was entirely too direct. He rather liked that about her, even though his mother thought it gauche. For now, he decided to change the subject. “It’s nice to g-get out of the house,” he said, relishing the rush of air as they drove, the green fragrance of the hedge whipping close to the car. Olive was a good driver; he appreciated her competence and felt safe in her hands. Unlike when he was with his father, who drove with complete disregard for either the rules of the road or of nature. His mother point blank refused to get into a motor car with him, which Ash suspected was rather his father’s objective.

It wasn’t far to Chewton Lodge and they arrived shortly before ten o’clock. Ash had known the house his whole life, but he approached it now with a sense of trepidation. There were fewer men here than during the war, but those who remained were the worst cases — multiple amputees and those with faces so disfigured they might prefer to hide away behind the whispering trees that shielded the house.

He felt uneasy as they drew up in front of the lodge, as if once he set foot within the hospital he might never leave. Christ knew he’d seen enough hospitals for one lifetime. Olive, on the other hand, was radiant as she jumped out of the car and called cheery greetings to the men sitting on the lawn in their bath chairs. In this place, she came alive in a way Ash had never seen before and he watched her, astonished.

She flashed him a grin. “What?”

“Nothing.” He found himself smiling too. “You look d-different, is all.”

Her expression turned self-conscious, awkward as she often was in his mother’s parlour. “I have a purpose here,” she said as she walked around the car to help him out. “I can use my mind and I’m respected for it and — Oh, Ashleigh, you can’t possibly imagine how that feels when you’ve never felt anything like it in your life.”

He scanned her face, feeling a painful clash of emotions. This damned awful war had liberated her. The slaughter and maiming of a million men had carved out a bloody space for women like Olive to fill, women trapped by social conventions that had propped up the world forever. The same stupid bloody rules that forbade his friendship with West. They should all be torn down and he was glad to see their foundations shaking, but the idea of finding anything good in the carnage turned his stomach. It felt like disrespecting the dead. And the living dead, he thought, looking around at the haunted men staring at him from the lawn. Was Olive’s newfound freedom worth their suffering? Was his affection for West — vital though it had become to him — worth the piteous death of any mother’s son? How could he bear to consider it agoodthing?

“Come on,” Olive said, taking his elbow to help him up the steps. “In we go.”

The house didn’t look like a hospital, more like a down-at-heel hotel. A light scent of carbolic soap fragranced the air, not the cloying hospital smell he remembered from his time at the base hospital in Calais or in the General Hospital in Southampton. This was a place for convalescence, after all, not surgery. The butchery had already been done. There were men on crutches, with sticks, or in wheelchairs in various rooms. Some laughing and playing at billiards, other’s just watching through vacant eyes. And there were others with disfigurements it was difficult to witness, although Ash stood his ground as a man approached with a raw knot of scar where his nose and one eye should have been.

“Good morning, Captain Albright,” Olive said, fixing him with that unflinching gaze of hers. “I’ll be along to see you shortly.”

The captain made a noise that might have been agreement, but it was hard to understand through the mess that was his mouth, and Ash just nodded at him as his one remaining eye took him in. The man had all his limbs, but Ash thought that was probably envy he saw in his ruined face. God help him, but Ash felt grateful he’d got off so lightly.

“It’s not easy to see, is it?” Olive said quietly as she led Ash along a narrow corridor toward a number of offices. “Poor man’s stupid wife can’t stand it, hardly comes here to see him. So much for love.”

---