Page 19 of If You Were the Only Girl in the World
He stared at her for a long minute, then offered a smile and his hand up. “Put on that lovely suit and your shoes and let’s get out of here.”
“Fish for Nana, first!”
“Fish for Nana, by God, always first!”
CHAPTER6
He hailed a taxi and filled his mind with the sight and sounds of her. Thinner, a bit drawn, he recognized fatigue. He also recognized her disillusionment. True, as the minutes wore on she rallied and resembled more herself, stunning Katrina, golden and more effervescent. He understood what she faced. Hell, he’d known back in London that she might well encounter disillusion. Anyone would. Everyone did in one degree or another. The order of the world had been shot to oblivion. Those who had counted on flour at the grocer’s, trains at the stations, their son home for supper, could rely on none of it. All the while those who suffered worse than you, walked past like ghosts of themselves.
He was so glad he’d come. He was what she needed to change her day and perhaps her outlook. She was certainly what he needed to sustain his own resilence.
He’d had a hell of a time arranging to see her, too. His duties these past six months had kept him at fever pitch to supply the Casualty Clearing stations and their evacuation lines with goods to serve the thousands of men who’d fought at yet another indecisive battle against the Germans. The enemies had faced off over a territory north of Paris near the River Somme. For five months, they had pitched back and forth through rain and mud to claim, then lose the same ground over and over. The shocking casualty numbers had ended the battle as much as Command’s fear of mutiny. The French soldiers had come close to revolt many times and Horse Guards needed to staunch that possibility.
Since the start of the war, the British had learned a few valuable lessons fighting the Germans. In particular, Nate’s duties to improve the supply chain for the Royal Army Medical Corps had led him to reorganize the flow of medical supplies, especially chloroform and surgical supplies. Needles from the States, made by Singer Sewing Machine company, had filled the gap made by lack of German-made needles. He’d also found new cobblers in Britain, Canada and the United States to supply soliders’ boots. After long marches, men needed new boots. But never before a march, Command had learned to their dismay. Then too, after assignments to the trenches, men needed to be reequipped with new boots not so much because of regular use but because old boots became soaked with rain and mud. The result was an increase in cases of trench foot and the number of men who had lost toes and worse, amputation of the foot, meant that soldiers needed to change socks and boots often.
His worries about Katrina’s safety in Paris plagued him as the most recent five month battle near the Somme had continued and failed, with more than six hundred thousand British and French men wounded or dead. He’d penned a few notes to her, but all were bland and meant only to convey the message that he thought of her. Censors for the Army as well as civilian mail were diligent and redacted so much, one wondered what to write.
He thought of her each day. Missing her bright attitude, he contemplated what she would say or do if he told her how dearly he cared for her. The time they’d spent together in London had been too short but ever so long enough to set her in his heart. Love was not a word he uttered often. To his son, Everett, yes. To his Aunt Lily. His Uncle Julian. But for the first time in his life he yearned for Katrina. The golden streaks in her sunshine hair came to him first. Her long lashes framing large almond-shaped green eyes. Her lips parting wide in a smile that beckoned him. Her quick laugh, usually one he’d solicited, lingered in his reverie like a song he couldn’t get out of his head. Night or day, she often walked with him to contentious meetings, to luncheons with frustrated colleagues and to his bedroom after dark when he longed to have her here if only to talk.
He’d heard strains of that kind of longing among the couples who led the Hanniford family. As a model, each of them was a shining example of how people who loved each other with a passion could contribute to a union that made the best of each individual. At that, his own parents had failed miserably. His mother had married at her father’s demand for the money Carbury would hand over to him to cancel his debts. His father had married, so said his Uncle Julian, out of desire for a young beautiful wife. But she had hated him and shown it by her every word and deed. She had taken lovers. He had followed her and made outrageous scenes. They had created a scandal that endured for years even after the death of his father. As a boy at Eton and young man at Cambridge and later, among his peers, he had ignored whispers of his parents’ past. He’d learned the lesson that taught, too. Never fall in love. Never give so much regard to another that the obsession can ruin you.
Yes, he had avoided the worst mistake and cancelled his engagement to Felicity Northcote. She was the epitome of a self-possessed individual who had the potential to do anything, everything she wished without regard to any others. And that included a husband. He’d never have put up with it. Why he considered marriage to her was the central question he addressed for the next few years. Then acknowledging his loneliness and his male need for intimate companionship, he’d become attracted to a young woman who worked as a teacher in the Ashford village school for girls. The finest act he’d done was to marry Louise Fuller, a modest young woman, alone in the world, with no aspirations to become anyone’s lover except his own.
The year he’d spent married to her had revolutionized his life. He lived without fear of rumor. He lived with kindness and honesty. He also lived with an intimacy that was comforting—and he welcomed the lack of drama.
But now at the grand age of thirty-six, he wanted a woman with a ferocity of desire. The passion to have her as his own had shaken him, but only at first. Katrina was so easy to love, so pleasant on the eye and the soul. He lived now each day with a need for her he found worthy of the poetry he’d never been able to write and the promise of a future he could not guarantee.
Instead, he’d give her a few hours of one hastily arranged day.
He’d give himself the small satisfaction that if he could not have her as a man would treasure a woman he adored, he’d show her in all the other ways that he loved her. Loved her against his vow never to do that. Never to want or need. Never to yearn for a woman with a passion.
But he’d given all that away to the winds of fortune. He loved her and he was tired of fighting the truth of it.
* * *
Nate had not been wrong about the number of men dining at the Ritz. When he and she arrived an hour later, the beautiful white and gold Rococo room was abustle with military officers. In a spectrum of blues, officers of every Allied country—the British, the French, an Italian and a Russian—conversed in hushed tones. Civilians dined too, one of whom was a former patient of hers. He was a gentleman attached to the embassy.
As a young woman escorted Nate and her to their table, Katrina caught Samuel Wofford’s eye and nodded. He put a finger to his forehead and sent her a little salute. When he’d been in the hospital last month, he had suffered a serious digestive problem. She had told him to stay away from rich foods. He’d revealed that he had a passion for creams and spices. She wondered how he resisted temptation in restaurants such as this, but she managed not to examine his plate.
In truth, she felt odd strolling in to such a grand place after so many months serving others in the stark grey and white wards. As she opened the menu, she pushed away her guilt for enjoying such a treat when many would never be able to afford it and so many thousands starved.
She put two fingers to her lips and told herself to stop this. She was here to enjoy herself. She worked long hours in sparse conditions and she deserved this moment of delight. And with Nate, too, of all good fortunes.
The parchment menu with its elegant black and gold ink inspired a smile. The delicacies described made her mouth water. Watercress and mushrooms. Parsley and fresh chives. “I haven't had an omelet in perhaps two hundred years. I'm going to have to order three and put you to shame as I devour them.”
“I'd be happy to do that!”And when the waiter came, Nate told him they would have four omelets.
She took his wrist, laughing. “Really, I cannot eat all that.”
“We’ll see!” He corrected the order for only two servings. “But I am going to sit here and watch you while you finish. If you need to reorder—”
“I won’t. But I do believe I will sleep well today. Night shifts are killers. Sleeping during the day is simply not the same.”
As the waitress returned with water and two glasses of white wine, Katrina settled into the delight of the moment. “You look wonderful, Nate.”
“I’m thrilled you say so. But I feel much older than my years.”
She noted the strands of grey at his temples and the fine lines at the corners of his eyes. “The demands on you must be awful.”
