When he motioned for her to sit down again she did so, but on the very edge of the chair. She could read nothing from his face. He was the most reserved individual she had ever come across. And then he contradicted this thought when his face split into a smile, the second since she’d known him. ‘Mr Gregory is back with us, Mrs Shawe, and waiting to see you. Only a few minutes though, I’m afraid. We mustn’t tire him. There’s still a long way to go.’
She was glad now she was sitting down. And she must have looked as she felt because Mr Grant said, with some concern, ‘Are you all right, Mrs Shawe? Can I get you a glass of water?’
‘No, no.’ The faintness was receding. ‘Oh thank you, thank you so much. I don’t know what to say.’
His smile was back. ‘“Thank you” is more than adequate. Now as I say, ten minutes at the most.’
She sat for a moment more when he had gone, endeavouring to overcome the choking sensation that was filling her breast as she told herself she couldn’t cry. This wasn’t the time to cry. He was going to be all right. He was conscious and in his right mind, and he was going to get better. Ralph had been right.
No nurse accompanied her into the little room off the main surgical ward this time, although as she walked across the highly polished floor towards Kane’s door, the Sister called, ‘Ten minutes, Mrs Shawe. No more. Doctor’s orders.’
She hesitated for one moment as she reached the room, her heart thudding so hard she couldn’t breathe. When she pushed open the door and stepped inside, his gaze was waiting for her. He had been propped up slightly by a wad of pillows under his back and his face was as white as the pillowslips, but his eyes were brilliantly blue as he looked at her. She thought he breathed her name as she covered the distance between them in one second, bending, and with no sense of decorum, pressing her lips against his.
Kane remained absolutely still for one moment and then his arms came out to pull her close, only for him to wince with pain as his broken ribs made themselves felt. ‘Damn it.’ It was a whisper. ‘I’ve waited to do this for years and now look at me.’
‘Oh, Kane, Kane.’ She was half-laughing, half-crying. And all the laws of propriety went out of the window as she murmured, ‘I love you, I love you so much and I’ve been so frightened I wouldn’t get the chance to tell you. And it’s my fault you nearly got killed, trying to save me. If I hadn’t gone on the tour, if I’d stayed here and faced what my heart was telling me . . . Oh, Kane . . .’
She was sobbing in earnest now, the pent-up anguish of days pouring out as she half-bent, half-lay on the side of the bed, wanting to hold him but terrified she’d inadvertently hurt him.
‘Ssh, ssh.’ Oblivious of the pain in his chest he folded her against him, his mouth seeking hers so the first real kisses they exchanged were salty from her tears. His lips covered her face in small burning kisses a few moments later as he murmured passionate words of endearment between each one, words which Sophy repeated as her hands came up to cradle the rough, pock-marked skin of his cheeks.
It was minutes before, still within the circle of his arms, Sophy whispered, ‘Do you forgive me?’
‘Forgive you?’
‘For nearly getting you killed, for avoiding you and running away, for – for being such a coward.’
‘That you have never been.’ As she sat up, rubbing at her wet face with the back of her hand, he smiled at her. ‘And although I didn’t like it, the fact of you running away, as you put it, gave me hope that you might be beginning to see me as a man at long last, rather than some old gentleman on the perimeter of your life.’
‘You’re not old.’
‘I’m forty-seven, Sophy.’ His face was straight. ‘Seventeen years older than you.’
‘What does age matter?’
‘A great deal when you are still an active and beautiful woman pushing an old man in his bath-chair.’
‘Kane, I wouldn’t care if you were twenty-seven, thirty-seven years older than me.’ Her voice was soft, as were her eyes. ‘I love you.’ She could see he was exhausted and knew it was painful even to breathe. ‘Go to sleep now and I’ll be back later.’
‘Sophy?’ He held out his hand and she put her fingers into it. ‘When I can walk out of here, and I will walk again, whatever the doctors say, believe me, I will ask you a question. But I won’t ask lying on my back. Can you wait for me?’
‘Forever and a day.’ Her smile was luminous. ‘And when you ask your question, my answer will be yes.’
Sophy didn’t have to wait forever and a day – just four months, in fact. On a mild but windy day towards the end of October, Kane left the hospital on his own two feet, flatly refusing a wheelchair or crutches although he did compromise by having a walking stick. Edgar Grant had predicted Kane might be walking again in nine months initially when Sophy had asked him, then Ralph had suggested that knowing ‘the boss’ as he called Kane, it would be more like six – and Kane did it in four. He was still in considerable pain most of the time, although Edgar Grant had assured him that would diminish over the next six months as muscles and sinews strengthened, but the bones in his legs had knit together extremely well. He would always walk with a stick, the surgeon had told Kane, but he would walk. They both agreed it was an excellent outcome.
Sophy and Kane had talked frankly during the time he had been incarcerated. She had told him about her dreams of opening a theatre run mainly by women, and as they’d discussed the possibilities, the idea of returning to the north-east had evolved. Sophy’s cousins and their families were there, and Kane had no family ties of his own; furthermore, Sunderland was a fast-growing town which had absorbed many of the small villages on its outskirts into the fold. The town centre, with its fine buildings, busy shops and urban streets, along with the beaches, piers and promenades and bustling docks, meant the music halls and theatres would find plenty of customers. And, although neither of them voiced it, London held too many painful memories for Sophy.
But all these plans and discussions had been somewhat abstract. The all-important question still had to be asked. So it was, on the morning he left the hospital, standing on the Infirmary’s steps with his head lifted to the windy sky and racing clouds, Kane told Sophy he was taking her out that evening, refusing to listen to her protests that he should rest on his first day at home.
The Hippodrome was no longer a variety theatre after its reconstruction the year before, and he told her he had tickets for the Russian Ballet performing there, after which they were having dinner at a secluded little restaurant in Leicester Square. Ralph had arranged it. It was done and dusted. No argument.
Sophy spent some time with Kane at his home, helping Ralph to settle him in and making sure he ate the tasty lunch Ralph had prepared. Then, Kane having reluctantly agreed to an afternoon nap, she flew home to tell Sadie and Harriet she was going out that evening.
‘I knew it.’ Sadie looked in triumph at Harriet. ‘I told you he wouldn’t waste any time, didn’t I? And he’s doing it proper, I like that. You’ll come back with a ring on your finger, ma’am, and no mistake.’
‘He might not ask me to marry him, Sadie.’
Sadie snorted. She had a repertoire of such sounds which were far more effective than words. ‘And pigs might fly, ma’am, but it’s
not likely, is it? No, he’ll ask you, and a better man than Mr Gregory doesn’t draw breath, bless him.’
‘What are you going to wear, Sophy?’ Harriet had been busy ironing when Sophy had burst into the kitchen, Josephine fast asleep in her pram outside the back door so she got her quota of fresh air.
Sophy looked at her two friends. ‘I don’t know. Nothing too fancy, although, if we’re going to the Hippodrome . . . But I don’t want him to think I expect him to ask tonight, do I? It wouldn’t be seemly.’
Sadie, forever the one to speak her mind, said, ‘I think you’re past that stage with Mr Gregory, ma’am. Telling him you loved him and whatnot saw to that.’
Sophy giggled. Dear Sadie. Dear Harriet. Dear everybody. This was a wonderful, wonderful day.
For the next hour the three women had a lovely time as Sophy paraded in one outfit after another. Eventually they decided on a pale green evening gown in crushed silk which had a matching coat trimmed with ermine. The shade brought out the burned honey of Sophy’s eyes and her magnificent golden-red hair.
When Josephine woke up, Sophy spent some time playing with the baby who was now crawling and into everything. A happy little girl with a mass of dark brown curls and big brown eyes, Sophy adored her as much as Josephine adored her Aunty Sophy. She hadn’t seen Peter since her visit to Sunderland over eighteen months ago, and although Patience wrote regularly to keep her up to date with all the doings of her godson, it wasn’t the same as being involved in the child’s life on a day-to-day basis. Josephine satisfied a need in her, and she was grateful to Harriet in a way she couldn’t express. Harriet, in her turn, with the memory of the terrifying time she’d spent trying to survive on the streets before Sophy had rescued her burned into her mind, couldn’t do enough for Sophy. In fact, Sophy and Sadie were continually having to persuade her to do less; she would have worked every moment she was awake if they had let her.
At six o’clock Sophy had a long hot bath in soapy bubbles, and
once Josephine was tucked up in her cot fast asleep in the room she shared with her mother, Harriet came to help Sophy fix her hair. Sophy normally wore her hair in a simple chignon at the nape of her neck, but tonight Sadie and Harriet had persuaded her to put it up in a mass of curls and waves secured with tiny jewelled pins which twinkled like diamonds when the light caught them. The result was better than they could have imagined.
When Sophy was ready, she stared in amazement at the woman staring back at her from the mirror.
‘Oh, Sophy.’ Harriet was openly emotional. ‘He’ll be bowled over when he sees you.’
‘Not again, I hope,’ said Sadie dryly, who had come up to see the end result.
‘
Sadie
,’ said Harriet reproachfully, but the black humour broke what had suddenly become a tense moment for Sophy. She wanted Kane to ask her to marry him, she was living for the moment but, at the same time, she was as jumpy as a cat on a hot tin roof now the possibility was about to become a reality.
The front doorbell rang, causing Sophy to swing round from the mirror. The look on her face brought Sadie stepping forward to take her hands as she said, ‘It’ll be fine, just fine. Harriet, go and let Mr Gregory in and tell him Mrs Shawe will be down directly.’ However informal the three women were together, Sadie and Harriet made it a policy to give Sophy her full title when referring to her in front of visitors, even Kane. ‘Now’ – as Harriet hurried downstairs, Sadie chafed Sophy’s cold hands – ‘this is Mr Gregory, remember? And he worships the ground you walk on, anyone can see it. You’re going to be very happy, ma’am. I feel it in me water.’
‘Oh, Sadie.’ Sadie and her water. The expression was used for everything, from her suspicions that the butcher wasn’t above diddling his customers now and again, to predicting changes in the weather. Smiling, Sophy hugged the older woman, careless of her dress. ‘What would I do without you?’
Sadie forgot the mistress/servant role she adopted most of the time and hugged Sophy back. ‘I think the boot’s on the other foot.’
Harriet wasn’t the only one who was aware of how different her life would have been if Sophy hadn’t come across her. Then, gently pushing Sophy away, she said, ‘Go and have a wonderful evening. You deserve it and so does he.’
Kane was waiting in the hall as Sophy descended the stairs, her coat over her arm. The expression on his face made her suddenly shy, and to cover her confusion she said quickly, ‘I’m sorry to keep you waiting, is the cab outside? I didn’t mean to—’
‘You look beautiful.’ He cut through her babbling, his deep voice husky, and then turning to Harriet and Sadie who were watching them with beatific smiles, he said, ‘I shall look after her, so don’t worry.’
He could have been referring to their evening out but Sadie knew better, and as her smile widened, she said, ‘I know that, Mr Gregory. She couldn’t be in better hands.’
The Ballets Russes was breathtaking. The technical brilliance of the Russian dancers, led by Vaslav Nijinsky and Anna Pavlova, electrified the audience, and the choreography went far beyond the vocabulary of classical steps, stressing the male dancer’s role. Nijinsky seemed to defy gravity in his airborne leaps, his muscular energy stunning, and the decor and costume designs were like nothing London had seen before with their boldness and brilliant, exotic colours. It was a new experience for all the spectators at the theatre and one that would have normally had Sophy spellbound. As it was, in spite of the incredible performance on stage, her senses were almost completely tied up in the big dark man sitting quietly at her side.
Kane had always looked good in evening dress – his brooding air lent itself well to formal attire, but tonight there was something about him which caused her to tremble inside. He was altogether a very masculine man, as different in stature and build to Toby’s slight, slim physique as chalk to cheese.
He had ordered refreshments to be brought to their box in the interval – ice-cold champagne and strawberries – partly, she supposed, because he would have found it difficult to mingle with
the crowd, still being a little unsteady on his legs, but also so the poignant, almost tangible emotion between them would not be broken. They talked of inconsequentials while they sipped the champagne and ate the strawberries, their eyes holding for long moments.
Just before the second half began, Kane leaned across and took her hand, turning it over, palm uppermost, as he kissed the pulse beating in her wrist. ‘I’ve dreamed of being with you like this every night in that damn hospital bed,’ he murmured against the scented warmth of her skin. ‘But the reality is so much better than the dream.’
The second half was even more spectacular than the first, and the curtain went up and down several times before the audience let the performers retire, the stage strewn with flowers the crowd had thrown. Sophy and Kane waited until most of the throng had dispersed before making their way out of the theatre. Once they were standing on the pavement, a cool night wind ruffling tendrils of hair across Sophy’s flushed cheeks, Kane drew her hand through his arm. It was only a two-minute walk along Cranbourn Street to Leicester Square, and when they arrived at the restaurant, their table was waiting, tucked away in a quiet corner of the glittering room. Kane ordered more champagne, ignoring Sophy’s protest that she would be tipsy, and after the waiter had left them to peruse the heavily embossed menus, he again took her hand. ‘I was going to do this at the end of the meal,’ he said softly, ‘but I find I cannot wait. However, one thing I must make very clear before I continue. I’m aware I’m no catch for a young and beautiful woman, a woman of substance’ – when she would have spoken, he raised his other hand, palm facing her – ‘and there is the matter of age to consider. I will not hold you to anything you might have said when I was in hospital and you were feeling sorry for me, and nothing you say tonight will prevent us con tinuing as friends.’