‘She wouldn’t approve of me, would she?’ Tilly guessed.
Drew’s grip on her hand tightened. ‘I’ll never let my father control our lives the way he has done the lives of my sisters. His wealth and his power, his need for that power, have corrupted him. That isn’t going to happen to us. Our lives, mine and yours, will be lived here in England. If that’s what you want. If I am what you want.’
‘Oh, Drew, of course you are. I love you so much. Although you’ve said before that we’ll live here, part of me was afraid that you might want to go back to America. I wouldn’t mind for myself – wherever you are would be home for me – but there’s Mum. She would miss me dreadfully although I know she’d never say so. She’d want me to be happy. I don’t think we’d better tell her
about your family, though, at least not yet. She’d only worry.’
They looked at one another in mutual understanding.
‘I’m sorry,’ Tilly told Drew a few minutes later.
‘Sorry?’
‘Sorry about your father, and your mother. It’s so sad.’
‘It did hurt, especially when I was a child and I didn’t properly understand myself. To my father I shall always be a failure because I’ve chosen not to follow in his footsteps, but I know what’s right for me, Tilly.’
‘I am so proud of you, Drew,’ Tilly told him, adding lovingly, ‘so very proud of you, proud of everything that you are, and that you love me. No matter what happens we’ll always have each other and our love, won’t we?’
‘Always,’ Drew assured her. ‘And if you ever do stop loving me, Tilly, then all you have to do is give me my ring back. I’ll know then and I won’t try to persuade you to change your mind.’
‘I’ll never change my mind, and I’ll never stop loving you. I’ll never give you your ring back, either. You’ll have to ask me for it in person if you change your mind.’
‘Then you’ll be wearing it for ever, even when I place a wedding band on your finger, Tilly, because nothing will ever stop me loving you. Nothing and no one.’
Somehow Sally had managed to drag herself to work and, once there, being the professional that she was, she had concentrated fully on her work, putting her own heartache to one side. Now, though, she had finished work and was on her way back to number 13, where
Alice and their new lives together would be waiting for her. Alice needed her, and Sally would not desert her or let her down, not now. But how hard it was going to be to live without George, her quiet gentle hero, her one true love.
At least, as someone had said at work earlier, the Blitz seemed to be over. Over but never forgotten. Not by those who had lost anyone they loved.
Sunshine warmed the cobbles of Article Row as Sally turned in, her key turning easily in the lock to the front door of number 13.
The house was empty, but through the kitchen window she could see Alice’s borrowed pram on the lawn under the apple tree. Olive was sitting in a nearby deck chair, talking, and Alice was laughing up into the smiling face of the man who was standing next to the deck chair holding her.
George. George was here, holding Alice. A wave of faintness had Sally grabbing hold of the cold stone of the kitchen sink. George was here. Holding Alice.
Her hands were shaking so much she could hardly open the back door. George and Olive watched her walking towards them and then, as she reached them, Olive stood up and said, ‘I’ll go in and put the kettle on.’
From George’s arms Alice saw her and crowed with delight.
‘What … what are you doing here?’ Her voice sounded rusty and unsteady and her heart was pounding fiercely.
‘I wanted to come and meet my new sister-in-law-to-be,’ George told her calmly, adding, ‘She’s got your nose.’
‘She’s got my father’s nose,’ Sally corrected him automatically.
‘How could you ever think that I wouldn’t want you both, Sally?’ There was pain in George’s voice.
‘I didn’t think that. I just didn’t … Don’t want you to have to take us both on. What will your parents think, George – your mother? She won’t want you marrying a girl who wasn’t straight and honest with you, a girl who has a baby to bring up.’
‘My mother will understand, Sally. I haven’t said anything before, but her own circumstances … well, she was put in an orphanage after her mother died and her father remarried. She was adopted when she was ten years old by a couple who were emigrating to New Zealand. My mother won’t think badly of you, far from it. I want you to put this back on,’ he told her, producing her engagement ring from his pocket, ‘and I want you to promise me that you will never ever take it off again, at least not until we’re in church and I’m putting a wedding ring on your finger.’
‘Oh, George.’
The kiss they exchanged was filled with tenderness and love.
‘You wouldn’t be my Sally if you hadn’t decided to keep her,’ George told Sally gruffly, ‘and I wouldn’t be the man you deserve if I didn’t understand that.’
‘I wanted to be able to turn my back on her. I wanted to be able to hate her but I couldn’t,’ Sally admitted. ‘I just couldn’t.’
They’d had the most wonderful day. As he had promised, Drew had shown Tilly how to fish, and had then
pretended to be downcast when she’d managed to catch something and he hadn’t, although Tilly had drawn the line at the thought of the small brown trout she’d hooked being cooked for their tea and had insisted on it being put back.
Now they were both in their bedrooms and Tilly was free to go over the events of the day. Funny how things could be. What Drew had told her had only strengthened her love for him. He had been so brave, standing up to his father in the way that he had. Tilly didn’t care about his father’s money and she was glad that Drew wanted them to make their own lives together here in England. And they would. Once the war was over they would rent a house not far from Fleet Street, perhaps even in Article Row. In the winter Drew would write his book in their little sitting room whilst she listened to the wireless, and in the summer perhaps they might even rent a little cottage here in Devon and Drew would write outside in the sunshine. They would be so happy together, and maybe one day, when the time was right, Drew would be able to persuade his mother to come over and see them. Darling Drew. He had been so afraid that he would lose her. She had seen that in his eyes when he had told her about his family. Darling, darling Drew. She wanted to be with him so much. Tilly looked at her closed bedroom door, a new determination filling her.
Pulling on her dressing gown, she opened the door. The corridor was empty, as she had known it would be. After all, they were the only two guests staying here. She padded along it to Drew’s door, not allowing herself second thoughts as she knocked briefly on it and whispered, ‘Drew, it’s me, Tilly.’
It took him so long to open the door that she was beginning to think he hadn’t heard her, and then he opened it only slightly so that she couldn’t enter his room. He had obviously been getting ready for bed himself because his chest was bare and he was wearing a pair of pyjama bottoms. Tilly had seen Drew’s bare chest already – or at least part of it, when they had sunbathed earlier in the day – and she had thought then how nice and manly it was, but now, in the shadowy darkness, she suddenly realised that seeing all of it was much more than ‘nice’, and that the feeling burning deep inside her was a very dangerous feeling indeed. Very dangerous and very exciting and … something she desperately wanted to share with him. She loved him and she wanted to show him that love. She wanted him to know that the words they had exchanged today where more than just words, the commitment they had made to one another a commitment that crossed a line from which there was to be no turning back.
‘Let me in, Drew,’ she urged him.
‘No.’ His voice was hoarse and harsh. ‘No. You must go back to your own room, Tilly. Please …’ he begged her.
Tilly shook her head and stepped towards him. Drew moved back. Tilly followed him in and closed the door.
‘I love you and I want to be with you, Drew. I want us to be together. I want to show you how much I love you and how much I always will love you.’
‘Oh, Tilly.’
The words were an anguished groan and then she was in his arms and he was kissing her and she was kissing him back, the feeling of his bare flesh beneath her hands
heart-shiveringly exciting, but not as exciting as the way she felt when Drew cupped her naked breast beneath the flimsy cover of her open dressing gown and nightgown. Tilly gasped and suppressed a small sob as she moved closer to him, but Drew pushed her gently away.
‘No, Tilly. No.’
‘But, Drew, I want us to be together. I want this to be the night we show our love for one another so that nothing can ever part us.’
‘We can’t, Tilly. We can’t take that risk. And you know what I mean. If you should become pregnant …’
‘Then my mother would be forced to let us marry.’
The firm look that strengthened his face left Tilly in no doubts about Drew’s stance when he told her emphatically, ‘No. I admire and respect your mother, Tilly. She would be dreadfully upset by something like that. Nancy, for one, would have a field day, and that wouldn’t be fair. Your mother loves you, Tilly. She is fiercely protective of you and fiercely proud of you. One day you will be exactly the same kind of mother to our children, our daughter. Just imagine how you would feel if she had to come to you to tell you that the man she believed loved her had allowed her to do something so potentially damaging … something that he had given you his word would not happen. More than that, family is important, Tilly, and your mother is part of the kind of family I want for our children.’
Drew’s words were melting her heart, Tilly had to admit, but …
‘We can be careful,’ she told him. ‘There’s a girl at the hospital who says—’
‘Careful?’ Drew laughed. ‘Tilly, you are far too loving
and passionate ever to be able to be careful, and I love you so much that I wouldn’t be able to do a damn thing about that. No, my love, as difficult as it is, we must wait.’
‘Oh, Drew.’
‘There is something we can do, though,’ he told her, seeing how downcast she was. ‘Something that will bind us together, something that will belong to us alone and no one else, something that will be ours and of us, Tilly.’
His words mystified her.
Releasing her, he reached for the pale blue V-necked jumper he had been wearing when they had travelled down to Devon.
‘Here, put this on,’ he told her, whilst he reached for his own trousers and shirt, pulling the trousers on over his pyjama bottoms and then reaching for Tilly’s hand.
‘Come on …’
Outside, the village slept and the moon was high, lighting their path towards the river and then across it, Drew refusing to say anything when Tilly begged to know what he was doing.
It was only when they stood outside the church that she began to understand, her gaze meeting his in silence as he led her toward the unlocked door.
Inside the ancient building smelled of dust and disuse, but the moonlight pouring in through its stained-glass windows cast a soft shadowing of rich colours over the worn wooden pews and stone floor.
Picking up a dust-covered Bible from a pile, Drew guided Tilly over the stone flags to the bare altar where he reached for her left hand.
Without either of them needing to make any explanations, they began to speak the words of the marriage service, slowly, lingering over each solemn vow and promise as much as they had lingered over their passionate kisses and caresses earlier.
When Drew removed his ring from the chain around her neck to slip it onto her ring finger, Tilly curled her fingers tight so that it wouldn’t slide off.
‘I love you, Tilly, and I will always love you,’ Drew told her.
‘I love you too, Drew,’ Tilly responded. ‘And I will always love you.’
The kiss they exchanged was chaste and reverent.
Before they left the church Tilly kneeled to pray for Drew and for their love, and for her country and all those who served it; for peace and an end for ever to all wars.
There could surely be no greater joy than this, to have the love and the commitment of the man she herself loved so much.
‘Nothing can ever part us now,’ Tilly told Drew.
‘Nothing,’ he agreed, lifting her hand to his lips and kissing her closed fingers. ‘We are one now, Tilly, and we have a bond between us that nothing and no one can ever break.’
‘Those whom God hath joined together …’ Tilly whispered.
‘… let no man put asunder,’ Drew completed.
As they walked together down the aisle a soft gentle sigh seemed to whisper round the church.
Drew had been right, Tilly admitted. She didn’t want to hurt her mother, not really, and Drew’s verbal picture
of the future they would all share as a family had filled her with pride in him and yes, in her mother as well.
They may not have become physical lovers tonight but right now their private exchanging of their special vow was making her feel so very close to him that her heart was flooded with happiness.
‘Our time will happen, Tilly,’ Drew assured her as they stepped out of the church. ‘I know it. You and I are destined to be together and bound together for all time now. I love you, and that love, my love, is yours for ever,’ he told her huskily. ‘Never forget that.’
‘Oh, Drew, I love you too,’ Tilly whispered as he gathered her close for the sweet precious intimacy of their shared kiss.
To everyone at HarperCollins who worked on
My Sweet Valentine
.
An acknowledgement to Yvonne Holland,
and one to my Agent Teresa Chris.
Annie Groves lives in the north-west of England and has done so all her life. She is the author of the Pride family series,
Ellie Pride, Connie’s Courage
and
Hettie of Hope Street
, for which she drew upon her own family’s history, picked up from listening to her grandmother’s stories when she was a child. Her next set of novels was the World War II series
Goodnight Sweetheart, Some Sunny Day, The Grafton Girls
and
As Time Goes By
. These were followed by the Campion series,
Across the Mersey, Daughters of Liverpool, The Heart of the Family, Where the Heart Is
and
When the Lights Go on Again
, which are also based on recollections from members of her family, who come from the city of Liverpool.
My Sweet Valentine
follows on from
Home for Christmas
and
London Belles
and is the third in this series, which introduces a set of glorious characters who live in Holborn.