‘Yes. Oh, Robbie, yes, but we said...’
‘That it would be too painful to lose each other, I know. Sylvie, I...’ He stopped suddenly, staring down at her intently. ‘I’m sorry. I’ve just blindly rushed in and I haven’t given you a chance to speak. Do you still think the same—that it’s too big a risk?’
Did she? She tried to imagine the pain of losing him, but all she could think about was that she had a shot, a wonderful chance, at happiness, and surely that was worth any risk. She touched his face, reassuring herself that he really was here, and how only a few moments ago she’d have given anything to be able to tell him how she felt, and suddenly it was easy. And very simple. ‘I love you, Robbie.’
He caught her to him, holding her so tightly that she could scarcely breathe. He kissed her urgently, threading his fingers through her hair. His breathing was ragged. Her heart was hammering. ‘Do you mean it?’ he asked raggedly.
‘I mean it. I love you. I kept thinking of that last time,’ Sylvie whispered. ‘I haven’t been happy in so long, but you made me feel happy to be alive. Before I met you I felt nothing. I thought I was safe, beyond pain, but I didn’t realise I was beyond joy, too. I was so foolish.’
‘Not just you. We’ve both been stupid. But there’s still time to rectify that.’
This time his kiss was deeper. Only the slow catcalls of the nightclub’s customers brought them back down to earth. ‘I forgot,’ Sylvie said, blushing. ‘I’ll get my coat. I’ll speak to
Monsieur
, he’ll understand.’
But when she made to pull away, Robbie caught her. ‘Not yet. We might as well finish the floor show first.’
‘What do you mean?’
He smiled down at her, the wicked, teasing smile she had thought never to see again, and she felt quite light-headed with joy. ‘Come on.’
He led her, protesting, through the tightly packed tables and onto the dance floor. The customers were cheering now, some of them standing. ‘Robbie! What are you doing?’
‘I promised myself that if I got out of that last scrap I’d do two things. I’ve done the first, which is to tell you I love you. I’m just about to do the second,’ he said, dropping onto one knee in front of her. ‘Darling Sylvie, will you marry me?’
An expectant hush fell over the customers. Sylvie looked down at the love of her life and thought she might burst with happiness. ‘Yes,’ she said, ‘darling Robbie, I will marry you tomorrow if you’d like.’
The nightclub erupted into wild cheers as he kissed her, but she was barely aware of it. A louder cheer greeted the pop of a champagne cork, but she was barely aware of that, either. ‘Now you can get your coat,’ Robbie whispered in her ear, ‘because even in Paris there’s a limit to public displays of affection, my darling.’
Forever With Me
Contents
Chapter One
Base Hospital Number 5, Boulogne-sur-Mer—
11th November 1918, Armistice Day
T
he church bells had begun to chime at eleven that morning, and ten hours later they were still ringing. In the two weeks since Lille had been liberated by the British, all but guaranteeing an Allied victory, bunting and flags had bedecked the Boulogne Casino building in which the hospital was based. Earlier today, the bunting had been torn down by wildly cheering staff and was now strung from the windows of the cafés and bars in the streets of the old town. Raucous laughter and communal singing, which was more exuberant than tuneful, erupted from the open doorways. Children, too excited to go to bed, hung precariously out of windows, waving flags and calling out greetings to the joyful revellers. Passers-by stopped to shake hands, to embrace and sometimes even to kiss.
Everyone, it seemed to Sheila Fraser, was, like herself, intoxicated not by alcohol but by the notion of peace. A world finally, blessedly, free from war, surely forevermore.
The crowd was giddy with excitement, the mood one of unfettered joy tinged with an air of abandon. It was like a hundred New Year celebrations back in Glen Massan rolled into one. What form would their celebrations take back there tonight? It was a strange thought. She found she felt more remote, more disconnected from home as time passed. She missed her mother, of course, but everyone else that mattered was elsewhere. She had managed to meet up with her best friend, Flora, a few times here in France, but Flora’s brother Robbie was on active service somewhere in the north, and Alex...
She pushed that memory to the back of her mind. There’d been time enough to reflect on the past and worry about the future. Having volunteered to form part of the skeleton staff who remained on ward duty on this most auspicious day, she was anxious to join the gaiety. Tonight, like everyone else, she was going to celebrate being alive.
At the far end of the street, a crowd had formed around an accordion player. French soldiers and British Tommies, American Doughboys and Anzacs, doctors and orderlies alike danced with nurses and VADs, with local housewives and good-time girls, and with each other, too. A
poilu
grabbed Sheila’s hand and pulled her into his embrace. Laughing, she allowed him to kiss her cheek extravagantly and waltz her round the square before his place was taken by an American soldier.
It was on her third circuit, in the company of a British Tommy, that she noticed the man watching her intently from the sidelines. He was tall, in the distinctive pale blue uniform of a French officer. His long brown boots encased lean, muscular legs. His tunic was well cut, emphasising the fact that the body underneath was well built. He wore no cap. His hair was dark brown, cut close to his head. He had a striking face with strong features and an extremely sensual mouth quite at odds with the overt masculinity he exuded. Sheila’s stomach gave a little flutter. He wasn’t exactly handsome, but there was something about him that made her look backwards over her shoulder as the Tommy’s friend whisked her off on yet another circumnavigation of the square.
She was conscious of the Frenchman watching her the whole way round. Sheila was used to men looking at her. Her blonde hair led them to make all sorts of assumptions. She’d learned the hard way not to encourage them after that one fatal misjudgement when she’d first arrived, wet behind the ears, in France, intent upon proving she could do the job of any qualified nurse. Her first taste of freedom had gone to her head. Her first experience of infatuation, she was determined, would be her last. Poor judgement on her part, and a callous disregard on the part of her lover’s, had severely compromised her reputation in the hospital. Recovering from that had been a painful experience that had cost her dearly. Even now, almost three years later, she still blushed when she remembered the whispers, nudges and cold shoulders she’d had to endure, and felt ashamed when she recalled how foolish she had been to think herself favoured for her ability rather than her figure. She had learned an important lesson. No man, especially no man with the authority that particular doctor wielded over her, was worth more than her integrity. She had resolved in future to concentrate entirely and only on her vocation.
It had paid off. She had an excellent reputation in the hospital for being reliable, a cool head in a crisis, and wore her two efficiency stripes proudly on her blue dress. There was nothing a fully trained nurse could do that she could not, and several times, during the worst of the fighting, she’d taken on the role of anaesthetist during surgery. Soon all that would be over, but she was determined not to swap her VAD uniform for that of a maidservant again. This war had changed everything. She wasn’t that naive wee Highland lass anymore. There was, literally, no going back.
But today was the day they had waited four years for, and tonight, for once, she was not going to worry about what people thought, and enjoy herself. Even Matron had been seen dancing in the streets earlier in the day, according to Daisy, the American nurse who’d come on duty as Sheila finished her shift.
If it’s good enough for Matron,
she thought defiantly,
it’s good enough for me.
She had come full circle round the square once again. A crowd of hopeful partners competed for her attention. The intriguing Frenchman stood to one side. It seemed to her that the men in the crowd kept a respectful distance from him, though the women could not take their eyes from him. It wasn’t his uniform, but the way he wore it, and the natural air of authority that clung to him. The day’s growth of stubble was dark on his jaw. His eyes, in the dim light, seemed almost black. Lines, exhaustion or experience or both, fanned out from the corners of them. He was rather intimidating. And very attractive. Even as the alarm bells began to ring in her head, he had stepped out in front of her.
‘Voulez-vous danser, mademoiselle?’
he asked, taking her hand firmly in his, sliding his other arm around her waist and launching them into the whirling crowd.
He led her with a confidence that didn’t surprise her, though the occasional stumble told her he wasn’t by inclination a dancer. ‘You didn’t give me the opportunity to say no,’ Sheila said breathlessly.
He smiled down at her and tightened his hold on her waist. It unsettled her, the way her body responded to him with a little frisson of excitement that rippled through her belly, making her pulse leap. Especially since she’d kept the lid well and truly closed on that aspect of her life.
‘Would you have refused me?’ he enquired teasingly.
‘Would it have made any difference if I had?’
He pulled her closer, resting his chin on her neatly tied VAD cap. ‘No.’
She couldn’t help but laugh, even though her instincts told her this was a potentially hazardous situation. He was a man with a decidedly dangerous air. She had forgotten what it was like, the thrill of being held, the rush of blood. It made her reckless. She ought to walk away now, her sensible head told her, but she was so tired of being sensible, and it was just a dance after all, so she rested her head on his shoulder and allowed herself to drift against him. It was an effort to pull away when they came full circle, though she did it, albeit reluctantly.
But he shook his head, and pulled her still closer. ‘Not yet,’ he said, and his words were exactly what her body wanted to hear, and it was Armistice, and so she made no further protest, and allowed him to lead her back around the square.
* * *
He really should get back to the hospital, Luc Durand knew. On any other night, he would have gone before now. Correction—on any other night, he would still be there, operating. But tonight was different. For four years he had been working flat out at a driven pace even his former fiercely ambitious self would have found exhausting, determined to plug the gaping void in his life. The pain of Eugenie’s loss had faded in the face of the myriad other losses he had witnessed. The guilt had proved more stubborn. Work had been his cure. He wasn’t sure if he
could
slow down. What if he discovered that his cure had been merely a temporary distraction?
He had come out onto the streets of Boulogne in an attempt to try to lose himself in the celebrations, thinking that doing so would make this longed-for peace feel more tangible, but the more he watched, the more unreal it felt. Surreal, in fact.
It was the blonde girl’s zest for life that had caught his eye. Everything about her was exuberant, joyous, carefree. If she were a drug, he would prescribe her for depression. She was slim, the army-issue greatcoat dwarfing her frame, at the same time accentuating the lithe way she moved. The handkerchief-style cap, tied at the neck, proclaimed her to be one of the British VADs. Beneath it, her hair gleamed bright gold. Her eyes were dark, sparkling with humour. She was more than pretty; she was the sort of woman who would always turn heads.
Her smile seemed to connect directly with his groin. How did she do that? Was it the way her mouth curved upwards at the corners? The way her upper lip was short, pert, compared to the fullness of her lower? Or the pinkness of her lips compared to the paleness of her skin? She must be perfectly well aware of what that smile did, as if she smiled in that particular way only for him.
His body was showing definite signs of interest. In more than four years, he hadn’t felt the slightest glimmering of desire. There was something both reassuring and exciting to discover he
could
still be aroused. Perhaps the atmosphere had infected him. Perhaps he was finally accepting that, with the war over, his guilt might also be finally laid to rest. Whatever the reason, he decided he was going to enjoy it, at least for a little while.
The music had slowed. The dancers had thinned to a few couples now as the crowd dissipated. Luc slid both arms around her narrow waist, pulling her closer. He had forgotten how good it could feel to hold an attractive woman in his arms. He slid his fingers under the knot of her cap to touch the nape of her neck. Such a delicate spot. Such soft skin. He bent his head, pressing his lips to her throat, under the line of her jaw.
She sighed. A tiny sound, innately feminine. That, too, he had forgotten, how delightfully different, such a perfect contrast, was a woman’s body to his own. They were no longer dancing so much as swaying together. Her fingers were curled into his hair. His lips brushed her cheek. The urge to kiss her was overwhelming, and then she turned her face so that their mouths met and his pulse jumped, began to race. They stopped moving. Their eyes met, and he saw his desire reflected in her eyes. And then he kissed her.
* * *
It was a tentative kiss. The barest touch of his lips upon hers. The sort of kiss from which she could easily pull away, Sheila thought. She ought to pull away, because the very fact that she didn’t want to, really, really didn’t want to, ought to have had her running in the opposite direction. Dancing with him, just dancing with him, had left her dazed, drugged and at the same time tightly strung, her nerves jangling, her heart beating too fast. She felt as though she ought to leave, but then he cupped her face in his hands, and something in her expression must have betrayed her, and his lips found hers again.