Chapter 20
20
Olivia was incandescent with rage.
‘You stupid, unkind, thoughtless boy,’ she shouted, refusing to acknowledge his age, as this was a joke too far – something a child might do, unaware of the panic they had caused. He did not deserve to be recognised as a full-grown man. ‘How dare you make me think you were drowning!’
Howard’s smile slid into the dark water surrounding him and he swam towards the bank, climbing out and grabbing a towel from beside the pile of clothes on the little wooden jetty. He began to rub himself with the coarse fabric, hopping from foot to foot and casting repeated and nervous glances in her direction.
‘I wanted to show you that I’d overcome my fear. One of my fellow cadets taught me at camp. It was supposed to be a surprise.’
Her hands were on her hips and she was breathing heavily through flared nostrils as she tried to calm herself. Her panic had been real and it would take time for her physical reactions to subside.
‘And you honestly thought the best way to let me know was to make me think your life was in danger – that you might be drowning, like my parents drowned in the North Atlantic Ocean?’
All the colour drained from his face as he whipped up a cotton shirt and slipped his arms into the sleeves.
‘Oh gosh, Livvy. I didn’t think.’ His face reflected his horror at the realisation of what he’d done.
‘No, you didn’t. Have you any idea what was going through my mind as I raced here?’ She was shouting now and she could see the shocked look on Benji’s face as he, too, realised what she was saying. ‘Either of you? With all the death that we are dealing with?’ She looked between the two of them, incredulity apparent in her wide eyes.
The youngest Fairchild was now red-faced and staring intently at his feet.
‘It’s not Benji’s fault. Don’t be cross at him. I gave him a shilling to fetch you down here. Go back to the house, Benji. This is my mess to clear up. I need to speak to Olivia alone.’
His brother nodded, mumbling sorrys and turned towards the manor, ambling up the path, as Olivia and Howard stood yards apart until his footsteps faded to nothing and the silence became too much.
‘I don’t understand, Howard. How could you do this to me? Of all the utterly stupid and irresponsible pranks you have ever pulled, this is absolutely the worst.’ She could feel the tears pricking at her eyes but refused to let them fall. ‘I thought we’d reached a truce. You’ve left me alone since that first summer I arrived at Merriford Manor and now you do this. What were you thinking?’
Howard avoided her eye and sunk onto his haunches. His head fell to his hands as his fingers started to tear at his hair. ‘I’m such an idiot. I’ve gone about this all wrong and made you cry when it was the last thing I intended. I wanted you to be proud of me. You seemed so indifferent when I arrived in my uniform…’
Her anger began to subside as she realised that the man before her was genuinely repentant. She took a couple of breaths to calm herself. ‘Of course I’m proud of you. I’m proud of everyone who steps up to defend the freedom of this nation. I’m angry with the power-crazed men who have allowed this war to happen, and worried sick for your safety. I’ve lost so many people I cared about and can’t bear to lose anyone else.’
‘But I’m only here for a few days, Liv, and you’re spending all your time with the patients…’ He dared to meet her eyes and swept his hand through his wet hair in his misery, struggling to finish the sentence.
‘I’ve made commitments to the hospital and I take my role here seriously. I don’t understand. One minute, you’re avoiding me and the next, you’re complaining that I’m too busy to spend time with you.’
‘You really don’t know?’ Howard’s face was now concertinaed into a frown. He got to his feet and took a couple of tentative steps towards her, as though he was afraid she might slap him, or otherwise vent her anger. To be honest, she’d felt like throttling him the moment he’d climbed onto the bank.
‘And yet you’ve always had the measure of me and once pointed out, quite accurately, may I add, that my silly behaviour was always for attention.’ He paused and raised his eyes to meet hers. ‘You’re no longer the annoying but intriguing thirteen-year-old girl, racing around the grounds, indulging in your ridiculous fantasies, wearing borrowed dresses that don’t fit, and waving sticks about as you fight an imaginary foe. You’re a beguiling young woman of seventeen and you’ve spent all your time – my precious few days at home before I’m shipped out to face an uncertain and dangerous future – with everybody but me.’
‘You’re jealous?’ Her voice was incredulous. ‘Of these broken men?’
‘Yes.’
Olivia’s heart began to accelerate, as she tried to make sense of what he was saying.
‘I needed you to know… I wanted to…’ He took a deep breath and tried again. ‘Even when I was younger, there was something about you that fascinated me, but I had no idea how to speak to girls back then. I grew up with three brothers and went to an all-boys’ school. The day that Ernest was holding you in the music room… Oh, this is impossible to put into words… I wasn’t cross with him. Ernest is that sort: confident with the ladies, full of charm, and always says the right thing. He meant nothing by it and, of course, I could see you were thrilled by the attention. I… I was furious with myself because he had the courage to do something I’d been dreaming about in my stupid, immature mind for weeks but was too scared to act on. Turns out that even at nearly nineteen, I’m no better.’
He bit at his bottom lip, pausing for a moment to gauge her reaction, but she was calmer now and listened to him without interrupting. She was astute enough to realise, in that moment, he was scared, of both her temper and her reaction to the clumsy words he was stumbling over.
‘Every time you’re near, my stomach collapses and I feel as though I might heave up my last meal. My… my legs are shaky and my palms are sweaty. Quite frankly, I’d rather face a trench of Germans than stand before you now and admit the truth of my feelings, because the next few words that come from your lips could tear me apart as surely as any shell landing at my feet.’
She suddenly realised what he was trying to tell her and was confused and flattered all at once. How had she not seen the signs? Loitering in her shadow, with an inability to talk to her one minute and gushing nonsense the next. And then completely avoiding her. She’d thought he’d been holding on to some grudge when all the time, the complete opposite was true.
He was embarrassed by her hesitation to reply and his eyes fell to his feet.
‘Remember the letters we received from Clarence after he…’
She nodded.
‘He told me that it was important to say the things that mattered to the people you loved. It took a certain type of courage to be honest with yourself, he said, and one he didn’t possess. Strange, really, how I’d always looked up to him as so strong, but he saw himself as weak. I guess, in a way, I’m doing this for him.’ He swallowed. ‘I wanted the attention that Clarence had for being the eldest and Louis got for being clever, but in recent months, the only person whose attentions I really wanted was yours. And now with Louis also taken from us, I realised I might not have the luxury of time. So… I’m probably making the biggest fool of myself, but I think I’m in love with you and I can’t go off to France and not tell you, even if you don’t feel the same.’
As she digested his words, she knew that she’d never thought about him in that way, at least not consciously. But, then again, she’d be lying to herself if she didn’t admit she’d been acutely aware of his body as he’d stepped from the lake.
‘This is all rather… sudden. I’m not sure what I feel.’ Maybe there were feelings of a romantic nature, muddied by Cynthia’s continued insistence that she was family. She’d been so slow to realise that he was no longer the awkward adolescent of four years ago and somehow, Benji had slipped into that role. Howard was a man now; one who was shortly to go to war, and one who was suddenly declaring his love.
‘I realise this has come out of the blue but, it turns out, facing possible death rather forces a man to focus.’ He stepped forward and put his hands on her upper arms, perhaps to steady himself, perhaps to stop her moving away. ‘Let me show you how I feel and you can slap me afterwards,’ he joked. ‘I’m damn sure I’ll deserve it.’
He hesitated a fraction, perhaps expecting the slap – she had form, after all – before leaning down to press his lips onto hers. Olivia instinctively tipped her head up and closed her eyes, thrilled by the contact of warm skin against warm skin. She could smell the lingering tobacco smoke and was surprised by the rough but strangely arousing sensation of his moustache brushing across her face. She considered the bewildering mix of sensations. Her chest rolled as he got better at what he was doing and she found that she had absolutely no desire to slap him – quite the opposite. She raised her hands to grip the cotton shirt covering his damp but surprisingly solid upper arms, and pulled him closer. Encouraged by her response, he slid his hands up into her hair, weaving his fingers between the strands, and she could hear his breathing intensify – almost feel the thumping of his heart.
Of course, she’d kissed the back of her own hand in her silly fantasies, dragging her lips across her skin as though she were caressing the mouth of a lover. Her accompanying thoughts had often elicited surprisingly arousing sensations throughout her body, considering the finer details of an intimate relationship with a man were as yet unknown to her. But it was nothing compared to this. Olivia’s reactions to the taste of him, the warmth of his muscular arms around her, and the pull of all those parts of her that had suddenly burst into life, surprised her. Her body clearly knew something it had spectacularly failed to communicate to her brain. If she could have climbed inside his skin and nestled there, somewhere in the soft, safe cavity of his chest, she would have done so.
Eventually, he pulled back and studied her. He couldn’t help but smile – that curling of his lip that she’d seen when he’d been up to mischief and cared not two hoots about the repercussions.
‘I may not know much about girls, but I’m pretty certain that’s an encouraging start.’
‘Yes,’ she acknowledged, feeling shy for the first time. ‘Perhaps I have lived too much inside my head and should have paid more attention to the world outside of it.’
‘You do know that there is a part of me that has been in love with you ever since you locked me in the privy? But Mother’s damn insistence that we treat you as a sister has kept me at bay. Clarence’s letter, Louis’s death, and my present situation, however, were a call to action – one that I’m glad I found the courage to answer.’ His voice faltered and his brow furrowed. This was the serious Howard who rarely surfaced. ‘I… I don’t expect you to promise anything, but say you’ll think about all this when I’m gone? Let me go off to war with hope in my heart?’
She nodded.
‘And then when you finally acknowledge what a topping idea this is, you’ll kick yourself for not realising sooner what a smashing chap I truly am,’ he pointed out, a wide grin forming on his freckled face. ‘I can give you everything you ever imagined, Livvy. I am the fearless knight about to do battle. I have the castle, complete with towers. I would fight dragons for you and, although I would very much wish circumstances were not so, I will one day have the wealth and power to give you everything you desire.’
It was all galloping along rather too quickly, so Olivia felt the need to add a note of caution. ‘Whilst I know there were times when I happily let the prince fight the evil witch and rescue me, please bear in mind that I was always just as willing to saddle up the horse and charge into battle myself. I need to slay my own dragons, achieve my own ambitions. Look how the war is already changing things for women. You might be taking on more than you can handle.’
It was only fair to give him warning. She had big plans for her life – plans to make her parents proud. She would write novels and travel the world – not stay at home and give birth to endless babies. Lady Fairchild’s sole achievement in her unfulfilling but privileged life had been the production of four healthy sons, and they were now being snatched from her in the cruellest way imaginable. Olivia knew there was more to life than motherhood. God would not have given her such a wild imagination if he had not intended her to use it.
‘None of this puts me off in the slightest,’ he said, reaching for her soft cheek and tracing a line from her ear to her chin with his fingertip. ‘It was obvious from the very moment that young Olivia Davenport arrived in our lives, she was always going to be a force to be reckoned with.’