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Automatically, Kitty stood up to give Roland her seat.
"You don't have to go," Roland insisted, turning to both of them, and Grace did too, feeling quite alarmed at the situation that had sprung out of nowhere and taken her by such surprise.
Kitty smiled at him.
"Oh, I think we do," she replied, smiling, "You wouldn't be here otherwise. We'll see you back at the house. Come on, Tom, help me get this young man down the hill."
Tom smiled at them both too, gently manoeuvring the pram down the slope and towards the back door of the hospital. Sitting down in the chair beside Grace's, Roland watched them go. Neither spoke until the whole of the Gillan family was indoors.
"They make lovely parents," Roland said at last.
"Yes," Grace agreed, still watching the hospital, at first unable to take her eyes off him, she was now almost unable to look at him, "They do."
She could feel his eyes on her face, scrutinising her thoroughly, trying to read an answer in her expression. She willed her eyes not to well with tears.
"Why did you go, Grace?" he asked her at last, and his voice sounded wrought, stretched to the point of breaking, "Why didn't you at least tell me you were going to leave?"
"You would have stopped me," she replied quietly.
"Of course I would have stopped you!" he half-exclaimed, "All the way up here, I've been wracking my brains, trying to think of anything that I could have done to make you want to leave-…"
"I didn't want to," she assured him, "I felt I had to. You didn't-…"
"Perhaps I should have done more," he wondered aloud, "I should have been honest with Hetty straight away, and to hell with the consequences-…"
"That's exactly what I don't want, Roland," she told him, "You did everything you could have done. More than I could have possibly asked of you. I can't bare to be the reason for you losing Alexander. I'm sorry, but I can't."
"If I'm going to lose Alexander, then I've already lost him."
"What do you mean" she asked him, not understanding what he had just said at all.
"I left almost as soon as I could to come here," he told her, "As soon as Kitty telephoned, I sent Maisy to find out when the next train was. But it wasn't for two hours, and I used them to write a letter. I left it on Alexander's desk. I told him everything. I told him that I know he is another man's son, but that I love him as if he was mine. I told him that I love you, that I've never loved his mother, and that you're going to have my child. That I'm sorry if my actions put any of his plans in jeopardy, but my first responsibility is to you and to our child because I've put you in a much more vulnerable position than I have. I've made myself clear to him. If he chooses to break off with me then so be it, I was the cause, not you."
She was silent, trying to take in what he had said.
"And you don't know how he took it?" she asked him.
"No, I don't," he replied, "He was out with Evelyn and he hadn't come home by the time I had to go."
Grace was still quiet.
"Naturally, the thought of becoming estranged from my son gives me no pleasure at all," he told her, "But now you know I am completely willing to do it, for you."
"I know," she replied softly.
"And now I know I should have done things differently," he told her, "As it's happened anyway that everyone has found out about us, I should have just told them from the off, I love you, Grace, perhaps I shouldn't have even gone home at the end of the war, I should have just stayed with you. I should have done more to show you that I loved you, and then you would never have gone. But I've put it right now, or at least I've tried."
"You couldn't have done more," she told him earnestly, leaning forwards in her chair, leaning towards him, "I know you love me. I'm so sorry I left, I should have thought more carefully, but I was frightened."
"I understand," he murmured, his hand covering hers.
She took hold of it, laced their fingers together, squeezed his hand tightly.
"I love you so much, Roland," she told him quietly, releasing his hand and cupping his face between her palms, stretching forwards and kissing him. His hands touched her sides gently, supporting her.
"I know I shouldn't have listened to Margaret," she murmured softly when they broke apart.
"Margaret Quayle?" he asked, "No, Grace, I'm sensing you shouldn't have. I don't think I even need to ask what she said about me."
Grace sniffed apologetically.
"I know that now," she assured him, "Kitty told me that during the war she started a rumour at the hospital that you and I had slept together and that was the reason that she was passed over for matron."
"It couldn't have been that you were the superior nurse, and may I say human being, now, could it?" he asked lightly, and she smiled.
Her thumbs stroked softly along his cheeks, her eyes drank in the sight of his face. Still, she found it difficult to believe that he had come for her like this, he had sought her out, he had brought her back to him. He was here. The man she loved was here in front of her, when she had thought he was gone forever.
"I wish we had been together during the war," she admitted, "I wanted it then. I wish I'd known it could have been like this. Nothing could have stopped me then."
He took hold of her wrist softly in his hand, turned it gently inwards towards his mouth, planted a soft kiss of her skin.
"I know exactly what you mean," he told her, "I wish we had too. I wish I'd spent my life with you."
"You will from now on," she promised him, "I'm not leaving again."
"Good."
He kissed her knuckles swiftly, tugging at her hand a little.
"Come on," he told her, "Let's go back to Tom and Kitty's. It's alright," he added, "They know I'm staying."
"They don't have another bedroom," she remarked, "There's only their room, the room I'm staying in and the nursery."
"Between you and me," he told her, smiling a little wryly as he tucked her arm into his to help her down the hill, "I don't think they imagined needing a spare bedroom was going to be a problem."
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