Chapter 6

The sun was uncommonly warm for February, especially in the stillness of the enclosed southern courtyard, but Caroline noticed Christopher shiver just as they were seated, and insisted despite his protests upon hastening back to bring a lap robe for him.

As he waited Foyle perused Cook's largess. All the hospital food seemed splendid to him in comparison to bully beef and turnip bread, but out of fondness for Nurse Devereaux, the kind woman had packed them a Thermos of hot tea, some actual ham, a thick slice of bread for each of them, plus boiled eggs and even a smidgen of marmalade.

He shook his head with a faintly embarrassed smile at Caroline as she fussed about him, tucking the worn Black Watch fleece just beneath his dressing gown-clad arm and loosely draping it over his bandaged shoulder.

"There, now!" she declared, content. "What have we for lunch?"

As they dined she asked him what sizes clothing he wore, as she'd been charged with ordering from the Army a new uniform and a suit of recovering soldier clothes.

"Must I wear that dreadful red tie?" he joked, and she flashed him a glance of mock reprimand.

"Now, here the Army goes to all the bother of showing the world you're a hero, and you complain about its sartorial choices!"

He laughed, but a bit humourlessly. "Hero…" His eyes filled as he thought of the young men under his command. He had learned two days earlier that Lighthall and Hill hadn't returned to the trench nor been seen since confronting the Huns.

"All I was, was lucky," he told her firmly.

She placed her hand gently on his and looked at him meaningfully.

"You were doing the job as best you knew how—trying to look after your men. And all of you are trying to defend all of us…"

"At times I wonder…" he began, then, catching a worried expression in her eyes, he left it, taking a sip of the warming tea and feeling the tiny comfort tea always seemed to bring, and this was a very good tea, thank heaven. Or thank Mrs Whitney.

"Did the doctor have an idea of how much longer you'll be here?" Caroline asked him, making an effort to sound casual. His sombre eyes flickered over hers as he weighed the wisdom of admitting how little he would want to leave, especially now that hardly a minute passed without his thinking about her.

"I'm well enough next week to begin trying to use my arm—and there's another specialist coming round to help me exercise in certain ways. But Dr Allen warned me not to be overly optimistic about my strength in that shoulder. He said it might always ache—maybe even pain me sharply—when I lift with my left arm, change gear in a motorcar, that kind of thing. Good job I cast with my right!" He tried valiantly to look less glum.

Nurse Devereaux gave him a watery smile, experiencing a gamut of emotions. Admiration for his hanging onto hope and for the way she could tell he was trying to spare her from seeing any of his despair. Tenderness for his attempt to bring their thoughts back to lightness, even as he was describing how he would never be the same. Of course, in comparison to many of the mutilated young men she had treated, he had been fortunate. But those severely injured soldiers would not be going back; and going back was what she knew Sergeant Foyle would have to face.

Christopher had noticed the tears in her eyes and was touched at how genuinely concerned she seemed. It was quite the contrast, he thought suddenly, with the somewhat self-absorbed Elizabeth, with her tendency to ask him how he was and then launch into a soliloquy on how she was.

He knew he had become important to this gentle, caring, beautiful woman. It had the paradoxical effect of making his inevitable return to the battlefield both more and less dreaded—he didn't want to leave her, but if he could carry her in his heart, there would be something to live for. Or there would be, if only she were free….

Their meal in the sun did him a world of good, and the two were amazed to find themselves left alone, even though aware that the small courtyard was about as far from the wards as it was possible to get. The others probably took breaks in places more convenient to the patients. For a time they just enjoyed the quiet, Caroline occasionally identifying birdsongs and Christopher gazing at her as much as he dared.

If Charles had remained kind and charming to her, Foyle was thinking, Caroline would be merely pleasant and polite to me or any other wounded soldier; at the outside, flirting humourously with me. But I think she feels this, too. He could tell that she was not one to take her wedding vows lightly, but that some emotion was rising in her, much stronger than any she had ever felt for her husband, and that it was something she needed to feel.

Suddenly Christopher realised that her wet eyes were fastened to his, and that her shaky hand was moving nervously toward her forehead in an attempt to hide her emerging tears from him. He furrowed his brow and leaned forward so quickly that he felt one of the aforementioned stabs to his arm and shoulder, and retracted with a wince.

"Caroline, Caroline, please, my darling…"

With that she buried her face in her hands and burst into sobs, leaning far over her knees in a way that made him want to hold her as he had never wanted anything in his life before. Despite the physical agony of it, he rose and knelt before her, gently stroking her bowed head as she wept.

She made an effort to lift her tear-stained face to look into his.

"I don't want to cause you pain," she said, still gasping. "But I can't help but long to be closer to you. You are kinder and sweeter than any man has ever been to me, and… and… I want you in a way that I've never wanted anyone. I don't think I ever was in love before now, and it's so strong that I can't ignore it… even for our sakes."

Foyle could not look away from her eyes, and he could not help but feel that every word she had just said, he could have said to her. Though he had never heard the term "situational ethics," he was beginning to let them be employed in the pull he felt towards her. Here in this place, at this moment, in their circumstances, it actually felt more right to love her than it felt to force himself not to.

Caroline leaned towards him, her warm wet hands reaching to clasp his free one, and she looked up at him beseechingly. "Please say something," she begged.

Catching her wrist, he drew it closer to feel her racing pulse beneath his lips; he swallowed hard as he held back his own tears. The young woman turned her hand and tenderly stroked his cheek, a look of wonder on her face, but also an expression of torment.

Christopher's eyes also shone with pain and he shut them tight, but when he opened them her look of desperation combined with love for him clenched his heart. He touched her flushed face, trailing his fingers along her jaw, and as if his hand were a magnet, she bent with it until her face was nearer his.

He brushed her lips with his; then with a soft moan of anguish he covered her lips with his, feeling a relief and a rush akin to diving into cool water on a hot summer's day. The kiss was not the goodnight-at-the-doorstep sort… it was a kiss that gave over to all the passion each of them felt. And it was what they were meant to do, notwithstanding the laws they had previously agreed to live by.

TBC...