“Is that a yes?”
“If you want to marry me, then—”
“Yes, you’ll marry me.” He gathered her into his arms, swinging her round, kissing her in the first of many intimate kisses.
“Stephen? Did you hear me?”
He leveled on his brother, bringing his thoughts about. “Say again?”
Nathaniel poured a cup of tea. “Why did it end?”
“Why areyoudoing this? Take a guess. You know her brother was one of the men killedthatday.” Nathaniel, along with the defense minister, the RAC general counsel, and his dear departed father, were the only ones who knew the whole truth.
“Ah, you ended the marriage because of her brother.” Nathaniel knew Stephen and Carlos had been friends. And he knew Stephen had been somewhat smitten with his mate’s twin sister, Corina.
“She went home to be with her parents when she got the news . . . about Carlos.” Stephen shook his head, a shallow, simple way of expressing what his words could not. “Those five days I was in the hospital, after the blast, I knew every time I looked at her I’d remember and—”
“Then what? You just rang up and said, ‘It’s over love’?”
“No . . . she returned to Brighton after Carlos’s funeral. I couldn’t tell her why I’d gone missing on her, why I didn’t return her calls or e-mails, why I missed her brother’s funeral. Since the RAC didn’t know she was my wife, naturally they didn’t contact her when I was wounded.”
“Nor did the family. Good grief, Stephen.” Nathaniel’s sigh more than scolded. It affirmed.You messed up.
“We lost contact for about two weeks. First with me in the hospital, then with me . . . well, dealing with the whole mess. She didn’t know Carlos had been transferred to my crew. She flew back to Brighton to try to find out what had happened to me and to tell me about Carlos in case I hadn’t heard. I was at her flat when she arrived, getting my things. We lived there after we married . . . to keep the press away from us.”
“And you sent her away?”
“I told her the marriage was a mistake. It sounded reasonable since marrying a foreigner was illegal. I had the law on my side.”
“So you didn’t really love her when you married her?”
Stephen glanced at his brother. “I loved her very much.”
Their phone calls, e-mails were his lifeline. Her care packages of biscuits and cakes, little drawings and poems, set his heart ablaze as much as her kisses and love making. She wasn’t a grand baker—he and the lads had to wash her cookies down with big gulps of water—but Stephen loved that she tried.
So his time in Torkham had passed quickly. The unit had engaged in some intense fighting, and day after day, his love for her kept him going. But July to January seemed like an eternity to a thirsty man dwelling in the desert.
Then four weeks from the end of his tour, an enemy they never anticipated blew up the mess tent, killing the six men on Stephen’s crew. Including his wife’s brother.
Stephen survived, spending a week in a field hospital, before special forces transported him home on New Year’s Eve. All under cover.
“You must have crushed her, Stephen.”
“Crushed seems like such a hard word.” Lately, there were nights when he dreamt of her tears. All the more reason he needed to return to rugby. To exert his physical power over his emotional weakness.
“I’m sure it does.” Nathaniel sighed his disappointment. “However, it’s fitting. Did she ask what happened? Where you’d been? Why you lost communication? Did you tell her you knew about Carlos? That he was with you?”
“I couldn’t tell her why Carlos was with me, could I? It’s classified. So I just avoided all detail. PTSD makes a good excuse.” Even now, the truth was buried so deep it hurt if he even thought of it. “Well, I did tell her there was an explosion. Nothing more. All that nonsense is classified anyway. I said it made me realize I had a responsibility to the Crown and the House of Stratton. If word got out I’d married an American, there’d be chaos. I’d have to step out of line to the throne, and frankly, I couldn’t do that to Dad. Or you. God rest his soul.”
King Leopold V, Stephen’s father, had succumbed to leukemia two years ago. And Stephen never missed him more.
“Blimey, you’re a piece of work.”
“Nathaniel, I don’t need your judgment. Even now, I still believe I did what was best. Besides all of the legal ramifications, which didn’t change until you wanted to marry Susanna, I needed to forget everything about Afghanistan and move on. And that included Corina. How could I look at her and not remember?”
“I can’t believe she gave in without an argument.”
“She didn’t until I told her I’d have to renounce the throne. She embraced the end of things then.”
