Just a short distance from Elijah’s house, her new home, a modest timber-framed cottage with a thatched roof and slanted walls, was more than adequate for her needs, and with each day that passed, it felt more of a home to her. At Romily’s suggestion she had had one of the bedrooms upstairs turned into a bathroom and had the place redecorated throughout. She had even tried her hand at painting the nursery, with pleasing results, realising that she was more artistic than she’d previously given herself credit for. She had chosen a colour scheme of sunny yellow for the walls and duck-egg blue for the ceiling in an effort to mimic the sky. Onto this she’d painted some fluffy white clouds and, as an afterthought, a trio of swallows. In her mind, the three birds were Elijah, her and the baby. At the small diamond-paned window she had hung a pair of pale green and white gingham curtains, which she had sewn by hand. She often liked to go and sit in the nursery and stare out at the garden and its grassy bank that sloped down to the stream.
Mrs Bunch had offered to come in and clean for her, but Allegra had refused to have the gossiping old biddy over the threshold. Instead, she looked after the cottage herself – all those years of learning to clean and polish and scrub floors at the orphanage had not gone to waste! She would probably find a girl from the village to help with the heavier work when the baby was born. But for now she was enjoying having the cottage all to herself.
In idle moments of daydreaming, she pictured herself next summer lying tranquilly on a rug in the garden listening to the soothing sound of birdsong and tinkling water from the stream while her baby slept contentedly at her side. But then she would remember there was a war on, and who knew where any of them would be next summer. There was an airfield on the outskirts of the village of Shillingbury, some five miles from Melstead, and every day aeroplanes could be seen and heard flying overhead. The first time she had been woken by a night-time flying exercise, she had bolted out of bed as the windows rattled and the walls of the cottage seemed to shake. Convinced it was the Luftwaffe, and bombs were about to fall from the sky, she had grabbed her dressing gown to run out to the garden and the Anderson shelter Romily had had built for her.
Now when she heard the noise of the aeroplanes in the night, she felt no fear, only an awareness of her cousin Kit, for whom she would send up a silent prayer for God to keep him safe.
Bored of waiting to be called up to begin his training with the RAF, Kit had taken matters into his own hands and crossed the Atlantic to begin pilot training in Canada, his hope being that when he returned to England, he’d be fast-tracked and put to good use. A letter had arrived from him yesterday, a short communication revealing his obvious pride in what he was doing. Allegra guessed he’d never been happier, that finally he was doing something worthwhile and, perhaps more importantly, something his father would have been proud of. Poor Kit, all those years of wanting to please Uncle Jack, and only now achieving it when it was too late.
She was just about to go and look out of the window again when she heard a knock at the front door.
Elijah, at last!
Chapter Thirty-Nine
His kitbag at his feet, Elijah held Allegra at arm’s length, his eyes slowly taking her in from head to toe.
‘Don’t, caro,’ she said, ‘don’t look at me too closely, sono grassa e bruttissima. I’m so fat and ugly now.’
He shook his head. ‘No you’re not. You’re beautiful. Even more beautiful than before. Your skin is glowing and your eyes are clear and bright.’
She groaned. ‘You make me sound like a horse being sold at auction.’
He laughed, then threw off his overcoat and drew her close, holding her firmly within his strong embrace, his hands pressing into the small of her back. He looked down into her face, his gaze intense. ‘You never could accept a compliment, could you? Would you accept a kiss instead?’
Inhaling the masculine smell of him and the warmth of his body through the woollen serge of his battledress jacket, she nodded. His mouth was hard and sure against hers, and with her arms wrapped around him, she returned his kisses with a fervour that was filled with longing for him. All the time he had been away she had ached for his touch, to feel his muscular body against hers, to lose herself completely in his passion for her. She had never known such an acute sense of loss and loneliness without him. Her head swimming with desire, her legs felt ready to buckle beneath her. As if realising this, he held her even more firmly, but then suddenly pulled away and gazed down at her once more, his breath ragged. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said, his voice thick.
‘Why?’
He touched her cheek lightly. ‘I should be more gentle with you, given your condition.’ He lowered his gaze to the unborn child between them.
‘I’m not made of glass, Elijah.’
‘I know, but …’
‘But what?’ And then she knew, and her heart sank. It was obvious – oh, so blindingly obvious, even to a fool like her – her swollen body repulsed him. She should have known better than to think she would still be sexually attractive to him. Before, when they had made love in his bed at Clover End Cottage, her body had gained hardly any weight at all in comparison to now, but in the weeks since he had been away, it had altered dramatically. Back then, they could both pretend that she wasn’t carrying a child – another man’s child – but now there was no ignoring the grotesque reality of that fact. She stepped away from him, sickened by her selfish greedy desire, and by her naivety in the believing – hoping – that he would still want her.
‘It’s all right,’ she said. ‘I understand completely.’ She bit her lip in quiet rage.
He looked at her with a frown, his head tilted.
‘It’s fine,’ she asserted with an attempt at indifference. ‘Why on earth would you find me attractive when I look like an enormous barrage balloon? I’m so hideous I can barely bring myself to look in the mirror these days, so I understand perfectly that you would not be able to view me—’
‘Allegra,’ he interrupted sternly, his frown deepening, ‘be quiet and listen to me, will you? I love you unconditionally. That means I love you and your body whatever shape it is.’ He put a hand to her swollen abdomen. ‘I just don’t want to hurt you, or the baby. I would never forgive myself if I did anything to cause you harm. Now why don’t you put the kettle on and show me round the cottage? I want to see all the changes you wrote about in your letters. I particularly want to see the bathroom.’
Later, much later, after they’d shared a bath together – the first Elijah had experienced that wasn’t in a tin bath in front of the fire – they made love. Afterwards, lying in euphoric silence with her head resting on his chest, Allegra listened to his heart thumping while tapping the rhythm of it with her fingers. ‘Ti amo tanto,’ she murmured in a rare moment of what felt like true happiness.
He took her hand in his and kissed the tips of her fingers softly. ‘What did you say?’
She lifted her head and looked at him. ‘I said I love you.’
He gently rolled her off him and raised himself up on his elbow, staring at her for the longest moment. ‘That’s the first time you’ve said that to me. Do you mean it? Because please don’t say it unless you do.’
‘It’s true; I do love you. And in a completely different way to how I’ve loved anyone before.’
‘Why’s that?’
‘It’s simple. You want nothing from me. I’m not something that you see as being useful to you and which you can put to your advantage.’
