‘It’ll be cold,’ she said.
‘But you’re warm,’ Philip replied.
They sat for a while in the darkness until the cup began to tilt in his hands and his head dropped onto his chest. His anger had finally dissipated and his body relaxed. She held onto the back of his head with one hand and took the cup with the other. She placed his head gently back on the pillow and then crept towards the door.
‘Don’t leave me,’ he whispered.
She went back to the bedside and sat smoothing his forehead, just like she did for the children when they were sick. Her fingers traced the raised and puckered flesh. His whole body began to shake and she lay down beside him. He kept repeating, ‘Cold, cold, cold.’ She put her arm over him and held him close.
They lay together, her breasts to his back, her knees tucked behind his knees, her arm across his chest. She didn’t dare move for disturbing him but couldn’t stop her shivers as the cool evening air filtered into the room. Philip shifted as he sensed the ripples running through her body. Slowly he turned towards her and took her hands in his and kissed them. He threw the covers back and then he rolled her towards him. She let her body fall into his. He carefully pulled the covers over them and they held each other close, until her breath merged with his breath and his lips touched hers. She let her mind drift into a place where there was no time, no demands to call them, no walls to divide them. They were here, together, now.
When the morning light crept around the edges of the curtain, Kate’s eyes flicked open. She was still in his embrace. She was warm with his love. She peeled away from him and slid silently onto her feet. He rolled onto his back but his breathing was heavy and rhythmical; he slept peacefully, one arm thrown above his head. She could still feel the heat of the passion between them. He had entered her oh so gently and taken her to a place where she felt as if her whole body would burst with thesheer joy of him. She would hold the memory of this night in her heart. Nothing and nobody could take this away from her.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
November 1916
Every time Kate passed his room to and from the nursery she looked at the closed door. She prayed that the Philip she knew and loved would heal in mind as well as body. When the children were with her, they asked to be able to go in and see him.
‘But why can’t we?’ Simon asked.
‘Because your brother needs his rest,’ Kate replied.
‘When will he be better?’ Sophie asked. ‘Will he be able to play hide and seek with us soon? He’s so good at finding places to hide.’
‘Try to be patient, children,’ Kate said. ‘He will get better but it’s going to take a while longer yet.’
She didn’t expect them to understand, she struggled to understand herself, even with the sights she had seen at the hospital. The bodies she had seen patched up, repaired and sent to fight again were only part of the man that lay inside, she knew that. What she could never know was how that felt. Philip was broken and she was helpless. Only time could help him mend.
Clara came home as soon as she heard of Philip’s arrival but she couldn’t stay long. She was needed to continue with setting up the factory. She came to find Kate before her departure and they talked of their worries for Philip.
‘We’ve seen so many men with such horrific injuries,’ Clara said. ‘But nothing prepares you for seeing your own brother in such a . . .’
Kate took her hand and said, ‘He’s home, Clara. Take comfort in that.’
Clara inhaled deeply and wiped away her tears.
‘You’ll be a sister to him for me, Kate. I know you will,’ she whispered.
Kate wanted to say that she wanted to be so much more than a sister but this was not the right time.
Over the following days and weeks, Kate snatched every moment she could to be with Philip, offering to take trays up to him and staying as long as she dared by his bedside. She told him about her volunteering work at the hospital and how pleased she was that Clara had encouraged her to go and help.
‘Sounds like my sister,’ Philip said. ‘Right in the thick of it.’ He paused then and she wondered what was occupying his thoughts.
He finally said, ‘You’re doing a good job, the two of you. An important job.’
She took that as a sign of encouragement to tell him more but when she started talking about particular patients, however, he stopped her by saying he was tired or he needed the bathroom. Kate realized that it was too painful for him. It was like revisiting the battlefield and she found other things to talk about, simple things like the antics of the twins and the news from her Hampshire home.
It was over a month before he was able to come downstairs for meals and spend some time with the family, but then he didn’t seem to spend very long before he went back to his room.
‘They exhaust me, Kate,’ he explained to her, ‘with their constant attentions. At least you don’t crowd me and fuss over me. Your hospital training perhaps?’
Little by little, as time progressed however, his mood swings became less frequent and he talked more. He tolerated the excitements of the twins and asked Thomas to come and read to him from one of his nature books. When they could snatch a few moments alone, Kate and Philip sometimes dared to embrace. Stolen kisses were not enough but it was all that they could have.
‘Walk in the garden with me, Kate,’ he said one sunny afternoon. ‘I want to feel the fresh air on my face.’
‘I’m not sure it would be right for us to be . . .’ Kate began.
