Alarm filled the blue eyes. He wrenched free. She spoke hastily, “My name is Laura Iven. I am a nurse at Château Couthove.”
He stilled. His eyes fastened on hers.
She said, “I am looking for my brother.”
A stout detachment of military police was coming across the square, swinging clubs, shouting. Had they seen him? They might have. He’d gone out into their line of sight, into the crush, to save her life. Did she dare ask? Could she stop herself from asking? “Winter,” she said. “Did you know my brother?” And then, the dangerous question: “Is my brother alive?”
The military police were coming closer. He opened his mouth as though to speak, cut his eyes right, pulled himself free, and disappeared into the crowd.
CHÂTEAU COUTHOVE, FLANDERS, BELGIUM
April 1918
The riot was broken up.Whistles and loud voices filled the square; military discipline slowly reasserted itself. Laura stayed in the safety of the doorway until it was done, scanning for Pim, for Faland, and, although she told herself she wasn’t, for a glimpse of Freddie’s russet hair. But she saw no one she knew. Not until she stumbled back to HQ and saw Pim, as composed as ever, talking again to Gage with Young hovering earnestly. When Laura, bedraggled, finally pulled herself through the door, Pim turned to her at once, with an expression of concern. “Oh, Laura, I’m so sorry. Did you go out looking for me? I didn’t—well, I didn’t get anywhere at all before I realized what a ninny I’d been—thought I saw someone I knew, as I told the general. Then I turned right around like a sensible woman.” Pim peered worriedly into Laura’s face. “Your poor lip.”
They were offered a lift back to Couthove in the general’s car, and they accepted. A pensive line, fine as floss, ran between Pim’s brows, and she was terribly solicitous of Laura. The car was ordered, and a man was tasked to follow on Mary’s motorcycle. There were ten thousand things Laura wanted to say, but none she couldsay in the presence of their driver. So silence reigned between them, all along the road to Couthove.
· · ·
Jones met them at the door, took one look at Laura’s face, and his expression turned dark. “Can take care of herself, she said.”
The drive back to Couthove had acquainted Laura with a large number of previously unnoticed bruises, and she was in no sweet temper. “Nothing a wash and a rest won’t mend.” Pim had already murmured “Good evening” and was disappearing upstairs. Laura made to follow.
“Iven,” said Jones.
“Doctor,” she said, shoulders stiff. “I don’t want—”
He made an impatient sound. “I will not say a single censorious word, if you will let me look you over. You look as though you’ve been in a four-day bombardment. What happened to your lip?”
“A mishap over dinner.”
“Some mishap.” He turned to the sterilization room, then just as quickly turned back. “There are three orderlies playing cards in there—will you come upstairs? I can call Shaw back if you want a female with you.” He looked uncomfortable as he said it, then impatient with his own discomfort.
Perhaps that was what made her say, dryly, “I suppose I’ll brave the lion’s den. But I can’t take a scolding tonight.”
He looked relieved. “I won’t, however much I’d like to. Now come up, before you drop.”
· · ·
Jones had a better room than Laura and Pim; it had been one of the château’s proper bedrooms before the war, although it contained nothing more than Jones’s spartan cot and his trunk, with an old-fashioned writing case and a book lying by. The window was open to the warm spring night.
His back was to Laura as he turned on the light and Laura said, “Do you think I’m mad?”
He turned around. His expression was cautious. “No, Iven.”
She was at the window, looking out at the lights of war on the horizon. “Is that your medical opinion?”
She heard his step cross the room, felt him at her shoulder. “You are very trying, to a man who promised not to pry, Iven. But yes, it is. Your mind’s all right, although your dress has seen better days. Come into the light.”
She looked down at herself. Saw rips, stains, dust. Jones took her elbow. Said, in a carefully neutral voice, “Someone kicked you. There’s a boot print there.”
“It was an accident,” said Laura.
“Was it?” His face was hard, but he didn’t ask. He pressed his palm to the print, and she flinched despite herself. “No pain round the ribs?”
“Only bruises,” said Laura. Why had she come? She could check herself over very well. Why had she agreed to this, to come to his room, to stand by his bed? She felt her own vulnerability. Very carefully, Jones took her jaw in his hand, turned it in the light. Touched the bruise on her jaw, another round her eye. Palpitated it delicately. “Any loose teeth?”
She shook her head. Men had clutched at Laura in pain, in fear, in loneliness ever since she joined the army. She had an arsenal of professional defenses against that. But had no armor at all, she realized suddenly, against his precise, undemanding fingers, and the concern in his eyes. She drew away, afraid of her own fragility.
