She stepped away silently, until her back was to the connecting door. She paused in the doorway. “He is all I have,” she said to Winter. It was half apology and half warning.
“I know,” said Winter. And, strangely, she thought he did. It was that understanding, and that alone, that gave her the strength to turn her back on her brother, to go through the door and leave them alone.
· · ·
Jones was on his feet, by a refreshed fire. Well, of course he was awake, he’d heard Freddie screaming. And did Jones ever sleep, anyway? Even at Couthove, he’d always been doing something. He was in his shirt and trousers now, his sleeves rolled halfway up. He looked from her to the doorway, and said, “Come and sit by the fire.”
She had forgotten that she had a blanket wrapped over her stockings and combination and little else, until she felt the fire’s heat on her bare shoulders, and realized how cold she was.
She sat on the shabby armchair, and Jones leaned on the mantel. Finally, he said, “I’d dose your brother, if I’d anything to give. I gave what I had to Winter.”
Laura shook her head. “It’s not that. There are demons that we can’t fight. Not even you.” She tried to smile. “A dose won’t help him, I think. If anyone can help him, it’s Winter.”
Jones said, “She’s gone then, is she? Shaw?”
Laura flinched. Jones waited. “She wanted to go with Faland,” said Laura. “She didn’t want her life anymore—she’d lost her husband, her boy. I couldn’t—I couldn’t hold her. I could hold Freddie. But not her.”
Jones’s pragmatic voice was tonic. “You can’t save everyone, Iven.”
Laura bowed her head. He stood there looking down at her, and she wished he’d go away, wished he’d say something, wished he…“Laura,” he said, and at the new note in his voice, she looked up. “May I hold your hands?”
His eyes were black in the firelight. He waited. Without a word, she put out one hand to him.
He knelt, in silence, on the rug beside her, and took her right hand in both of his. His fingers were as clean as ever, cool and dry and precise, as he tested the scar tissue, the range of motion in the joints, massaging where they were swollen. He took up her other hand, tracing the deadened lines of scar tissue, pressing so she could feel the sensation, diffuse, beneath. She could not have stood sweetness, or sentiment. But he had a surgeon’s touch, gentle and a little ruthless, and trust eased some of the knots in her soul. There was utter silence from the room next door.
Laura said, “They need each other.”More than he needs me,she was too proud to say.I got him back and I lost him…
“That’s how they survived, I think,” Jones said. He was still looking down at her hands. “Needing each other. You can’t change it, and you shouldn’t try. But you got him back.”
She was silent, but after a long pause, she let her head fall onto his shoulder. His hand came around her head to hold her there, tangling his fingers in the short, tawny curls. It all felt too big, too strange for emotion. Pim and Freddie, Winter and Jones. She didn’t know how to feel.
“I don’t know what to do now,” she said, against his shoulder, feeling his fingers in her hair. “I didn’t—I didn’t expect—”
“Understandable,” said Jones. His voice had roughened a little, but his hands were precise as ever, in her hair, between her scapulae. “You will go home, of course. Take them both home, and sort it out there, out of earshot of the damned Front. You have time now. A whole future in front of you. No more war for you, Laura.”
Laura didn’t lift her head. Very softly, she admitted, “I don’t know how to get them home.”
Jones said, “Winter will need identification. So will Wilfred. Andthree berths on a ship. I’ll help you get it.” His hands fell away as she lurched back from his shoulder.
“Stephen—” she began, his name still strange in her mouth, and saw color rise in his face. But he interrupted, pragmatic as ever, before she could say anything else. “Don’t be proud about this. How else are you going to get home? Are you going to stay here until someone wonders what on earth the three of you are doing?”
She said, struggling for sense, “And you? Are you going back to Couthove?”
He might have hesitated. “Yes. I have patients. Obligations.”
She said, “I don’t want to be an obligation.”
“You’re not.”
“I don’t—I don’t want it between us. I already owe—”
“Christ, Laura,” he said. “You don’t owe me anything because I won’t let you. I want—” He didn’t finish that thought. Laura didn’t know if she was glad or sorry. “Well, there’s time enough for that later.”
Somehow the harshness of him touched her own rough edges and smoothed them. Low, she said, “Then come and find me. After it’s all over. And tell me what I owe you.”
“Nothing,” he said, and he was close enough for her to feel the brush of his hair, against her ear and throat. The vibration of his voice. “I already told you.”
“Come and find me anyway,” said Laura.
