“There was general rejoicing in the camp when mail from Otway arrived. We eased many an icy night in the Pyrenees with news of Miss Kelso’s pursuit of the vicar, or the antics of Mr. Brown’s delinquent pig.”
She took a sip of her wine. “Miss Kelso caught Mr. Harvey in the end, you know.”
“We toasted her success with the worst rotgut swill I’ve ever had the misfortune to swallow.”
Flick’s eyes held a trace of her early shyness as she glanced back at him. “It’s true that you read those frivolous stories out to a hardened band of soldiers?”
Canforth raised his hand as if taking an oath. “On my honor. Never underestimate the power of a bit of whimsy and a few jokes to cast light into impenetrable darkness. You were a heroine to my entire troop, Flick.”
Her eyes glowed with pleasure. “Oh, I’m glad. When I started to write, I had no idea what might interest you. I’m afraid I was much less generous with your letters. I hoarded them all to myself.”
His letters had been shorter and considerably less prolific. But every time he wrote, he felt like he made a promise to himself that one day, he’d return to the woman and the life he loved. “I like that.”
“Now I’m really pleased I didn’t pour my girlish heart out to you.”
He shrugged. “I’d have liked that, too.”
“No, you wouldn’t,” she said in a dry tone. “And your men certainly wouldn’t have.”
With a brief laugh, he relaxed back in his chair and let the half-empty glass dangle from his fingers. “Perhaps not.”
He’d soon learned to read between the lines in her letters. Lack of discussion of feelings didn’t mean a lack of feelings altogether. For either of them.
Before he’d left her, he’d never found the right time to speak his love. Whenever he set out to tell her, uncertainty about her feelings put a padlock on his tongue. The act of sitting down to write, even in the midst of ruin and chaos, had been a way of offering his wife his deepest devotion. And while Flick’s letters might not have declared her love, they proved that she thought of him and cared enough to write.
“Canforth, I know your life has been grueling and dangerous, and there are things you will never wish to speak about. Or at least not on the night you return home.” She paused, her grip on her wineglass tightening. “But some day, when you feel at ease, and you’re truly back in the world you left behind so long ago, will you tell me?”
He flinched, before he realized how his reaction betrayed the numberless horrors he’d witnessed. “Flick, it’s not pretty.”
Her lips tightened, but her brown gaze remained steady. “Nevertheless I want to know.”
As he stared at her, his instinctive objections faded. The girl he’d married couldn’t have coped, couldn’t even have comprehended. But the woman of twenty-six who had fought her own battles, she perhaps might understand.
“In that case, then, yes. One day. One day when I’m ready, I’ll tell you a little of what it was like.”
“Thank you.” Her lips turned down in a self-derisive smile. “And I owe you an apology. That was a poor welcome I gave you. An empty house, and a wife stinking of the stables.”
Actually when he’d first touched her, he’d caught the scent of crushed flowers and something that was Flick alone. He’d remembered that fragrance immediately—it would always be the aroma of heaven. There might have been a hint of horse and hay, too, but he hadn’t cared. He’d been too busy fighting the urge to bury his face in her hair and tell her how much he’d missed her. Which would have ruined things between them forever. If he leaped on her like a starving wolf the minute he came home, she’d run for the hills.
“It’s still my home, empty or not, and I gave you no warning I was coming. But you haven’t told me why you’re spending Christmas alone.”
She took another sip of wine. “I didn’t feel like going through all the hullabaloo this year. It…it seemed easier to miss you here at Otway than in a noisy, happy crowd of people, however much I love them.”
Shock made him sit up straight and stare at her. “You missed me?”
The question surprised her. “Of course.”
“But I’ve been away for ages.”
She gave a grim laugh. “I know.”
By Jove, that was dashed nice to hear. Dashed nice. To think, she’d missed him. Perhaps his case wasn’t quite as hopeless as he thought. He leaned back and stretched his legs toward the fire, making Digby grumble at the interruption to his snooze. “Well.”
A smile lit her eyes to burned caramel. “Well, indeed.”
She set aside her wine and picked up her sewing, as if she hadn’t changed his world in the space of a second. “It means a plain Christmas dinner, I’m afraid. A returning hero deserves to have all the stops pulled out.”
Another silence fell, this one more comfortable than the last. Canforth finished his wine and let its warmth fortify the warmth seeping into his blood with every moment in his wife’s presence. For years, he’d been cold and lonely. Was his exile finally at an end?