Before the war, the hospital had been a grand house, and the lane she was using had originally been that used by the tenants and the tradespeople.
She was cycling happily down the centre of it when she heard the car, the sound so unexpected that at first she made no attempt to move off the crown of the road. The village saw its fair share of wartime traffic; the squire’s wife still drove her car on Red Cross business and Lizzie was used to the imperious sound of car horns demanding the right of way, especially when they were driven by excitable young men in uniform.
She was not, though, used to them being driven down this narrow little lane which led only to the hospital, which was why, lost in her own daydreams, she did not initially react to the sound of this one until it was almost too late.
The realisation that someone was driving up behind her, that the car was one of those expensive, open-topped sporty models driven by a young man with wind-blown thick black hair, bronzed skin, and the dashing uniform of an airforce pilot, hit her in a series of small shocks as she glanced over her shoulder and saw the shiny dark green bonnet of the car, realised that there wasn’t room for both of them on the narrow little road, tried desperately to turn to one side, and lost her balance at the same time. The young man stopped his car with a cacophony of squealing tyres, protesting engine and angrily bellowed complaints about her sanity.
Lying on the dusty road, her knees stinging with pain and her eyes with tears, Lizzie wished devoutly that a large hole would appear beneath her into which she could conveniently disappear.
Her face scarlet with mortification and embarrassment, she struggled to her feet, at the same time as she heard the car door slam.
‘I say, are you OK? That was a nasty tumble you took… I thought you’d heard me…’
‘I did…but I didn’t realise… Well, no one ever drives down this road…’
She was on her feet now, her face still red, a tiny voice inside her deriding her for her vanity in not wearing the woollen stockings which would have protected her now smarting skin from the road, all too conscious of the appearance she must present to this unbelievably handsome young man who was now standing next to her, towering over her, looking at her in a way which made her loathe and castigate Lady Jeveson for ever being stupid enough to choose such unflattering clothes.
Two bright spots of colour burned on her cheekbones as she realised what was happening to her. For the first time in her life she was experiencing the dizzying, dangerous sensation of falling helplessly in love with a stranger—that sensation, that awareness…that feeling which she had heard so often described by the others.
The unexpectedness of it distracted her momentarily, her mouth half parting at the wonder of it, so that Kit Danvers found his attention caught by her, despite the awfulness of her clothes and the hairstyle that made her look like photographs he had seen of his grandmother.
If one really studied her it was possible to see that she was quite a looker, he recognised with the ease of a master long used to seeking out his quarry in the most unexpected of places.
Finding pearls hidden in dull oysters was Kit Danvers’s speciality—the other men in the mess envied him for it, admiringly, if sometimes resentfully, recognising that when it came to women Kit Danvers had something, some unrecognised quality that the female sex found it impossible to resist.
Lizzie knew none of this. She only knew that as she looked into the laughing blue eyes looking back into hers, as she studied the handsome tanned face with its firm male bone-structure and its warm smile, something inside her melted and uncurled, something completely new to her and yet as old as Eve.
‘You’ve got a smudge on your nose… There, it’s gone.’
She held her breath as he leaned towards her and carelessly rubbed his thumb against her skin. A thousand pin-pricks of sensation were born where his touch had been, an odd yearning constricting her breathing, her body suddenly tense and yet languorous at the same time.
‘Look, you can’t ride that thing now… Why don’t I give you a lift to wherever you’re going…?’
‘The hospital—I’m going to the hospital,’ Lizzie told him breathlessly, scarcely conscious of what she was saying, unable to take her wondering gaze off his handsome, smiling face. ‘I work there.’
‘You do? Now, there’s a coincidence. I’m on my way there too. They told me in the place where I’m staying that this road would get me there quietly and discreetly. Not supposed to be running this job really, you know,’ he told her, patting the bonnet of his car. ‘And she’s a thirsty lady. But when you’re in the forefront of a war you’re entitled to a few perks. Luckily the Yanks aren’t as parsimonious with their petrol as our people, and I know this Yank…’ He broke off and smiled winsomely at her. ‘Boring you to death, I expect. A pretty girl like you doesn’t want…’
A pretty girl… Lizzie gazed adoringly at him. He thought her pretty…her heart raced and sang, and then she remembered all Aunt Vi’s stern teachings and turned her head away from the dangerous potency of that warm smile, saying shakily, as she tried to pick up her cycle, ‘I really must go… I’m sorry I didn’t hear you coming…’
‘Going to be late for work, are you? What do you do up there… nurse?’
‘No, actually, I’m a nursing aide,’ Lizzie told him and for some reason the surprise in his eyes hurt her a little. It had never mattered when other people spoke derisively about the lowly status of her work, but now, suddenly, for this handsome laughing young man, she ached to be able to announce that she did something very important…
‘Well, we don’t want you getting into trouble for being late. Not when it was really my fault. Hop in… I’ll strap your cycle to the back.’
‘I’m not actually working,’ Lizzie told him, hesitating beside the car. It would be breaking all Aunt Vi’s rules and her own to accept his offer of a lift, but she wanted to do so more than she had wanted anything else in her life. ‘I’m going to visit someone…’
Immediately his glance sharpened. ‘Boyfriend?’ he questioned her, making her blush and shake her head.
‘No, it’s one of the patients… I promised him I’d wheel him out to see the rhododendrons now they’re in flower. He says they remind him of his grandparents’ home when he was a little boy…’
‘Sensitive little thing, aren’t you? A no-hoper, is he?’
Something in the careless way he spoke jarred on Lizzie’s tender conscience; even though she knew that for Edward Danvers life could never ever be anything other than painful and lonely, she said quickly, ‘No—no, of course not…’
Perhaps it was the stark contrast between the two men: Edward so pale and thin, old before his time, his body wasted, his manhood destroyed by the same terrible injuries which had necessitated the amputation of his legs.
It had happened in the frantic push to land on the Normandy beaches. He had been helping to organise the disembarkation, standing chest-deep in the icy cold water. Someone had got into difficulty in the water—a young private who couldn’t swim—Edward had dived down to help him, and had been crushed beneath some landing equipment in the rush to get the troops ashore.
Edward’s life had been saved but not his legs, and even now in his nightmares he cursed God for that cruel mercy.
In her mind’s eye Lizzie saw him, so thin and wasted in his wheelchair, and compared him to this man, so fit and healthy, so insolently cheerful and careless of whatever dangers fate had in store for him, and suddenly and unexpectedly she was overwhelmed by a swift surge of protective, possessive fear, by a need to take him to herself and keep him safe… It was the first time she had ever experienced such an emotion and it stunned her, leaving her feeling too vulnerable and weak to object when he insisted on helping her into his car, and fastening her bike across its boot.