* * *
They began to work their way through the rooms, deciding what could be moved, what could be thrown out and which items Flora would have to consult with her father about. Two hours later, they had completed about half of the task, and Geraint stopped to push open a skylight, taking greedy breaths of fresh, cold air. Alone in this cramped space, he’d undoubtedly have parted company with his breakfast, but Flora’s presence was proving a welcome, and surprisingly effective distraction.
Leaving the skylight slightly ajar, he sat down on an old steamer trunk. ‘Do your family never throw anything away? There’s enough stuff up here to furnish the entire valley back home.’
Flora perched beside him on a moth-eaten stool. ‘You know all about my family, down to the intimate details of how we live, yet I know nothing of yours. You mentioned sisters and brothers, I think.’
‘Three sisters between myself and my brother, Bryn, who’s the baby of the family. Bethan and Angharad are in service, Cerys is training to be a nurse.’
‘And your parents, what do they think of you joining up?’
Geraint shrugged. ‘What every parent thinks, I suppose. My father will be proud I’m doing my bit for my country, though he’d prefer I did it down the mine.’
‘So your father is a miner?’
‘He is, as I was until a few years ago. As Bryn will be in a year, unless I have a say in it.’ Geraint frowned. ‘Bryn is such a bright lad. He could do so much better for himself. He’s at the grammar school on a bursary, just like I was, but he has no ambition to stay on as I did until I was eighteen. Worships my dad, does our Bryn—he wants nothing more than to follow in his footsteps down the mine. All the more so, since I’ve so signally failed to keep up the tradition.’
‘But surely, with a grammar-school education, you had no reason to work in the mine at all.’
Geraint laughed bitterly. ‘I had every reason. I am my father’s son. It’s what the men in my family do. Not becoming a miner would have been viewed as the ultimate act of disloyalty, because any other white-collar job I could have got above ground would have entailed working with them. The bosses, the owners.’
‘Surely you exaggerate.’
‘That is how it would have been seen by my family, our neighbours. A betrayal.’
‘And yet you gave it up all the same,’ Flora said, looking puzzled. ‘Why?’
It was an innocent enough question and a perfectly natural one, but it made Geraint realise how personal a turn the conversation had taken. He never talked about his family, had a policy, forged of bitter experience, of not explaining himself. ‘I had my reasons. So I left.’
I left. Such a simple phrase to describe one of the most difficult decisions of his life. So many nights spent lying wide awake in bed. The long days when he was due on late shift, walking in the nearby hills, trying to talk himself into staying on for just another year, month, week. Geraint leaned back against the attic wall, turning his face up to the skylight, to the wide, grey-blue sky above, which was the colour of Flora’s eyes. ‘I left,’ he repeated sadly. ‘To find something better, is the reason I gave my dad, and he took offence, thinking I was demeaning his life’s work’
‘There is nothing wrong with trying to better yourself,’ Flora said indignantly.
‘Tell that to the toffs at the grammar school.’
The words did not come over as light-heartedly as he’d intended. Flora had her arms clasped around her knees. His own legs were sprawled in front of him, so that they were almost touching hers. ‘It must have been very difficult for you there,’ she said. Her hand touched his knee tentatively.
‘I coped. I fought my corner. Literally. It was a long time ago. I really don’t know why I’m telling you all this.’
‘I am glad that you have.’ Flora twisted the little pearl ring she wore on her pinkie finger round and round. It was a habit she had, he’d noticed, when she was struggling to voice her thoughts. ‘We have more in common than you might think. You’ve made me face the fact that I don’t want what my parents have planned for me, either. I was— I suppose I was simply avoiding facing the issue before. Now you’ve forced me to look, I can’t pretend I haven’t seen. I have no choice but to hurt them.’
She was saying that she understood, and Geraint could tell she did. He covered her hand with his. ‘My dad thought I was ashamed of him, of our family, our village,’ he admitted painfully. ‘I had no choice but to leave, when my presence there was a daily reminder of my betrayal.’
Flora reached up, touched his cheek fleetingly, but to his relief she sensed that her pity would not be welcome. ‘So you joined the army,’ she said. ‘I confess, I’ve wondered why a man so radical as you, who has such contempt for hierarchy and tradition, would enlist in an institution that sets such store by it.’
‘I didn’t, not straight away. I went to London and found a job in the office of a factory that manufactured automobiles. A job with prospects,’ Geraint said mockingly, remembering the interview. ‘Maybe it would have been, if I’d stuck it out. I have a head for figures, and a talent for organising, just like you, but I also have a nose for injustice, thanks to my dad. Those poor lads on the factory floor worked bloody hard—beg pardon—for a pittance in conditions almost as dangerous as those down the pit. I was working for the Labour Party in my spare time. Eventually my employers found out, and that put paid to my prospects. By then it was obvious war was going to be declared, so I enlisted.’
‘I still don’t understand why,’ Flora said.
‘I joined the Royal Welsh Fusiliers,’ Geraint replied.
‘To fight alongside your own people, was that it?’
‘It was. Brothers in arms and all that. But the moment they got wind of my accounting experience, they transferred me to the Army Service Corps and I washed up here, destined once again to play the pantomime villain by desecrating Glen Massan House,’ Geraint said with a twisted smile.
Flora frowned. ‘Do you really believe we are on opposing sides?’
‘I’d hardly be confiding in you if I did.’
‘So we are fighting on the same side?’
‘I wouldn’t go that far, Miss Daughter-of-the-Laird-Carmichael,’ Geraint said, grinning and getting to his feet. He held his hand out to help her up. Her fingers were slender, perfectly manicured, her palm smooth against his rough calloused hand.
‘If we are not enemies but we are not on the same side, then where on earth are we?’
‘I’ll tell you where we are, we’re in no man’s land.’
‘No man’s land,’ Flora repeated. ‘Our own private land.’
‘For the time being.’
* * *
No man’s land. A place where only one man existed, Flora thought. A man whose eyes glittered darkly down at her, mesmerising beneath the thick curtain of his lashes. A man who, by his own admission, confided in no one, yet had confided in her. A dangerous man. A lonely man. A challenging man. And a very enticing one. ‘I think I like no man’s land,’ she said.
‘So do I,’ Geraint said softly, closing the space between them. He slid his arm around her waist. His fingers were delicate on her jaw, her cheek, making her catch her breath in anticipation, making her tremble, scattering her inhibitions to the four winds.
Her body was pliant, melding itself to his hardness as she reached up to put her arms around his neck. As his lips touched hers, her eyelids closed. His tongue ran along the soft skin on the inside of her lower lip, and she shivered at the shocking intimacy of it. It was like the first sip of a fine French cognac. Warmth flooded her.
Her heart pounded.