Fallen Skies. Philippa Gregory

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СКАЧАТЬ care for me at all?’ Lily asked.

      Unconsciously his grip tightened. ‘Don’t think that,’ he said softly. ‘I do care for you.’

      Lily turned her face up to him. ‘I don’t mean like a friend, or a pupil. I want you to love me. Like a lover.’

      Charlie’s face was dark with tension. ‘You don’t understand,’ he said softly. ‘You’re too young, Lil. You don’t know what you’re asking. And I cannot …’

      Lily tipped her head back. In the moonlight the smooth column of her neck was pale, her breasts emerged from the rumpled bedclothes. Charlie, despite himself, put a hand to her cheek, her chin, stroked down the sensuous line of her neck, cupped her breast in his hand. Lily put her arm around his neck and drew his head down to kiss her. They slid down into the pillows together and Charlie kissed her face hungrily, like a man snatching at a meal; kissed her lips and her closed eyelids, kissed her ears and her neck, kissed her breasts and then lipped tenderly, and then more roughly, at her nipples. Lily moaned very quietly and arched her back, reaching up for his touch. Charlie’s arms held her close. Lily buried her face in his neck. She could smell the clean smell of his hair, the tang of his sweat, she could smell the overpowering scent of warmed eau de cologne. Charlie sighed and then rolled on top of her, Lily opened her legs and wrapped them around his thighs, tightened her arms around his back and arched her body upwards to meet him.

      ‘Oh yes,’ she said.

      As if that word of assent broke a spell, Charlie wrenched himself away from her and flung himself to the edge of the bed. He threw back the covers and got out of bed, not even looking at Lily.

      ‘It’s not possible, Lil,’ he said tightly. ‘Please believe me. This is not possible.’

      He picked up her pyjamas from the floor and thrust them at her. ‘Put these on. Get them on, Lil, I won’t speak to you until you’re dressed.’

      ‘I …’

      ‘Get dressed!’ he ordered angrily.

      He flung himself to the hearthrug before the gas fire and fumbled with matches. He turned the brass tap for the gas and with a little pop-popping the flame rippled along the base of the fire and the white spiky bones grew pink and then orange and then glowed a steady red.

      Lily fastened the buttons of her pyjama jacket with shaking hands. She slid out of bed and pulled on the trousers. She was scarlet with shame. Then she sat on the edge of the bed like a naughty child sent to her room as a punishment, with nothing to do but to wait for adult forgiveness.

      ‘I’m dressed,’ she said in a small voice.

      Charlie turned around and saw her stricken face.

      ‘Oh, come here,’ he said, holding one arm out to her. Lily tumbled off the bed to the hearthrug and into his arms. He held her firmly, affectionately. He patted her back as if he were consoling her for some little hurt. Then he seated her in the chair beside the fire and sat back on the hearthrug, at a little distance from her so that he could see her face.

      ‘I’ll have to tell you something which I prefer to keep private,’ he said. ‘Will you promise to tell no-one?’

      Lily nodded.

      ‘It’s about my injury, from the war.’

      Lily thought of half his lung missing, and then remembered the smooth skin of his back, the silky warmth of his chest, his run up the cliff path when he had raced her to the motorbike, and how he had reached the top without being breathless. ‘You said you were injured in the lungs.’

      Charlie shook his head. ‘I was injured in the groin,’ he said precisely. His face was stiff, the words forced out. ‘Castrated. I’m not a proper man, Lily. I couldn’t ever be your husband. I took a piece of shell across my thighs. It took out my balls and half my penis.’ His face was grim, he was forcing the words out. ‘We were trapped in a shellhole, heads down into the earth. Half of the men took wounds in their legs and buttocks. It was a pitiful day – a long, long day. We were on a night patrol which went wrong, we were pinned down in no-man’s-land from dawn till twilight. They couldn’t get stretchers out to us till dark.’ He was silent for a moment then he shook his head at the memory.

      ‘It’s a common injury,’ he said. ‘Fighting over that ground with no shelter. There were a lot of men injured low. It’s your instinct to get your head down, to shelter your face. We must have been a funny sight.’ His smile was as bitter as gas. ‘Our heads ducked down and our bums left out. We must have been a funny sight,’ he said again.

      Lily put her hand out gently and rested it on the sleeve of his pyjama jacket.

      Charlie gave her a brief unhappy smile. ‘So I can’t give you children, and I can’t give you pleasure, normal pleasure,’ he said. ‘I thought that I might be able to be your friend. But I can offer you nothing more than my friendship.’

      Lily said nothing. The fire made a little popping noise and the flames flickered and jumped from orange to yellow. Charlie reached behind Lily’s chair and put another sixpence in the meter from a little pile balanced on top of the metal box. The gas flowed steadily again and the bones of the fire glowed.

      ‘I don’t care,’ Lily said, scarcely taking in what he was saying. ‘I love you. Do you love me, Charlie? That’s all I want to know.’

      He shrugged with a hard smile as if none of it mattered very much at all. ‘Oh yes, I love you, Lily. I utterly and absolutely adore you.’

      She reached forward at once but he fended her off. ‘It doesn’t matter – don’t you see? It doesn’t make any difference. You should marry a man who can give you all the things you deserve. I wouldn’t want anything less than that for you. You should have the best. I want the best for you. I don’t want you married to a cripple, to half a man.’

      Lily shook her head.

      ‘It does matter,’ Charlie insisted. ‘You think now that you love me enough to overlook it. That we could be happy together in spite of it. But you would want children. And you are young and beautiful and passionate. You need a lover, Lil, not half a man. I am not the man for you. I am of no use to any woman.’

      He had been looking at the prosaic flicker of the fire but now he glanced up at Lily’s face. She was very still but her face was shiny with the wetness of many tears. He pulled her down beside him on the hearthrug and held her close.

      ‘If I loved you any less, then I would marry you and make you stay with me,’ he said softly into her hair. ‘If I loved you any less I would marry you and keep you and try to convince you that children don’t matter, that making love doesn’t matter. But I love you so much that I won’t do that to you.’ He took a breath. ‘I made up my mind when I was first injured. I wouldn’t do that to any woman. I’ll even play ragtime at your wedding.’

      Lily shook her head and turned to argue but Charlie kissed her into silence. Her mouth was wet and salty. He took the sleeve of his pyjamas and wiped her face very gently.

      ‘I’m not a child,’ Lily said.

      He nodded. ‘I know it. You’re a beautiful and desirable woman, Lil. And I wish to God that my luck was different. There have been times when I’ve wished that the shell had killed me outright; but I don’t think that any more. Not even now – with you СКАЧАТЬ