City of Jasmine. Deanna Raybourn

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СКАЧАТЬ glimpses of him out of the tail of my eye. Psychosomatic, Aunt Dove had pronounced firmly. She’d prescribed demanding war work and long country walks to clear my head. She’d even found me a job working at a convalescent hospital run by Wally’s mother at their estate at Mistledown. Because his mother was a viscountess and an unrepentant snob, she insisted on taking only pilots as her patients and she wanted a very select group of nurses to attend them. She gave us splendid uniforms of crushed strawberry-pink with clever little caps designed to show off our hair. Most of the girls worked there only to catch a husband, but I had other ideas. I made friends with the lads, and within a few months, I understood the rudiments of flying. And that was what saved me when I thought I would drown in regret after Gabriel. For the first time since he’d been lost, I slept whole nights through, and I didn’t see him around corners and in shadows. I learned to say goodbye, to get on with the business of living.

      But now, the nearer I got to Damascus, the closer he felt. I slept badly and dreamed of him when I did. And when I had time alone, I found myself remembering.

      I was staring out the window of the Orient Express, a book open on my lap, thinking of the last time I’d seen him, when the door to my compartment opened and Aunt Dove slipped in, a dozen necklaces of polished glass beads clacking as she moved.

      “That’s Baroness Orczy’s newest effort, isn’t it?” she asked with a nod to the book in my lap. “I heard it’s quite amusing. Pity you’re not enjoying it.”

      I perked up. “What makes you say that?”

      “You’ve been stuck on the first page for the last two days. You’re brooding. And from the way you’re toying with your wedding ring on that chain, I’d say it has to do with Gabriel.”

      I dropped the chain as if I’d been burned. Since I had been waiting to divorce Gabriel when he was lost, I didn’t have the right to call myself his widow, I reasoned, no matter what society and the law said. But I hadn’t the heart to chuck the ring away, either. I had worn it on a chain since the day of his funeral, tucking it securely into my décolletage even though it brought back the most painful memories of all. I hadn’t expected a wedding ring. We had eloped, and it had seemed like a particularly romantic bit of conjuring that he had managed to get me a ring. He pulled it off my finger on our wedding night to show me the inscription.

      “When did you have time?” I had demanded.

      He smiled. “It’s mine.” He held up his hand and I saw that the slender gold band he’d worn on his smallest finger, tucked under his Starke signet ring, was missing. “I found a jeweller to inscribe it this afternoon while you were looking for a frock to wear to the wedding. Have a look inside.”

      I peered into the ring, puzzling out the script in the dim light. “Hora e sempre,” I read aloud.

      He gave me a mock-serious look. “It’s Latin.”

      “Yes, I may not have gone to university, but I’m not entirely uneducated,” I said, giving him a little push. “Now and forever.”

      He dropped the ring back onto my finger. “I mean it, you know,” he said, his tone light, but his eyes desperately serious. “I suspect I’ll be a rotten husband, really frightful, in fact. I’m not very good at living up to anyone’s expectations but my own, and I’m abominably selfish.”

      I looped my arms about his neck. “Yes, you’re a monster. I still married you.”

      In spite of my teasing tone, he didn’t smile. Some melancholy had come over him and he put his hands to my wrists, pinning them gently.

      “Damned if I know why. What I’m trying to say, Evie, is that my best is a bloody poor thing. But I’ll give you that best of mine, now and forever. Just don’t expect too much, will you?”

      I had thrown my arms completely around him then, as much because I couldn’t bear the look of hunted sadness in his eyes as from passion. Some hours later, when he slept heavily, one leg thrown over mine, his face buried in my hair, I closed my hand tightly so I could feel the ring bite into my hand. Now and forever. We had lasted four months....

      I let my gaze slide back to the passing Balkan countryside. “Those are particularly nice cows.”

      Aunt Dove gave a sigh and took a seat, her beads still clacking. “If that’s meant as an encouragement to me to mind my own business, it’s feeble. Try again.”

      “Mind your own business,” I said, smiling.

      She shook her head. “It isn’t good for a woman to brood, you know. I think you need a man.”

      “Of one thing I am certain, I do not need a man.”

      Her expression was sympathetic. “Darling, I know you love Wally dearly, but I think there’s something you ought to know.”

      I rolled my eyes. “Oh, heavens, Dove! I know that already.”

      She gave a sigh of relief. “Thank God for that. I thought I was going to have to explain to you about boys who go with other boys. Did you figure it out for yourself or did he tell you?”

      “A little of both,” I admitted. “One night we had rather too much gin and not enough to eat. I told him the whole story of Gabriel and sobbed a bit in his arms, and then he was holding me. Everything went sort of soft and blurry, and we fell into a kiss. I realised after about two minutes that neither of us had moved. It was what I imagine it would be like to kiss a brother. Or Arthur Wellesley. Just nothing there at all.”

      “Really? Curious. One of the best kissers I ever knew was a poof—but he was royal. Perhaps it makes a difference,” she said consolingly. “But that doesn’t change anything, child. You need a proper seeing-to.”

      “A ‘seeing-to’? What on earth—” I held up a hand. “Never mind. I don’t want to know.”

      She pursed her lips. “Sex, dear. I’m talking about sex. You need some. And badly, I should think.”

      “Aunt Dove, we are not having this conversation. Not now, not ever.”

      She pretended not to hear me. “It isn’t your fault, my dear. I imagine after a man like Gabriel Starke, I’d be a bit choosy about my male companions, as well. But just because you won’t find someone to...er, fill his rather large shoes, so to speak, doesn’t mean you can’t have a perfectly pleasant time of it.”

      “How do you know he had large shoes to fill?” I demanded. The fact that she was entirely correct was beside the point.

      She smiled. “Because for the duration of your brief marriage you looked like the cat that ate the canary. Now, you fought like tigers and he was a crashing failure as a husband. That leaves the bedroom. Clearly, things were satisfactory there. More than satisfactory, if I’m any judge of these things, and I think I am. But just because you are still pining for Gabriel, that’s no reason not to have an interesting time of it. In fact, I think you should. A woman’s insides need lubrication, you know. They’ll go all dry and stick together otherwise.”

      I ignored her vague grasp of biology and seized on something else. “I’m not pining for Gabriel. I can’t imagine why you’d think so.”

      She rose and kissed the top of my head. “Child, you’re transparent as glass.” She went to the door. “I seem to remember the last thing Gabriel Starke ever gave you СКАЧАТЬ