The Forbidden Promise. Lorna Cook

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СКАЧАТЬ it’s just inside the tree line.’ She pointed to where spruce trees loomed high.

      ‘It’s empty?’ he asked, a flicker of something like relief on his face. ‘No one lives there?’

      Constance nodded.

      ‘All right. If you’re sure. But first …’ He wrestled each of his boots off and tipped out water before he stood and scooped the boots into his arms. His thick pilot’s uniform clung to him and as they walked Constance wondered what on earth the pair of them must look like.

      After a minute or two he asked, ‘How much further is this cottage?’

      ‘Not far.’ Constance hoped she hadn’t veered off course. She’d never been out to the unused ghillie’s cottage in the dark before. There’d never been the need.

      In the darkness of the forest the cottage appeared, looming suddenly. Constance tried the door but it was locked. ‘Oh no,’ she cried. ‘I hadn’t thought.’

      The pilot leaned against the cottage wall and put his head back against it. His eyes were closed. ‘Look under the mat.’

      Constance stepped off the front mat and lifted it. ‘Yes, of course,’ she said as she retrieved the key. ‘How did you know?’

      ‘Honest people always put their keys under the mat.’ His face was tipped up. Above them the clouds parted and the moon finally shone, bathing the pilot in light.

      For the first time since she’d set eyes on him she was able to see fully what he looked like. He had a strong jawline and he was handsome. Not like a film star, although she’d not been to see too many films recently up here since the war started. They were miles from anything exciting like that. But he was handsome in the sense that if she’d spotted him walking through the village, she knew she’d have glanced at him more than once.

      His eyes had opened and he was watching her. A small smile lifted the corners of his mouth. ‘Are you going to open the door?’

      Embarrassed, Constance fumbled with the lock and turned the handle. As they entered, a strong smell of damp hit them. The cottage had been shut up for about nine months, since the ghillie, like all the other male staff of fighting age, had joined the war effort. The ghillie’s home, the only estate cottage not situated in the local village, had been closed up ever since and was awaiting his return.

      Constance sought out a paraffin lamp on a low table and fiddled with it.

      ‘Don’t,’ the pilot said sharply.

      ‘Why ever not?’

      ‘The blackout,’ he replied. He was right. Constance realised the blackout blinds weren’t in place and as the clouds moved aside, the moon filtered through the windows. ‘Leave it,’ he continued. ‘For now. We need to get our wet things off before we freeze to death.’

      He dropped his boots to the floor. They clunked heavily but Constance’s eyes weren’t drawn down. Instead she looked at him in horror as he pulled his blazer off and dropped that to the floor before starting on his wet shirt. He had undone at least two buttons, exposing his chest, before Constance pulled her gaze away.

      ‘Hurry up,’ he commanded. ‘Take your dress off. Do you want to get ill?’

      ‘You can’t possibly expect me to remove my dress in front of you.’ She couldn’t keep the horror from her voice.

      ‘I’ll turn my back,’ he offered. ‘I’ve just crashed into a bloody great lake. I’m in absolutely no condition to think about that sort of thing.’

      Constance blushed that he should even mention it. After Henry’s nightmarish behaviour in the orangery, she was petrified it might happen again, here, with this pilot. She was buttoned in so tight she was unable to free herself from her dress anyway. She was sure the silk was shrinking tight against her body thanks to the water. The buttons at the back were plentiful and started at the nape of her neck and ran down the dress until they reached the top of her bottom.

      He had turned his back and must have been aware she wasn’t moving as he said, ‘Are you watching me undress?’ in an amused voice.

      ‘No! I need your help.’

      He turned, rolled his shirt up and dropped it on the floor. She’d seen her brother Douglas’s friends without their shirts plenty of times as they swam in the loch over the years but here, in this dark room with this man, it felt different. It was too private. He looked different to any of her brother’s friends – stronger, taller … just different.

      When she didn’t speak he asked, ‘What do you need help with?’

      Constance had momentarily forgotten about the buttons. She turned and he began unbuttoning her wet dress, his hands moving gently down her skin until he finished. The room felt still and Constance was aware only of his hands as they moved.

      As her unbuttoned dress gaped at the back he moved gallantly away and she became aware of the room again. The cottage had been left as if the ghillie had simply popped out for a few minutes. Other than the presence of damp and dust, items of furniture, ornaments and books had been left in the places that they had presumably sat for the past few years. From the back of a battered armchair the pilot pulled a tartan blanket and handed it to her.

      Constance wriggled out of her dress as she wrapped the blanket around her. Her wet underwear was uncomfortable and she realised she was going to have to shake that off as well if she was going to warm up. Although it was August, the air was cold inside the stone cottage.

      ‘I’ll light a fire,’ the pilot said. He moved around the room, fixing the stiff fabric wood-framed blackout blinds into place.

      ‘You’re still wearing your wet trousers,’ Constance said. ‘Look upstairs. The ghillie might have left some clothes behind.’

      The pilot nodded and assembled the fire in the grate, forming a tripod out of a few logs of wood and balling up some newspaper from the basket, throwing it into the middle. He found matches in a pot on the mantel above, struck one against the wall and started a small fire in the grate.

      ‘Warm yourself up while I find us some things,’ he instructed.

      Constance sat on the thinning rug by the fire and pulled the blanket tight around herself. The fire worked its magic and she stretched her bare legs out in front of her, wriggling her toes as the heat from the flames licked them gently. She marvelled at how she could be in the middle of her birthday party and then, only an hour later, soaked to the skin and alone in a cottage with an RAF officer whose plane had crashed into her loch. After a few minutes the pilot came downstairs wearing a pair of dry trousers and a thick blue woollen pullover.

      ‘They smell of mothballs but they’re dry,’ he said as he stood next to her, offering her a pair of men’s trousers and a thick white jumper that he’d found. He held out his hand and she grasped it as she stood. She said her thanks, took the clothes and went upstairs to put the trousers and shirt on. She rolled the waistband of the trousers over a few times but they were far too big and she kept her hand on them as she descended the staircase for fear they might drop to the floor.

      Constance sat back down in front of the fire and tucked her wet hair behind her ears. The pilot sat next to her, the firelight casting him in an orange glow.

      ‘What’s СКАЧАТЬ