Chapter Text
21 December 1943
Moon Squadron HQ
Jamie sat down on the edge of his bed, balancing the parcel on his knees, hesitant.
Maddie had explained nothing. She’d just handed it to him when he’d come to see her for a minute that morning—oddly shaped, wrapped in brown paper—and told him that when he went home, he was to give it to his mother, guarding it jealously in the meantime. Jamie thought Maddie’s eyes looked as though she’d been crying again, and the sight made his heart ache for her grief and reminded him only too sharply of his own. He wished he could, by force of will, heal her broken heart, but he knew that only time could heal her. Or him for that matter. And even time would never efface the scars of their loss. Those would be there always, as long as they lived.
They had arranged to meet for supper at the pub, but that was hours from now, and he had nothing else pressing to do with himself. Curiosity won out. He untied the string and opened the wrapping to reveal a rag-tag pile of mismatched paper atop Maddie’s ATA pilot’s notes and a composition book. The topmost paper was fine hotel stationery, written over in a hand he knew well.
Julie’s.
Boldly splashed at the top of the first page: I AM A COWARD.
No, he thought. Not you, little sister. Never you.
He read on, handling each sheet of paper as if it were gold leaf. Just like when she used to sit on his bed when they were younger and chatter endlessly at him while he was trying to read, now he heard her voice in the words, as though she were right there, telling him all this herself: soul-wrenchingly bright, and brave, and funny, in the face of ruin and death. It made him very unsteady, knowing she was dead but feeling that her words made her alive again, and he found himself chainsmoking through his precious stash of cigarettes trying to hold himself together.
He got to the last page of her confession and his last cigarette about the same time. Feeling completely numb, he mindlessly wrapped it all up again and put it in a safe place under his bed, and he threw on his coat and stalked out into the evening.
It was grey and still, and everything surrounding him was serene, belying his inner distress. Maddie was waiting for him outside the pub when he got to it, but he walked right past her, unseeing, and she followed him in.
He retreated to the darkest corner he could find, with a bottle of whisky for company, but he didn’t have any just at first. He only sat, silent, staring blankly at nothing.
“You read it, didn’t you?” It was not a question. She knew that he had, knew exactly what he was feeling. “I’m sorry, Jamie. I—”
“How, Maddie?” he interrupted fiercely. “How do we go on from here?”
She timidly laid a hand on his arm. Even through his coat, she felt his muscles tensed from clenching his hand, and she jumped when he slammed it on the table suddenly, setting the bottle and glasses shivering.
“Fucking sadistic Jerry bastard,” he cursed under his breath. “How could he do that to her? How could anyone ? Burning—oh, God, I hope he burns in hell.”
Maddie poured him a glass and he took it, throwing it back without ceremony, then laid his face on his arms on the table and quietly, sturdily sobbed for the next twenty minutes. Maddie edged closer and wrapped one arm around him, leaning her cheek on his shoulder, willing him to know she understood.
When his tears were spent, he sighed deeply and turned his face to her. She fished a handkerchief out of her pocket and handed it to him, her own eyes brimming in sympathy.
“Sorry, Maddie,” he said finally. “I guess I hadn’t expected to be punched in the gut like that when I started reading, but I couldn’t stop until I got to the end of what she wrote. ‘I have told the truth.’ And then I had to put it away. I couldn’t read any more just then.”
“I know.” Maddie nodded, her voice hushed. “I almost couldn’t bear it, either.”
Jamie sat up and his hand closed absently over Maddie’s, reaching for the bottle with the other. He poured Maddie some this time, too, and after a murmured slàinte they drank it in silence, in memory.
After a moment Maddie spoke. “I was a such a mess in France. I worried that you would hold it against me for pushing to take Julie, and also about what was happening to Julie, and about you being stuck in France too, and always so desperate to get home, and now I am home, safe, but she isn’t, and I’m so afraid of the future. Feel so alone.”
For a long time they were quiet. Then Jamie said, “I’m here, Maddie. I will always be here for you, whenever you need me.”
“I know,” she whispered, dimly aware that they had pressed closer to each other, desperately in need of someone to cling to, each needing reassurance of the other’s presence.
“Let’s get out of here,” he said suddenly, after another shared shot. “I will drink myself into oblivion if we don’t.”
Once outside, he took her hand again, and they walked slowly, going nowhere in particular. The night was dark now, and the waning half-moon was mostly obscured by cloud, but they well knew their way to the cottage.
They didn’t go in, but stood against the wall between the front door and the sitting-room window. The night was very cold. Maddie leant back against Jamie, and he wrapped his arms around her, sharing his warmth. The emotional firestorm had burnt out for the night, leaving behind a silence and a dull, unnatural calm in its place.
“I feel hollow,” Jamie said. “A bit like being suspended in a parachute that never lands. Just keeps falling and falling. Nothing seems real.”
“So do I,” Maddie agreed. “I feel like that almost all the time, since—since she died.”
After that neither of them said anything more until the sound of the clock striking nine o’clock inside jarred them from their stupor. Maddie turned and faced Jamie, who, seized with sudden madness, pulled her towards him. It was too dark to read his expression. He touched her face.
“I probably won’t see you again before you leave tomorrow,” he said.
“Probably not,” she agreed, thinking fleetingly how strong his arm was around her waist.
“May I kiss you, Maddie?” he whispered, his voice thick and uncertain, the burr stronger than usual.
“Yes,” she answered, softly.
Madness. This was madness.
He intended only to chastely brush her lips with his, but it wasn’t enough. She pressed herself into him, clinging to his coat, and he wrapped his arms around her tightly and kissed her again, more comprehensively this time.
Perhaps the whisky had gone to her head. She couldn’t breathe or think; she was only aware of a sensory explosion in her brain. When he let go of her, she swayed a little. The world seemed to be spinning out of control around them, but he laid his hand softly against her face again and the touch was her anchor, steadying her.
“Maddie, I—” His voice caught.
“I have to go,” she breathed, but she didn’t move.
“I know.” He paused. “Maddie, come back to me. Give me your word you’ll come back.”
“I will,” she promised.
He opened the door for her, still holding to one of her hands as she went inside. She turned for an instant back to him.
“Goodnight, Jamie,” she managed to whisper, and he kissed her hand before letting go.
Once inside, Maddie decided to take a bath so she could be undisturbed a while. She stood hugging herself while the water ran, outwardly still, but her pulse leapt and the warm electricity of Jamie’s kiss still exploded in her head like firecrackers.
Was this falling in love, she wondered? “I can’t have,” she thought. How could she fall in love when her heart was in pieces, adrift and alone? “But—but I think I did .” And she immediately fell into a fit of hysterical laughter that quickly turned into tears.
26 December 1943
Craig Castle, Castle Craig
In the smaller library, Esmé stacked the papers carefully and deliberately together, tapping their edges on the table to straighten them as well as they could be. She was composed, but Jamie, who had been watching her closely from where he was lounging in his favourite chair, saw the heartbreak in her eyes.
“I must write to Maddie at once,” Esmé said, mostly to herself. “Oh, the poor girl. She’s devastated.”
“We all are.” Jamie’s voice was tired, but he rose from his chair, stood behind her, and laid his hands on her shoulders. “Mother—”
She didn’t speak, waiting for him to continue. “I want to give her Julie’s ring, Mother.”
She looked up then, her eyes narrowing slightly as she studied him.
“Do you object?” he asked.
“Is the ring all you intend to give her?”
“No.” He sighed, suddenly aware he’d been holding his breath. “Myself too—if she’ll have me, I mean—but I think she will.” He remembered their heady parting kiss and closed his eyes tightly, attempting to quell the longing he felt to have her in his arms right then.
Esmé didn’t respond for what seemed an interminable length of time, and he began to feel anxious that perhaps she was going to disapprove his plan.
“You do realise, I hope, that she is very aware of her station in life and will probably object out of a sense of propriety?” Esmé asked, finally. “She is almost servile in her deference to your father and me when she’s here. That’s not going to be an easy hurdle to scale, James.”
“I know. But I have to try. I need her, Mother. I need her like breathing.”
There was another longish pause before Esmé spoke again. “The ring is in Julie’s room, in the ivory box in her vanity drawer. Take it. With my blessing.” She squeezed one of his hands affectionately. “When are you planning to give it to her?”
“I don’t know yet.” Julie’s death was still too fresh, and he and Maddie had never been more than friends in the eyes of anyone, including themselves. Officially, anyway. He knew that his thoughts at least had been straying beyond the confines of friendship for a while, and his mother was right—Maddie would think she was not worthy to be the wife of an earl’s son. “When the right time comes, I guess I’ll know. I don’t want to push her too fast.”
But neither did he think he could wait too long.
The day after Maddie got her letter from Esmé, there was another one for her, but this time it was from Jamie. He’d never written to her before, and her heart leapt unexpectedly at the sight of it. She found a secluded corner to sit in and opened it eagerly.
Dear Maddie,
Thank you for being such a wonderful comfort in distress. It meant the world to me to be able to read what our Julie wrote, and to have you not turn away from my response of horror and pain afterwards. You have always been so good and gracious to me, from the very first. I always felt Julie was safe when pragmatic, no-nonsense you were there with her. Giddy lunatics do need balance, after all, and my family is rather full of them.
I read the rest, your part of the Ormaie account, on my train home after you left, and I fell apart again. I am glad neither of us have to bear this burden alone (though I desperately wished you were beside me then, too—I thought it was hard to read what Julie wrote, and didn’t expect it could possibly get worse. It did.) You did the right thing. You were her best friend, and now you are, truly, the best friend I have. I know I’m not Julie, but—well, we both know and understand what happened to her. Maybe we’re the only ones who can really help each other now.
Which brings me to the point of this note. I have been slowly falling in love with you for months and when we kissed goodbye the other night I realised I simply can’t keep it to myself anymore. Reading between the lines of your Ormaie journal, I am fairly confident the feeling is mutual.
However, if I am mistaken as to your real feelings, I promise I will remain your friend forever and never bring this up again. But I don’t think I am mistaken. I know that I cannot conceive of any future for myself without you in it, somehow. Be my best girl?
With love,
Jamie
Maddie folded the letter carefully back into its envelope, glowing warm inside, feeling very honoured and a little shy, but very, very pleased. She ran to her room and dashed off a reply right away.
Jamie,
I just read your letter and I’m in such a dither I can’t even hold my pen steady. I’m not good with words like you, but you are not mistaken, and—YES
Maddie
Only after she dropped it into the letterbox did she lose her nerve, and waves of self-doubt poured in, drowning her elation in cold realism. She tried pointlessly to reach in and pull the letter out, but of course she couldn’t reach it, and she sighed.
He’s the son of an earl . You are a nobody , Maddie Brodatt, you idiot, this will never work! It’s not like you could ever marry him .
“But—but,” she thought, while she battled the sick feelings rising inside her, “I can’t see a future without him in it, either. Don’t want to, anyway. Oh, why am I always getting myself into trouble?”
18 February 1944
Moon Squadron HQ
The lads had been jovially but mercilessly teasing all through supper, and Maddie was visibly withering in self-conscious agony. Jamie took her to the sitting room, ordered out the people who were there (Julie was not the only one in the family who had Presence), and shut the door. They sat side by side on the couch, Jamie at ease and casual, Maddie anything but.
“You can relax now,” he said, but she remained stiffly on the edge of her seat, her ankles crossed and tucked as far under the couch as they would go, staring into the fire.
“Tell me what’s on your mind?” He leant forward so he could see her face.
“This is never going to work,” wailed Maddie, her words tumbling out in a torrent. “Us, I mean. I keep thinking about it and I can’t see what possible future the granddaughter of immigrant tradesmen can have with the son of an earl. I’ve been kicking myself ever since I sent my letter to you, thinking, ‘this is hopeless, I’m an idiot, we really shouldn’t be—’”
He laid a finger on her lips to silence her. “You sweet dafty lassie. There is nothing— nothing —that stands in the way of us. What my father is—all right, so it’s not your world, but it isn’t as if it’s me inheriting the title—extremely unlikely, anyway. And even if I did, it just doesn’t matter. We can help and support each other like nobody else ever could.”
“Surely your mother wouldn’t—” Maddie began.
“My mother loves you. I was there when she wrote to you. I saw the letter, and she meant every word of it. We talk very frankly with each other, Maddie. If she objected, I would know. My brother married a librarian and everyone has been quite satisfied with that arrangement. They will be no less satisfied with you, supposing, perhaps, you someday... married me.”
Maddie was quiet, still not looking at him. She was thinking hard, and Jamie waited, watching her face closely for indications of receptiveness to his suggestion, but he couldn’t read her expression at all.
“But if you’ve really changed your mind,” he said finally, “I did promise to ask no more of you, and I meant it. Have you changed your mind, Maddie?”
She almost said yes. But then she did look at him, and she stopped herself. His eyes were transparently pleading, and sincere, and full of longing. Then she glanced down at her hands primly clasped in her lap, and at his hand that seemed to be waiting for hers to come to it, and thought some more, and then she inched one of her hands a little closer to his in the space between them on the couch. He took it, and she said in a low voice, “I—I haven’t changed my mind. I believe you.”
His eyes lit up then, and he put one arm around her and drew her closer. She leant against him, still nervous as a cat, but feeling just a little better about the situation, and he started to tell her things, which suited her just fine. She liked listening to him when he was contemplative, as he was now. His voice was even and soothing, and she slowly forgot herself in her engagement in his tales of his childhood and Eton.
He paused at one point, and Maddie, who was still holding his hand, asked him about being shot down. “If you don’t mind telling me, that is.”
“Oh, I don’t mind,” he said. “When we got hit, everyone except me and my navigator was killed instantly in the blast. He and I were able to bail out all right. Had a raft in our gear but didn’t have time to do a thing with it until we were already in the water, so you can imagine the comedy that ensued trying to inflate it and get into it. Thoroughly soaked by the time we got it up, both of us. Hamilton was shaking violently and in shock—I was a bit too, of course, but he and the gunner had been very good friends, and he was younger than me, so he took it harder, I guess. He kept chattering incoherently for about twenty minutes and then he lay down in the raft and just gave up. He had lovely sad brown eyes—kind of like Ronald Colman’s, you know?—and he died with them open—silent, no fuss, staring up at the sky. I tried to shut them when I realised he was gone, but couldn’t. Still have dreams about that sometimes, those haunting hopeless eyes that never close.” He shivered involuntarily at the memory. “Anyway, I was determined I wasn’t going to let cold water lick me , so I took his socks and coat and anything else warm of his I could use to give me extra layers. It was cold , Maddie. And everything we had was drenched. If I’d been submerged the whole time, I wouldn’t have made it. I was getting very tired when I was rescued. I don’t remember much about that part, actually. I was on the edge of survival by then. I think the raft sprung a leak, because I was floating on my back in my life vest when they pulled me out.”
“How dreadful,” Maddie murmured, staring at him with sympathy and a bit of awe.
“Rather. They took the toes right away, they were that bad. I wasn’t conscious for a while after they brought me in and I didn’t know until I woke up. They thought at first they could save my fingers, but after a few days of trying they had to take those too, and I became Rather Gloomy,” he went on. “The will to keep fighting that kept me going out there in the sea just dissolved in the shock afterwards. It wasn’t until after they took off the fingers that I realised I was not, in fact, invincible—Julie had rather idolised me, so I was a bit full of myself, I guess, being her favourite. Couldn’t really compete with my brothers, at least not the oldest three, since I was the youngest. Anyway, I’d thought nothing would ever get me down and now I was down, and I mostly succeeded in convincing myself that I’d spend the rest of my life useless to anyone, maybe wouldn’t walk properly, and I was dead tired of the cheerful nurses chirping rot about How Splendidly I Was Doing, so when Julie came flying in and threw herself at me acting like I was at death’s door, I thought her snivelling was rather refreshing, actually.” He laughed. “It surprised me enough that I actually reacted—I’d been a moping sloth for quite a while at that point—and I reached up to stroke her hair and then I realised I couldn’t, and I was about to join her sobbing when I looked over her head and saw a pretty girl I didn’t know shyly hanging back, looking at me with intense curiosity and sympathy and openness. I didn’t know what she was actually thinking, but there was something a bit challenging in her face that said, ‘Pull yourself together, laddie, it’s not as if you lost your arms or legs!’”
It was Maddie’s turn to laugh. “I was thinking you looked like death, and Julie’s being so upset made me want you to brace up for her sake. She was so upset and crying all the way in on the train.”
“So I wasn’t too far wrong, then.” He squeezed her hand. “Well, I decided to prove I wasn’t broken, that I was still myself, and I would go on with my life as if nothing had happened. It took some doing, though—I wasn’t over it instantly, but at least I started to try. I went and got this done after I got out of hospital, to remind myself that any self-respecting Stuart wouldn't let something like a few missing fingers and toes get him down." He rolled up his sleeve, and showed her a simple, elegant tattoo on his upper arm, of a sword piercing a heart, with the words Virescit Vulnere Virtus across it on a scroll.
“What does that mean?” Maddie asked, tracing the words with the lightest of touches, looking deeply thoughtful.
“Stuart clan motto. It means ‘courage grows strong at a wound’.”
“I like that,” she said. “Very much.” She smiled, looking at the hand holding hers, stroking it gently. “Do they hurt, ever?" she asked after a longish silence.
“Like ghost pain? Not much. More trouble with my feet—always so cold, and not much feeling in them anytime, so I have to be careful since I can’t always tell when they’re getting too cold. And I have a bit of Julie’s vanity, so I’m glad that I get to hide them in my shoes so nobody knows. I don’t mind my family knowing, of course, or them teasing me. That’s different. And you,” he added firmly, “are family.”
“That’s not vanity,” Maddie answered. “But you needn’t fret on my account—it doesn’t matter to me. It never has.”
“Just one more reason to love you.” He spoke softly and stroked her cheek as gently as if she was likely to break. “But I’m glad I didn’t lose all my fingers. I’d never have been able to touch your lovely face, if I had.”
“They’re enough,” she whispered. Their faces were so close, and she held her breath, captive to his fond and steady gaze. He kissed her cheek, very sweetly, and, rather predictably, she blushed. Then he just held her and they enjoyed the fire and the quiet together until they had to say goodnight.
15 April 1944
Moon Squadron HQ
Maddie, having just brought the Moon Squadron a lovely new Lysander, hurried off to find a place to change into her skirt and comb her hair. She was going to try to look as decent as possible, if she had to spend another evening amongst hilarity aimed at her. She knew the lads meant no harm with their teasing, and she did so like them all, but it was terribly trying to be the bullseye of their attention. She almost missed being Just One of Them, but it also made her feel special to have been chosen by one of them as his particular girl.
Maddie frowned critically at her hair in the little mirror. She’d got all the tangles out, but now it looked about as becoming as a dandelion gone to seed. She sighed, shrugged, clapped her hat back on, and tossed her comb back in her bag. It was a lost cause.
She stepped outside and began walking purposefully in the direction of the cottage, but a moment later was surprised to hear Jamie’s voice behind her.
“Maddie! You’re going the wrong way!”
She turned and ran back towards him. He hugged her tightly, told her she looked lovely (she snorted a bit at that), and kept his arm around her shoulders while he walked her the opposite direction, towards town.
“Where are you taking me?” she asked.
“Somewhere where we can eat our supper in peace,” he answered. “And then I am taking you for a long walk in the woods, where we will conveniently become lost until well after dark, to give the lads something new to rib us about.”
“Oh, Jamie, you’re mean,” she said, but her scolding ended in a giggle.
He shrugged and winked at her. “You’ll be off at two, and it’s me that will take most of it. They’ve been making wisecracks about what a slow mover I am since they wangled it out of me that I didn’t even kiss you when we were alone last time, so maybe they’ll ease up on me a bit if I give their over-eager imaginations a little push. After all, if they are really so concerned about the excitement level of your love life, it isn’t as though they haven’t had years to make moves on you themselves—”
They went to the same pub they had sat in before Christmas. It seemed much brighter and cheerier now than it had then, and it was lovely just to be there under happier circumstances. They toasted each other (Maddie with tea, because she was flying later) but Jamie had her share of the whisky along with his.
“I think I’d feel safer with you slightly buzzed than I ever felt with Paul sober,” she said abruptly. She had been quietly watching him for several minutes, and the comment seized his attention.
He opened his mouth, hesitated, then asked, “Did he do anything to you, besides what you wrote down?”
“ No, ” she said emphatically. “No.”
His relief was obvious. “Good, because if he had, I’d want to kill him. If he wasn’t already dead.”
It made her feel warm inside to hear him say that, and she smiled.
“Not that I’d begrudge you past lovers, mind,” he added quickly. “Just as long as you wanted them.”
She burst out laughing. “There are none, what do you think I am? I’ve never been asked to a dance or on a date, let alone have a boyfriend—”
“Until now,” he reminded her.
“Until now,” she conceded, with a self-conscious half-smile. “But it wasn’t Paul’s filthy hands that were the worst, really. I could push those away, but I couldn’t stop his horrid words and joking about me like he did. Still makes me feel dirty inside.” She made a face at her hands, twisted together in her lap. “It’s not true, what he said about me not liking men—it’s only that I’ve never been interested in toying with people’s affections and risking letting them down just for the sake of a few hours or weeks of entertainment. I just can’t do it. I won’t give myself away to anyone without being dead sure it’s for always, for both of us. I know it sounds prudish, but—”
Jamie had had to lean close to catch the last bit, because she had lowered her voice. “You’re a gem of a lass, Maddie,” he said softly, lifting her face to his. “You are not prudish, not one bit. You just don’t want to be let down yourself, any more than you want to let someone else down, and I love you for it.” He wanted to add, This is for always , but he didn’t. He just looked at her thoughtfully, and then he took her hands.
“You’ve always given me honesty,” he said, “and I owe you mine. I’ve never had a steady girlfriend, but I have chased after and flirted with plenty. Lots of kissing and petting and sneaky shenanigans in the moonlight—” he stopped, looking slightly self-conscious himself for a minute. “But I’ve managed by some miracle to not actually have slept with any of them, though I came close a few times. I don’t know if that matters to you or not, but there it is.”
“I guess I just assumed most men—” she stopped and looked away, unable to make herself say “sleep with girls all they want to”.
He understood, though, and laughed softly. “Not all men are sex fiends, my darling, not any more than all women are vestal virgins on their wedding night.”
She responded just as he suspected she would, ducking her head trying to hide her blushing face in her hair, and he felt his adoration for her grow exponentially in that moment. “But there hasn’t been anyone for a long while, Maddie. It seemed that the war, and knowing you, have sobered me up. Pursuing girls for—for the sake of entertainment, as you say—hasn’t been high on my priority list the last few years. I’m after the real thing now, Maddie, and I think you are it.” He tucked her hair back over her ears and whispered, “Now, all that out of the way, it is time to proceed to stage two of Operation RAF Grapevine.”
She shook her head, laughing in spite of herself, as she got up and followed Jamie out, letting him lead her into the wood just outside the village. “I come here often,” he told her, lifting a long, low-hanging shoot so they could duck under it. “I figure if I have to be idle, and I often am, I’d rather be idle out here among the peaceful birdsong with a book, or else just dreaming about drains. And you.”
“ Drains ?”
He laughed. “I’m a bit mad, I know, but drains are as lovely and interesting to me as engines are to you, I think. See, we were destined for each other.”
“It’s lovely here,” Maddie said happily, evading acknowledging the last remark.
“There,” he said, and pointed to a mossy, massive old oak, whose roots formed a perfect seat on the forest floor. There was room for two, if they sat close, but although Maddie sat, hugging her knees, Jamie opted to lie down beside her, his head comfortably resting on the thick moss. There was a slightly wicked gleam in his eyes as he reached up and wound his finger in one of her curls—a perfect ringlet that had most fetchingly escaped from behind her ear.
“Come and join me?” he invited.
She hesitated, starting to say that she would probably fall asleep and she had to leave the airfield at two—
“Do you trust me?” he asked, kindly.
And she sighed and relented and, with the tiniest flicker of a smile, lay down beside him, albeit somewhat stiffly. The backs of their hands barely touched, but there was an insistent, palpable hum between them that Maddie felt and did not understand, and it pleased her and frightened her all at once. But she did trust him.
He didn’t do anything much. He turned on his side and laid his arm over her, and that was all. She felt completely relaxed, and her eyelids grew heavy. She really was terribly sleepy.
“Rest, darling,” she heard him whisper. “I’ll watch over you and wake you in plenty of time to get back.”
The evening sun filtered through the leaves above them, and danced golden with the shadows like glimmering sovereigns on the ground. It was cool, but everything was still, and she was safe.
When she opened her eyes again, the light was gone, and she sat up quickly, shaking her head, trying to reorient herself. She couldn’t see Jamie. It was too dark.
“Awake?” she heard him ask, from not very far away.
“Yes,” she answered, sleepily, her head still dull.
“We’ll go back then,” he said, giving her a hand up. He led her back through the trees, evidently as familiar with these woods by night as by day.
The walk cleared her head, and she went to her room to change out of her skirt. He was waiting by the front door when she came back. The cottage seemed unusually quiet, and all Maddie could hear was the loud tick of the clock and her own heart beating. As he pulled her close, she wondered nervously if he would kiss her again, and whether it would leave her breathless and giddy like the last time.
But he did not kiss her. He framed her face with his hands and studied her eyes with an inscrutable expression. He let out a long breath, leant his forehead to hers, and whispered, “While you were sleeping out there, I thought about what you told me earlier, and I am determined not to let you down. I want you to know that I am not your superior officer and I am not going to give you orders and expect you to follow me blind. You are an intelligent, lovely woman, and you will always have equal voice with me. And while I am beyond recall in love with you and I want to spend the rest of my life with you, I don’t think you know yet for sure whether you love me, and therefore I have decided that I am not going to complicate things. So,” and here he hesitated a little, “until you ask me to, I am not going to kiss you again.”
His words had come out in a torrent, and Maddie was so touched that she instinctively wanted to exclaim, “But I do love you!” out of her great longing to please, but she shut her mouth, and swallowed the words, and nodded.
“Thank you,” she said, almost inaudibly, her hands resting on his shoulders. She could feel his desire to kiss her, but she understood somehow that what he really wanted was more than a kiss. He wanted all of her, for always, and holding himself in restraint was clearly requiring a great deal of willpower.
“I love you, Maddie,” he whispered. “Think about it. Next time we’re together—maybe then you’ll know.”
16 April 1944
Dear Jamie,
I told you last night that I’d never been to dances or dates or had lovers, which is technically true—but on my way home I realised that we were speaking of it in the context of the lovers being men. And I think I should tell you about Julie and me, because although we were not lovers in the romantic sense, we were so close that I am a little afraid to write of it. I don’t want it to make a difference to you. Perhaps it won’t.
Julie and I were tied up together tightly—loyalty, trust, affection, sharing secrets and things we never shared with anyone else. It was a very deep and wonderful bond, something so mysterious and a bit magical that I don’t honestly know if I’ll ever love anyone that way again. I really don’t.
Julie told me about a girl she was absolutely mad about the summer of 1938, a girl who taught her how to give proper kisses, so I knew she was open to anything, but she never once indicated that she felt that way for me. She enjoying playing with men, leading them on, but she just couldn’t be serious with any of them. She became rather disillusioned with men with her interrogative war work, too—and I don’t blame her. She was a very different sort of girl with me. I think we knew we could just be us together—it was that simple. But other people might not have understood.
We were so close, Jamie. Every chance we got, it was hugs and snuggles and kisses on the cheek, arms around each other walking down the street, hands clasped under the table at meals, sharing a bed whenever we could—anything, just to be close. It was comforting and lovely and sweet and completely platonic. Julie was very good at filling that emptiness in me, the need for touch I did not know I was starved for, and which she needed without the complications of romance. She was the sister I always longed for.
None of what I did with Julie ever made my body respond the way it does when you touch me or kiss me, involuntary and powerful. It frightens me a bit—I don’t know what is happening to me in those moments, I feel so very vulnerable and helpless, as though I’ve lost hold of the controls and I’m going down in a flaming spin.
I am afraid you’ll take all this the wrong way. I am no good with words. I like when you kiss me, truly, but I am relieved more than I can say that you've put my hands back on the controls. I need a clear head to calculate rationally, and my brain goes up in fireworks every time you are close to me, doing whatever it is you do that makes me go all wobbly.
I really am hoping you will reassure me that your feelings for me aren’t changed by anything I’ve written here. I’m still trying to make sense of my own feelings. You have been so patient while I dither with myself endlessly about what exactly it is that I even want, and I am so grateful for that.
Maddie
20 April 1944
Oh my sweet dafty lassie, how long until you realise that NOTHING will change my feelings for you? Even if you had been romantically involved with Julie, even if you never can love me the same way you loved her, I would still want you over any other woman.
I’m going to try to call you, but in case I can’t get through, I just wanted to put this in writing for you.
Love always,
Jamie
PS. I know exactly the girl Julie was referring to. I had no idea Julie was crazy about her. Most of that summer I had a crush on the same girl. My goodness , her poor mouth must have been very busy, between the two of us batty kids.
6 July 1944
Moon Squadron HQ
There wasn’t time for a proper date tonight—in fact, Maddie hadn’t counted on seeing Jamie at all. She had dropped off another new Lysander and would be taking one away for repairs, but Jamie had somehow heard she was coming and he came seeking her out. She lit up at the sight of him, but her smile faded a little as she saw his serious expression and felt the sense of urgency with which he steered her into the trees near the cottage.
“What is it, Jamie?” she enquired anxiously. “Has something happened?”
“They’re moving the Moon Squadron to France in a few weeks.” A strong tinge of unhappiness permeated his otherwise carefully controlled voice.
“No!” she burst out, hoping she’d heard wrong. “No, they can’t do that!”
“They can,” he said gently, taking her shoulders and looking her in the eye. “And they are, and I’ll have to go—but Maddie, they’ve given me three days off before they send us over.”
“When?”
“The last of the three is Julie’s birthday.”
“I have two days off then,” she said, as if to herself. She was still shocked, and hardly knew whether she had said the words out loud.
“Yes, I thought you did. Well, Maddie, I love you and I want to—I mean, will you—marry me on her birthday?”
She stared at him, mouth open, trying to take in all he’d just said, and emotions ran riot in her heart. She felt desperate and elated and unspeakably sad all at once, and then she hid her face in his shoulder and began blubbing ungracefully.
“People are always going away and dying,” she sobbed out. “I don’t want you to be one of them! I’ve lost Julie, and I’ll just—I can’t bear it if you just disappear or die so far away. I want to know where you are, know you’re safe!”
Jamie gently held her, staring off into the distance, lost in his own thoughts. After a while, Maddie’s sniffling quieted, and she lifted her head with a shaking sigh to look at him.
“There are no guarantees of safety anywhere in wartime,” he reminded her, his voice gentle. “Not even here.” He leant his head to hers and went on pleading, “Maddie-love, please say yes. I can’t let us fly away from each other tonight without something to hang on to. We need each other.” His breath was soft on her face and she closed her eyes, clinging to his coat, listening, mind racing. “Whenever we’re apart, I can’t think of anything much but you. Say yes, Maddie. Please. Please shake some sense into your dithering brain and say yes.”
She swallowed and her words came out in something of a squeak.
“Yes, Jamie.”
He sighed as if a great burden had just been rolled off his shoulders and he smiled at the sky.
She swallowed again, trying to summon up her courage. “Kiss me, Jamie?” she finally managed to whisper, hoarsely, timidly.
“Oh, ma chérie ,” came the unhesitating answer. He smiled fondly at the glint of the undried tears still tracking down Maddie’s cheeks. He kissed them away, then tightened his hold of her and kissed her sweet mouth, and brushed his lips softly down her neck. She made a startled but happy little sound and her knees buckled. In a moment they were on the grass, Jamie kissing her as if he would never have another chance. Maddie thought her heart might just explode with wonder and joy, but she lay there stupidly trying to imagine what on earth was an appropriate response to such an outburst.
When he finally paused to catch his breath, he saw her wide-eyed face and grinned impishly. “Relax, Maddie-lass. Pretend we’re dancing and follow my lead.”
Maddie giggled nervously. Always pretending, she thought with a smile. Her heart overflowed suddenly with love for this crazy boy as they lay face-to-face, glowing in the golden sunset light.
“I guess it took the thought of losing you to shock me out of my doubts.”
“In that case, the squadron moving to France is the best thing that has ever happened to me,” he said, adoring her. “Though I’d be quite happy to just stay right here forever.”
She timidly reached her hand to his face and scooted a little closer so she could kiss him back.
“Wherever did you learn to kiss like that ?” he asked her a moment later, surprise and pleasure glinting in his eyes. “I thought you said—”
“I’m just following your lead, like you said to,” she replied. Her voice sounded unnaturally coy in her ears. What was happening to her?
“Well, you’re amazing. Come here and do it again.” He pulled her back into his arms, and for a long time they lay there, as close to each other as it was possible to be in the open air, fully clothed, in a place where anyone might pass by and see them, kissing and cuddling and whispering secrets. He teased her playfully, and she blushed and stammered and felt very, very special.
The sun dipped over the horizon, and they sat up at last. Jamie leant against the tree trunk again and Maddie nestled into him, savouring the warmth of his arms. He sighed deeply in contentment, using his free hand to pick grass and tiny twigs out of Maddie’s tangled curls. It seemed to Maddie that she would never be able to tear herself out of that warm, quiet haven of his arms, where there were no bombs, no war, nothing but love and safety and hope. She was glad to have taken shelter there. It seemed now the obvious and only place to be.
After a few more minutes the moon began to rise and they both looked at Jamie’s watch at the same moment. “Have to get back to the airfield,” he said, regretfully.
They walked there, hand in hand, and when they had to say goodbye, he took off the leather lace from around his neck where his identity disks were tied, and he undid a few knots and took something off of it. Almost before she realised what he was doing, she felt something cold slipping onto her finger. She lifted her hand in the moonlight to look at it. He stepped back a little so he could see her face beaming at him.
“It was my great-grandmother’s,” he said softly. “Passed down to my mother, then Julie. Now it’s yours.”
She clenched her fist to her chest as if she was afraid the ring would vanish if she wasn’t careful.
“I will never, ever take it off,” she promised, almost fiercely. She took his leather lace from his hands, tied a good solid knot, and put it back around his neck. Then she surprised him by stepping close and kissing him .
“I love you, Jamie,” she whispered against his mouth. “I really do. I will marry you on Julie’s birthday.”
He kissed her back, lightly, and then they stepped away from each other into the night.