Lovely War(20)

“I’m not people, then,” he said, “because I’d be there. I wouldn’t miss it.”

She took his hand and gave it a squeeze. “We’ll see.”

Piece after exquisite piece of music peeled away. Dvo?ák and Alkan and Paderewski and Saint-Sa?ns. Some concertgoers might have felt the performance was long, but not James. Not Hazel. They applauded at the finale, lingered as long as they dared, then made their way through the throng and out into the cold twilit air. They turned toward the train station.

“Stop for tea, then?” James asked.

Hazel shook her head sadly. “I’d better not. I . . . er . . . I didn’t tell my parents where I was going this afternoon.”

His mouth hung open. “You what?”

She looked at the ground. “I will tell them,” she said. “I just didn’t see a way to do it.” She glanced up at him. “My folks, they’re lovely. I can’t believe I’m doing this. I do think they’ll like you, once they get to know you.”

“Thanks.” James laughed. “I’m an acquired taste, then? Takes a bit of patience?”

She flushed, and elbowed him lightly in the ribs. “Stop that!”

“Stop what?”

“Teasing me.”

He stopped walking and turned to face her. She shivered a little in the cold, and he instinctively reached his hands up to cradle her face and keep it warm.

KISS HER.

Hazel held her breath. His brown eyes were so beautiful. Surely he would kiss her now.

He didn’t. Maybe, Hazel realized with awkward horror, he was waiting for an explanation about her parents. So she gave him one.

“My dad is very protective of his ‘little girl,’” she explained, “and my mum is terrified of life in general. She’s always telling me horror stories about what happened to so-and-so’s daughter who fell in with a worthless, no-good chap, and on and on.”

“Worthless and no-good,” James echoed.

Hazel held up a firm hand. “Now, you stop right there,” she said. “You know that’s not what I’m saying.”

He grinned and admitted that he did know that.

“Dad’s always warning me against soldier boys, too,” she said. “And . . . I can understand why he would. He doesn’t want me getting hurt.”

James stroked the pads of his thumbs softly across her cheekbones.

“I will never hurt you, Hazel Windicott.”

She came very close then to kissing him herself.

“I know,” she whispered. “Not if you could help it.”

Neither could find words for all they didn’t dare say.

Finally she mumbled something about the cold, and he mentioned their train. They broke apart and resumed walking, then reached the station and boarded their train.

“Anyway,” she said, resurrecting an abandoned conversation, “I knew if I told my parents about you, they’d insist on meeting you, and on chaperoning our time, and on limiting it to whatever they felt was proper. Which wouldn’t be anywhere near enough.” She looked earnestly into his dark eyes. “We only have one week. I don’t want to waste any of it.”

If it weren’t for the prying eyes of a plump older woman across the aisle, James would’ve enfolded Hazel in his arms then and there.

“I feel I could tell you anything,” he told her. “Sometimes I think I already have.”

True, and false. He couldn’t tell her what he really felt.

“Then why,” she said, “haven’t you kissed me yet?”

All her limbs clenched, as if, maybe, by sheer muscular will, she could pull back those words and unsay them. But James let the nosy older woman be hanged and slipped his arms around Hazel and drew her close.

“Oh, don’t worry,” he told her. “I have every intention of kissing you.”

His face was an inch from hers.

She took a deep breath.

Nothing happened.

If he was trying to kill her through kiss deprivation, it was working.

She tried to sound nonchalant. “Every intention, eh?”

He nodded, very seriously, but with a twinkle in his eye.

“I’m planning it carefully,” he said. “Can’t rush these things.”

“Actually,” she said, “one can. If one wants to.”

She saw the texture of his skin and the dark stubble forming on his chin. She saw his teeth—quite nice teeth—and the adorable dimples, when he smiled.

“I will kiss you, if I may, Miss Windicott,” he told her, “on the train platform at Charing Cross next Saturday. Before I set off overseas.”

I don’t like delays. I was not amused.

Hazel, however, was. She began to laugh, and the shape of her smile nearly made James abandon his plan of waiting. He pressed his cheek against hers. Just like when they’d danced.

“I appreciate the advance notice,” she said. “I can dress for the occasion.”

“It’ll be a kiss to remember,” he told her. “I’ll make sure of that.”

Hazel laughed in his ear. “You’d best remember to do it, then.”

“I won’t forget.”

She pulled back, with difficulty, and met his eyes.