The Light Over London(72)

She lifted her gaze to her new husband, but his expression was unexpectedly flinty. “I don’t want her brave. This bloody war . . .”

“Really, Paul,” she chastised him lightly.

He swore, snatching up his glass. “If you ask me, they should’ve never started women’s auxiliary branches. It’s too dangerous, not to mention the distraction.”

“What?” She’d heard that argument more times than she could count, but she’d never thought she’d hear it from Paul. Of all the men in her life, he should be the most supportive.

“We’re doing vital work,” said Charlie. “Everywhere you go there are posters and newsreels and radio reports telling women to join up and free up posts for men to go fight.”

Louise jumped in, saying, “We’re protecting cities and helping fliers like you—”

“Now I’m supposed to be grateful that you might shoot down a pilot I miss in a dogfight because I can’t hit him on my own?”

“That’s not what I said.”

He pounded his fist on the table. “That’s what it sounded like, and I won’t have it, Louise. I won’t have it at all!”

Silence blanketed the table, and even Reggie stared. Louise sat frozen as her new husband lit his cigarette and threw the gold lighter down next to his plate. He took a draw and closed his eyes, and his shoulders seemed to drop an inch. When he opened his eyes again, his gaze slid from face to face.

Instantly, his demeanor changed. He sagged in his chair, placed two fingers to his right temple, and rubbed the spot as though a headache was to blame for his outburst.

“I’m being a brute, darling. An absolute brute. I’m sorry,” he said.

He wanted her absolution, but she couldn’t give it to him. Not when his words still hung in the air.

The worst part was, now that she thought of it, it wasn’t just this outburst. How many times had he written to her in the past five months arguing that Ack-Ack Command was too dangerous?

“You don’t understand what it’s like knowing you’re in the middle of bombed-out London, waiting for the Luftwaffe to take potshots at you,” said Paul, his voice rough.

“I do know,” she said quietly. “That’s how I feel every time you write to tell me that you’ve flown a mission or shot down a plane or been shot at yourself.”

“But you’re a woman. You’re better equipped to deal with these sorts of things. Fear. Emotion. Men go off to war, and women stay behind and tend the home fires, like Odysseus and Penelope.”

She shook her head. “I would have gone crazy at home waiting for you. I had to come out and do something.”

I wanted to be something more.

“Hear! Hear!” Charlie said softly, mimicking Reggie’s earlier outburst.

Paul covered Louise’s hand with his. “One day, this will all be over and we can go back to the way things were.”

“The way things were?” She laughed. “That was me in a pokey little town with no hope of ever leaving.” That would be her crammed back into a small life, her path planned out for her by other people determined that they knew what was best for her.

His lips thinned. “You know what I mean.”

“I’m not sure I do. I like wearing this uniform. I like working. Why do you want me to give that up?”

“Come on now, darling. You can’t blame me for not relishing the idea of my wife going up on a roof to play around at war.”

Her chest constricted at the insult. “Play? You think I’m dressing up and playing like a child?”

His lower lip popped out in a sulk. “You know what I mean,” he said again.

Never before had Paul shown this old-fashioned, stringent side of him. In his letters he’d expressed his worry for her, but she’d assumed he would appreciate and understand her situation. Now, for the first time since she’d joined up, she wondered if she’d had him all wrong.

“When I go up to that gun, I’m as much in danger of being hit as any man,” she said as calmly as she could. “The Germans shoot at us because we’re shooting at them. They don’t think we’re playing.”

“Well, yes, but—”

“And I will not stand for anyone doubting the importance of that. Especially my husband.”

The word seemed to snap Paul back to the charming man she knew. He took her hand, kissing the back of it. “Forgive me, Louise. I hate to be separated from you. You don’t know what it did to me leaving you behind in Haybourne.”

“And what of the things it did to me?” she asked.

“I know you left home and joined up because of me,” he said.

That’s not true sat heavy on her tongue. Paul had been the catalyst, but the desire to cast off the restrictive future her mother dreamed of for her had been building in her long before she met him. She’d just been waiting for the right moment to break free and find her own life. One with work and friends and purpose.

But she held back because they’d quarreled enough for one day—their wedding day. Delicately, she lifted her champagne to her lips but found that the bubbles had already started to go flat.

Paul squeezed her fingers gently. “Be patient with me, darling. I’m trying my hardest.”