The Spitfire Girls(71)

She breathed deeply. ‘Yes. But . . .’

‘No buts,’ he said. ‘I don’t care if I’m lying in this bed during our ceremony – I want to be married to you.’

Ruby felt a quiet thrill of joy. Their circumstances might have completely changed, but they were going to carry out their plan. She would marry her Tom after all.

‘Just because I’m your wife, you can’t tell me to give up flying,’ she murmured, hating that it was the first thing that came to mind, but needing to say it anyway. ‘You can’t go back to being all bossy about my choices as a pilot, Tom.’

‘I wouldn’t dream of it,’ he said.

‘Oh, but I dream,’ she confessed. ‘I dream of us both walking away and finding a little house somewhere, being safe and just raising a family together. I think of it all the time. Even when I thought you were gone, I couldn’t stop imagining it.’

‘We all do that, Ruby. We need that dream to help us do what we do, to know that we’re fighting for the freedom to build that life. To survive this bloody never-ending war.’

Ruby shut her eyes again, imagining they were there already. There was an emptiness inside of her, knowing that she’d been growing a little life that had been extinguished so fast; it was almost as if it had never been there at all. But it had, and she wasn’t going to give up on that dream of having a baby and creating a home with Tom.

‘Do you think this war will ever end?’ she asked him. ‘Will we win it?’

‘If it doesn’t end, all of this, everything we’ve lost, will be for nothing, and I can’t accept that.’

She wanted to ask him how he’d survived, wanted every little detail so she could piece together what had happened, but something was holding her back. Tom was clinging on to her like his lifeline, and just as she didn’t want to relive the moment she’d miscarried, she doubted he’d want to revisit the excruciating moments he’d endured in order to live.

‘Can I have my senior commander as witness, if she can make it?’ Ruby asked. ‘And my friend Polly?’

‘Of course.’



Two days later, Ruby glanced at May and Polly standing beside her, proud to have them by her side. They didn’t have long – May had come to get her en route to collecting the second batch of Spitfires and Polly was having to pick up a large aircraft to ferry a group of them back from Colerne – but it was long enough.

‘You look beautiful,’ May whispered to her.

Ruby looked down at her uniform, something she was so proud to wear, but wished that today she’d had a dress; that she could have been the radiant bride wearing lace and silk.

‘You do, Ruby. You’re absolutely radiant,’ Polly said.

‘Thank you,’ she said honestly, knowing how special it was to be wearing the uniform at all.

‘She’s right, you do look beautiful,’ Tom added, as a man approached them. ‘And here’s our ticket to wedded bliss.’

The captain who was marrying them hurried over, a big smile on his face as he arrived, slightly out of breath. Ruby fought a childish giggle as he smoothed two fingers across his thick moustache before speaking.

‘Ah, our lovely couple. What an honour it is to marry two such accomplished pilots.’

Ruby beamed, so proud of what they’d both achieved. It would be weeks if not months before Tom was able to fly again, but fly he would, and soon they’d both be back in the sky.

May and Polly both stood to her side in the garden as she held hands with Tom, and they spoke their vows. Within minutes he was carefully circling his arms around her as she gently held him back. She slipped her hands around his waist as he tipped her back, and she kissed him through laughter as enormous drops of rain started to pelt them, striking her face and slowly soaking her hair as they stayed wrapped in one another’s arms.

‘No!’ she moaned. ‘Not today!’

Tom grabbed her hand, and she leaned in to him one more time, kissing him full on the lips with everything she had. ‘I love you,’ she murmured against his mouth. ‘I love you so much, Tom, with all my heart.’

The poor man was still limping, and she knew how much it must hurt him to even attempt to run, but they moved as fast as they could back towards the makeshift hospital that was to be his convalescing home for the coming weeks. It was a house that had been requisitioned in Yorkshire, and the wide verandas provided the perfect shelter from the mid-morning storm.

Once they were in the dry, she touched her hair, dismayed that the beautiful up-do had been ruined in the space of minutes. But then Tom held her tight and she soaked up the feel of his warm body, the light in his eyes as he stared down at her, and the musky, male scent of him.

‘I’m sorry to interrupt, lovebirds,’ May started, clearing her throat from behind them. ‘But it’s time to go.’

‘Already?’ Tom groaned. ‘Can’t I have her for another few minutes?’

‘Sorry, Romeo, you’ll have to consummate your marriage another day,’ Polly said with a giggle.

All four of them laughed, until Tom slipped a hand around Ruby’s neck and leaned in for a last kiss.

‘You keep her safe,’ he murmured, his gaze fixed on May.

May shook her head. ‘You know that’s a promise I can’t keep, but your girl is one hell of a pilot.’