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‘This is my fault?’ Her tone was lighter than it had been in the past few minutes.

‘Yes. No question. I am particularly helpless and easily led in your company.’ He risked a slight wryness as he said this and it helped. She let out a small sighing chuckle that was ringed with its own feeling of sorrow. ‘I was always going to be vulnerable around you, even before I knew you.’

‘My poor, brave soldier. You’re one of the heroes who survived the war.’

He squeezed her arms gently but firmly to make his point. ‘But not you. I won’t survive you easily. I will live with the injury of loving you from here on. And there I was thinking my sense of despair couldn’t sink any lower. Now I have a whole lifetime of regret to look forward to.’

He still spoke in that slightly dryish manner, half serious, half joking, which she knew was meant to ease the tension, yet beneath it he was hiding the pain that she shared.

‘You don’t love Bethany, please tell me that.’

‘I do not!’ He implored her with a searching gaze as much as the fast response. ‘I never have, Alex, other than as a sort of sister. But I have agreed to save her from the misery of her life that doesn’t carry the Blakeney stamp. She is a very decent girl.’ He looked away with such sorrow that she could only feel remorse for her behaviour. ‘And my mother adores her.’

Alex glanced at her watch, feeling lost for what to say, so she did the British thing of straightening her shoulders and changing the subject. ‘We’d better make a move.’

And like a good fellow Brit, he responded precisely how he needed to with a polite reply and acquiescence to her suggestion. ‘Yes, of course.’

‘Harry, let’s go into Harrogate. Perhaps cheer ourselves up a bit before you go. Shall we?’

He gave a crooked smile. ‘If we linger here in this place of passion, we’ll only become more miserable around each other. Tea in the trenches always helped somehow.’ He sighed. ‘We just have to find the courage to say goodbye and once we walk away, it will become easier.’

She didn’t believe him and knew he didn’t believe it himself, not for a second, but they both smiled and nodded.

20

Alex turned the ignition and the heater cranked up again. She eased the car away from the verge and Harry felt glad they hadn’t bogged in the damp or even slid on any vengeful ice still remaining. The heavy car purred forward and as they approached the bend ahead he was once again thrown into the frame of mind that one never knows what’s around the corner.

The woman he loved seemed to grasp where his mind was.

‘Who knows what’s ahead for us, Harry,’ she echoed his thoughts. ‘Don’t lose hope in life. We have peace in the world. That’s a start, isn’t it? Surely everything is easy after that?’ she appealed, desperately looking as though she wanted to believe it herself.

‘Indeed,’ he sighed. ‘Although the war kept me away from my responsibilities at home and I didn’t have to carry guilt. Now I have no more excuses and my duties loom large. I’ve been avoiding going back to Sussex but my family will only tolerate a few more days of me on this errand for a dead soldier. I lied and said Tom was a friend.’

She nodded. ‘Well, you’re not lying about what you’re trying to achieve for Tom and we will speak of him but first, Bethany. Tell me all of it.’

Harry leaned his head against the thick leather of his seat and sighed. ‘She’s been in love with me since we were children – all through school, even though I was packed off to boarding school in Hampshire, and all through our teenage years.’

‘Did your brother know?’

‘Yes. Everyone knew. And everyone knew I didn’t reciprocate those feelings. It was hard on her to watch me going out with other girls but to me Beth was a kid sister, a good friend. I was always kind to her but not in the way she wanted. In the end she settled for Ed, who was crazy for her. They were made for each other. Beth just couldn’t see that.’

‘She settled, is that what you’re saying?’

He threw her a reluctant look. ‘Beth grew up around us; she was an only child with a lacklustre family life and was desperate for the affection we provided just through the general hustle and bustle of our lives.’ He shook his head. ‘She was just . . . well, part of the scenery of my childhood. I couldn’t think of her in the way she wanted me to.’

‘But Ed could.’

He gusted a soft laugh. ‘Ed was the kindest of all of us. I can’t understand why she took so long to notice him.’

‘Can’t you?’ she asked sarcastically; to his knowledge he had never consciously counted his looks in his armoury.

‘He would have made her a dedicated husband.’

‘You know, Harry, I’m a firm believer that we can’t help whom we love. For most of us girls it’s not a neat and tidy list to tick off. It is for our parents, perhaps, especially in a family such as mine, where actually loving that partner is so far down the list you’d probably have to turn the page.’

He chuckled. ‘Likely true.’

Alex looked left and right and left again before she turned at a junction. ‘Ah, it’s a straight run now into the town.’ She paused. ‘There’s nothing easy to understand about why one person loves another. That Beth loved you all of her life is real. Her relationship with Ed would always have been how I am with Matthew . . .’