All I Want Is You (28 page)

‘Listen to me,’ he broke in harshly. And he told me at last, what had happened to him during the war.

‘For the first two years of the conflict,’ Ash said, ‘I flew fighter planes, as I’ve told you. As you already knew, it turns out. But by 1917 I’d left the Royal Flying Corps because I’d argued with the government officials who gave us orders – amongst them Lord Sydhurst – and I’ve told you why: because I wasn’t willing to keep quiet about ministers like Sydhurst getting their palms greased in exchange for crooked government contracts. Shortly after that, I wrote my last letter to you, then I went to join the French air force – the
Aéronautique Militaire
.’

I turned slowly to face him. I think the colour had drained from my face. ‘France. But people said – people said…’

‘That I’d fled England because I was a coward?’ He smiled bitterly. ‘Of course – Sydhurst and his friends were eager to blacken my name. No, I joined the French, whose air force was, incidentally, far superior to ours. And you already know that I spoke French fairly fluently.’

I was painfully tense. Why hadn’t he told everyone this? Why hadn’t he dispelled the vicious rumours about his cowardice?

‘A few of us,’ Ash went on, ‘were given orders to bomb vital roads and railway junctions in Germany. But one night my plane was brought down, and I was sent to a prisoner-of-war camp called Mindhoven.’

‘Was that when your hands were burnt?’ I whispered. ‘When you crashed?’

He nodded. ‘Otherwise I was unharmed. But unfortunately the Germans were waiting for me.’

I tried to imagine what it must have been like, plunging to the earth in one of those vulnerable aeroplanes. ‘So you were a prisoner.’ I tried to sound as calm as he was, though the thought of him trapped in a burning plane horrified me. ‘But they treated officers well, didn’t they, in the camps?’

‘Usually,’ he answered, ‘but not at Mindhoven. You see, it was run by a rogue commander, who couldn’t bear the thought of defeat and was exacting revenge on all of us. We were treated badly.’

My heart lurched again. ‘In what way?’

He shrugged. ‘Oh, inadequate rations. Punishments. The usual.’

Punishments. Oh, my poor Ash.
‘So your injuries – your burns – weren’t tended as well as they should have been?’

He smiled mirthlessly. ‘I won’t go into details, but certain guards took pleasure in – prolonging the agony, shall we say.’

‘Ash.’ I leaned forward desperately. ‘No one knows
anything about all this, and that’s so
wrong
. At Belfield the servants used to think you’d left the country to avoid the war. They used to say that you… that you…’

‘That I went off to America to make money? Believe me, it’s better than the truth,’ he said harshly. ‘Four brave men were executed at Mindhoven – and it was my fault.’

‘Four men?’ I gazed at him in utter dismay. Everything was wheeling dizzyingly around me so that the room, the furniture in it, even his face were nothing but a blur as he said this. I gripped my hands together in a desperate effort to steady myself. ‘But you couldn’t have meant them to die. You couldn’t have.’

He was gazing at me with the familiar bleak look of his that always filled me with fear for him. ‘Listen to me. In my hut there were several French prisoners – pilots, like me – and they decided to begin digging a tunnel from under our hut. I couldn’t help them because of my hands, but I offered to keep watch for them.’

His voice didn’t change, but I noticed a chill enter his eyes. ‘I betrayed them, Sophie,’ he said. ‘Four of them made their break for it at night. But they were stopped by the guards as they came up out of that bloody tunnel of theirs in the dark outside the camp fence. They were shot the next day, after they’d been told it was me who’d betrayed them. I was made to watch their execution. Some of them were still alive even after several bullets had hit them. One of them was only nineteen.’ His voice was still steady. ‘I shall never forget for as long as I live the way he looked at me before they blindfolded him. I betrayed them, and that’s all you need to know.’

He spoke with such terrible finality, but it was his stillness afterwards that frightened me the most. I really thought the silence would last for ever. I wanted to say,
I believe in you, Ash. I will always believe in you.

‘I love you,’ I whispered. ‘I know that you are good and true.’

‘No,’ he breathed. ‘No, you’re wrong to think that, Sophie. You’re wrong to waste your love on me. Because…’

‘Because what, Ash?’

He shook his head, his eyes as dark and as savagely sad as I’d seen them. And so I simply leaned my cheek against his chest and held him tight in my arms; my poor, poor Mr Maldon, who hated himself so much; he was so beautiful, so damaged, my brave scarred man. I was half hoping, half dreading that he would tell me more, but at last, with a sigh, he moved me away a little, smiled gravely down at me, and said, ‘Let’s get some sleep.’

After he’d turned out the lights I lay awake in that big bed, counting the chimes that rang out every quarter-hour from the big clock down in the hallway. I’d spent so many years in this house, hearing that clock in the distance, and now here I was, in the arms of the man I loved, and I wanted that night to last for ever, so I could simply hold him.

He was sleeping, and I was glad, but once as the owls were calling outside he stirred and opened his eyes. He murmured, ‘Still awake, Sophie?’

‘The owls disturbed me just then, as they did you,’ I
lied. ‘Go back to sleep.’ I smiled. ‘Mr Maldon. Your Grace.’

He touched my cheek. ‘I care for you, Sophie,’ he said. ‘You know that, don’t you? Whatever happens next – you know that?’

‘Yes,’ I whispered, though my heart ached, because what I wanted was his love. He eased me closer to him and slept once more, and I must have fallen asleep at last, in his arms.

But suddenly he lashed out. ‘Don’t touch me,’ he snarled. ‘Don’t ever touch me again, you fucking,
fucking
bitch…’

He jumped from the bed, wide awake now; he’d caught my cheek with his fist. I curled up away from him, shaking in the dark. His dreams. Oh, God, his dreams.

‘Sophie.’ He was urgently reaching for me. He gathered me up, kissing me. ‘Oh, Sophie. Oh, sweetheart. Oh, God, I’m so very sorry.’

He started to tell me everything then. How at Mindhoven they’d brought in a new guard, a woman, who reported directly to the commander. Her name was Birgit and she was beautiful, in a cold sort of way, he said.

Birgit pretended at first to be on his side. ‘She used to order me to come to her for questioning every day,’ he told me, and I curled myself close to him with his arms around me and my face pressed close to his chest. The way he said all of this, in a flat, terrible voice in the darkness, appalled me.

‘At first,’ he went on, ‘it was just talk. Then she would offer me coffee and cigarettes, and pretty soon came
alcohol and sex. But all the time I was thinking, “If she really is on my side, perhaps I can use her to get out of here.” Then one afternoon, she took me to another room behind her office and locked us both in. She’d given me vodka, lots of it, but I thought my head was clear. She handcuffed me to the wall, and I thought, “So she wants to play rough. All right, I’m stronger by far than she is. I can cope with this.” ’

And it was then that I felt him, my brave, strong man, start to shake. ‘I couldn’t cope, Sophie,’ he breathed. ‘She clearly enjoyed a fair amount of cruelty as far as sex was concerned – and although I wouldn’t say I was eager for any of it, I could tolerate the handcuffs, and the rest of it. But that was only the start.’ He closed his eyes briefly. ‘I was expecting a mixture of pain and pleasure. But… the pain was excruciating.’

‘What did she do?’ I whispered.

‘Look at my hands.’

‘I thought you didn’t like me to—’

‘
Look at them.
’

With the greatest gentleness I took his right hand then his left, palms facing downwards so I could see his burns in the faint dawn light that was starting to creep through the curtains. And my stomach turned over when I saw several long silver scars cutting their way through the mottled, uneven skin.

‘She did that?’ I could scarcely speak.

‘She did that,’ he answered in a flat voice. ‘I shan’t go into tedious details, but she had various… implements in her room, amongst them a selection of whips made with thin wires. She used to whip my hands.’

But the flesh must have scarcely begun to heal from his burns.
‘Oh, dear God in heaven,’ I breathed.

‘Then she would give me more vodka, and when I was almost on my knees, she would seduce me – if you can call it that. And the sex was intense. She could judge my limits pretty well; she knew that after a certain point an entire Turkish bordello wouldn’t be able to rouse me, but she took care never to push me that far. She was damaged, badly damaged; she knew how to inflict pain, acutely so. I think in her mind the pain was inseparable from sexual pleasure; she tried, each day and night, to lower me to the same depths as her, then she would arouse me again. She relished my pain, she relished my pleasure, she bound me and then she would touch me all the time, greedy for me.’

‘You mentioned day and night,’ I interrupted. ‘Did she keep you locked in there, Ash?’

‘No, she wanted information from me about the other prisoners, so I was often back at the hut with the rest of them. But the guards would drag me again to Birgit whenever the fancy took her, you could say, and they helped her to strap me down, or suspended me in handcuffs from the wall. The other prisoners thought she was out to get information from me about the Royal Flying Corps.’

I closed my eyes briefly. ‘You must have hated her.’

‘Perhaps. But the person I truly loathed was myself, because she was still able to arouse me.’

I tried desperately to stay calm. ‘What else did she do?’

‘The usual. She flogged me. She put clamps on me.
She… inserted objects into me.’ I heard him give a dismissive breath. ‘The sort of things you’d pay for in a seedy London brothel, only ten times worse. I’m sorry, Sophie – all this must disgust you.’

I shook my head fiercely. ‘
No,
Ash. I’m not a child. So she did all this – and you said it was to get information from you about the other prisoners?’

‘That was part of it, of course. Those were her orders – to find out about any plans for escape. But the truth was, she was simply a sadist, and I thought she might damned well kill me. I would be strapped on the leather couch she had in there, and for the first time in my life I felt completely helpless. I couldn’t fight back, I couldn’t control my own body. Then – ’ he clenched his hands – ‘
then
she told me that all the other guards had been taking it in turns to watch the two of us, through a concealed window. She told me they found our sexual activities amusing.
Where is the tunnel?
she would say. She and the other guards had already got wind of the escape plan, you see.
When do they plan to break out?
’

I started to kiss him, because my heart was breaking for him and it was all I could think of, all I could offer. ‘I love you, Ash,’ I whispered again, ‘I love you. You are beautiful and brave and good. I know you’re no coward, and those poor, poor men who died must have known it too, they must have.’

‘Not when they saw me led out by Birgit to watch them being shot.’

‘They would realise you must have been under quite unbearable pressure,’ I emphasised. ‘And I would kill the woman Birgit if I could!’

He gave a sort of gasp, then he caught me up in his arms and I realised he was laughing softly. ‘Oh, Sophie, sweetheart. I do believe you would. I love you, and I want you, so very very much.’

I think my heart stood still then. ‘You do?’

‘I do.’ He was tenderly tucking my hair behind my ears. ‘I do, I do. Your letters – oh, Sophie, your letters…’

I felt hot, remembering my childish missives. ‘They were foolish,’ I said quickly. ‘I was so young. I was so stupid.’

‘
No.
Listen, Sophie. When I was released from Mindhoven, at the end of the war, I was bitter and damaged – I’d almost ceased to believe the world had any goodness left in it. But your letters were waiting for me in London. I read them,’ he went on steadily. ‘I’ve told you that. But what I’ve not told you is that your sweet innocence, your loyalty, your absolute trust in me – they reminded me of better things, of a better life. I went on to America because I thought my future lay there. But I kept your letters. I never stopped thinking about you, ever.’

‘All this time,’ I breathed. ‘All this time.’

Suddenly I twisted to face him, lifting one leg so I straddled his thighs. I kissed him, I kissed him deeply and slowly, and as I felt him slipping down the straps of my nightgown and cupping my breasts, I felt them grow heavy and their peaks tighten unbearably. I was still kissing him; I sucked on his tongue so he moaned, then I pulled away and breathed, ‘I want you, Ash. I want you to make love to me now. This minute.’

I could feel his erection, rearing hard and thick against
my abdomen. Desperation was clawing at me. ‘You can blindfold me,’ I added quickly. ‘You can tie me. I understand now – it’s because of
her
, isn’t it? – and those guards who watched you. You need to be in control, you can’t bear to be looked at, and
I don’t mind.
’

I waited. But he didn’t make any move to cover my eyes or restrain me. Instead he tipped up my chin with his finger and kissed me, then he slowly pulled off my nightgown.
His eyes, oh, God, his eyes
; I could feel tongues of fire wherever his eyes rested, and between my legs I was desperate for his touch.

He stroked his scarred hand over my breast and my ribs. He said huskily, ‘Are you wet for me, Sophie?’

I groaned in answer, my pulse racing as I sat facing him, kneeling with my legs spread over his heavily muscled thighs. He was still in his pyjamas, but I ran my hands down the sides of his powerful lean torso and started to undo the buttons of his top. A shudder ran through him, but…
he didn’t push me away
. Gathering courage, I pushed the garment apart and pressed my mouth to his chest, kissing and soothing, finding one flat nipple and tugging it gently with my lips.