Free The Nurse's War by Merryn Allingham Page B

a series and resigned themselves to spending most of the nightaway from home. Limbs were spread more widely, shoes removed, coats bunched as pillows or tucked into the body as protection from the ferocious draughts that sailed in from either side of the tunnel.
    Grayson watched these preparations with an indifferent eye, but when he turned back to her, his gaze was sharp and the quiet voice had become unyielding. ‘It’s been good to catch up with each other’s lives, Daisy, but I don’t think you came all the way from the City on your one free day to talk about my work or yours. What’s going on?’
    There was to be no escape then. When she dared look at him, she felt her eyes drawn to his and saw determination there, but kindness too, and something a good deal deeper and warmer. What she had to say would anger him for sure. It might even hurt him and that was the last thing she wanted. But the confusion, the wretchedness she’d felt these past few days had reached a crescendo and, in a moment, it had toppled and burst through the flimsy defence she had built.
    ‘Gerald is alive,’ she blurted out.

C HAPTER 5
    S he felt Grayson’s body tense against her, saw his face become stone.
    ‘Gerald is alive,’ she repeated. She still hardly believed it herself.
    ‘Gerald? Gerald Mortimer?’ His bark of laughter was ugly, forced.
    ‘Yes. Gerald—my husband.’
    ‘But that’s crazy. Why on earth would you think that?’
    ‘I don’t think it, I know. He’s here in London. He came to see me.’ It was getting easier now. Her breath was still catching, but she was managing to put one word after another.
    Grayson wasn’t so adept. ‘But … But how can he be?’ he stuttered.
    ‘He didn’t drown. He was rescued by villagers downstream.’
    ‘That’s impossible. The river that day … you saw the river, Daisy. You stood on its brink. No one could have survived that torrent.’
    ‘He did,’ she said flatly. ‘Somehow he managed to hangon to wreckage from one of the festival floats. He was pushed into the bank some miles from Jasirapur, and the villagers found him and looked after him until his injuries were mended. Then he made his way back to England.’
    ‘Just like that.’ Grayson still seemed stunned, but there was a sour edge to his voice.
    ‘I don’t think it was quite that easy. He hasn’t told me much about the journey except that it took months. He begged his way out of India, and then through Turkey and across Europe. He found a job in France, but then war was declared. And here he is.’
    Grayson’s legs twitched. He looked as though he would give anything to jump to his feet and disappear down one of the tunnels. Instead, his hands harrowed through the brown sweep of his hair until it almost stood to attention. His mouth was tight and his forehead creased; beneath its rigid lines Daisy could see a whole encyclopedia of questions forming.
    ‘But why? Why come to England, why not return to Jasirapur?’
    ‘If he’d gone back, he would have been arrested. You would have arrested him.’
    Grayson glared furiously at her, as though her remark was so self-evident it wasn’t worth uttering.
    ‘And he still can be arrested,’ he was keen to remind her. ‘The Indian Army will want a court martial for certain. He’s brought dishonour on his regiment. But he’s also guilty of a criminal act. He should stand trial for theft, even treason.’
    Daisy nodded dumbly. He was not saying anything she’d not already told herself a thousand times.
    ‘And now, of course, he can add desertion to the charge sheet.’ Grayson was angry, very angry. ‘Not to mention his treatment of you.’
    ‘He did try to save my life,’ she said in a small voice. ‘You once reminded me of that.’
    ‘That was when I thought he was dead.’ His voice was savage. ‘What possessed him to desert? Couldn’t he for once have acted like a man, owned up to his crimes, taken his punishment? Evidently not.’
    She didn’t