Free A Rose in No-Man's Land by Margaret Tanner Page A

don’t you realize what a risk you took?”
    “I don’t care. I’d do it again if Major Vincent asked me.”
    “Don’t be foolish. You could be dishonorably discharged from the nursing service.”
    “He wanted to go home.” Her voice wavered, and tears burned her eyes. For the teenage soldier and for the hopelessness of her love for Mark.
    “You have to be tough to be a nurse out here.”
    “You mean hard and unfeeling like Ella?”
    “No. You’re gentle, warm.” Feather soft, his fingers caressed her cheek. “You feel things too intensely. What am I going to do with you? I really fear for you sometimes.”
    “Shh.” She pressed a fingertip against his lips. “I’ll be safe with you here to take care of me.”
    “I better get you inside,” he rasped. “I wish we could go away somewhere together, leave the rest of the world with its restrictions and narrow-minded attitudes behind.”
    Love welled up in her breast until she felt like drowning in the tumultuous sweetness. Her whole body trembled with an emotion too great for mere words.
    Stepping inside, he put out his hand to assist her. The light spilling over his face turned her heart to stone. Ella’s bright red lip paint! Smeared all over his mouth!
    “Amy, what is it? Are you unwell? You’ve gone so pale.”
    For a moment she stood rigid with shock, struggling to speak, but no sound would pass out of her paralyzed vocal cords. Shaking her head made the blood drum in her ears, and life filtered back into her frozen limbs. From a hundred miles away she heard herself saying. “You’ve got red paint all over your mouth.”
    His face blanched. The white sickliness about his mouth caused the ugly red smudge to stand out more vividly than before.
    “It is not what you think.” He wiped his mouth with the back of one hand.
    “You lied to me.” She walked away with her head held high, her heart shattered into a million fragments.
    At their table Millie, Dick, and Guy ate supper, dainty sandwich triangles and fancy pastries. The sickness of betrayal crept up into her throat. With a huge effort, Amy swallowed it down. Her head ached with the effort not to cry. Tears burned at the back of her eyes, unshed, because pride would not allow them to fall.
    Their glasses were already filled with champagne, ready for one last toast to 1914, when Mark returned.
    “Where have you been?” Guy asked with a grin.
    “Here and there.” Mark sat stony-faced as Guy laughed and joked, oblivious to the frigid atmosphere between her and Mark.
    Amy answered a question from Millie with forced gaiety, and when an English officer asked her to dance she accepted with indecent haste. He was young, cheerful, and she laughed at his jokes as they waltzed. To any casual observer, no one was having a more enjoyable evening than Sister Amy Smithfield.
    Mark’s hard gaze battered the protective wall surrounding her heart, reducing it to rubble. She pretended not to care, in case someone else noticed the shocking hurt he had inflicted.
    After dancing several times with an English artillery officer, she wondered in a detached kind of way why he failed to notice how brittle and forced was her laughter. Four glasses of champagne helped dull her pain, though, making the pretence easier to carry off.
    They welcomed 1915 with a loud fanfare from the orchestra and rousing cheers from the assembled crowd. Everyone started kissing and hugging each other, yelling out good wishes.
    A dozen different young men kissed Amy before her arms were captured in a masterful grip. She was roughly swung around and dragged up against Mark’s rigid body.
    “Must be my turn to taste your lips.” His eyes glinted dangerously. “You’ve given them to just about everyone else here tonight.”
    His mouth swooped on hers. He kissed her with a savage ruthlessness that brought tears to her eyes.
    She kicked him a couple of times before he loosened his grip.
    “Will you let me go? People are staring at us.”