But that was months ago. Now they’d grown used to each other’s habits, to all the shades of expression and gesture and humor. Kit was so familiar that Daisy, gazing at his face, catching his glance across the bookshop or her grandmother’s suite or some discreet café in the tangled alleys of the Left Bank, knew exactly what he was thinking, anticipated exactly what he would say. Lying here in Kit’s narrow bed, clothes strewn around them, skin glowing furiously, she felt as if they had somehow grafted together, two seedlings grown into one, her postcoital vigor merging into his languor as two parts of the same perfect whole. She was Kit, and Kit was Daisy. As they had just established yet again. She folded her hands beneath her chin and stared at Kit’s lips.
“It’s been two minutes, at least,” she said, “and I don’t see how you can fall asleep at a time like this.”
“I don’t see how you can remain awake at a time like this.”
Daisy traced the curve of his chin with her fingertip. “But don’t you see? Every victory, each little advance, it’s not just a victory for France. It’s a victory for us.”
“How’s that, darling?” Kit mumbled.
“Because once the Germans are defeated, we’re free, you and me. I can leave Pierre, and we can get married.”
That made his eyes fly open. “Madame Villon. Are you proposing to me?”
“Of course I am. And you had better say yes.”
“Oh? Do you have some notion of punishing me?”
She reached downward. “I have many ways of punishing you, rosbif.”
“Ah! Yes! So you do. Then I expect . . . I expect . . . my God . . .” His words fell away into a groan; his eyes closed once more.
“Yes? You expect?”
“I expect . . . I expect I had better say Oui, mon ange, whatever you wish, I am yours to command.”
“That’s better.”
“Ah, don’t stop. Please. Go on punishing me . . . all you like . . . yes, even more . . . I deserve it . . . but tell me . . . what was I thinking? . . . tell me . . .”
“Yes?”
“What has brought this . . . God save me . . . what has brought this charming idea into your head, all of a sudden?”
“What idea?”
“Marriage.” He turned another gasp into a sigh. “And don’t say it’s Algiers.”
“No reason,” Daisy said. “Only that I love you madly and want this stupid war to end, so we can live with the children in some sweet little cottage and make more babies together.”
Kit’s eyes flew open again. “What did you say?”
Daisy drew her hand away and sprang from the bed. “Nothing. We must get to work.”
“You said more babies.”
Daisy found her brassiere and fastened it swiftly. “Mon Dieu, mon amour, we will have time for babies later. Let’s not get ahead of ourselves.”
“But you said—”
“There is a war to win, after all.” She yanked on her shirt, fastened the buttons, and turned to Kit, who still lay in the bed, propped on his elbow, a scrap of blanket to protect his considerable modesty, tousled and beautiful, long naked limbs everywhere, arms that had held her close a moment ago, had made love to her, of all women, the luckiest Daisy in the world. She bent to kiss him. He took her hand.
“Daisy,” he said, “if you wish me to marry you this very instant, you know I’d do it.”
“But I have a husband, mon amour. It’s very inconvenient.”
“I could kill him, if you like.”
Daisy thought he was joking, but she couldn’t be sure. He certainly looked grave, as if he meant it, but then the English sense of humor was often incomprehensible. Kill Pierre for her. Would he do that? Did she want him to? Her lover, to kill the father of her children? She thought of God, she thought of Madeleine and Olivier. No! A thousand times non. Which was why she could not tell Kit this secret of hers, even though the knowledge—while frightening her to the bone—also doused her with floods of love, as she held his hand and felt his pulse connecting to hers.
No, not yet.
But please God, let those armies triumph, now in North Africa and then all over Europe. Let the enemy fall. The sooner the better.
When Daisy and Kit had begun their affair four months ago, it was July, and the air inside Kit’s cramped sleeping quarters was hot and oppressive, leaving them panting and sweating and almost outside their own skins when they made love. Now it was dank November and a very different story, but it was not just the weather that had changed.