“I’ve had to. It’s the only way I can keep from getting hurt. I envy you, Eve. I always have. Everywhere you go people love you. I’m afraid to love as spontaneously as you do.”
“You need to let go of your fear and take a chance while you still can. Robert may be going into combat soon. We both know the invasion is coming with the promised ‘second front.’ We know why they’ve been massing troops and piles of equipment. None of us knows what tomorrow may bring. We could all be dead and forgotten. In the meantime, why not take a chance on love?”
“Where . . . how does one begin?”
“Tell Robert how you feel. Tell him that your friendship has become something more to you. Tell him you want to be with him every single moment you possibly can.”
Audrey looked down at her lap. “I could never do that. It’s not the way I was raised. One doesn’t boldly speak one’s mind that way.”
“Look around you, Audrey. Look what’s become of your beautiful home. And remember what London looked like today? Does anything you see resemble the way you were raised? Did you ever think you would wear an ugly uniform and drive an ambulance and eat in a mess hall and shower with a dozen other women? The war has erased the rules and traditions we grew up with. England is never going to be the same again. And neither are we.”
“You’re right, you’re right. . . . I know I’ve changed. . . . But what if Robert doesn’t feel the same way about me?”
Eve rolled her eyes. “He does, believe me! Haven’t you noticed the way he looks at you? Doesn’t it make your insides melt?” Audrey looked away, blushing. “And why do you think he writes so many letters? I don’t write to Alfie as often as you write to Robert, and Alfie is thousands of miles away, not forty.”
“But . . . what if he doesn’t love me?” she asked in a tiny voice.
Eve huffed in frustration. She was trying to be patient, but she didn’t want her friend to miss her chance at true love because of fear. “Even if he does reject you, you’ll be no worse off than you are now. You can still remain friends. But if I’m right, and he is in love with you, then you’ll never be sorry that you took a chance.”
“What about his girlfriend, Linda?”
“It’s up to Robert to worry about her. She has nothing to do with you loving him.”
The peaceful look on Audrey’s face had vanished, replaced by a furrowed brow and pinched lips. “Did you tell Alfie how much you love him?” she asked. Audrey was stalling, but Eve indulged her.
“I told him that I love him, yes. And he claims he loves me. But he also admitted that he loves your father’s money more.”
“That can’t be true. He looks so happy when he’s with you.”
“Alfie hides behind the same wall of ice that you do. He’s just better at masking it with a show of affection. He’s as scared and unfamiliar with relationships as you are. Where would he have learned to be a good husband? Or to have a loving marriage? Not from your parents. Alfie doesn’t know how to love any more than you do.”
“Yet you love him and hope to marry him?”
“I love him, yes. But he isn’t going to marry me and risk his inheritance. At least he was honest enough to admit it. The war is changing all of us, so for now, I’m hoping our darling Alfie will come home a different man, with different values. I hope he’ll see that love is the most important thing in the world. And right now, I’m trying to get you to see the same thing. Hasn’t this war changed you, Audrey?”
“When I look in the mirror, I hardly recognize myself. I’ve learned to do things I never imagined I would be brave enough or strong enough to do.”
“Then tell me this—do you want to live your life after the war according to your mother’s rules? Do you want to be a socialite, marry a rich man you don’t love? Let the servants do everything for you, including raising your children?”
“I don’t. No.”
“Then take a chance, Audrey. Melt the wall of ice and tell Robert you love him. I guarantee you’ll never regret it.”
“But what if—？”
“Don’t even think about all the what-ifs. Because even if things don’t turn out for Alfie and me after the war, I will never regret loving him.”
Audrey didn’t have a chance to see Robert the next morning before she and Eve had to hurry back to their base. She hadn’t slept well, unable to stop thinking about Eve’s words. Her feelings for Robert were so new and unfamiliar that she had no way of knowing what they were. She had merely floated along like a ship on calm seas, enjoying every moment with him. But Eve was right. What she felt was love. She was in love with gentle, brilliant, kind Robert Barrett. The possibility of losing him terrified her. What if he was killed in battle? What if he returned home to America and she never saw him again? What if he didn’t love her as much as she loved him?