“Where’s Robert? Is Robert here?”
“Lieutenant Barrett is just outside. The nurse will send him in when we’re finished.”
Robert was allowed inside a few minutes later, and the sight of his handsome face was all the medicine she needed.
“Listen, I have good news,” he said after he kissed her. “The paperwork we need in order to get married has gone through. My CO expedited it when he found out what happened to you. We can be married whenever you’re ready.”
His face blurred as Audrey’s eyes filled with tears. “That’s wonderful!”
“But there’s some bad news, too. I’m being deployed to France.”
“Let’s get married before you go, Robert. I don’t want to wait. Life is so short, and it could end for either of us at any moment.”
“Won’t you need time to plan—？”
“No. Let’s ask the vicar to marry us right away. Right here.” She surprised herself. Audrey had always been a planner and a plodder, afraid of change. But her narrow escape from death made her determined to live each day fully from now on. “We’ll ask Louis and Eve to be our witnesses.”
Robert laughed. “Don’t you want a lacy white dress and a flower-filled church? What about notifying your father and your brother?”
“You’re not trying to back out of this wedding, are you?” she asked, smiling.
“God forbid!” He kissed her again. “I just don’t want to rush you.”
“Robert. All I need is you.”
Eve arrived at the hospital later that morning, wearing a worried look and purple bruises and scrapes. “Oh, Audrey,” she said when she saw her. “I was so scared for you. I’m so glad you’re alive!”
“I’m glad too, believe me. They say you saved my life.”
“You would have done the same for me.”
“I owe you, Eve, and I’ll never forget it. Thank you. And now I have a favor to ask. Well, two favors, actually.”
“Anything.”
“Will you contact Rev. Hamlin and ask him to marry Robert and me?” She smiled at the look of surprise on Eve’s face.
“When . . . ? Where . . . ?”
“Right away. Right here in the hospital. . . . And the second question is, will you be my maid of honor?”
Eve envied Audrey’s happiness as she stood at her bedside and watched her become Mrs. Robert Barrett. Not in a church as Audrey might have dreamed, but in a hospital ward. Not wearing a fashionable wedding gown as Lady Rosamunde might have wished, but a hospital gown and a white plaster cast on her leg. And thank goodness it wasn’t to some tedious bore from the gentry, but to a man she loved. Eve wondered if Audrey even remembered the shy, fearful girl she’d once been, bending to everyone’s wishes but her own. Audrey had gone after what she wanted, and Eve was happy for her. Her new husband looked handsome in his uniform, wearing a smile that told the world he was the luckiest man alive. If only his luck would hold when he faced the Nazis.
Eve gave the vicar the wedding ring she’d safeguarded and reached for Louis’s hand as Audrey and Robert recited their vows. The warmth of his palm, the gentle pressure of his squeeze, brought tears to her eyes. The happiness they’d found for one night could last a lifetime if he wasn’t married. If only.
She told herself not to be sorry for what she and Louis had done. She had no reason to feel guilty. She hadn’t left the Good Shepherd’s fold—He had abandoned her! He had ignored her prayers and let Mum die instead of watching over His flock as He’d promised. He had left Eve all alone in the world, with nothing and with no one to love. Why should she obey His rules any longer?
Eve stood alone in the corridor after the wedding, waiting to drive back to Wellingford with Louis and Robert. Louis found her there. They hadn’t been alone since their night together, and as Louis groped for words, Eve thought she knew what he was about to say.
“Eve, I hope you don’t think . . . I mean . . . what we did . . . I need you to know that I truly am in love with you. I may have been wrong to take advantage of you when you were so vulnerable, and if so, I’m sorry—”
“I’m not sorry. I needed you that night, and you needed me. We love each other, Louis. If I have any regrets at all, they’re because you’re—”
“I know . . . Listen . . .” He glanced at the door as if worried Robert might overhear. “Will you write to me when I’m in France? I need to know that you’re safe. That you’re okay. And I need to confide in you about . . . about my fears. There’s no one else—”