I riffled through the papers. “What about your dreams?” I asked softly. “Are they in here, too?”
“They have to be, or it wouldn’t be fair. Would it?”
“No.”
“Then you’ll have to guess which one is mine. We didn’t sign them.”
I folded the pages and put them in the pocket of my apron. I still felt curiously weightless and free, and I smiled up at him. “Thank you.”
He blinked. “If it will make you smile like that, I’ll hide in the loo and write a novel.”
And just like that, the moment changed. I’d wanted to touch him since the moment I’d walked through the door and seen him, but now he was looking at me, that deep blue gaze on me, and I wouldn’t get a chance again. I put my hand on the back of his neck, rose up, and kissed him.
I’d never kissed a man before. Part of me thought it might be a quick thing, a chaste peck, but his mouth was warm and soft, and I lingered. Then he put his hand on my jaw and kissed me back, swift and hungry, as if he meant it. He didn’t touch me but for his hand, didn’t pull me to him, but he held me close and kissed me a second time, this time softer, but so hungry he bit my lip as we pulled apart, and his eyes when I looked into them had lost all their politeness.
“That was for being Brave Jack,” I said, my voice a husky breath.
“I’d brave all the fires of hell,” he said, “to see you naked.”
I was shocked, but the elated part of my brain flew even higher. I wouldn’t have minded the nakedness going the other way, but I didn’t know how to say it, not really. Instead I put my palm on his chest, feeling the hard, steady beat of his heart, just as I had imagined it, and said, “I have to go.”
He put his hand over mine, that fine, graceful hand, and pulled it from his chest. He turned my arm, bent, and pressed a kiss to the inside of my wrist, hot and lingering, as I ran my tongue along the spot on my lip he’d bitten. “Good night, Kitty,” he said.
I took one unsteady step back, and then another. “Good night,” I said shakily, and I left the room.
? ? ?
“What did he mean, Kitty,” Martha said that evening, “when he said you’re not a nurse?”
I was getting ready for bed, putting The Odyssey on my bedside table, and I stopped. In her corner, Nina didn’t even pause as she undid her apron.
I looked at Martha. She was preparing for night shift after her short sleep, tucking up her hair. “Are you all right?” I said. “You look exhausted.”
“It’s just a headache, that’s all. I’ve had it all day. A nuisance more than anything. But what about your brother saying you’re not a nurse? That was a strange thing for him to say.”
I didn’t want to lie to her. And perhaps, just perhaps, she could have handled the truth. But I remembered her red-faced exclamation to Syd: She is too a nurse! You leave her alone! And I knew that if I spoke now, I’d make a liar out of her. Part of me couldn’t countenance it.
“Matron hired me,” I hedged. “Do you think she would have hired a girl who wasn’t a nurse?”
“Well, I know we’ve been desperate for girls,” Martha said thoughtfully, oblivious to how close she danced to the truth, “but even so, that doesn’t sound like something Matron would do.”
“Of course,” I said. “My brother hasn’t seen me in five years. He doesn’t know the first thing about me.”
She thought it over, looked relieved. “Then you’re well rid of him,” she said. “Good night.”
Nina and I were silent after Martha left. Nina polished her spectacles. Finally I couldn’t stand it. “Wonderful,” I said to her. “Just wonderful. How long have you known?”
“Since practically the first day,” she said without inflection. “You couldn’t fold a hospital bedsheet to save your life, Kitty, and it’s the first thing we all learn.”
I sighed and lay back on my bed. Today was the day, it seemed, when my secrets went up in vapor. And the day I’d kissed Jack Yates. “Don’t blame Matron. Mr. Deighton hired me while Matron was away, and by the time she figured it out, I was already here and she was desperate. So she put me to work.”
“It does explain why she had you clean that lav,” Nina said.
I peered over at her. “You’re not angry? I thought you’d be livid.”
She sat on the edge of her bed, her nightdress bulky and awkward. “It wasn’t my place to say anything,” she said. “Matron had sent you, after all. And you worked hard enough. And as for Martha, well, I may as well tell you. You’re not the only one lying to her.”
This took a moment to sink in, and then I shot upright on the bed. “Your fiancé.”
She flushed dull red and looked miserably guilty. “It was true at first—I swear it. Well, sort of. There was a fellow my mother thought I should marry. And she planned to have me meet him to see if we would suit. I told Martha I was engaged, because it was practically done. Almost. And I just wanted to be the engaged girl, you know?”
“Yes.”
“And Martha took to it—she was as excited as if it was happening to her. And the boy Mother had picked moved away without my ever meeting him, but by then it seemed so real. I found I liked making Martha happy. She’s got her faults—we all do—but she’s a good girl. She’s the best of us, really. So that was it. I’d rather lie to her and make her happy than let her down. I just couldn’t bear to let her down.”
I lay back on my bed, thinking. “You had me fooled,” I said.
“Kitty, I’m a horrible liar.”
“No, no, you did all right. You floundered a little when she asked you about the dress, though. A good lie has to be convincing in the details.”
“I guess I could take lessons.” But she was snickering—Nina, actually trying not to laugh—and I couldn’t get offended. “I’m turning the lamp out now.”
I watched her do it, thinking sorrowfully of the book on my bedside table, and that I wouldn’t be able to read it. “What are you going to do?” I asked her. “Eventually she’s going to wonder why you don’t get married.”
“Kitty,” she said from the dark space across from me, “I have no idea. And if you say anything, I’ll—”
“Find me and skin me, yes.” I sat upright in bed again, staring into the dark. “Wait a minute. If you knew about me, then you knew I was lying about having clearance to go into Jack Yates’s room.”
“Of course I knew it.”
“And you let me go in there anyway and get caught. And get myself an incident report.”
“I’m nice,” she said, “but I’m not that nice. Now for God’s sake go to sleep.”
? ? ?
I awoke before dawn again and dressed while Nina slept. I’d had no dreams this time, but a strange energy coursed through me. I recognized it as anticipation, though I could not have said of what. My muscles and my nerves seemed fluid, ready. There was no way I would sleep again.
I pulled the handwritten pages out of The Odyssey, slid them into my pocket in the still-dark, picked up my boots, and crept from the room. This time I saw nothing when I sat on the staircase to tie my boots. I slipped out the kitchen door and looked around at the horizon, which was slowly turning an eerie pink as the sun began its ascent. I half looked for a figure standing on the rise, and at first I saw nothing; the dark was too impenetrable. Then I made it out, a lone figure stark against the horizon, and I held my breath.