Ashton Park (50 page)

“Kipp.”

She stood at the bottom of the staircase dressed in rough clothes—a long brown skirt full of creases, a tweed jacket, a rumpled white blouse, a limp blue scarf, scuffed leather boots. Her hair was in disarray over her shoulders and there was no makeup on her mouth or over her cheeks or around her eyes. But to Kipp’s surprise he found the same beauty in her that he had found in Christelle since she had given birth to a child, a look that was softer and more luminous and much richer.

She saw the look that came into his eyes and smiled almost shyly. “Please come upstairs and meet Charles.”

He followed Caroline up the staircase. Her hands hitched up the hem of her skirt and her hair tumbled down her back. It had not been brushed. Nor could he smell any perfume. Instead he caught only the scent of cigarette and pipe smoke on her clothing, and a trace of soap from her skin when her hand was near his face. She glanced back at him once as they climbed.

“We are on the seventh floor. I’m sorry. You must be tired from your flight.”

“I’m fine.”

At the door she knocked and opened it a crack. “It’s mummy.” She stepped inside, smiling at Kipp. “I knew you would come. I knew. I’ve told Charles all about you.”

“What have you told him?”

“I’ve told him you were a pilot in the war and a great hero. Not that he understands much of what I say. He’s only thirteen months old.”

“It was Ben Whitecross who won the medals, not me.”

Her shy smile returned, a smile new to her. “Medals don’t matter, Kipp. Heart matters. And spirit.” She looked at him. “What’s wrong?”

“I’ve never heard you speak like this before. Or look like this.”

“Well, we’ve been on and off trains for days and I’ve scarcely slept.”

“You…seem so natural…and down to earth. I’m not used to it.”

“I suppose the years have changed me. I suppose I have nothing to put on airs about anymore.” She looked away and her smile widened. “Here’s my little man.”

A boy with hair as bright as hers and Kipp’s toddled slowly over and she scooped him into her arms, hugging and kissing him. “Charles. This is the nice man I told you about, the brave man who flies airplanes in the sky.”

Charles examined Kipp with deep blue eyes—
eyes,
Kipp thought,
that are as blue as the sea at sunrise.
Then a soft smile came, exactly like the new smile he had seen on Caroline’s face. He smiled back.

“Hello, Charles,” he said. “Your mummy is an old friend.”

Charles thought about this and smiled again.

“Would you like to go up in the air like a bird, Charles?” Kipp asked. “With mummy holding you in her arms?”

“Oh, I was hoping we would fly. That explains why you have arrived so quickly.” She kissed Charles on the cheek. “We will get our bags and then we can go. There are not many. Caroline and Charles are quite the vagabonds. It’s a two-seater, isn’t it?”

“Yes.”

A sudden roar filled the hotel room and the windows rattled. Kipp rushed over and drew back the lace curtains. Rain slashed across the glass and dark clouds filled a sky that had been clear a half hour before. He leaned on the windowsill with his hands and stared.

“I would have crossed over from England sooner except for a downpour that lasted two or three hours. This looks like another of the same. If it lasts it will soon be too dark to fly.”

“We have been here almost three days. All the rainstorms have lasted a long time.”

“We have to remain in Paris until I get decent flying weather.” Kipp sat on the windowsill and faced Caroline and Charles. “Have you been taking all your meals in the room?”

“Yes. We haven’t left the hotel.”

“How did you get a telegram off to me?”

“I paid one of the hotel staff to deliver it to a telegraph office.”

“Do you think he has followed you from Portugal?”

“I don’t know. He would not have stayed there once he knew Charles and I had fled.” Charles buried his face into her shoulder. “He’s tired. Let me put him down for his nap.”

She held the boy close, whispering and smiling to him, and took him into the bedroom. As she laid him in the middle of the large four-poster bed her hair fell down over his face, and he giggled and clutched at it with his small hands. Caroline tickled him and then sat down on the bed and began to tell him a story while she smoothed back his blond curls. The boy continued to play with the long strands of her hair until his arms fell back on his chest and he was asleep. She kissed him on the forehead and walked out to Kipp, closing the door behind her.

She stood awkwardly in front of him. “Thank you again, Kipp. I’m sorry about the weather. I feel better with you here.”

Kipp had meant to look back out the window at the storm and try to spot a break in the cloud cover, but he had ended up watching her with her son. As she stood before him he felt he was looking at a much different woman than the one he had courted during the war. Her walk was different, her eyes, how she talked, what she talked about, the hair that wasn’t combed and pinned, the clothing that wasn’t immaculate, a face that was bare and open to the wind and light, a mouth that was its own fresh pink color without a stroke of lipstick added.

If she noticed he was staring she did not say anything about it. She sank down on a sofa and kicked off her shoes and threw her head back.

“I didn’t sleep a wink last night.” She put a hand over her eyes. “I was too anxious. I suppose Charles picked up on it because he was restless until about three. Here you’ve come all the way from Lancashire to rescue me and I’m possibly the worst host ever.”

“Caroline. Get some rest if you need to. A clear dawn and we’re out of Paris at four or five.”

“Perhaps just a nap then…”

In a moment she was breathing deeply and her head sagged to the side. He got off the windowsill and gently placed his hands underneath her neck and laid her head down on a cushion. Then he straightened out her legs. He took a blanket off a table and spread it over her, carefully tucking it around her chin. That close to her face her breath moved softly over the backs of his hands. That close he could take in the lilac scent of soap on her skin. He could not resist brushing her cheek with his fingers. A shock went up his hand at the touch. Her sunlight hair was strewn over the cushion and sofa and came in waves over her shoulders.

There is so much simplicity to you now. So much of air and morning. You are not the woman I left behind.

He checked that the door was locked and bolted and sat down on the floor with his back to it. That way he was between Buchanan and the woman and the child. That way he could not see the perfection of the woman’s face as she dreamed. There was only the rain on the glass and the thoughts of Christelle and his son, Matthew.

It was so dark that Kipp could not see a thing when he opened his eyes. He could smell Caroline’s hair. Her head was against his shoulder, the blanket pulled over the two of them. His leather flight jacket was damp where she was breathing onto his arm. As his eyes adjusted to the darkness he saw that Charles was asleep in her lap with her arm over him. But he knew that none of this had woken him. He waited.

Footsteps. Slow. Going up the hall outside the room. Stopping. Then coming back. The person was trying to move softly but was too heavy. It was someone walking the way a man walked.

The hair on the back of his neck spiked. He could feel it sticking into the collar of his shirt and jacket. It was exactly the sensation he’d had when he sensed the presence of enemy aircraft in the sky over France. His whole body tightened.

Pressure came against the door. It stopped. Then came again. The knob was turned slowly and the lock tested with a piece of metal. Not a key but something else. If he succeeded in opening the lock there was only the bolt on the door. A good kick could bring it down.

I have to get the two of you into the bedroom.

At first Kipp was going to put his hand over Caroline’s mouth and whisper in her ear. But he felt it would cause her to panic and lash out with her arms and legs, especially since she’d believe she was fighting for Charles as well. There was no time to think everything through. The wood of the door was pushing into his back again. Quickly he lifted her chin and put his mouth to hers. Her lips were soft and warm and in a moment he knew she was waking up. A hand clutched his arm. Another came to his face. The kiss deepened as she responded.

“Kipp,” she whispered.

His hand was still holding her chin as he put his mouth to her ear. “Caroline. There is a man outside the door. Take Charles into the bedroom immediately. Put furniture up against the door.”

He could see the whiteness of her eyes in the dark. “Is it—?”

He nodded. “Who else? Take Charles into the bedroom.”

She hesitated, still looking at him. Then she gathered her boy up and moved silently and swiftly. The bedroom door was closed softly and firmly. He heard a chair being dragged up against it. Carefully he got to his feet. He put his hands in his pockets and curled them around two large flat stones. One had been given to him by Ben and the other by Ian Hannam.

“He’s a big bloke,” Ben had said. “Saw him the once at Ashton Park a few years before the war. Don’t play around. If it’s him or you and the woman and child are in danger do what you have to do, mate. We’ll tidy things up afterwards.”

Kipp stepped back and faced the door as the knob turned again. He was in his cockpit and the Hun were roaring through wisps of white cloud at his squadron, guns flashing, crosses black and fierce. His mind emptied. He waited for the door to crash back on its hinges under Tanner Buchanan’s shoulder.

Suddenly there was a stream of rapid-fire French in the hallway. Kipp could distinguish enough of the words to make out that someone was challenging Buchanan’s presence. There was the thud of running feet. A shout in French and more running. Quiet.

Kipp counted to sixty before cautiously unlocking the door, drawing back the bolt, and peering out. The hall was empty. He closed and locked the door again. Then he crossed to the window. Light silvered the east in a line like a paint stroke. Just the sight brought a smell of petrol to his nostrils and the brassy scent of belts of machine gun bullets being loaded into his Sopwith Camel. He put his hand to the white silk scarf he still wore whenever he flew.

I never feel this way flying mail. But Tanner Buchanan does not stand between me and my aircraft when I am carrying letters and parcels.

He tapped on the bedroom door. “Caroline. It’s all right. He’s gone for now. Someone surprised him in the hallway and he ran.”

She opened the door a few inches. “Are you sure, Kipp?”

“Yes. But now it’s our turn to run. The rain’s over and the sun’s coming. We need to get down and into a cab. I’m sure he’ll be expecting us to take a train to Calais and a boat from there.”

Her blue eye in the door opening was dark. “He knows you’re a pilot, Kipp. He knows everything about the Danforth family. He wants to get back at the lot of you for sending him packing. Almost as much as he wants me and the boy.”

“He can’t fly a plane, Caroline. We’re going to be airborne in an hour and he won’t be a passenger. Or diving at me out of the clouds.”

“Tanner will just follow us to England.”

“We’ll deal with that in England. At least you’ll be safer at Ashton Park than in Paris or Lisbon.”

“Is that where you plan to take us?”

“Yes. Your parents are there.”

“And your wife and child.”

“It’s time you met. Chris is French, not English. She can handle old lovers better than a British wife could.”

A smile came to Caroline’s eye. “Meaning me if I had wound up the British wife?”

He shook his head and smiled back. “The old Caroline might have had trouble perhaps. Not the new one.”

“Is that how you see me now? As the new one?”

“You’re not any Caroline I ever spent time with. I don’t know how else to look at you except as someone I’ve just met and decided to help out of a jam.”

“I’m not sure what to think about that.”

“You can think in the cab. Now give me your bags, pick up Charles, and let’s get to the airstrip and away to London. If he’s watching the aerodrome on the west end we’ll have to move quickly.” He turned away and then turned back. “He’s not the type to carry a gun, is he?”

“I don’t know what he’d do. I don’t know him anymore. He’s become so…so predatory.”

“Well. There’s a comforting thought.”

Her hand came through the door and grasped his arm. “You won’t hurt him, will you? He’s still my son’s father.”

“Hurt him? I just want to fly away. I worry more about him hurting me.” He half-smiled in the dark of the hotel room and then the smile left. “I worry about him hurting you and Charles. I won’t let him do that, Caroline.”

Kipp kept them in the lobby until the cab pulled up at the hotel. Then he rushed Caroline and Charles into the vehicle, threw in their luggage, and jumped in beside the driver. The streetlights were still shining when they started out over the wet and glistening streets but by the time they reached the airfield the sky glowed and the lights were out. Kipp kept glancing behind the cab but no one was following them.