The Awakening of Poppy Edwards (7 page)

He jumped to his feet and began to pace back and forwards the length of my little pool. He was frowning, a deep frown. And muttering to himself. And then he came back and sat down beside me. The closest he’d been to me since that day in the restaurant. I ached to touch him. I had no idea whether he wanted me to or not, so I just sat there, waiting.

And then he told me. About the war. His war. And the months afterwards. Terrible things. Horrible things. Not new, but told in a new way. I took his hand. His fingers gripped so tight. ‘But I made it,’ he said to me. ‘I was one of the lucky ones. That’s what I kept saying, over and over, that I was lucky. That I had to do something with that. And I thought I had. Okay, I haven’t invented a new medicine or played a hand in getting votes for women, but movies and plays, you have to get good things out of the war, too, don’t you? Not that the movies came out of the war, but…’

‘People need fun, don’t they?’ I said, thinking of all the revues that played in the West End at home, all the theatres that Daisy wouldn’t sing in.

‘Exactly. So that’s what I thought, see, that I hadn’t wasted it. That I’d helped get some good out of it, but then…’ He picked up a cushion, turned it over in his hand, put it back down. ‘Then you asked me, what’s your excuse.’

‘I’m sorry. God, Lewis, I am so sorry. I had no idea—’

‘No, you didn’t, because I made sure you didn’t.’ He tried to smile, but his mouth wavered. ‘I didn’t tell you, not just because I didn’t want you to know.
I
didn’t want to know. And then you asked me and I sat in my office all night thinking about it.’

‘Lewis. Oh, Lewis, I didn’t mean to upset you. If I had just—but I was so hurt, and…’

‘Yeah, I know that now, too.’ This time his smile was a bit more successful. His fingers curled round mine. ‘Took me awhile to get there, but I did in the end, and I can’t tell you how relieved I was.’

‘Relieved? That I was hurt?’

‘Not that you were hurt, but that you cared. Because I do, too, Poppy. That’s what I came here to tell you. I’m in love with you.’

My mind was still trying to take in all the other things he’d told me. I was running to catch up. I didn’t notice what he’d said at first. And then my brain just stopped.

Lewis

I said it, and she blanked me. Then I realised she was most likely shocked. ‘Poppy, I’m in love with you.’ She stared. I hadn’t meant to blurt it out. No wonder she stared. I guess it had been in my head for so many days now, I was used to it. I guess it was a shock. Then I started to worry that it was a bad shock. ‘What I’ve been trying to explain—’

‘You’re in love with me?’

‘Yeah.’

‘But you said—you don’t believe in that, Lewis.’

‘Didn’t. Wouldn’t. What I’ve been trying to say is…’ I stopped again. What the hell was I trying to say? I was so tempted just to kiss her, but we’d done that, and she’d just think I wanted her, which I did, but I didn’t just want that. ‘What’s kept me going all these years since the war is thinking that I was making something positive out of it. What I didn’t know until you forced my eyes open, until I thought I might lose you, is that I was letting it make a coward of me. Scared. I was damned scared, every bit as scared as you, though I couldn’t have said exactly why, the way you can. I couldn’t have given you one single reason. I still can’t, but I can try.’

‘You don’t have to.’

‘I want to.’ And I did, but it was like herding cats, trying to make sense of all those feelings. ‘It was the dying for no reason. It was the way death is so unfair. You’re in the wrong place at the wrong time. Or you don’t shoot fast enough. Or the ambulance you’re in hits a pothole and your wound opens and the driver is too worried about getting the stupid wreck of a thing to the hospital so he can go back for more to check on what’s happening. I’d open those doors and sometimes they’d all be dead. It was the knowing it wasn’t my fault but not believing it, thinking I could have done something, anything. It was all so random, nothing to do with right and wrong. That was the thing more than anything. The good guys suffered just as much as the bad. In the end, I wasn’t so sure there even were bad guys.’

‘Not like in the movies,’ she said.

‘No, but that’s not why I make them, before you ask,’ I said, though to be honest, I hadn’t thought about that before, and I wondered if it was true.

‘I know that. You’re not that uncomplicated.’ She kissed my hand then, a strange, comforting kind of kiss like she’d never given me before. Like I wouldn’t have wanted before. It worked. ‘Have I made any sense at all?’

‘For someone who’s only just started to try, a lot,’ she said. ‘I’ve had five years of trying and I’m only just—I think it might take awhile, Lewis.’

‘I think it might. What I’m wondering is—what I was wanting to ask you was…’ I swore under my breath. I hadn’t thought this part through. I hadn’t planned on doing any more than getting this far. I certainly hadn’t planned on baring my soul, but I knew I had to try. ‘I don’t want the war to have made a coward of me. I am scared, Poppy. I’m still scared. What if it turns out that all those years of cutting myself off mean I can’t do any different?’

‘I could say the same.’

‘You could.’ I looked at her then, trying not to hope, not yet, but I couldn’t stop myself. ‘Does that mean you’ll try?’

‘Does that mean you will?’

Such a typically Poppy answer that it made me laugh. ‘What on earth do you think I’ve been trying to say to you? I want to try. I want to try real hard. We’re survivors, you and I. If anyone can make it, we can. So I’m willing to take a chance, and I’m asking you to take one, too.’

‘Yes.’

I was so intent on getting ready to do battle, I thought I’d misheard. ‘What?’

‘Yes.’ She smiled at me, a smile I hadn’t seen before. ‘I said yes. I’m in love with you, too. I realised how much I was in love with you that day in the restaurant, and there was no way on earth I was going to let you know how I felt when I thought that you couldn’t—wouldn’t—but now you say that you will and I—I love you, Lewis.’

‘Why the hell didn’t you just say so!’

To say we fell on each other makes it sound less than romantic. We were starving for each other, though. We kissed as if we were parched. As if we couldn’t get enough. You’ll tell me it’s a cliché, but I don’t care. They felt different, those kisses. I felt different. When I kissed her, I was telling her with my mouth and my hands how much I loved her. How terrified I’d been at the thought of losing her. That I wanted her with me, inside me, tucked right there, inside me.

Yeah. Exactly. But there you go; it was the truth. And it felt as if she felt the same. And when I started to undress her there by the pool, she shook her head, and took my hand, and led me up to her bedroom. And you know what, I’m going to close the door on what happened then, because that was different, too. We made love. Enough said.

Epilogue

Variety
Magazine, April, 1924

RMS
Olympic
docked today in New York harbour. The sister ship of the tragic
Titanic
, there were no signs of her war service when she was piloted into her berth, paintwork spanking new, brasses shining.

Amongst those on board were the London stage actress Daisy Edwards and with her a real English aristocrat, Lord Harrington, known better to those who like to take to the air as the owner of Harrington Aviation. Miss Edwards was reunited with her sister, our own star of the silver screen, Poppy Edwards. As our photograph shows, despite the tears, the sisters made a glamorous pair.

No wonder movie mogul Lewis Cartsdyke is smiling there in the background. A little bird tells us that the sisters will be starring in his brand-new production on Broadway. A musical about the war in Europe, Mr Cartsdyke told our man in the theatre. Well, that’s certainly something we’ve never seen before! Though since our Mr Cartsdyke has never been one to swim with the tide, we shouldn’t be surprised. His studios in Hollywood are currently closed for what he calls extensive renovations. The particulars are strictly under wraps, but we can tell you exclusively here that they’re all in the name of talking pictures!

What will he think of next, you ask? Mr Cartsdyke had nothing to say on the subject, but the look on his face says it all. We reckon it won’t be long before wedding bells are ringing for the lovely Poppy and her dashing producer. But let’s keep that one under our hats.

Born and educated in Scotland,
Marguerite Kaye
originally qualified as a lawyer but chose not to practice. Instead, she carved out a career in IT and studied history part-time, gaining a first-class honors and a master’s degree. A few decades after winning a children’s national poetry competition, she decided to pursue her lifelong ambition to write, and submitted her first historical romance to Harlequin Mills & Boon. They accepted it, and she’s been writing ever since.

You can contact Marguerite through her website,
www.margueritekaye.com
.

eISBN: 9781460335673

THE AWAKENING OF POPPY EDWARDS

Copyright © 2014 by Marguerite Kaye

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