Bright Hair About the Bone by Barbara Cleverly Page B

politely.
    â€œJust suffering from a touch of cold feet, I suppose—a what-am-I-doing-here feeling. But I didn’t realise your regiment set out from Le Havre?” Her voice trailed away in some confusion. “Father and I deliberately rejected the Dover-Calais crossing, thinking to avoid the Somme and Picardie. We thought it might bring back memories.”
    â€œThat was considerate. I had guessed as much. Don’t be concerned—my memories of this part of France are pleasant.” He was lapsing into silence again but, gathering himself, continued: “We were among the first troops to sail for France. A regular infantry force—the First Battalion of the Northumberland Fusiliers. Well trained. Best officers you could wish for. We considered ourselves battle-ready.”
    Letty listened, aware that this was the first time he’d confided anything more than name and number since she’d met him. Nodding encouragement, she hoped he would not immediately retreat. She felt—and resented the feeling—that she had to give as much care to approaching William Gunning as she would a dog or horse of uncertain temper. Don’t look him in the eye. Adopt an unthreatening posture. Make no sudden movements.
    She glanced briefly at him, struck by the contrast between the hesitancy of the man’s speech and his now suave exterior. His scarecrow figure had begun to fill out in the month he’d spent with them, and his face, creased and tanned by years in the open air, was now smoother. Her eyes lingered for a moment with guilty curiosity on the line at his throat where the seasoned skin became abruptly white. Like the man himself, she realized. There was a sharp demarcation between the hidden, vulnerable man and the toughened part he was prepared to show the world.
    His appearance as houseguest at a dinner party Sir Richard had given the previous week had been a success. It seemed that dinner party conversation, avoiding as it did the personal, the political, the controversial, suited him. He’d listened in a flattering way, replied with flashes of humour, pushed the conversation along, even flirted with the ladies—to all appearances a charming and cultured man.
    It had been Esmé who’d sensed that he was reaching the end of his resources. With a warning whisper to Laetitia, she’d commandeered Gunning’s assistance with the coffee cups when they’d adjourned to the drawing room after dinner. She’d sheltered him from the attention of the rest of the guests who were booming away with increasing conviviality at the other end of the room. Laetitia was already missing Esmé’s gentle presence, the buffer between her own impatience and Gunning’s awkwardness.
    â€œWe disembarked at five in the morning, seasick, hungry, and with a two-hundred-mile walk ahead of us.” He gave an abrupt bark which might have been a suppressed laugh. “The famous British Expeditionary Force began its glorious adventure following behind a French Boy Scout who’d been sent to guide us to our first camp, six miles away over there through those cornfields.” He nodded towards the east. “The early morning mist cleared. The sun beat down. We sweltered in our uniforms. It was a dashed hot summer.”
    Letty recognised that this was no confidence of an intimate nature—merely the triggering of a memory by a familiar scene. But it was an opening of a kind, one she intended to exploit.
    â€œWhy were you so far from the front?” she prompted.
    He shrugged. “Exactly what we all wondered! Something to do with transport arrangements, I expect. They always blamed transport. In the end we were glad of the distance. The march across northern France was just what we needed to toughen up the men and the horses. And it gave us a chance to feel welcomed. Cigars, brandy, wine were thrust at us wherever we appeared. Pretty girls threw flowers at us as though