His Diamond Bride by Lucy Gordon Page A

mother is just behind the curtains, watching us. But you…well, anyway…’
    He dropped a modest peck on her cheek, said a hurried, ‘Goodnight,’ and walked away.
    Weary and depressed, Dee let herself into the house. As Mark had observed, Helen was waiting for her, in dressing gown and curlers.
    â€˜Well?’ she demanded. ‘Did he behave himself?’
    â€˜Oh, yes,’ Dee said softly. ‘He behaved himself. Goodnight, Mum.’
    She ran upstairs as fast as she could.
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    As Mark had predicted, conscription started the following month, and he’d been wise to get into the Air Force while he still had a choice.
    Now she saw him only briefly, as his free time was taken up by the squadron, located just outside London. Joe was immensely proud of him and showed it by giving him Saturdays off so that he could devote the whole weekend to training to be a pilot.
    â€˜I couldn’t be more proud if he was my own son,’ he confided to his wife. ‘And, after all, that may happen.’ He finished with a significant look at Dee, out in the garden.
    â€˜Hmm!’ Helen said. ‘Hasn’t he caused enough trouble in this family?’
    â€˜It wasn’t his fault; I thought we agreed that.’
    â€˜I just don’t like what’s happening to Dee. Something’s not right.’
    â€˜She’s just missing him. It’s happening all over the country now the men are joining up.’
    He began inviting Mark in for supper on the days he knew Dee would be home, partly for his daughter’s sake and partly because he was consumed with curiosity. He loved nothing better than to listen while Mark described his life as a budding pilot.
    â€˜They let me take the controls the other day,’ he recalled once. ‘I can’t begin to tell you what it’s like up there, feeling as though all the power in the world was yours, and you could do anything you wanted.’
    â€˜I remember when the war started in nineteen fourteen,’ Joe said. ‘Nobody thought of using planes to fight; they were so frail, just bits of wood and canvas. But then someone mounted a machine gun and that was that. Next thing, we had a Royal Air Force. I’d have loved to fly, but blokes like me just got stuck in the trenches.’
    They became more absorbed in their conversation, while Dee’s eyes met her mother’s across the table in a silent message. Men!
    â€˜There’s something I have to tell you,’ Mark said at last. ‘They’ve put my name down for a new course. I’m the first in my group to be assigned to it—’
    â€˜Good for you,’ Joe said. ‘They know you’re the best. But it means you’ll spend more time there and less here, doesn’t it?’
    â€˜I’m afraid so. They reckon the war will be declared pretty soon, so then I’ll be in the Air Force full-time. Perhaps you should start looking for another mechanic.’
    Dee heard all this from a distance. It was coming, the thing she dreaded, the moment when he would walk away to the war and she might never see him again. Time was rushing by.
    She had grown cautious, sensing a slight change in Mark’smanner. Since the night she’d come alive in his arms, she’d sometimes caught him giving her a curious look. She was shocked at herself, wondering if her forward behaviour had damaged his respect for her.
    When they were alone, his kisses were fervent, even passionate, as though he was discovering something new about her all the time. But then he would draw back as though he’d thought better of it, leaving her in a state of confusion. With all her heart she longed to take him past that invisible barrier, and she hadn’t much time left to make it happen.
    After supper the three of them listened to the wireless. The official news from Europe was worrying, but what had really caught people’s attention was the fact that when King