Edi didn’t take much time washing. She was telling the truth when she said she didn’t care how dirty she was. She gave her face, neck, and armpits a bit of a dash, then she went into their bedroom and shut the door.
As she began to undress, she looked at the two beds. It was extraordinary what ten or so hours of hard, physical labor could do to a person. Two days ago, if she’d been told that she had to spend the night in the same room with a soldier, she would have said she’d rather sleep on a stone pallet in the rain. But now it seemed natural for David—not Sergeant Clare, but “David”—to sleep in the same room.
On the chair at the end of the bed was a clean nightgown, and Edi knew David had put it there for her. It was probably Aggie’s, and it was so clean and Edi was so dirty that she almost didn’t put it on, but she did. She slipped it over her dirty body, pulled back the sheets and covers on the bed nearer the door, and was asleep in an instant.
When she awoke, the room was dark and something had jolted the bed. At first she panicked. She had to get to the air raid shelter! Had to find the girls and get them there first!
“Ssssh,” David said. “It’s only me. Go back to sleep.”
She sat up on her elbows, trying to see in the dark. “Turn on the light.”
“There is no light,” he said. “Remember? No electricity.”
“Oh, right,” she said, lying back down. “Hamish.”
“That’s right,” he said soothingly. “Just go back to sleep.”
She did, but was awakened again when something again hit the bed and she sat up.
“Sorry,” David said. “It’s this damned brace, and the beds are close together. As soon as I can turn around I’ll quit hitting your bed. Now go back to sleep.”
This time she was more fully awake. “Would you get a lantern?”
“What for?” he asked.
“I want to see your leg.”
There was a moment of silence before David spoke. “As enticing as that sounds, my leg is fine.”
Edi sat up straighter. “I think that tomorrow I should do the cooking, and you should milk the cow and gather the eggs.”
“You win,” he said, and a moment later he came back into the room, holding the lantern. He was shirtless, shoeless, and wearing only the trousers that were too big for him.
He put the lantern down on the table between the beds and said, “Now what?”
“Off with them,” Edi said as she got out of bed, went to the wardrobe, and took out the old shirt she’d worn that morning over her underwear. Judging by the fit of her clothes, Aggie was shorter and plumper than Edi, which made the nightgown much too short, and the top fell away whenever she moved.
“I love that gown,” David said as he unbuckled his trousers.
“Be quiet or I’ll tell Hamish the truth about us and you’ll have to sleep in the kitchen. On the floor.”
“You’re threatening to punish me if I don’t take off my trousers while I’m alone in a room with the most beautiful woman in the world? The woman I plan to—”
“Stop it,” she said, but she was smiling.
When David struggled to get his trousers down over the heavy brace, she took the cuffs and pulled. He tried to make jokes, but she was too horrified by what she saw to smile. His leg was raw from the steel. The old padding had nearly all fallen away, and the straps of the big, cagelike thing had scraped and cut until his leg was a mass of blisters and bleeding sores.
“I love General Austin,” David said.
“He’ll hear about this from me, you can be sure of that,” she said, her mouth clenched into a line of anger. “Stay here and I’m going to see what I can do to clean this up.”
“I’m all yours, baby,” he said as he leaned back on the pillows—and went to sleep immediately. When he awoke, Edi was sitting on a kitchen chair, a b
owl of hot water on the bedside table, and she was trying to wash some of the wounds and bandage them.
“This hurts, doesn’t it?” she asked softly.
“Not too much,” he said, but she knew he was lying. She’d thought that her hands were bad, but she couldn’t imagine what he’d gone through today with those sharp edges cutting into him.