She dug her fingernails into her palms. The entire war was so close to being over, and yet her marriage was on the brink of its own kind of collapse.
She couldn’t do it. The weight of her own admission hit her, forced her to stop. Her breath was rapid, her chest rising and falling heavily. She couldn’t stand another day in that house with that man. She’d promised to love and obey a man who was a stranger to her, so far removed from the Thomas she’d been promised to. Was James right? After all they’d done, all they’d survived, didn’t they deserve to make a decision based on happiness? But what kind of woman would she be if she walked out on her crippled husband?
Scarlet forced herself to keep moving, to walk as if she wasn’t dying inside. She didn’t want to alert anyone to the fact that something was wrong, and standing on the roadside or collapsing to her knees wasn’t exactly normal behaviour. She walked a few more steps before turning around and going back the way she’d come. She was going to try harder, she would make this work. She needed to stop thinking about James and the letter that seemed to burn a constant hole in her pocket.
She walked back into her house, closing the door and hanging up her coat again. She’d only taken a few steps down the hall when the smash of glass made her jump. Scarlet ran into the front room, worried something had happened to Thomas, only to find his mother standing there, glass smashed around her, and Thomas glaring at her. She’d obviously walked in on an argument with his mother, the only other person in the world who cared about him enough to be a constant presence in his life.
‘Mary? Is everything all right here?’ Scarlet asked in a low voice.
‘Get her out of my house!’ Thomas bellowed.
Scarlet took a step towards Mary, worried for her. But she received a tight smile in response. ‘I was telling my son that he might want to be more grateful to his attentive, caring wife,’ Mary said. ‘I’ll clean this up.’
Thomas stared at Scarlet. ‘Don’t just stand there,’ he muttered.
‘No,’ Scarlet said, shaking her head. ‘You don’t get to sit there and bark orders at me as if I’m no more than your servant. I will do anything for you, Thomas, and yet you’ll do nothing for yourself, and certainly nothing for me. A kind word wouldn’t go amiss every once in a while.’
‘You dare say that to me when I’m stuck in this chair?’ he said coldly.
‘Your legs would be getting stronger if you’d let me help you with your exercises, but instead you sit there and refuse to so much as speak to me,’ Scarlet said, terrified of how quickly the words were flying from her mouth, words she’d kept locked away for so many weeks and months. ‘I am still hoping that the Thomas I know is in there will come back, that this will have all been a bad dream. I don’t want us to be like this,’ she pleaded.
He was quiet, his gaze focused on something outside.
‘Thomas!’ she demanded. ‘Don’t ignore me. We are talking about this now whether you like it or not.’
She marched over to him, stopped in front of him.
‘Thomas, please!’ she insisted.
He lunged at her from his seat, swung his closed fist at her face so fast she barely managed to turn as his knuckles crashed into her cheek, the full force of his punch sending her flying backwards. She hit the window, her head smashing against the window pane so hard she wondered how it hadn’t shattered.
‘Thomas!’ she heard his mother scream.
‘Get out of my house,’ he yelled, slumped forward, half out of his chair. ‘Get out!’
‘What?’ Scarlet stared at him, reaching for his mother’s hand to help her from her sprawled position on the carpet. ‘What did you say?’ she managed, the thumping of her head beating like a pulse.
‘You heard me. I said get out,’ Thomas repeated.
Scarlet stood there, recoiling as much from his words as his punch. She should have told him that the house had belonged to her parents, that it was their wedding gift to her and therefore was as much her home as his. But she didn’t. Her mouth opened and no words came out.
Scarlet gingerly touched her fingertips to her cheek. She was better than this. She was a nurse who’d saved numerous lives and cared for so many men. Served her country and survived. Searched tirelessly for the fiancé she’d so desperately wanted to marry. She deserved more, and she was not a woman who could suffer a marriage like this and be told to leave her own home.
‘Fine,’ she said, a warm sense of calm settling upon her. ‘Fine.’
Thomas was back to staring out of the window again.
‘This is your last chance, Thomas. You say sorry, you apologise for the way you’ve treated me since we returned, for hitting me just then. I’ve done everything I can to show you love and affection, to care for you and prove how dedicated I am to making this marriage work. But I can only put up with so much.’
Thomas said nothing – just continued to stare blankly out of the window.
Scarlet’s mother-in-law was also silent, and the only guilt Scarlet felt in that moment was for leaving her to care for her son. But he was her son, he was the boy she’d raised into a man, and if anyone should care for him, then it should be her.
‘I’m sorry, Mary, but I can’t stay here,’ Scarlet said as she folded her hands together. ‘If Thomas wants me gone that badly, then I shall go and stay with a friend.’
‘Scarlet, please, I . . .’ Mary’s eyes pleaded with her, but she never finished her sentence. Scarlet was certain it was because she didn’t know what to say. What could she possibly come up with that would make her want to stay? They both knew the reality of living with Thomas, and no matter how many times Mary apologised for him, it didn’t mean anything if it wasn’t coming from him.
She embraced Mary quickly, before walking out and up the stairs to her bedroom. Scarlet never looked back at her husband, thinking only of packing her case and taking her essential belongings with her. Then it struck her that if she would never return then she would have to make sure she had everything she needed. Changing her mind, she found her leather carryall that she’d taken to Normandy, deciding to fill that as well. She went to her bedside table and took out the letter she’d kept in there, the one she’d carried for Ellie all those months. She needed to take it with her.
Scarlet hurriedly packed her things, not bothering to fold them. It was still only morning, which meant she had plenty of time to make her way to the station and be on her way. She would sit in a train all day and night if she had to; anything would be better than staying here. She carefully slid her ring off, the engagement ring she’d missed so much in France, and left it on the table.
Once she was done, Scarlet took her bag and case, hurrying down the stairs and out of the house without a backward glance. She didn’t call out goodbye, didn’t think about what she was leaving behind, although the muffled crying of her mother-in-law was impossible not to hear, and she was certain the sound of her sobs would haunt her for ever.
She was never coming back.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
Lucy