Page 145 of The Sapphire Child
He looked both boyish and virile and Stella felt her heart suddenly ache for him. In that moment as they looked at each other, half-teasingly, half with deep affection, she realised how utterly she had fallen in love with him. She had always loved Andrew – but until recently she hadn’t beeninlove with him. The truth of it winded her and made her desolate. She looked away.
‘Hey, Stella, what’s wrong? I’m only joking.’
She felt treacherous tears brimming. ‘I know you are...’
He took her gently by the arms. ‘What is it?’
His tender touch was too much for her. ‘I’m sorry. I’m just worried about you going off to Burma soon. I really care about you, Andy.’ She started to cry.
For a moment, he stared at her in bewilderment and then he was pulling her into his arms. ‘Oh, Stella. Don’t be upset.’ He stroked her hair.
She leaned against him, overwhelmed by the feel of his skin against her cheek.
Andrew slackened his hold. ‘Stella,’ he said quietly, ‘I care for you too. I always have done.’
They held each other’s gaze. Andrew pushed wet strands of hair away from her face. The feel of his fingers sent a ripple of desire through her. The next moment he was bending towards her, cupping her face in his hands, his lips close to hers. She didn’t know if she made the first move or he did, but suddenly they were kissing. She was rocked by the taste and feel of his firm lips. Instantly, she was opening her mouth wider and kissing him eagerly.
Seconds later they were breaking apart.
‘Sorry,’ Andrew said, ‘I shouldn’t have...’
‘No, I’m sorry,’ Stella said in confusion. ‘It was wrong of me. I don’t know what I was thinking.’
She turned and began clambering out of the pool. How could she have allowed herself to kiss him when she knew he was engaged to Felicity? She was behaving no better than Hugh in letting her desire get the better of her. She knew that if Andrew had carried on, she would have willing given herself to him, without a second thought for the promises he had made to the Douglas girl.
Stella felt sick with wanting him and self-disgust. She snatched up her clothes and headed back to the picnic spot. Andrew followed after her but kept his distance. They returned downstream to the syce who had tiffin ready for them on a picnic blanket. Stella towelled off and put her clothes back on over her damp costume.
They hardly said a word as they sat eating. Andrew chatted to the hillsman in faltering Hindustani. They didn’t linger and remounted their ponies as soon as the picnic was packed away.
Andrew struggled to say something. ‘Stella, I don’t know what happened just now but—’
‘Don’t worry,’ she interrupted, engulfed in shame. ‘It was entirely my fault for getting emotional. You were just trying to comfort me, I understand that. Please don’t think badly of me – I would never try to come between you and Felicity. You won’t mention it to anyone, will you?’
His blue eyes looked so sad that she could hardly bear to look at him. She had ruined something between them today and she feared it would never be quite the same again.
‘I won’t say anything,’ Andrew said, his expression tightening.
Stella kicked her pony into a trot and led the way back up the path, trying to keep down the sob that rose in her throat.
Chapter 54
New Delhi, October 1943
The relentless, energy-sapping heat and humidity of the monsoon season was abating and the temperature in the office was once again bearable under the ceiling fans. In the evenings, there was even a welcome breeze as Stella cycled home in the dark an hour after sundown.
There was a heightened atmosphere about the city. Earlier in the month, Lord Louis Mountbatten had arrived to take up his position as Supreme Allied Commander of South East Asia – his brief to coordinate all three forces across the region. The organisation was soon known simply as SEAC and having it based in New Delhi seemed to have infused the officers and civil servants with a revived energy and sense of purpose.
Major Maclagan grew more optimistic. ‘With the good news about Italy siding with the Allies, it looks like the tide is turning in Europe,’ he said. ‘And we’re finally getting the reinforcements we need out here.’
Stella knew that his spirits were also buoyed up by relief that his family in Britain were safer, with the danger of invasion over and their chances of being bombed having lessened too.
New Delhi was full of military personnel – Indian, British, American and African – in transit to postings further east. They filled the canteens and the clubs and then moved on. When some of the other clerks at the YWCA asked Stella to join them at club dances, she declined, saying she was too tired or had letters to write. After a while, they stopped asking.
Major Maclagan drove himself as hard as ever and Stella was happy to work long hours too, for it took her mind off thinking about Belle growing up without her – and stopped her dwelling on her feelings for Andrew.
Yet when the night came and she had solitary hours in her room, she couldn’t prevent her thoughts turning to Andrew and their brief time together in the hills. Those days in Mussoorie and Chakrata when they had been constantly in each other’s company seemed dreamlike. She had never been so happy – and yet it had all changed after that fateful kiss at Tiger Fall.
Stella lingered over the details of her memory of what had happened – so brief and yet so intense and passionate. Who had instigated it? And who had drawn back first? She had never been sure. It was as if both of them had felt it the most natural gesture – that the pony trek and the swim had been leading up to such a moment. She was convinced she had seen the love in Andrew’s eyes – the same love that had stirred inside her.
