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The sunken lanes of Normandy would be a maze of pitfalls and exposed approaches for a invading army, but they were kind to a small and grimly determined party of amateur saboteurs. In their shelter and on a mercifully clouded night, Harriet and Bunter had fled the beach and the concrete and steel pill-boxes of the German Atlantic Wall, putting thirteen miles behind them before daylight. They holed up in a hornbeam thicket, and by dusk were on the move again, so that full dark found them crouched in a ditch on the far side of the hamlet of Aubussac, whose sole defining features were that it lay on the main road between Brest and Paris, and that it was built in a hollow. Peter's uncle Paul Delagardie had once rented a farmhouse there for a fondly recalled summer of Normandy peaches and cheerful farm-girls. Harriet's memories would not be so pleasurable, crouched as she was in the dark, in a ditch memorable for the depth of mud oozing around her boots and the visitations of wildlife of the small and crawling variety. There was no place in the dark of occupied Normandy for smaller scions of the Wimsey family. Harriet would not allow herself to think of her sons, equipped with collecting pot and nets and oblivious to the misadventures of their elders.
In the black-out, the approaching car's lights were as bright as searchlights, cresting the ridge behind the village in two powerful beams that split the darkness. They could hear the powerful growl of the Mercedes-Benz engine, as if some sinister monster raced towards them, faster than Harriet had anticipated: it ducked down to bridge the stream, slowed for the bend by the church, and was accelerating past the village, up the slope, towards the corner where they waited. Her fingernails were biting into her palms, her breath was short - should we fail - they would not fail - what a play to quote at this point - oh, Peter -
Beside her, unexpectedly and in a controlled and powerful rush, Bunter went over the top of the ditch. Two long strides took him to the centre of the road, and he turned there to face the oncoming car. He stood with his legs apart, head up, grip relaxed, stance as solid as an oak-tree. Moonlight glinted from the barrel of the pistol he held, and picked out the harsh set of his mouth and the shape of his head, his hair waxed to a military neatness, and the braced strength of his shoulders, so often disguised in effacing suits. Shocked, Harriet in that moment saw a savage stranger, a man who had embraced violence and bent it in service to his liege lord, and who would in that moment succeed or die trying. Her cry caught in her throat. For this Bunter, failure was not an option.
The German staff-car accelerated up the slope, lights angled upwards, highlighting the hedgerows with terrible clarity. In a moment - Harriet could bear it no longer. She stood up, scrambling upwards - the engine slowed, the tone changing as the driver saw the corner - the headlights dipped - Bunter like a stone knight - the lights coming around the corner - too fast, they had -
Then there was a bang, the sound of a tyre bursting, and at the same moment Bunter fired, so that in the dark Harriet saw the muzzle flash, and then again. Her ears were ringing: the car was slewing across the road, moving in terrible slow motion, as if a great beast came down upon them. Somehow, she had not expected it to be so noisy, the whining roar of the engine, the screech of rubber, the crash of breaking glass as the car slid into the ditch - it seemed impossible that half the German army should not descend upon them that very instant. Harriet was running, but Bunter was ahead of her. She heard the pistol speak again, somehow terribly final, and then there was silence. The engine was stopped, and the lights out. They were in darkness. A piece of glass dropped to the road, ringing against gravel.
"Bunter?"
"Here, m'lady," said Bunter.
The relief in his voice - Harriet, finally, found herself, panting, at the car, her eyes passing over the crumbled bonnet and the jagged shards of the windscreen and the dead German adjunct at the wheel with the Luger and the single bullet-hole in his forehead. The seats were madly tilted and the tyres flat, so Bunter's caltrops had worked as intended, but it was the man in Bunter's arms who captured Harriet's gaze. Moonlight turned Peter's pale hair to silver and shadowed the sculptured lines of his face into hollow bones. His eyes were closed, the fragile half-moons of his eye-lids terrifyingly still.
Her heart stopped. "Bunter."
"Not dead, but merely-" Peter said, although his voice was higher and thinner than she would have liked and his grip on Bunter's jacket was white-knuckled. Then, "Bunter, you didn't."
"You try and stop her, my lord," said Bunter. He looked up. "We wouldn't be here, but for her ladyship."
"Well," said Peter, "You had better not be here very shortly indeed, sergeant, because General Rommel is twenty minutes behind us. And I am dreadfully sorry, but I don't think...I don't think I'm up to walking, what, tender mercies and all that. So unless-"
"What a good job we brought the pony and trap," said Harriet stoutly. "I'll get them right away."
"Harriet," said Peter. "You at least must see sense. If you leave now, you could be back in Blighty by tomorrow - tell me you spoke to old Suchard, he'll pick you up from the beach alright."
"It'll be the knock on his head, m'lady," said Bunter.
"Quite so," said Harriet. No need to tell Bunter to strap up anything broken or bleeding, she thought, hastening down the road, he was already doing so. She had already seen the impartial, efficient check that had accounted for Peter's bruised knuckles and the gash on his cheek that looked horribly as if he had been back-handed by someone wearing a ring, and she suspected worse under Peter's miserable grey serge jacket. Bunter would take care of it. Her role was different. "Hello, old girl," she said, her voice steady and soothing after the noise of the crash as she untied the reins - "Let's get you moving, and there'll be bran mash for you at the end of the day."
The little cob came up willingly into her hands, and the trap Bunter had so miraculously rustled up from nowhere was well-oiled and almost silent. A doctor's daughter, Harriet had learned to drive her father's old-fashioned equipage at a very early age, and it was easy for her now to gather up the reins and coax the pony up to the mangled metalwork of the Mercedes-Benz. She kept the cob's head turned away from the driver, and from the second man in the back seat with his head thrown back at that terrible, unnatural angle, the bars on his uniform collar glinting horribly in the moonlight.
Bunter had to help Peter into the trap, a strained and silent action that might have been easier to bear if Peter could have sworn aloud. It was evident he was in pain. Harriet, listening, learned then that she could muster no regret for the death of the two men in the car; that if the pistol had been in her hand she too would have taken the same shot.
"All's well, m'lady," said Bunter, appearing at her elbow. "Might I suggest you make for the coast? I will, of course, follow-"
"Oh, no," said Harriet. "We are not leaving anyone behind, Bunter; I don't know what you were thinking. If you take care of Peter, I fancy there will be an auberge in St Brieuc which will do very well, provided we get there before the general does. We'll take the back lanes."
There was no time to argue. Bunter knew it as well as she did. He vanished, the trap creaked as he took the spare seat, and Harriet led the friendly little cob back up the road and thence to the small farm track she and Bunter had already prospected. Luck was with them, for General Rommel was delayed, and by the time the crash was discovered Harriet was talking her way into an attic bedroom with a hot bath thrown in, while behind the stout, dressing-gown draped figure of Madame Bisset Bunter and Peter crept silently up the stairs. "Je suis désolé, madame, mais..." Harriet began, and went on to describe at length how grateful she was for Madame's kindness in providing a room so late at night - "Mon mari et moi-" she said, hesitated over husband, and became aware that Bunter was standing at her side, a Bunter who was smiling with an unfamiliar, oily charm. The arm he placed over her shoulders was a little too tight for comfort, and his hand lingered.
"Oh!" Harriet thought, and melted into his embrace, doing her best to simper, while avoiding her own realisation that her over-wrought body enjoyed the feel of Bunter's heated solidity very much indeed. Her blush was real, but relief was swift. A few francs changed hands, and Madame retreated to her kitchen, assured that her guests were indulging in nothing more than that familiar Gallic pastime of extra-matrimonial affection and promising to send the boy with the hot water.
"Bunter, I didn't know you had it in you," said Harriet, quietly. She was more disturbed than she expected. Bunter was certainly not unattractive and had been heroic at the very moment when they had cheated death, or at least, the Germans. It was only to be expected that her body respond to his. Yet she was a married woman in the very moment of exercising her devotion, and Bunter was...Bunter, untouchable and aloof from romantic engagement. This was very much not the moment for the inconvenient and heated tiger stretching its claws in her belly.
Bunter raised an eyebrow at her, and held the door.
She took the chance of a very swift wash, and then left Bunter and Peter to the hot water. There was a broad bed under the eaves, crowded by the inevitable dark press and chest-of-drawers, but welcoming with its lavender-scented linens and quilts. Harriet, at last rid of her damp boots - Bunter would have them clean and dry for morning, she thought automatically, winced, and in consequence hid them in the press - stretched out on the covers and closed her eyes. In the closet, she could hear Bunter's soft murmur and Peter's voice, answering, and although they were all only half-way home they were so very much nearer than they had been five days ago.
Of all people, it had been the Warden of Harriet's old college who called Talboys on that grim afternoon two days ago. Dr Baring's younger sister had married, in one of the small incongruities of war, a Prussian from an old military family, who was currently stationed in Brest. Forgetting his wife's connections - or perhaps, remembering all too well - he had let slip that a spy of uncommon ability had been captured by his superiors, a man of the English aristocracy whom he himself had once met while taking a walking holiday in southern Norway. Dr Baring's sister, a woman of predictable resource, had instantly sent a message to Dr Baring herself. And the Warden, realising at a glance that a man's life depended on her, called Harriet.
Harriet had called for Bunter. In implacable defiance of the Foreign Office, they had caught the last train to town, and by the following morning were on the south coast. It had taken Bunter twenty minutes to secure passage across the channel and half an hour to secure passage back. "For three," Bunter had said, quietly certain, which had heartened Harriet as her own dogged courage could not.
In France, there was a louder splash from the closet, and something thumped against the floor. Harriet, hoping that the landlady would put the noise down to entirely alternative activities, tiptoed to the door and tapped on it before she slipped the latch.
Bunter was sitting on the linoleum, damp from neck to ankles, with his sleeves rolled up and a roll of sticking plaster in his hands. The floor was wet and the bucket of hot water only half-full and sullied, but Peter himself looked considerably cleaner, although miserably cold. He was bare-chested, which allowed Harriet to see the welts on his back, daubed as they were with the iodine Bunter seemed to have been carrying in a hip-flask.
Peter noticed. "You won't notice the difference in a week," he said, through clenched teeth.
Bunter had done his best with towels, but the room was cold and Peter, Harriet judged, was affected by more than the temperature. "I'm glad to hear it," she said, heroically suppressing rage. "Peter, we need to get you warm. Can you make it to bed?"
"With such an invitation... I am not actually sure. How damaging to one's amour propre! Bunter?"
"Here," said Bunter. He braced himself, and heaved, as Harriet lent Peter an arm on the other side, and together they reached the bed.
"Never mind the sheets," said Harriet, as Peter hesitated. The iodine stains were unimportant. But he was shivering, and the linens were not warm. "In fact, Bunter, for goodness sake, take your clothes off and get into bed. I'll see if Madame Bisset can provide anything warming."
"M'lady," said Bunter, making no move to take off his stained shirt.
Clutching the quilts to his chin, Peter muttered to him, "It'll be just like Arles."
Bunter's face was so suddenly blank it was as if he'd turned out the lights. But of the two of them, Harriet was by far the most presentable, and they both knew it. Reluctantly, Bunter reached for his shirt buttons, and Harriet, a little taken-aback, and considering that two half-naked men in the room would render it small indeed, fled.
Suitably rewarded, Madame Bisset provided a slim and dusty bottle of Calvados. Harriet bore it upstairs in triumph, and found to her satisfaction that Bunter had embraced his role with more gusto than she could have hoped: he was not only in bed and unclothed, a living radiator, but had clasped Peter to his bosom with satisfying ardour. Peter had clearly been towelled dry in the interval, a little pinker, his hair back to its usual pale blond and as dishevelled as a schoolboy's.
Harriet, content, handed Bunter the Calvados and went in search of the tooth mug.
"I doubt a vintage year," Bunter was saying with some suspicion. The wax cracked, and he must have eased out the cork, for the room was suddenly suffused with the scent of apples.
"Don't be such a snob, old horse," said Peter. "Chin, chin."
Harriet, seating herself on the bed, handed Peter the mug, and was rewarded with one of his sweetest and most thoughtful smiles, terribly reminiscent of her eldest son. Doubt seized her, but Peter could not possibly be planning mischief at this very moment, and at least if so Bunter was at hand.
They clinked glasses to mug, and toasted each other, in silence. The spirit was unexpectedly smooth, with a pleasant warmth that invited further exploration, but Peter's teeth chattered on the mug, which rather suggested that pleasant as it was, further action was required. Harriet gave Bunter her glass, unbuttoned her blouse and the Talboy's gardner's son's Sunday best trousers, and clad only in her sensible combinations tucked herself into bed on Peter's other side. She managed to reclaim her glass before Bunter, frozen, let it spill, and decisively swallowed the last of the measure. Peter, reclining à la odalisque against Bunter's solidly muscled and hairy chest, smiled at her, and reached out to draw her close. His hands were shaking. Peter's elegant, long-fingered hands which she loved so dearly, bruised and battered. Harriet held them between her own, dizzy with affection, and in doing so became awfully aware that Peter was in fact shaking all over, a long, bone-deep tremor that was surely more than cold.
"Peter?"
"Nothing, darling," said Peter. "Just, sometimes..."
She could feel him lean back, borrowing Bunter's strength, and at the same time he turned his hands in hers, twining their fingers. Bunter moved, his arm tightening, his hand splayed on Peter's chest, thumb soothing against Peter's bare skin. There was no more cold between them. Heat, and the smell of them, clean sweat and the faintest trace of Bunter's hair wax, apples, lavender... Peter, wound as tight as an eight day clock... Bunter, his breathing so carefully controlled...
"Oh. Oh!" said Harriet, feeling remarkably foolish and startlingly intrigued in equal measure. "Well, honestly. You could have said. Bunter, do go ahead."
"What?" said Bunter, so sharply that he mislaid the honorific.
"Harriet, are you suggesting... because it would a generosity which... you know that..."
"Peter, we're married," said Harriet. "And I cannot imagine anything coming between us. Something shared, however - someone shared - if they were willing - at moments when they are needed-" She looked up, and found Bunter looking down at her as Bunter had never looked before. His eyes were wide and dark, his cheeks flushed, and his hair so untidy locks of it had fallen to lie in charming and dissolute disarray, lending him a disconcerting youthfulness. "That would be perfectly acceptable," Harriet said firmly. "Bunter, I believe you have more experience in this situation than I. Would you... offer comfort as you would usually do?"
Peter clasped her hands in his. "Harriet, are you sure?"
"Yes," said Harriet, and then, seeing Peter's eyes close in relief, "Yes. Please. But only if Bunter-"
"As my lady wishes," said Bunter, his voice very low.
His hands - Bunter's hands, broad and competent - took Peter's weight, and then he was sliding one down Peter's smooth chest, as Harriet herself had so often touched her husband, curving over Peter's hip to close around his phallus, already hardening. The faint and familiar scent of salt eddied between them. Bunter, eyes closed, bit his lip, and began to move his hand. His fore-arm was patterned with strong dark hairs, so different from Peter's golden complexion: Harriet, watching, was drawn to the contrast, and to the way Peter had given himself over to another's hands, in a way he had never done with her... Peter's fingers, closed on hers... the restless heat of her own desire, which she would not give way to here, when it was Peter who needed the relief Bunter could give him - oh, thank goodness for Bunter -
Peter, convulsing at the end, dragged her up and kissed her, and she could not but kiss him back, with the heated acknowledgement of her own passion unspent. "My lady," Peter said, panting, the ease of relief already loosening his grip and his voice so deeply content. Peter, safe, battered, alive.
Harriet reached down, and laid her hand over Bunter's, as he gentled his touch.
"Bad form to leave a lady unsatisfied," Peter said, very quietly.
Bunter's eyes widened. He had bitten his lip, and his mouth was open, his breathing as disturbed as Peter's, and he as determined as her not to give way here in enemy territory, where Peter needed them both.
"Later," Harriet promised.
Bunter swallowed. He took hold of Harriet's hand, and Bunter, who was usually so cool, was not cold at all; his strong grip was fever hot. But his mouth, when he kissed her fingers, one after the other, and then the palm of her hand, desperately at first, and then lingering, was as soft and warm as thistledown.
At last, he tucked her hand back into Peter's, and closed his own about them both. "Later," he said.
"We'll hold you to that, Bunter," said Peter, his eyes closed.
"Very good, my lord," said Bunter. His cheek was resting against the top of Peter's head, and his eyes were closed, his bare shoulders and three day old stubble lending him an unaccustomed and raffish air.
'Dearest Bunter,' Harriet thought, the bone-deep fondness that had served them both well for years surging into a new and fiercer possessiveness. Bunter had always been Peter's man. He had vouchsafed that loyalty and love to her, and if she could she would make of it a shield to set against the dark, and a joy for all of them.
Impulsively, she clasped Bunter's hand, and kissed his fingers as he had kissed her, and then Peter's mouth, the familiar and beloved line of it, his lips warm under hers.
" If our two loves be one, or, thou and I Love so alike..." said Peter.
"I'm so glad," said Harriet.
She lay there, in the warmth of their shared bed, holding Bunter's hand and with Peter's slim, muscular body pressed against hers, feeling her husband slide into sleep that came untouched by nightmares. Bunter was watchful, but perfectly aligned, in silence, to her own happiness.
The sky was lightening; it was morning, and a new world dawned.