American Empire: Blood and Iron - By Harry Turtledove Page 0,66

he’d been far from the only American flier who’d seen her. But her sharp gasp said she remembered. “The mad Yank!” she exclaimed.

“I don’t think so,” he said, his breath steaming with every word.

“Well, you most certainly are,” she said. “Not mad for being a Yank—I don’t suppose you can help that—but mad for coming up here again. Why on earth did you? No matter how daft you are, you can’t have wanted to see this part of the world again—or can you?”

“No, I didn’t come here for that.” Moss took another deep breath. He wished he could take a drink, too. “I came up here to see you.”

“Oh, dear God,” Laura Secord said quietly. She gathered herself. “Didn’t you listen to a word I told you the last time you came here? If that’s not madness, I don’t know what is. You should have stayed wherever you were and gone on doing whatever you were doing.”

“I did that,” Jonathan Moss said. “For more than a year, I did that. When I couldn’t do it any more, I came.” He hesitated, then went on, “I heard in Arthur that your husband didn’t come home. I’m very sorry, for whatever that may be worth to you.”

“You decided to come up here without even knowing that?” she said in open astonishment, and he nodded. Maybe he was mad after all. She remarked, “He would have shot you, you know. He was very good with a rifle even before he went into the Army.” Moss didn’t say anything. He could think of nothing to say. Had she told him to go then, he would have got back into his motorcar and driven away without another word. Instead, she continued, “Come inside and have a cup of tea. I wouldn’t turn out a mongrel dog in this weather before he had a cup of tea.”

That did not strike him as the warmest commendation of his personal charms, if any, but it was kinder than anything she’d said to him the last time he was here. He followed her up the stairs and into the farmhouse. The stove was going in the kitchen, but not like the one in Peterson’s general store. Laura Secord shoveled in more coal, filled the teapot from a bucket, and set it on the stove. As she busied herself in readying cups and tea, she kept shaking her head. Doing his best to make light of things, Moss said, “I really am a harmless fellow.”

“If you really were a harmless fellow, you would have been shot down,” she retorted. Then she pointed to a chair by the table. “Sit, if you care to. I can get you bread and butter.” He sat and nodded. She served him, then tended to the tea when the pot started whistling.

No matter what he might have expected, the tea wasn’t particularly good. It was hot. He gulped it, savoring the warmth it brought. It helped unfreeze his tongue, too: he said, “I came to tell you that, if there’s ever anything you need—anything at all—let me know, and I’ll take care of it.”

“A knight in shining armor?” Her eyebrows rose.

Moss shook his head. “I thought of myself like that at the start of the war: a knight of the air, I mean. It didn’t last, of course. War’s a filthy business no matter how you fight it. But I’ll do that for you. So help me God, I will. You’re—special to me. I don’t know how else to put it.” He was more afraid of saying love than he had been of facing machine-gun bullets from a Sopwith Pup.

“You’d better go now,” Laura Secord said. She wasn’t reviling him, as she had the last time he’d come to her, but there was no give in her voice, either. “You mean to be kind; I’m sure you mean to be kind. But I don’t see how I can take you up on…any part of that generous offer. When I see you, I see your country, too, and your country has destroyed mine. Find yourself an American girl, one who can forgive you for that.” She laughed. “Melodramatic, isn’t it? But life is sometimes.”

He got to his feet. He’d known from the beginning the odds were against him—to put it mildly. “Here.” He pulled a scrap of paper and pencil from his pocket and scrawled down three lines. “This is my address. What I said still goes. If you ever need me, let me know.” He