Jordie was not the woman she had been before the War, but she knew who she was. She was Jordana Morgan Freemantle, the daughter of a war hero and marchioness. She was a mother to two beautiful kids for whom she would do almost anything. She was a soldier and healer. She was a woman who loved women. Tonight, she was a friend, something she hadn't been terribly good at lately. Romana deserved better than fair-weather chums. Jordie could be better.
Romana answered Jordie's knock dressed for home in charcoal trousers and a festive knit twinset belied by her bloodshot eyes. She crossed her arms over her chest to repel the chill blowing through the door. Light from the porch gas lamp reflected off the Spanish flowers decking the silk scarf tied around her hair.
"Shouldn't you be at a party?" Romana asked, offering Jordie no quarter. Cordial, grudgingly so. Jordie shifted on her cold feet. She'd been in the open air only a couple of minutes and her toes were already going numb in her heels.
"There's nothing interesting happening elsewhere tonight."
Romana peered over Jordie's shoulder to take a gander at the empty street. "How did you get here? I doubt Elliot thought to bring you." Her opinion of Jordie's husband had diminished. She and Jordie were in agreement on the sort of man he was.
"No, I took a taxi." Jordie hugged herself, wishing she'd resisted Elliot's suggest that she wear a silk dress with a mink stole in favor of a wool coat. His desire to show her of had trumped her desire to stave off hypothermia. "I wasn't going to walk. I'm not that fond of you," she teased.
Romana was skeptical. "Pity. I'm that fond of you."
"Romana." Jordie gathered her courage. She didn't want to fail or lose. There was too much to lose. "I don't care what anybody says about you."
"I care enough for you and me."
Jordie leant on the door frame, peering down into Romana's forlorn hazel eyes. "Say you'll let me in."
Romana's jaw firmed. Thought petite she was fierce. "Why should I? It isn't as if I have anything you want."
She has no idea , Jordie thought. Romana had infiltrated her every waking thought from the moment they met, and Jordie wanted her to stay forever.
"You're wrong. I miss you, Romana." Her voice broke. Her feelings heaved in her stomach. Guilt and affection and remorse. Romana had branded Jordie from the inside and her absence left a scar. "And... and I think you miss me."
"I hardly know you," she said, but her voice faltered.
"I hardly know you, but I know I like you, and you're good to me."
Romana's throat worked swiftly. Her mouth quirked, and she growled in irritation, swatting at her welling eyes. "Unbelievable. Has anybody told you you're irresistible?" Her words smacked of accusation but her lips were smiling.
"Only you."
"Come inside?" Romana pulled back the door, permitting Jordie entry into her leafy detached house.
"I was hoping you'd say that. I'm freezing my pearls off out here."
Romana's neighborhood wasn't far from Jordie's overall, but in some ways, this was another universe. The house itself was larger than Jordie's and the garden, though dormant given the season, was immense. The house was ornate and spacious without lacking the warmth that seemed to define Romana. It was sprinkled with fairy lights and tinsel. A tree crouched like a giant in the foyer, making itself seen and felt. Marble, clay, and crystal painted ornaments hung heavily from its boughs. Romana had done this, Jordie decided at once. This was Romana's Yuletide joy on show.
Romana shut and locked the door behind them. "Why are you here now? The party couldn't have ended already. Veronica loves nothing more than to entertain well into the night."
"When I found out you'd been disinvited, I considered myself disinvited. I don't consort with people who insult my friends."
"I've never had a friend like you." There was that word again, 'friend', sprung up between them like a stone wall a meter thick, topped in concertina wire.
"You may regret me before you know it," Jordie joked.
"I won't," she declared certainly. Romana led her to the working kitchen where an army of pots and pans were bubbling on the hob. The air was thick with all manner of delicious aromas. Jordie's stomach grumbled. She hadn't had much of an appetite recently. "Come, come, I have a whole ice box of food I made for the potluck. Now that's gone to pot, I fear it'll all go in the bins. Help me eat some of it? I don't think my neighbors will accept it from me." She laughed at the absurdity of the assertion as though they weren't each aware it was true. A divorced woman was persona non grata in their circles, shunned to obscurity as though divorce were some fatal disease that was catching.
"Point me in the right direction. I've been told I eat like a growing boy." Her mother had said it often, as had her father halfheartedly. Her husband, constantly.
"Where on earth do you put it all?"
Romana produced plates from the cupboards and utensils from the drawers and handed them to Jordie, who laid out a duet of place settings at Romana's tidy breakfast table.
"I burn through anything I eat. Elliot doesn't believe me; he complains about how much food I go through whenever we go out."
"Well." Romana harrumphed in blatant disapproval. "That won't be a problem here. Eat whatever you like. If you're ever hungry, give me a call and I'll call round with something. We can't have you wasting away." She beckoned Jordie to the stove. "Have your pick."
Jordie whistled her appreciation. It was decidedly wartime far as Jordie could easily identify some of the creations as coming right out of the Ministry of Food's leaflet, but they all seemed much more delicious created by Romana's perfectionist hands. Lord Woolton pie, corned beef fritters, vegetable turnovers, Welsh cakes, sausage stovies, shepherd's pie, and raspberry jam tarts.
"You did all this?"
"I had to. Edgar took the housekeeper with him." She tutted, feigning lightheartedness. "I don't think it was the pay increase she was after."
Jordie tentatively placed a hand on her back.
"With all this, you'd think you have a much bigger family to feed." How to bridge the gap between where they'd been and whether they were, she didn't know. She just kept talking and hoped she'd stumble on the right combination of words to get Romana to look at her how she did before.
Romana affected nonchalance. "I used to be a lot more popular around these parts. My mother taught me never to attend a party emptyhanded. Seems I put the cart before the horse this year." Romana plated up enough food for the two of them and they adjourned to the table to dig in.
"You can bring some of this over to mine anytime. I-I've never been one for cooking myself. I can't say my mother didn't try to teach me, I just wasn't interested."
"I was the same about sewing. I never had the patience for it when a girl. Knitting, however; knitting is more my forte."
"Good for the manual dexterity."
Romana smiled wanly and gave her elegant fingers a sensual stretch. Jordie swallowed a boiled potato and held her peace.
"Something's got to keep me limber when I'm lucky to get into theater a couple of times a week."
"You too?" She hadn't wanted Elliot to be right. Neither of them should be on the sidelines in all this. They were too gifted to be forgotten. But isn't that history itself, us forever on the margins unless it's us writing the story?
"Very much me too." Romana stabbed her fork into Welsh cake. "It's got worse since Edgar went on his way. Seems I'm known for being tempestuous and quick-tempered. Three guesses where that rumor started and the first two don't count."
"You're joking."
"I'm not that funny," she declared. "No, I've been deemed too difficult to work with by the administration, so that leaves me out entirely." Jordie deflated. There had to be something she could do. "No need to fret on my behalf. I've caught up on my knitting, means it hasn't been a complete loss."
"They shouldn't be able to do that to you." Jordie only sometimes got stuck in to her satisfaction, but nobody has thus far attempted to call her too demanding. They knew a competent surgeon when they saw one, regardless of their willingness to say as much.
"No, they shouldn't, but who'll tell them they can't? It isn't as though they'll listen to me."
"I could have a word with someone."
"I can't ask you to put yourself out."
"You haven't asked, I've offered. Women have got to stick together in this world. Who'll fight for us if we won't fight for each other?"
"My thoughts precisely." Romana's eyes crinkled as she smiled. "Now eat up, for heaven's sake. There's more in the oven." She hopped up to get them beverages. "Wine?"
"I prefer whiskey, but I'll never turn down a respectable vintage."
"Then, my dear, you've come to the right place."