Broken Rainbows (5 page)

‘Wouldn't that be horribly expensive?'

‘Only for the American army. There'll be some disruption for a day or two, but on the plus side we won't be able to take it with us when we go.'

‘In that case, how can I refuse?'

‘You have quite a family.'

‘Only two of the children are mine.'

‘Rachel and Edward. We've been introduced.'

She looked up as the door opened. Maisie walked in with a tray.

‘I thought you'd like tea, Mrs John.'

Bethan stared in surprise at the biscuits on the plate.

‘Sergeant Morelli made some chocolate cookies for the children. These were left over.'

‘Just make sure the children don't eat too much rich food, Maisie,' Bethan warned sternly, feeling that she was rapidly losing control of her household. ‘They're not used to sweet things.'

‘They only had one each, Mrs John.'

‘And pancakes?' Bethan reminded as Maisie retreated.

‘You're strict with your children,' the colonel observed as Maisie closed the door.

‘Routine and discipline are essential in an extended family of this size, but I wouldn't want to bore a soldier about either of those things.'

‘From what I've seen, you could teach the average GI something about both.' He glanced at the photograph on the desk. ‘Your husband?'

‘Yes.'

‘He's on active service?'

‘He was captured at Dunkirk.'

‘That means he's been a prisoner for …'

‘… two years and five months.'

‘I'm sorry. You must miss him.'

‘I'm too busy, Colonel Ford,' she interposed briskly, negating any intended sympathy.

‘I can see that I'm taking up your time.'

‘I can spare a few moments, especially as Maisie has gone to the trouble of making tea. Would you like a cup and one of your biscuits?'

‘Just tea please.'

‘Milk and sugar?'

‘Milk, thank you.'

She poured out two cups and handed him his. ‘Colonel, as you're going to live here, presumably for some time …'

‘Until we finish training our troops,' he interrupted, giving her no hint as to how long that might take.

‘Perhaps we should lay down a few rules to ensure that all our lives run smoothly.'

‘Such as?'

‘I'm responsible for Maisie and Liza as well as the children. Given the shortage of men in Pontypridd it would be very easy for your staff to turn their heads.'

‘I have already given my officers a lecture on respecting the young ladies of the town. It will be passed down to the men.'

‘I'm glad to hear it.'

‘As for my immediate staff, Sergeant Morelli is forty: he's a volunteer and wanted to ensure that he'd be in this war to the bitter end. He's old enough to be Maisie and Liza's father so I don't think you need fear he'll start chasing them.'

‘There's still Maurice.'

‘An extremely naive twenty-year-old.'

‘I hope you'll ensure he stays that way.'

‘I can't promise that. I drove past Station Yard last night. There seemed to be an extraordinarily large number of ladies waiting to meet the trains.'

‘Every town in Britain has its Station Yard, Colonel Ford. It's Maisie and Liza I'm concerned about, not the ladies waiting to meet the trains.'

‘Any problems, Mrs John, please feel free to discuss them with me.'

‘Thank you.'

‘And if you don't want my staff mixing with the girls or the children …'

‘I didn't say that.'

He looked into her eyes as he set down his cup and rose to his feet. ‘We're strangers, far from home in an alien land, Mrs John. And your kindness is greatly appreciated.'

Chapter Three

For the first time since they had started work in the munitions factory Jenny Powell and Judy Crofter didn't call in at either Ronconi's café or the pub before going home. Turning under the railway bridge, they began the long haul up the Graig hill, halting outside Jenny's corner shop at the top of Factory Lane.

‘Pick you up here at eight?' Judy asked, as Jenny opened the door of the shop she had entrusted to an assistant's care for the duration.

‘That gives me enough time to turn from a dust-coated frog into a princess.' Jenny looked at her sister-in-law, Jane. ‘Coming with us?'

‘Not tonight, thanks.'

‘Your Haydn wouldn't give up the chance to have a good time,' Judy taunted. Jane's husband, Haydn Powell, was one of the leading lights of ENSA and the newspapers were constantly printing ‘morale boosting' photographs of him in uniform with his arms wrapped around scantily clad chorus girls.

‘I'm looking forward to putting Anne to bed. She's growing up so fast I feel I'm missing out on her childhood.'

‘Babies!' Judy wrinkled her nose in disgust. ‘I learned all I ever want to know about them from my younger brothers. Thank God they're in the army now. There's nothing like a kid hanging round your neck to cramp your style. You won't catch me having any.'

‘I'll talk to you when you're married. See you tomorrow, Jenny.'

‘See you,' Jenny called after them as she walked inside. Pushing past the crowd of women and children waiting to be served, she murmured a brief hello before diving through the door that led to her private quarters, closing it quickly lest she be roped in to help out. Running up the stairs she stopped and sniffed the air.

‘The lady of the house returns.'

‘I thought I could smell paint.'

Alexander Forbes, a former university lecturer, museum curator and conscientious objector who'd been conscripted to work in the pits, was standing in her living room dressed in a pair of khaki overalls, a brush in one hand, a pot of paint in the other. ‘You said you wanted to brighten the place up.'

‘How did you get in?' Kicking off her shoes, she tossed her coat over the banisters.

‘I told Freda you'd asked me to decorate the living room. She took quite a bit of convincing.'

‘I've given her strict instructions not to let anyone up here when I'm at work.'

‘Blame me, not her. I can be very persuasive.'

‘Not that I've noticed. Why aren't you working?'

‘Even “bloody conchies” get a day off now and again.' Setting the tin on the dustsheet he'd laid over the lino and square of carpet, he stamped on the lid.

‘I thought paint was rarer than bananas these days.' Jenny stepped tentatively forward, checking the cloth around her feet for paint splotches before examining the walls.

‘I asked Ronnie Ronconi. He knew a man …'

‘Ronnie always knows a man. If you're not careful you'll find yourself standing in the dock alongside him charged with black-marketeering.' She glanced back at him as she walked around the room. He'd gone to a lot of trouble, and done a first-class job of covering the walls. Suddenly aware that she hadn't even thanked him, she added, ‘You've certainly brightened the place up. Wherever did you get a light shade of green like this?'

‘If you must know it's institution paint mixed with white.'

‘It's worked. I can't see a trace of the pattern on the wallpaper.'

‘You did say you were tired of overblown roses.' He eyed her warily, uncertain whether to expect gratitude or an outburst for invading her privacy. He adored Jenny, every delectable, beautiful inch of her body and every erratic, unpredictable facet of her sharp, intelligent mind, but he wasn't too besotted to realise that he loved her far more than she did him.

‘I was,' she answered carelessly. ‘And now, I suppose you'll expect me to show some appreciation?'

‘That would be nice.'

Unpinning her hat, she threw it on to the sideboard before walking through to the kitchen. Wiping his hands on his overalls, Alexander followed.

‘Finished for the day?' she asked as he lifted an empty jam jar from the windowsill and filled it with turpentine.

‘I thought I'd finished the job.'

‘What about the skirting boards and doors?'

‘The stain's sound enough, it just needs a good clean.'

‘You volunteering?' She filled the kettle and lit the gas.

‘I could do it on my next day off' Waiting until she moved away from the sink he pulled a bar of sugar soap from his pocket and began scrubbing his hands under the cold tap. ‘I don't suppose …'

‘What?'

‘Never mind.'

‘Alexander Forbes, you can be the most infuriating man.'

‘I wondered if my next day off might coincide with yours?'

‘I doubt it.'

‘If you tell me when it is, I could swap shifts.' Checking his hands to make sure they were clean, he dried them on a rag he'd tucked into his pocket. ‘I didn't just bring paint with me this morning. I also managed to get a bottle of whisky. Real whisky.' He closed his hands around her waist.

‘You'll get me all messy.'

‘I've cleaned up.' Bending his head, he brushed his lips over the top of her head. ‘How about that thank-you?'

She glanced at her wristwatch. ‘I'm meeting Judy in two hours.'

‘That gives us plenty of time.'

‘I need to wash and change.'

‘Why? You look perfect to me.'

‘I'm all sweaty and dusty from the factory.'

‘Not so I've noticed.' Slipping his hand beneath her pullover he slid his fingers inside her bust shaper. ‘Where are you going?'

‘The café, or the pub. We haven't decided.'

He curbed his jealousy and the urge to ask if they were meeting anyone. His relationship with Jenny was a precarious one. In his blackest moments he saw it as a reversal of the philandering cad, virginal maiden fable so beloved of Victorian melodrama; but he could hardly cast himself as the innocent. He had made love to many women before Pontypridd, the Maritime pit and Jenny had turned his comfortable academic, middle-class life upside down. But in all of his thirty-five years, no woman had touched his heart the way she had.

An independent widow, who was growing more independent every day courtesy of the wages she earned in the munitions factory and the takings of the shop she managed for her sick, absent father, she prided herself on her self-reliance, and didn't hesitate to tell him to go to hell whenever she felt he was intruding into her private life. The one and only time he had mentioned marriage, she had refused to see him for two months. The most miserable months he had spent in Pontypridd.

He nuzzled the back of her neck and fingered her nipples beneath the layers of clothing, touches he knew she found difficult to resist.

‘I suppose I could spare you ten minutes,' she muttered as his hand slid downwards beneath the waistband of her skirt.

Recognising the teasing note in her voice he pulled her round to face him.

‘Half an hour.' He bent his head to hers and kissed her. It didn't take long to elicit a response. She returned his kiss, but hers held none of the tenderness he'd offered, only harsh, selfish passion.

Reaching out blindly, she turned off the gas.

‘No tea for the worker?'

‘You can make it afterwards,' she said as she left the kitchen for her bedroom.

Alexander stood at the head of the stairs as she moved towards the bed. Slowly, provocatively, aware that he was watching her through the open doorway, she stripped off her pullover and skirt. Her smile broadened as she looked into his eyes. Unable to resist any longer he stepped towards her. Slipping down the straps on her petticoat he allowed it to slide to the floor. The brush of the silky, sensuous fabric against his hands combined with the warmth of her skin sent his senses reeling. Pulling down her bust shaper he buried his face between her naked breasts.

‘God, you're beautiful. You've no idea what you do to me …'

‘Why do men insist on talking at the most inopportune moments?' Jenny pushed him away from the bed. He watched her peel off her workaday, thick, ugly stockings, suspender belt and artificial silk knickers as he struggled out of his overalls.

‘The floor.' She moved towards him, her fingers already busy with the flies on his underpants.

‘It will be uncomfortable.'

‘Not for me.' Pressing him down on his back she straddled him, running her fingers through the mat of hair on his chest, kissing his ears … his eyes… his mouth …

Conscious of his work-roughened hands, he caressed her lightly, gently, his calloused fingertips barely touching her breasts and thighs. ‘Jenny …'

Her hands reached downwards, stroking the soft skin around his groin, rousing him to fever pitch. ‘More action less words, Alex. I like it that way, remember?'

‘More potatoes, Lieutenant?' Anthea Llewellyn-Jones coyly lowered her eyes as she pushed a dish of steaming mashed potatoes towards Kurt Schaffer.

‘I really couldn't eat another thing, but thank you for the offer, Miss Anthea.' He looked at Mrs Llewellyn-Jones. ‘That was the best home-cooked meal I've eaten since I left the States, ma'am. I can't thank you enough for inviting me into your home.'

‘It's our pleasure.' Mrs Llewellyn-Jones discreetly elbowed her husband, who was working his way through the thickest slice of roast beef he'd seen in three years of war. He had been less enthusiastic at the thought of sharing his home with an American officer than his wife and daughter, especially when he saw the lavish meal his wife had ordered the cook to prepare. Her faith in his ability to provide extra rations was an embarrassment and, he suspected, a talking point in the town. Seeing her glaring at him in obvious expectation of a contribution to the conversation, he finally laid his knife and fork on his plate, and contemplated the stranger sitting at his table.

‘Are you a professional soldier, Lieutenant Schaffer?' he enquired briskly, as though he were interrogating him for a loan.

Feeling suspiciously like a prospective bridegroom, Kurt pushed his chair out from the table in an attempt to distance himself from Anthea.

‘I was at West Point, sir. The fourth generation of my family to graduate from the academy.'

‘Never heard of it.'

‘I believe it to be the equivalent of your Sandhurst, sir.'

‘Then you must welcome this war?'

‘Hardly, sir.'

‘Doesn't it give you professionals a better chance of promotion?'

‘I was doing just fine before the war, sir. I was commissioned First Lieutenant less than six months after leaving the academy. Until we entered the war I was stationed in a training camp close to my home town.'

‘And where is home, Lieutenant?'

‘South Carolina, sir. My family live in Charleston.'

‘Your father is in business there?'

‘He was retired until the war broke out. He's been recalled.'

‘An officer like yourself?'

‘A general, sir.' Kurt enjoyed the effect the revelation had on the Llewellyn-Joneses.

‘Do you have any brothers serving?'

‘I am an only child, sir.'

Mr Llewellyn-Jones nodded sagely. The man might be an American, but his manners were civilised, if effusive, and in all his years in the bank he'd never heard of a poor general, American or otherwise. Anthea was a splendid girl, but at twenty-nine, she had yet to receive her first marriage proposal.

Both he and his wife had assumed that Anthea would marry her childhood playmate, Andrew John. Indeed both families had expected the marriage to take place after Andrew completed his degree in London and returned to practise medicine in Pontypridd, but much to his own and Andrew's father's exasperation, the boy had insisted on marrying Bethan Powell, a nurse and nobody from the wrong side of town, and the daughter of a miner, to boot.

Boys like Andrew were scarce on the ground in Pontypridd. There were a few, a very few, others he might have considered suitable; young men destined to join their fathers in family concerns: solicitors – dentists – businessmen – but unfortunately none had presented himself as a suitor. An American officer would be a compromise, but better a compromise than the humiliation of spinsterhood and a dependent old age like his maiden aunt's.

He studied Schaffer as the maid cleared the remains of the entree. The man was certainly presentable. It might be worth making discreet enquiries as to his bank balance and social standing. He was debating the best way to go about it, when his wife interrupted.

‘We have rhubarb crumble for dessert, with fresh cream.'

‘We were warned that food was in short supply in Britain, ma'am.' Kurt leaned back so the maid could place his helping on the table in front of him. ‘I hope you haven't gone to any trouble on my account?'

‘Don't think we eat like this every day, Lieutenant,' Mr Llewellyn-Jones cautioned, as the young girl handed Mrs Llewellyn-Jones the cream jug. ‘My wife's killed the fatted calf on this occasion.'

‘Then I thank you again, ma'am.'

‘I just love your accent,' Anthea enthused. ‘I could sit and listen to it all day long.'

‘I only wish my colonel thought the same way, Miss Anthea. Then I wouldn't have to do any work, just talk.' Kurt shifted uncomfortably on his chair as Anthea's laughter filled the room. While he enjoyed flirtation and the thrill of the chase, he didn't need his colonel's warning to back away from his hostess's daughter. The adoration in her eyes every time she looked at him meant only one thing. She was hungry for a wedding ring. Something he didn't intend to slip on any girl's finger for a long, long time.

When the crumble and cream had been reduced to smears on the plates, Mr Llewellyn-Jones took a key from his top pocket, left his seat and lumbered towards the sideboard. ‘Brandy and cigars?' he offered expansively as he opened the door of the drinks cabinet.