She could hear the rain beating against the window as she lay in bed with her eyes closed. It was time to get up, she supposed, but a few more minutes wouldn’t matter, and she needed time to think about the last three days. About the new people she’d met and the things she’d been told.
It had started when Robert Lennox had met her at the station at Sevenoaks and had driven her the few miles out of that little town and into the lush Kent countryside. He had an open-top roadster and Catherine, surprised, because she’d imagined he would have something more sober, found herself enjoying the sensation of the wind blowing through her hair. It made her feel young and carefree, although considering the circumstances, carefree was the last thing she should have felt.
‘Are you sure you don’t mind this?’ Robert asked again. He’d offered to put the top up when he’d led her out of the station to where the car was parked. ‘It’ll take us about twenty minutes to get to our destination, and it’s a lovely day. I thought you’d quite like it.’
‘Yes,’ she’d said, staring at the well-polished red car with its big headlamps and shiny bumper. ‘Leave the top down.’ And now, with her hair streaming out behind her, he’d flicked a look at her and asked again.
‘It’s alright,’ she assured him. ‘It’s fun.’
‘Good,’ said Robert, and grinned.
Catherine immediately felt uncomfortable. Should she be having fun when Christopher was missing or – she forced herself to think it – dead? And this outing to the Kent countryside was certainly not for fun. It was deadly serious. She swallowed the nervous lump that kept forcing its way into her throat and looked up to the blue summer sky. She could see vapour trails criss-crossing the heavens and wondered if they were enemy fighters.
Robert caught her looking. ‘They’re ours,’ he said, glancing up briefly. ‘The German bomber force is just about finished, but it’s the doodlebugs we have to worry about now.’ He frowned. ‘We’re struggling to counter them and the people in south London are paying a terrible price.’
‘I know,’ said Catherine. ‘My mother has friends in Croydon who escaped from France in a fishing boat at the beginning of the war. They attend the Church of Nôtre-Dame in Leicester Square, where Maman goes. Last week, the priest told her that her friends were injured in a rocket attack two weeks ago.’ She shrugged. ‘Their neighbours were killed, so I suppose they were lucky. But I think life is very cruel: they thought they would be safe in England.’
‘Yes,’ agreed Robert. ‘Life is cruel. But we’re coming close to the end of the war and we’ll be able to go home and get on with our lives.’ He was quiet for a moment, concentrating on the narrow, winding roads, shaded with heavily leafed overhanging trees. Then he added, ‘If there’s a life worth getting on with.’
Catherine glanced round at him. He was looking straight ahead at the road, his face expressionless. Did he mean something by that? Something personal?
He cleared his throat. ‘This place we’re going to is a training school for our agents. You won’t be doing the full course, as it takes months, but you will be given an idea of what you might be able to do for us.’
Catherine bit her lip. She phoned him a week ago and told him that she would consider doing something in France. He’d sounded surprised but pleased at the same time. The next day, he’d phoned her back and asked her if she could get away for two days.
‘Alright,’ she’d said. ‘I can tell Maman that I’m working.’
‘Good.’ He sounded relieved and then gave her the time of the train she was to catch and where she was to get off. ‘I’ll be there to meet you.’
At Victoria Station, she’d been tempted to walk off the platform and go home to Maman and Lili, but, almost without noticing it, she’d found herself on the train. Now her doubts returned and she looked about wildly. If she decided to leave, would there be a bus or a taxi that could take her back to Sevenoaks?
Almost as if he knew what she was thinking, Robert smiled. ‘They’re a nice crowd,’ he said. ‘The evenings are quite jolly.’
‘Will you be staying?’ she asked.
Robert shook his head. ‘No, I have to get back to London. But I’ll hang on to introduce you. Don’t worry. You’ll be fine.’
She was fine. The woman who met them at the studded oak door gave Robert a broad smile. ‘Major Lennox,’ she said. ‘How very nice to see you again.’
Catherine looked up quickly. Major Lennox, she thought. So he isn’t a civilian after all. There was no time to reflect on this for the woman was holding out her hand. ‘Mrs Fletcher,’ she beamed. ‘I’m Veronica Bishop. How very nice to meet you. Come in, do, and I’ll find you a cup of coffee. Only Camp, I’m afraid, but we do have biscuits.’
The coffee was served in a large sitting room, where she and Robert sat side by side on a deep, squashy sofa. The cover was worn out and torn in places, and it looked as if somebody had been picking at the threads and making it worse. Maman would be scandalised, Catherine thought, looking around at the other furniture. It was all in much the same state, old and rather tattered. The legs on the oak coffee table in front of her were chewed, the wood scarred and splintered. Miss Bishop, a heavy-breasted woman in her forties, caught sight of the dismay on Catherine’s face. ‘The brigadier’s dog, I’m afraid,’ she sighed, handing round the coffee cups. ‘So very badly trained.’
Robert grinned. ‘It makes it more homely, don’t you think?’ he said. ‘Less military.’
‘If you say so,’ Miss Bishop replied rather glumly, obviously not agreeing with him.
She turned to Catherine. ‘We have our lessons during the day, but we do relax in the evening.’ She nodded towards a grand piano, which filled a corner of the room. ‘Sometimes we have a sing-song, which should suit you.’
The brigadier and his young Labrador, Belter, came in then and more introductions were made. The dog immediately galloped over to the coffee table, but Miss Bishop slapped her hand loudly on it and Belter retreated to the seat in the huge bow window and, leaping on the cushions, proceeded to gnaw at one of the tassels that held back the curtain.
‘He’s a young devil,’ the brigadier smiled fondly. ‘He does love to chew, but’ – he looked nervously at Miss Bishop – ‘he will grow out of it.’ He turned to Catherine, who had stood up to shake hands. ‘Now, my dear, we’ve only got two days with you, so we’d better get to it.’
Catherine’s heart started pounding again and her face must have shown it because Robert touched her arm. His hand was cool and comforting. ‘Don’t worry,’ he said. ‘It’ll be nothing much. Just a recognition course, German Army insignia and suchlike, so you’ll know who’s who, if you ever come across them.’ He smiled at her and then shook her hand. ‘I’ve got to go,’ he said. ‘Good luck.’
She was taken through the house and out of the back door to the yard, where beside the brick coal houses and carriage house were a couple of Nissen huts. ‘In here, Mrs Fletcher,’ said the brigadier, holding open the door to the closest hut. ‘Captain Jaeger is waiting for you.’
He was a short, older man with a ring of white close-cropped hair round a bald pate. Like the brigadier and Robert, he didn’t wear uniform, but was dressed in a neat grey suit and well-polished brown shoes. In fact, in the two days Catherine was at the house, she only saw people in mufti, although they were always introduced by their military titles.
‘How d’you do?’ said Catherine, when the brigadier introduced her, and had a quick look around the hut. It was laid out like a classroom, with a blackboard at one end and wooden desks arranged in a row in front of it. Maps were pinned to the walls, rustling slightly in the breeze that crept under the door and through the half-open window. Captain Jaeger wasted no time. After briefly shaking her hand and showing her to a wooden desk, he went to the blackboard.
‘You are here to learn German insignia, Mrs Fletcher, which, I think, is not a difficult task, but there are many variations, so we start … now.’ He turned the blackboard over and Catherine saw that there was a coloured chart on the back. She leant forward to examine the pictures of cap badges and shoulder boards, and the names beside them.
‘You have the German language?’ Captain Jaeger asked. Catherine realised that he had an accent; could it be German?
‘No. I don’t.’ It was hard to keep the hostility out of her voice. The captain’s countrymen were holding Christopher in a hell that she didn’t even want to imagine.
If he noticed it, Jaeger gave no indication, but took a pointer from the ledge beneath the blackboard and pointed at the first badge. It was an embroidered white eagle with outstretched wings on a grey background. ‘All German soldiers wear this emblem on their uniform blouses,’ Jaeger said, ‘but different ranks and different divisions have, as you will expect, slight variations.’ He moved the pointer to another badge. ‘I show you this as an example.’ It was the same eagle but now in silver on a black background. ‘It is the emblem of the Panzer Division.’
Catherine gazed at the blackboard. There must have been about fifty different badges and emblems pictured on the chart. Surely she wouldn’t be required to learn all of them. It was impossible. Nobody could stop me if I got up and left, she thought, and put her hand down to her handbag, which she’d tucked in beside her feet.
Suddenly Captain Jaeger gave a short, barking laugh. ‘Do not despair, dear Mrs Fletcher. You will understand very quickly. The German Army does everything in order. One step will follow on from the next.’
By the time Miss Bishop came to collect her, just before six o’clock, Catherine’s mind was bursting with the information that Captain Jaeger had imparted. The sound of his pointer rapping on the board as he drilled the significance of the different insignia into her was still ringing in her head when she was led through the house and up the wide oak staircase.
‘This is your room,’ Miss Bishop said, showing her into a small, somewhat bleak, servant’s room on the second floor. ‘It isn’t awfully nice, I’m afraid; we are rather strapped for accommodation at the moment. But,’ she added brightly, and nodded towards a green-painted door, ‘that’s the bathroom next door to you, so it’s very convenient. When you’re ready, come downstairs. We gather in the drawing room for drinks before dinner.’
Standing uncertainly in the hall half an hour later, wondering which of the closed doors opened into the drawing room, Catherine was startled by a greeting called from the half-landing.
‘Hello.’ A woman of about Catherine’s age skipped lightly down the stairs until she was in the hall. ‘Are you Mrs Fletcher?’ she asked, and her red-painted lips parted in a wide smile.
Her dark hair was rolled and curled and piled on top of her head with a green ribbon threaded through the curls, which matched her glamorous green-beaded dress. It seemed remarkably over the top and Catherine wondered if her grey day dress and short-sleeved cardigan was too plain for a dinner at this house. The woman took Catherine’s arm and led her across the floor.
‘I’m Chantal. How d’you do? We heard we were having a temporary guest.’ She opened a door. ‘Come on in and meet the gang.’
The gang consisted of eight men and five women, who all turned their heads to look at her when Catherine followed Chantal into the room. ‘I’ll do the introductions,’ Chantal laughed, ‘but you’ll probably forget all the names.’
Catherine did forget the names, shyly shaking hand after hand, until one man in a brown corduroy jacket with a livid scar on his face that stretched from the corner of his eye to his mouth stood in front of her and stared. ‘I know you,’ he said after a moment, and gave her a lopsided grin. ‘I saw you sing at the Criterion. You have a terrific voice.’
‘Thank you,’ Catherine smiled.
‘Mon Dieu, you’re a famous person,’ Chantal said loudly, so that everyone turned round to stare. ‘How exciting.’
‘Not that famous,’ said Catherine, blushing.
‘Let me get you a drink,’ said the man who recognised her. ‘Gin?’
‘Thanks,’ Catherine nodded, and after he’d moved towards the drinks tray on the sideboard, she turned to Chantal. ‘What was his name again?’ she asked.
‘Larry Best. Major Larry Best. Nice man.’ Chantal grinned and adjusted the neckline of her dress, which was in danger of exposing her breasts. ‘Sorry,’ she said in a stage whisper. ‘I’ve lost weight in the last few weeks and this frock doesn’t really fit me any more.’
‘I didn’t bring any formal dresses with me,’ Catherine said. ‘I didn’t think it would be necessary.’
‘It isn’t.’ Chantal jerked her head towards the others. ‘Look at them. It’s only me. I like to dress up. Nobody else bothers.’
Catherine sat next to Larry at the table when they went into the dining room for supper. They were served at a long table by silent ATS girls, who handed round dishes of unidentifiable stew and boiled potatoes. The food was demolished eagerly, without anyone examining what was on their plate; it seemed as though everyone was hungry. Catherine only picked at her meal, and even when the next course, a sponge pudding, arrived, she still couldn’t eat much.
‘Not hungry?’ Larry leant towards her, and in a lowered voice said, ‘If you don’t want the rest of that pudding, can I have it?’
‘Of course.’ Catherine smiled and pushed the bowl to his place. He only took minutes to finish and then leant back and took out his packet of cigarettes.
‘Smoke?’ he asked, offering the packet of Woodbines.
‘No, thank you,’ Catherine said. ‘I don’t smoke. My voice is my living, so I look after it.’
‘Are you still at the Criterion?’
‘Well, I did a couple of nights there some weeks ago, but I’ve joined a group now and we entertain the troops and factory workers. I’m loving it.’
‘Are you all singers?’
‘Oh no. Not all of us. We have a conjurer, a pianist, a ventriloquist, a tenor, and my friend Della Stafford does songs from the shows and dances brilliantly. Even Frances, who’s our administrator, sings. We’re a good troupe and the audiences seem to like us.’
‘I’m sure they do,’ Larry grinned. ‘Perhaps you’ll sing for us one evening, while you’re here.’
‘Maybe,’ Catherine said, as they got up. The ATS girls were collecting the dishes and Miss Bishop was directing people out of the dining room and back into the drawing room.
‘Coffee is being served as usual,’ she called out, as Catherine followed the others.
The evening sun was going down and shone through the great bow window, lighting up the large room in a rosy glow. It picked out the dusty Edwardian carvings on the mahogany panelling above the fireplace and gleamed through the stained-glass half-windows around the bow, sending shafts of colour onto the faded carpet.
‘How lovely,’ Catherine breathed.
‘It is,’ said Major Best, handing her a coffee. ‘This place must have been magnificent once.’
She was going to reply, but suddenly the room was filled with music, as one of the younger men had sat down at the piano and was thumping out a Noël Coward number. Some of the others were singing along with gusto. Catherine smiled. The pianist was dreadful and the singing pretty poor, but they were enjoying themselves. The man who was playing had a black eye and a cut on his cheek, and looked as if he’d been in a fight. One of the women had her arm in a sling and looked tired, but she was singing along happily, her good arm linked in Chantal’s.
‘Not up to your standard,’ Larry grinned.
‘It doesn’t matter,’ Catherine said. ‘They’re having a good time.’ She looked at the group again. ‘A lot of them seem to have been injured. Why’s that?’
‘Oh, the training is quite hard,’ Larry grunted. ‘They’re always getting bumps and scrapes.’
For the first time, Catherine thought about what these people were doing. Robert and his boss hadn’t actually said what this house was for, but you didn’t have to be a genius to guess. The men and women who were gathered round the over-strung piano were training to be agents. Some of them would be smuggled into France and Holland to send back information to the War Office. Others would be required to fight, blow up buildings, railway lines and bridges. Dangerous assignments. It was a sickening thought and she nervously sat forward on the shabby armchair ready to jump up and leave the room.
‘I see you’re married,’ Larry Best broke into her anxious thoughts.
‘What?’
He nodded towards her wedding ring, which she had been winding fretfully round her finger. ‘Is he in the forces?’
‘Yes, Christopher is a para. At least …’ She was going to say more but remembered that she’d signed the Official Secrets Act. Robert had said that Chris was an agent. God, he might even have been here, but she couldn’t tell anyone that. Even here. Even to Larry Best.
‘At least what?’
Catherine swallowed the lump in her throat and then said in a rush, ‘He’s been posted missing. I don’t know whether he’s still alive. I don’t even know where he is.’
‘I’m sorry,’ Larry said. ‘War is God-awful hell.’ He narrowed his eyes and stared again at her hand, where she was once again twisting her wedding ring round her slim finger. ‘Christopher, you said? In the Parachute Regiment?’
‘Yes,’ Catherine nodded. ‘Before the war, he was a lecturer, and we were convinced the army would post him to some sort of office job. But they didn’t.’
Larry narrowed his eyes. ‘When did you last hear from him?’ he asked.
‘I haven’t heard from him,’ she answered, trying to think back. ‘Not since he left that last time. I assume he is abroad.’
‘But you’ve been told he’s missing.’
‘Yes.’ Catherine nodded her head slowly.
‘And nothing more?’
She frowned and glanced up at him. He was asking questions about something that she knew she mustn’t divulge, and from the change in his face and the quick crooked smile he gave it was obvious he recognised that.
‘How about another drink?’ he said, moving to get up.
‘Thanks, but no.’ Catherine stood up. ‘I’m rather tired, so if you won’t think me too rude, I’ll go to my room.’
Larry Best stood up too and shook her hand. ‘I’ll see you tomorrow,’ he said.
The next morning after breakfast, she was directed again to the Nissen hut classroom. To her surprise, it was Larry standing behind the teacher’s desk.
‘Hello,’ he said. ‘I’m going to give you a quick rundown of military hardware.’
Catherine could feel her face falling. This is mad, she thought, but Larry must have noticed how miserable she looked because he grinned.
‘Don’t worry,’ he laughed. ‘We’re just going to look at some pictures of tanks and armoured cars. If you can sort them out in your head and remember them, it will be useful.’
He reached up and pulled down a chart that had pictures of tanks on it. Catherine sat at her desk and stared at them. They looked all the same to her. Tanks? She could distinguish a tank from a lorry or a car, but from each other?
‘Oh God,’ she muttered, but if Larry heard her, he ignored it.
‘This is the Panzer VI,’ he said, rapping his pointer on one of the pictures. ‘I’m showing you this first because this is the vehicle that is the most used now, but there are others in service.’
The lesson dragged on through the morning, and after a quick lunch of soup and cheese on toast, she was straight back into the Nissen hut to learn about the different identifying markings that might be found on the military hardware.
‘Are you taking any of this in?’ asked Larry after an hour in the afternoon.
Catherine, who was sitting with her eyes turned towards the small window, shook her head. She’d been watching the activity outside on the large back garden. Several members of the group were having what looked to her like wrestling practice; others were practising fighting with knives.
‘Not much,’ she said, dragging her face away from the window. ‘I think, for me, this is a total waste of my time and yours. I will never be in a situation where it will be useful.’ She looked back to the window. ‘And I’m certainly not going to do any of that.’
‘Mm,’ Larry murmured. ‘I agree. But the powers that be sometimes have odd ideas. And we have to go along with them.’ He followed her eyes to the activities in the garden. ‘Don’t worry, Mrs Fletcher. Nobody is going to ask you to fight or even learn self-defence.’ He sighed. ‘I think we’ve done enough today. If only a little of what I’ve said sticks, it could be useful.’ He paused for a moment. ‘Why don’t you tell me a little about yourself? I believe your mother is French. Where does she come from?’
In no time Catherine found herself talking about her grandfather’s farm south of Amiens and how much she had loved her holidays there. ‘We haven’t heard from them since Dunkirk, really. Maman and I are so worried.’
‘Did you go there for your honeymoon?’
‘Oh no,’ she laughed. ‘Chris and I married after the war had started. It was impossible to get there. No, we went to Brighton for a couple of days. Then his leave ended.’
‘And he went back to war.’
‘Yes.’
Larry lit another cigarette and drew in a deep lungful of smoke. ‘It’s surprising that he wasn’t posted to the Education Corps. After all, he was proficient in French and German.’
Catherine nodded. It had been surprising. He should have been in the Education Corps.
They walked together back to the house, skirting the garden, where Catherine’s companions from yesterday evening trampled the neglected and overgrown flower-beds. The sun was shining brightly, and beyond the house and garden, a bucolic scene of farms and cottages covered the low rolling hills. ‘On a day like this,’ Catherine said quietly, ‘you’d never guess that …’
‘No, you wouldn’t. It seems too peaceful out there, and almost wrong, when you think of what’s happening across the Channel.’ Larry’s voice was halting, and when Catherine looked up, she saw that his damaged face was set in a bitter expression. What must he have gone through? she wondered.
He noticed that she was looking at him and he gave her his lopsided grin. ‘Ignore me, Mrs Fletcher. I’m turning into a curmudgeon. But take it from me – things aren’t always what they seem. Now, will you sing for us tonight? We’d love it.’
‘Alright. I’d like to.’
She had one last conversation with the brigadier before supper. He and Belter were in the corridor when she walked inside and he beckoned her into the empty dining room.
‘I realise that you think that these two days have been a waste of time, Mrs Fletcher, and you could be right. There might not be any opportunity for you to help us when you go to France’ – he put a fond hand on Belter’s head and scratched the young dog behind the ears – ‘but in case there is, I hope you’ve understood just a few of the things you’ve learnt.’
‘I have, Brigadier, and if the occasion arises, I will try to discover something that might be useful.’ Even as she said these words, Catherine knew that the occasion would never arise and her promises were meaningless. So she smiled at him, and when Belter came snuffling around her knee, she bent and stroked his golden head, which caused the lively dog to jump around in excitement.
‘Down, sir,’ shouted the brigadier, and then with an indulgent smile confided, ‘He will learn, but he’s really not much more than a pup.’
That evening, after supper, when they were all in the drawing room, Larry stood up and clapped his hands. ‘We have a treat in store now. Catherine Fletcher, who is well known in the West End, is going to sing for us. George is going to play the piano for her, but has promised not to drown her out with too much hard pedal.’
Catherine handed George the score and he softly played the introduction. She sang ‘The Very Thought of You’, which was one of her favourites, and judging by the rapt attention of the group, who were lolling about on the battered sofas and chairs, they were enjoying it too. Veronica Bishop was sitting on a hard chair by the door and Catherine caught a glimpse of her surreptitiously dabbing her eyes with a lace-edged hanky. The brigadier, who was in an armchair, with Belter at his feet, led the applause when she’d finished.
‘Wonderful,’ he shouted. ‘More, please.’
She followed up with a medley from Show Boat and then a couple of Ivor Novello songs. Miss Bishop got up and went out at one point and Catherine worried that she’d upset her; maybe she was not quite the martinet that she affected and had someone special that she was thinking about. But as Catherine was starting her last number, the door opened and Miss Bishop reappeared, followed by Robert.
‘I’m going to finish with a song that means a lot to me,’ Catherine announced, her eyes on Robert, and then, nodding to George, started ‘I Will Wait’.
‘Mon Dieu,’ one of the men breathed, and when she sang it in French, several of them were looking lost, as though this was taking them home to a comforting place where there was no war.
Cheers erupted when she’d finished and Larry Best gave her a swift hug. ‘You’re just terrific,’ he said.
Robert came to stand beside her. ‘Hello, Catherine,’ he said.
‘What are you doing here?’ She was strangely pleased to see him.
‘I thought I’d drive you home. What d’you think?’
‘I’d like that,’ she said, looking into his eyes. Then she was surrounded by the group, and Veronica Bishop brought her another cup of the execrable coffee.
When everyone had calmed down, she sat on a sofa with Robert.
‘Shall we go now?’ he said. ‘We’ll be in London before midnight. You’ll be able to see your little girl.’
‘Yes, oh yes,’ she answered, with an excited smile, and jumped to her feet. ‘You arrange it with the brigadier while I get my things.’
It took less than ten minutes to pack her few belongings and put on her coat. Larry was at the bottom of the stairs when she came down with her small suitcase.
‘You’re leaving us tonight?’ he asked.
‘Yes,’ she nodded. ‘Major Lennox is driving me home. I’m longing to see my baby daughter.’
‘A child? I didn’t know that. So, all I can do is to wish you good luck.’ He stretched out his hand, and over his shoulder, Catherine could see Robert standing impatiently by the front door.
‘Thank you, Larry.’
He moved aside to let her pass him and then quickly caught her arm and bent his head to her ear. ‘Remember what I said. Things aren’t always what they seem.’
‘What was that about?’ asked Robert, as they drove through the dark country lanes. ‘You and Larry Best.’
‘Nothing,’ Catherine dismissed the question. ‘He was wishing me luck, I suppose.’
‘Mm,’ Robert grunted. ‘You just seemed very close.’
What a strange thing to say, Catherine thought. It’s almost as if he’s jealous. ‘He’s a nice man,’ she said. ‘We chatted a lot.’
‘What about?’
‘Oh, Christopher and about my grandparents’ farm. He said he was surprised that Chris wasn’t posted to the Education Corps, what with his French and German.’ As she spoke, a new realisation dawned on her. How on earth did Larry know that Chris was fluent in German as well as French, and for that matter, what else did he know? She thought back to the two conversations she’d had with him and was positive that she hadn’t mentioned that Chris lectured in modern languages. She turned her head and stared at Robert.
‘Larry Best knew all about me,’ she said. ‘I think they all did.’
‘Not all of them,’ Robert grinned.
She wanted to be angry, to be furious about being tricked into going to the spy school, but glancing again at Robert, found that he was smiling unconcernedly and she knew anything she said would be useless. So she settled down for the two-hour drive through unlit roads and was almost asleep when Robert drew up in front of her house.
‘Thank you,’ she said, turning to him and giving him a sweet smile.
‘It’s alright,’ he nodded, looking straight ahead. ‘I was glad to give you a lift.’ Then suddenly he turned and, grabbing her shoulders, pulled her towards him. His mouth found hers and for the longest moment she relaxed into the embrace, loving to be held and only remembering the pleasure of intimacy. Then, opening her eyes, she pulled away sharply.
‘Sorry,’ Robert groaned. ‘I don’t know what came over me,’ and he opened the car door and went round to her side. She had already alighted and pulled her suitcase from the back seat and was standing in front of her door.
‘Let me,’ said Robert, as she struggled to put her key into the lock, but the key turned and the door swung open. ‘Forgive me,’ he said again, as she stepped inside, and she looked down into his eyes when she turned back to him.
‘I have a husband,’ Catherine said fiercely. ‘Don’t ever forget that.’