but she did care about Bella, and she knew it would cause trouble between Bella and her mother if Gavin went rampaging round there, demanding that Charlie gave an account of himself. Mrs Firth doted on Charlie. He could do no wrong in her eyes, as Lena herself had good reason to know.
No, it was best that she didn’t say anything to Gavin, she decided, as she shook her head and fibbed, ‘No.’
Lena had lied to him. Gavin felt the pain explode inside his chest. His Lena, whom he loved so much, had lied to him and all because of that no-good rotter who had already hurt her so much. Gavin looked away from Lena. Janette was smiling up at him from her high chair. The minute he’d stepped inside she’d held up her arms to him to be lifted out, and Gavin had felt that same spike of emotion now that he’d felt the very first time he’d held her, minutes after her birth. She was his girl, his child, the child of his heart, and he loved her every bit as much as he would do the new baby Lena was carrying.
The new baby. A knife twisted in his heart. Was Lena wishing that she hadn’t married him and that she wasn’t having his child now that she’d seen Charlie again?
They were almost midway through September, but although the days might be growing shorter, double summertime meant that thankfully it was still possible to go out in the evening in daylight, even if blackout curtains had to be put in place ready for one’s return in darkness, Katie reflected, carefully applying a thin coat of precious lipstick, using a small brush so as to use as little as possible of what was left of her favourite Max Factor pink, bought just before the war. Once that was done she ran her comb through her thick naturally curly dark gold hair and then studied her reflection critically in her bedroom’s full-length mirror. The outfit she was wearing had been a second-hand find, bought when she and Gina had spent a couple of days together in Bath, just before it had been badly bombed, and the silk of her dress floated delicately round Katie’s slim legs. She did feel rather guilty about the fact that she was wearing a pair of silk stockings that had been given to her by a grateful young American GI who had enjoyed the tour of London’s historical sites she had planned for him so much that he had insisted on giving them to her as a ‘thank you’. The ATS girls with whom she shared the house in Cadogan Place had teased her unmercifully about both the stockings and the young GI, but Katie knew that his desire to thank her had been genuine and not a prelude to some sort of ‘come on’.
She had been extremely lucky in her billet, she knew; the house, right in the centre of the city, was in a terrace of elegant late Georgian buildings. Her bedroom was enormous, with a high ceiling and its own bathroom. Luxury indeed, as Katie’s parents were fond of reminding her when she made her fortnightly visits to Hampstead, where her mother and father were now living with friends in a rather run-down Victorian house, both of them missing living in the city, having moved further out during the blitz.
From her bedroom window Katie could see Gina walking towards the house, which fortunately was only a short walk from the tube station close to Harrods. Gathering up her handbag and the warm woollen silk-lined stole on permanent loan to her from her mother, Katie made her way downstairs to join her friend.
The American Embassy was situated in Grosvenor Square and within easy walking distance of Cadogan Place, as Gina had already said.
‘I had a wonderful surprise when I got back to my aunt’s this afternoon,’ Gina told Katie as they set out. ‘Leonard telephoned from Devonport. They’re under sailing orders, and of course he couldn’t say where they were going, although my guess is that it has to be Italy, now that we’ve got a toehold in Sicily. It was lovely to hear his voice. Hearing that he’d got some leave coming up would have been even better, of course. I mustn’t be greedy, though. Not after him getting two weeks’ leave when we got married, and a forty-eight-hour pass the other weekend. He couldn’t say outright, but he did hint that he might be home for Christmas. I do hope so. Leonard’s parents living so close to my own means that we could see both families, and, of course, the children. Once the war is over we want them to come and live with us full time, but of course it’s best that they stay where they are for now.’
A pair of smartly dressed American marines were on duty outside the American Embassy, faces fixed in stern expressions, eyes forward. An equally smartly uniformed young woman checked their names off her guest list, in the imposing hallway with its marble busts and highly polished floor, the American flag very much on display.
‘I rang and told them I’d be bringing you with me,’ Gina murmured to Katie, who nodded in response. It was well known that with so many good-time girls on the fringe of London society eager to strike up friendships with the Americans, especially those who were officers, only unattached women who had been vetted were on the official invitation lists.
The American Embassy was very much the hub of the American Military Command in London. Military uniforms outnumbered the diplomatic uniform of city suit and Brooks Brothers shirt almost ten to one, from what Katie could see, as she and Gina stood together just outside the double doors leading into a large reception room, its crimson-papered walls hung with portraits of past presidents, the elegant plastered ceiling and cornices painted white with the detail picked out in gold. Beyond this room a further set of double doors on the opposite wall were open to reveal another room, this one painted a rich royal blue, its windows framed by royal-blue velvet curtains trimmed with gold braid. All very rich and expensive-looking, Katie thought, and not a bit shabby as so many British buildings had become.
A group of what looked like newspapermen were all clustered together on one side of the room, drinks in hand, cameras slung from their shoulders, as they studied the other occupants of the room, a group of military men standing in front of the imposing marble fireplace.
It was easy to see which women were Americans, Katie reflected. All the British women there might have done their best, but their clothes, no matter how smart, did not have the up-to-the-minute freshness and fashion of those sported by the Americans.
‘Ah, Gina, there you are. Dreadful crush, what?’
‘Uncle Rupert, I’m surprised you managed to spot me in this crush,’ Gina laughed as she was enveloped in a bear hug by her relative. ‘Uncle Rupert, I’ve brought Katie with me. She was my bridesmaid.’
‘Of course, remember her well. Delighted to meet you again, m’dear. Dashed pretty girls, both of you. We’ll show these Americans a thing or two, what? What are you drinking? Champagne, I expect. Best drink for pretty girls.’
With that skill possessed by upper-class men of a certain age and confidence, out of nowhere, or so it seemed to Katie, a waiter was summoned to produce two glasses of freshly poured champagne.
‘And where’s that husband of yours, Gina?’
‘I really couldn’t say,’ Gina informed him.
‘That’s right, good girl. Careless talk costs lives and all that. Still enjoying your job? Not getting too many saucy letters to read, I hope?’
Behind her uncle’s back Gina gave Katie a rueful look, which made Katie both want to laugh and at the same time made her feel sad. So many of the letters they had to check did contain the most intimate of messages, sent, though, from the heart, in most cases, from men desperately missing the one they loved and equally desperate to assure them of their love and be reassured in turn that they were loved.
It wasn’t long before Gina’s uncle Rupert had introduced them both to an American colonel of his own generation, who announced immediately that he must introduce two such charming girls to his junior officers, adding with a smile, ‘Because if I don’t, they will think that I’m keeping you to myself, and then I reckon I could be in danger of having to subdue a mutiny.’
