A Christmas Promise by Annie Groves Read Free Book Online

with all the patience she could muster, ‘is that if he is in the know about what is going on he doesn’t share it with me – and that’s as it should be.’ She had heard enough from Nancy now and, turning, she went to open her immaculately polished front door.
    ‘So there’s nothing we should know about then?’ Nancy asked. There was a double meaning to the question; Olive knew she wondered if there was anything ‘going on’ between her and Archie.
    ‘Oh, there is one thing,’ Olive said in a low voice, looking around to make sure there was nobody to overhear. Leaning towards Nancy she whispered, ‘Archie did tell me – in the strictest confidence, of course …’
    ‘Of course!’ Eagerly moving her forefinger across tightly closed, thin lips, Nancy moved forward so she could capture every precious word.
    ‘He told me that Mrs Wetherill’s cat got stuck in a sewer pipe and she didn’t miss it for two whole days.’
    ‘Oh, Olive, you are a one!’ Nancy, colouring now, laughed, and Olive was glad she hadn’t taken offence at being so blatantly duped. Maybe when she had time to think about it, though …
    ‘Oh, I meant to tell you – about Sunday,’ Olive stopped at the front door. ‘We’ve decided to have a little get-together to celebrate Tilly’s birthday. You can come if you like,’ Olive said kindly.
    ‘Well, it’s as much your day as hers,’ Nancy said generously. ‘You did all the hard work. You can celebrate even if Tilly’s not here.’
    Olive smiled, and without another word she hurried indoors and quietly closed the front door, knowing she would never tell Nancy the things she and Archie discussed in private.

FOUR
    ‘David, what would you say if I said we are going to have another child?’ Dulcie, lying next to her husband in their double bed, had never broached the delicate subject of sex before. Their lovemaking had consisted of passionate kisses and they were both satisfied with that – or so David thought. He turned his head towards her, his relaxed body suddenly becoming tense; he knew that this would happen one day – or night, as the case may be – and he thought he was prepared for the time his wife would want more than passionate kisses.
    ‘Do you think I should go and see our man in Harley Street, Dulcie?’ David asked tentatively. He didn’t want to rush her, knowing she had been quite traumatised by the circumstances in which Hope had been conceived in an air-raid shelter; however, they had been married for almost a year now and they still had not consummated their marriage even though they desperately loved each other.
    ‘Oh, no, David, I didn’t mean …’ Dulcie’s words tripped over each other in her eagerness to put David’s mind at rest. ‘I wasn’t saying that I should have another baby … No, not that!’ She realised now that she should have mentioned it at the breakfast table or while they were eating dinner, not now, when they were in a vulnerable position.
    ‘Well, forgive me, darling,’ David said. Leaning his elbow on the pillow and resting his head nonchalantly in the palm of his upturned hand he said, ‘I haven’t got a clue what you mean.’
    David was even more handsome now, looking down into her eyes, and Dulcie wished she was able to forget her time during the air raid with the American airman … but she couldn’t. David had never insisted on his conjugal rights – he was the most sensitive man in the world – and she knew that one day he would want to be the husband he thought she deserved. ‘I wasn’t saying that we should …’ She couldn’t bring herself to say the words. ‘It was Edith!’
    ‘Edith?’ David looked puzzled. ‘What about Edith?’
    ‘She asked if I would look after little Anthony while she went to work.’
    ‘We’ve taken care of him since he was born; she hardly knows the little chap, and he thinks she is his aunt; he doesn’t know her as his mother.’ David’s puzzlement was obvious in his