The Couple in the Dream Suite by Marguerite Kaye Read Free Book Online Page A

leaning over to push the fall of his hair from his brow. She couldn’t help kissing that downturned mouth of his as she did so. He opened his eyes, and he did smile faintly. Her breasts grazed his chest, setting up the beginnings of desire. She wanted him again. If she kissed him again, she had no doubt he’d want her too. But not yet. First, she wanted for him what she had. Relief. Not peace of mind, but respite. She shuffled away from him, back to holding just his hand. ‘Tell me,’ she said.
    So he did. Not all of it. It was not possible to tell all of it, she knew that, but he told her enough to allow her to imagine the rest. From the commission he had taken on so lightly because it was what was expected of him, to the first shock of the reality of war in the early years, and on. Rising inexorably through the ranks simply by surviving. The weight of responsibility that fell on him as a result. The slow build of resentment and horror that he had to work so hard to repress simply to survive.
    ‘You didn’t think about it,’ Justin said. ‘You just got through each day in whatever way you could. You did what you could, but what you could became less and less, and questioning any of it simply out of the question. I shouldn’t be here, not after so long at the front line. It’s a miracle against the odds that I am. Towards the end, that’s all I could think about. The odds. Beating the odds. I never thought I would.’
    ‘But you did.’
    ‘I did.’ He was sweating. His hand was clammy. ‘I made it, but after…’ He licked his lips. His chest heaved. ‘There was man in my platoon, he was up on a charge. He’d been with me from the start. The kind of man who is a bloody good soldier, but a bloody nightmare otherwise. Always breaking rules. Deliberately. Anything and everything he could flout, he would. It was a point of honour with him, to show up all those damned ridiculous regulations for what they were. The men worshipped him. I admired the stupid sod, though of course it wouldn’t have done to let him know that,’ Justin said bitterly. ‘Not good for morale, for an officer to encourage the men to have a laugh at the army’s expense.’
    ‘Even when the army is laughable,’ Vera said.
    ‘Especially not then,’ Justin agreed. ‘It was worse because we were both regulars, Connolly and I. To cut a long story short, he was up on a charge, striking an officer, and by that time his record was so appalling they decided to make an example of him with a Court Martial. He had a wife, two children, and he hadn’t been home for nearly two years. They were going to send him to prison. I – I went berserk.’
    ‘I’m not surprised.’
    ‘No.’ Justin’s face was ashen, his voice shaking. ‘I mean really berserk. With a gun. I don’t know if I’d have fired it. It took three men to get it off me. Connolly got eighteen months and a dishonourable discharge, while I…’
    ‘You went to jail?’
    ‘No. ‘I was a commissioned officer,’ Justin said with a sneer. ‘They put it down to stress, and packed me off to Craiglockhart Hospital in Scotland.’
    ‘I’ve heard of that place. They did wonderful things for men with shell shock.’ Vera frowned. ‘But you didn’t have that.’
    Justin gazed blankly at the fire. ‘I had a sort of a breakdown. I was there for six months. I hardly remember the first few weeks.’ He turned back towards her, his face flushed.
    ‘You can’t possibly be ashamed, Justin.’
    ‘My father is. He can’t talk about it. He won’t have it mentioned. Not that I would. Hardly dinner party conversation is it? Oh, did I tell you about the day I turned a gun on some fellow officers and then went doolally and had to be banged up,’ he jeered.
    For God’s sake, what you must have been through…’
    ‘Me, and hundreds of thousands of others, and most of them are functioning perfectly well.’
    ‘I suppose your father pointed that out to you?’
    ‘And one of the officers