The Other Side of Love by Jacqueline Briskin Read Free Book Online Page B

Thursday evening her cousin’s taking her to some dreary concert.”
     
    “Brahms’s Third is her favourite.”
     
    “Aubrey, you aren’t normally such a nit. Say King George invited you to Buckingham Palace, could you turn it down? This is a cornmand. But why make it such a disasterMfust exchange the tickets.”
     
    “Every seat at the Philharmonic har been booked for months. These only came my way by a miracle.”
     
    “Well, share your miracle with somebody else. Katy will be tete-atete with Adolf.”
     
    They were in Araminta’s small bedroom on the third floor of the Adlon. Wearing a kimono with a vivid green dragon curling up the back, she stood at the window overlooking Pariser Platz, making the best of the light as she drew tiny strokes of eyebrows.
     
    “You’re right,”
    Aubrey said, sighing.
    “It’s too inane to discuss. This is her moment. I’m a pig.”
     
    “You selfish? Darling, I’m the sibling who got the trait of wanting everything. Lord, what I wouldn’t give for a few of your visible eyebrows.”
    Araminta set her cosmetic pencil on the dressingtable.
    “You really must come with Jiirgen and me tonight. Jack Hylton’s over here at the Mocca Efty, but they say Teddy Stauffer at the Delphi Palast is just as good - and, believe me, Jack’s the tops. Shall I give Jiirgen a ring to find you some lovely fraulein? Lieutenant
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    Jiirgen von und su Gilsa was one of the young Germans showing Araminta the smartest cabarets and escorting her to the livelier parties in the nearby mansions and embassies.
     
    “Nightclubbing’s not my style, and you know it.”
     
    “What an attitude! How do you expect to be a writer if you haven’t sampled life?”
    Araminta came over to the bed, sitting next to him. Her untied kimono pulled apart, displaying the lush curves above the lace of her silk teddy.
    “You do look a bit off,”
    she said sympathetically.
    “Daddy’s been riding you, hasn’t he?”
     
    “No worse than usual.”
     
    “The next time he carps about some stupid detail like not hailing a German taxi properly, tell him to bugger off.”
     
    “The ensuing explosion would level Berlin,”
    Aubrey said with a rueful smile.
     
    “There, that’s better,”
    Araminta said.
    “When you’re not sunk into yourself, you’re not half bad.”
    She pressed a dramatic hand against the upper curves of her left breast.
    “Ah, if only they’d lift this damnable bar against incest!”
     
    He laughed.
     
    She went on:
    “So now that you’re out of the Slough of Despond tell me, since your erstwhile moodiness wasn’t caused by Daddy, was it brought on by fiddling about for ideas to put in your essays?”
     
    Ibis, one of those London literary quarterlies that annually sprouted and withered like leaves, had asked Aubrey to write his impressions of Berlin and the Olympic Games.
     
    “Hardly. There’s so much going on.”
     
    “Then, it has to be a certain lady athlete.”
     
    His smile had faded.
     
    “Darling, you’re so awfully clever and sensitive about people, so why can’t you understand how Katy feels? Listen to me. Katy adores you, of course. But like a brother. You’re the same as Sigi to her. Maybe even more of a brother - after all, you’re only a couple of years older. So stop wasting your time on cousins.”
     
    “I’m holding you up,”
    he said in a flat tone.
    “Enjoy yourself this evening.”
     
    As the door closed quietly, Araminta felt a minor qualm at hurting her brother, then told herself she was doing him a favour. It’s high time he faced up to the truth, she decided. Moving to the commodious wardrobe, she strewed the bed with her three summer evening dresses. The Marina blue silk jersey did the most for her figure, but Jiirgen had seen it. The white organza was lovely, but as she spread out the skirt she saw a straggling line of pale spots. She held the pink crepe de Chine to herself, smiling into the mirror inset in
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