Whispers of Betrayal by Michael Dobbs Read Free Book Online

their spin doctors strewing rose petals and whisky in their way, while we are expected to stand idly by in the pouring rainand wave them onward. And, to hell with it, look what you’ve done to my newspaper!’ he howled in the manner of some Dickensian villain.
    ‘No, Goodfellowe, you did it. And it’s my newspaper. My toast.’ She picked up the tray. ‘And my bed. Time to get out of it. The second shift arrives in half an hour.’
    He looked at the disappearing tray with a sharp edge of hunger. Damn the diet. The toast didn’t look that bleak after all. ‘You know what I really want, Elizabeth?’ he called after her, his imagination full of the sight and succulence of a full English from the Connaught.
    She turned at the door. ‘I know exactly what you want, poppet,’ she said with a certainty that for a moment completely overwhelmed him. ‘You want to be a Minister once again.’
    For a moment he was stunned. Was it so bloody obvious?
    ‘It would cause problems for me, of course,’ she continued, her lips puckering. ‘The Minister’s mistress. I’d become a cliché.’
    ‘Would that be a very great problem?’
    She stared at him directly, glints of orange fire in the marmalade. ‘I’d manage. If that’s what you wanted. In fact, old darling, I think I’d manage rather well.’
    The words hung between them, persisting. It was the first time they had admitted to each other, perhaps even to themselves, that they saw their futures together, as a team. This was not easy for either of them to admit. There was something often a little theatrical about Elizabeth, like Vivien Leigh, all extravagance and dramatic passion as though she had stepped out of ‘Gone With The Wind’ with high cheekbones and expressive lips that could squeeze submission from almost any man. But if so much of her life was an act, it was only because, in those secret places inside, she had spent much of her life feeling inadequate. She had first learnt the mechanics of satisfying a boy at the age of fourteen. She had also learnt of the potential consequences when, once satisfied, he had simply walked away. Abandoned her to the sniggers of his friends. Made her feel like a slut. She had decided there and then that if anyone was going to do the walking away after that, it would be her. She had been walking away ever since, from her ill-prepared university exams, from her ill-starred marriage, from any sortof personal commitment she felt she could not control – until Goodfellowe had come along on his bloody bike. He was different, confusing, didn’t run by the normal rules. He was both infuriating and fun. So maybe it would be different this time. Maybe.
    Goodfellowe understood some of this, although he had never been allowed to penetrate behind all the layers of tinsel. It meant that his love for her could never be a comfortable matter but, hell, he’d had years of respectable marriage, done the comfort thing and collected the T-shirts, all of which were starched and ironed and filled the locked matrimonial closet. He needed something different, not order and contentment but a challenge that would strip away the restraints and leave the T-shirts crumpled and torn, something that would allow the man beneath to show through.
    As he listened to her words about Ministerial office and advancement, an uneasy sensation scoured his stomach. At first he hoped it might be nothing more than the echo of an unfinished breakfast, but quickly it overwhelmed him. A sensation he hadn’t felt in so very long.
    Excitement.
    Twisting inside him once more.
    He had Elizabeth. And now, with her encouragement, once again he had that other inspiration missing from his life.
    He had ambition.
    The hour is late, well beyond evening. A solitary shaft of light cuts across the prep school lawn. The turf is immaculate, which is much more than can be said for Boris, the caretaker’s cat, a ginger-walnut tom with missing ear and the look of battles past, many of