Across the Mersey (8 page)

Grace might not be very experienced but she had a good deal of common sense, so once her heart had returned to its normal beat she responded firmly, ‘
Especially
not if you were to tell me that. Is it the military hospital you have to go to about your leg?’

She wasn’t aware of the rueful look Seb gave her as he looked down at the top of her head.

When he had been informed by Bella that her cousin would be his date for the evening, he had assumed she would be a young woman very much in Bella’s own mould and had resigned himself to an evening of boredom, fending off the unwanted overcoy approaches of the kind of girl he most disliked.

Grace, though, was the complete antithesis of her manipulative little baggage of a cousin, and
Seb recognised that she had no idea just how enchanting she was or how very sweet he found her. Which was just as well, and the way it must stay. It would be all too easy to enjoy the sympathy of a girl as sweet as this one, and they had all been warned about the dangers of doing that.

In fact, there were an awful lot of things he and the young men who had been recruited with him had been warned against saying and doing, Seb reflected as he drew Grace gently to one side and reached into his pocket, saying ruefully, ‘What an idiot I am. I nearly forgot this,’ as he produced a delicate cream-flowered corsage. ‘Shall I pin it on for you?’

Grace struggled between the warnings her mother had given her about not allowing young men to adopt overfamiliar behaviour towards her because of what it might ultimately lead to, and her own confusing sweet thrill of pleasure at the thought of accepting Seb’s offer, before saying recklessly, ‘Yes, please, if you wouldn’t mind.’

Seb, who thought she had the sweetest and most expressive face he had ever seen, guessed what she had been thinking, especially when she had turned her head to look towards the cloakroom. When they had been told during their training that they needed to make the most of whatever opportunities came their way to facilitate their mission, he doubted that putting that training to use in this sort of fashion was what the RAF had had in mind, he acknowledged, as he stepped forward, his body
screening Grace from everyone else in the entrance to the Tennis Club.

As he leaned forward to pin the corsage on the front of her frock he heard her catch her breath and felt her tremble slightly. His own hands trembled a bit themselves. She was just so irresistibly sweet, and it would have been the most natural thing in the world to take her in his arms and drop a light kiss on that pretty little nose of hers. But of course he must do no such thing. One of the requirements of his acceptance for his training had been that he should not be married or thinking of getting married. As they had all been warned, the chances of them surviving a war, given the secret nature of their work, were very slim indeed.

Bella and Alan had already found a table when Grace and Seb joined them.

Charlie had been to the bar and he winked at Alan as the waitress brought over their drinks, telling him, ‘Got you a double G and T, seeing as Bella reckons you need a bit of Dutch courage to come up to the mark.’

Bella gave her brother an angry look. She could do without that kind of comment, thank you very much.

‘Trixie’s just come in.’ Alan finished his drink, and started to stand up. ‘She’s on her own, so I’ll go and tell her to come and join us.’

Immediately Bella made a grab for his jacket, hissing furiously, ‘You’ll do no such thing. What will people think? You’re with me. Let her go and
find her own partner. Anyway,’ she told him, ‘I want to dance.’

‘Well, I want another drink. It’s your turn to get the drinks in, Seb. I’ll have another double.’

‘What would you like to drink, Grace?’ Seb asked her, smiling.

‘Oh, a lemonade please.’

‘A lemonade,’ Bella mimicked unkindly. ‘What a baby you are, Grace. I’ll have a G and T, Seb.’

Grace tried not to look as shocked as she felt. Neither of her parents ever drank spirits, her mother only having the occasional port and lemon or a sherry at Christmas-time and her father sticking to beer.

‘You really don’t look at all comfortable in that dress, Grace,’ Bella told. ‘It doesn’t suit you at all.’

‘Stop being such a cat,’ Charlie told his sister, unexpectedly coming to Grace’s rescue. ‘You’re just jealous because Grace’s dress looks better than yours.’

Grace could have sunk through the floor when she saw the look of fury on Bella’s face, especially when Charlie’s comment made Alan look more closely at her, and announce in a slightly slurred voice, ‘Charlie’s right, Bella.’

Grace didn’t like her cousin’s boyfriend, and even though she felt that Bella was behaving very badly, she still felt sorry for her.

‘So you’re going to train as a nurse, then?’

Grace nodded.

They had just finished eating their buffet meal, and she and Seb were alone at the table, Charlie
having gone to join some friends at the bar whilst Bella and Alan were dancing.

‘I didn’t think that I’d be able to, not even when Sister Harris said that she wanted to put me forward, not with the twins still being at school and our Luke only an apprentice, but then Mum said she’d got a bit put by and Dad said that the country would be needing more nurses if there was to be a war,’ Grace told him, her tongue slightly loosened by the shandy Charlie had insisted she have to drink.

Seb deduced from Grace’s artless confidence that her parents were not in as comfortable circumstances as her cousins’ family were. He had seen how both her cousins, but especially Bella, looked down on her, although in his opinion she was worth ten of the other girl.

Seb had no particular liking for the Parkers, but he had been grateful to them for putting him up whilst he was attending the local military hospital and waiting to be pronounced fit for duty.

He knew that both Alan’s parents, but especially his mother, wanted Alan to drop Bella and go back to his previous girlfriend, Trixie, and it was equally obvious to him that Bella wasn’t going to give Alan up without a fight.

‘I’m sorry I can’t ask you to dance,’ he apologised to Grace. He was indeed sorry, for he would have loved the opportunity to hold her close. She really was the most adorable girl. It was perhaps just as well that he would be going back to join his unit soon.

* * *

Bella was in a foul mood. So far Alan had determinedly ignored every attempt she had made to bring the conversation round to the subject of their engagement. To make matters worse, now, whilst he was dancing with her, instead of holding her close as she was trying to get him to do, he was actually looking at Trixie. And there was Grace, whom she had only invited to come tonight out of pity, looking as though she was having the time of her life.

‘What are you doing?’ Bella demanded as Alan released her the second the music stopped, turning away from her.

‘I’m going to go and ask Trixie to dance,’ he answered her truculently.

Charlie had been plying him with double G and Ts all evening and now, as well as being slightly unsteady on his feet, his face was flushed and his behaviour belligerent. Bella could see her chance to achieve her goal slipping away from her. She looked round for Charlie. He was standing at the bar. She sent him a significant look, which he acknowledged by lifting his glass.

‘Why don’t you ask her later?’ Bella suggested, forcing her lips into what she hoped was a sweet smile, before adding coaxingly, ‘It’s so hot in here. Why don’t we go outside? We haven’t been alone together all evening.’ She moved closer to him, her voice softly suggestive.

Alan hesitated, still looking at Trixie, who, to Bella’s relief, was now getting up to dance with someone.

‘I suppose so,’ Alan agreed unenthusiastically.

‘Me and Alan are just slipping outside for a bit of fresh air,’ Bella informed Grace almost aggressively, for once forgetting to use the ‘posh’ voice she normally favoured, and sounding far more like the Bella Grace remembered from when they had been much younger. Bella was holding on to Alan’s arm, determined to make sure that he didn’t escape from her.

‘Oh, Bella, do you think you should?’ Grace whispered. ‘Only Alan seems to have had a lot to drink.’

‘Like I just said, I need some fresh air,’ Bella insisted, glaring at her. Was Grace stupid or what? Couldn’t she take a hint? Didn’t her cousin understand that she wanted to be alone with Alan?

‘I’ll come with you, if you like.’

Bella was furious. Grace was a stupid interfering prissy nobody. Her mother had been right to tell her not to invite her. Grace was already turning towards the exit and Bella seized her chance. Another few seconds and Alan would cotton on to what she had said and he’d be off to stand at the bar and watch his precious Trixie. Well, Bella wasn’t having that! Grace needed to be stopped. Deliberately Bella brought her heel down on the hem of Grace’s silk gown and kept it there so that when Grace tried to walk towards the door, one of the seams in the delicate panelling of the skirt ripped under the strain.

Grace gazed down at the tear in the back of her dress in shocked disbelief. Bella was shrugging and
saying petulantly that it was her own fault for borrowing a dress that was too long for her and that she wasn’t going to be blamed for the damage to it.

‘Come on,’ she commanded Alan firmly, ignoring Grace’s distress. ‘Let’s go outside.’

Grace’s eyes filled with tears. Where the seam had given way along one of the pretty bias-cut inserts in the skirt the fabric was torn and frayed in a way that she could see immediately was beyond mending.

Seb watched sympathetically. He was pretty sure that Bella had damaged Grace’s frock deliberately.

‘It may not be as bad as it looks,’ he tried to comfort her as he tactfully led her back to their table out of sight of the curious glances she was attracting. ‘I believe the Singer sewing machine can work wonders.’

Grace shook her head, beyond comfort. ‘It can’t be mended; the silk is too frayed. It isn’t my dress.’ Fresh tears welled in her eyes at the enormity of her predicament.

Discreetly Seb passed her a clean white handkerchief. ‘I’m sure your friend will understand.’

Grace shook her head and gave a small sob, and burst out, ‘I should never have worn it. Oh, I so wish that I had not. I knew it was wrong, and it serves me right that this has happened.’

Seb frowned. She was clearly very distressed, so much so that his protective instincts were automatically aroused.

‘Your friend may be upset, but—’

‘You don’t understand. I’ve done a really dreadful thing.’ Grace stopped him. ‘It doesn’t belong to a friend; it belongs to Lewis’s Gown Salon, where I work.’

Seb’s frown deepened. He wasn’t sure just what the rules might be about borrowing clothes from the shop where one worked, but he suspected that it wasn’t something that was normally allowed. Grace hadn’t struck him as the kind of girl who would deliberately flout the ‘law’, but he could understand that a young woman who was looked down on by her better-off cousin could have been tempted to ‘borrow’ a rather grander frock than she might actually possess, even if he also felt rather disappointed to discover that Grace had given in to that kind of temptation.

Seb didn’t allow any of what he was feeling to show, though, as he murmured something sympathetic and reassuring.

‘I should never have listened to Susan,’ Grace told him miserably. ‘I knew it was wrong. But she’d gone to so much trouble and … and I didn’t want to hurt her feelings by refusing. It serves me right for doing it,’ she told him bravely, her face pale but set now that she had stopped crying.

‘Perhaps the Shop will be able to have it repaired?’ Seb suggested.

Grace shook her head. ‘No, it can’t be mended. I shall have to pay for it. We are allowed to buy things at staff discount so …’ she gave a small gulp, ‘they might let me pay for it weekly out of my wages, although it will take me for ever.’

‘But I thought you were about to start training as a nurse,’ Seb pointed out.

Grace swallowed and lifted her head proudly. ‘I was, but I shan’t be doing that now. Not with this frock to pay for, and … and I
want
to pay for it. What I did was very wrong. I knew that all along and, to be honest, I’d have much rather worn my own cotton dress. This is lovely but it isn’t mine and it isn’t me. I feel so very ashamed of myself. My parents will be shocked, I know.’

Poor child, she was paying a heavy price for her moment of natural vanity, Seb thought compassionately, his earlier assessment of her character reasserting itself as he listened to her quietly determined voice. She had guts, though, he thought with admiration.

Her whole future was ruined, Grace acknowledged, and all for the sake of being silly and for wearing a frock that she had no right to be wearing. She deserved to be punished.

What on earth was she going to say to her parents after the sacrifice they were prepared to make so that she could do her nurse’s training. Grace had never felt more miserable and in despair.

Bella looked anxiously toward the Tennis Club. Where was Charlie? She had been out here with Alan in the thankfully still warm darkness of the small tree-shadowed garden that separated the Tennis Club building from the courts – a favourite place for Tennis Club ‘courting couples’, although tonight thankfully they had it to themselves – for what felt
like for ever. She hated the revolting way he was slobbering all over her, and now the smell of his gin-laden breath was making her feel sick. He pawed at her breast, almost breaking one of the fragile shoulder straps of her dress. As it threatened to snap so too did Bella’s temper. Where was Charlie?

‘Aww, come on, Trixie,’ Alan protested.

Trixie! He had called her Trixie. Furiously Bella tried to push him away, her determination to force him to marry her forgotten in the heat of her outrage, but he was refusing to let go of her.

‘I’m not Trixie,’ she told him

He gave her an ugly look. ‘No, you aren’t, more’s the pity. If it wasn’t for you she’d be with me and—’

‘Here, I say, what the devil do you think you’re doing, Parker? Let go of my sister.’