Read Online Dead Ground in Between by Maureen Jennings - Free Book Online Page A

Some people have found marriage partners, some have found good friends.” She smiled. “Some are content to be, shall we say, lovers.”
    Oh God. He had one lover and that was Clare Somerville. Currently far from him. Perhaps forever
.
    “How long have you been…in this line of work, Mrs. Hamilton?”
    “Five years now. We were living in Manchester when I started. My husband has trained as an engineer and he travels a lot. I wasbored and lonely so I thought I should take up some kind of suitable work. He was only too happy to support me. ‘Keep you out of mischief, my girl,’ were his words.”
    Tyler wondered if Moira was prone to getting into mischief, and of what sort.
    “Anyway, even back then I could see that people sometimes needed help finding a partner they could get along with. Now, with the war on us, it’s even more difficult. You think it wouldn’t be what with all the dances happening. But let’s face it, they tend to be for the younger crowd. But my clientele are rather more mature. A little nervous about jumping into the melee of the jitterbug. I must say, my business has thrived since the war began. Walter was afraid it would drop off with the current loosening of moral standards. Who needs a matchmaker when you can pick up a girl at any time in the local pub or dance hall? Fortunately, that has not been the case. More than ever, people seem to need a compass in the sea of uncertainty that surrounds us.”
    Aptly put. Not to mention the poetic turn of phrase. Me, I’m barely keeping my nose above the waves
.
    Mrs. Hamilton was wearing cherry-red lipstick, which emphasized her full lips. She had a way of pouting those lips when she was making a thoughtful point.
    “Does your husband still travel a lot?” Tyler asked.
    “He’s been conscripted into the Royal Engineers,” she said with a sigh. “Fortunately, he’s too valuable to be sent to the front lines so he’s stuck behind a desk down in London. I don’t even know what he does. It’s all terribly hush-hush. He can only get away every couple of months.”
    “That must be hard on both of you.”
    She beamed at him. “Let’s just say it makes our reunions that much more delightful.”
    Tyler wrenched his imagination away from the luscious Moira reuniting with her doting husband in a delightful way.
    She opened the ledger. “Are we all right with the fee, then? Shall we go ahead?”
    “Yes, of course.”
    “I like to get payment in advance. You’d be surprised how many men get cold feet.”
    “No, I wouldn’t be surprised at all. But I didn’t come prepared with that amount of money. Can I drop it off to you later?”
    “Certainly you can. Cash or bank draft is fine. Besides, you are an officer of the law. If I can’t trust you, whom can I trust?”
    “Precisely.”
    She turned to a blank page in the formidable ledger.
    “Righty-o. I’ll need to get some information from you.” She began to write. “Age?”
    “Forty-four.”
    She didn’t comment. Neither the flattering “You don’t look it,” nor the chilling opposite – “Only forty-four?” – which was what he half expected these days.
    “Marital status?”
    “Divorced.”
    Pity. Not everyone wants to commit to a divorcé.
    “One failure already, is that the idea?”
    “In a way, although the issue is more that the first marriage can cast such a shadow over any new love.”
    Her eyes met his. She had pretty blue eyes and long eyelashes, he noticed. “Who was it, if I may be so bold as to ask, who left the marriage?”
    Tyler hesitated. “I’d say it was a mutual decision.”
    When Moira spoke next her voice was soft. “I’m sorry for my next question, Mr. Tyler, but I am obliged to ask it. Are you still in love with your ex-wife?”
    “Good lord, no.” Seduced by her expression of kind understanding, he added impulsively, “I probably never was.”
    She wrote something in the ledger. “Any children?”
    “We had a boy and a girl. Only my daughter is