Read Online Circles of Time by Phillip Rock - Free Book Online Page B

Society.”
    She stared fixedly at the mirror and rubbed cold cream from her cheeks with a soft cloth. “I thought it sounded interesting.”
    â€œI just can’t see myself taking the early-morning train from Ipswich and strolling down Threadneedle Street in a black suit. Besides, I already have a job.”
    â€œYou may or may not,” she said tautly. “That’s something you won’t know for certain until tomorrow. It wouldn’t hurt to have another string to your bow.”
    â€œI have strings—all in basic khaki. I’ll have a job, it’s a question of what kind.”
    She lay stiffly on her back, very much on her side of the bed. He sounded cheerful enough. She could hear him humming in his dressing room. Whistling in the dark. He was concerned and worried, but not nearly as concerned as she was. The past months had been a nightmare for her, not knowing from one day to the next when his orders would come through and he would be posted to a permanent command. Commuting twice a week to London to be with him, their house in the country in a state of chaos with most of their belongings packed away in crates since Christmas. Their plans had been so definite in that long-ago time—she and the twins and his mother to go east with him, to stay in a large rented house in Gezirha on the Nile. But she hadn’t been pregnant then. It would be foolish to go to Egypt now. And there was the possibility that he wouldn’t be ordered to that part of the world anyway. They could send him God knows where, to any spot where the Union Jack flew—Hong Kong, Sierra Leone, Malaya. Life could be so simple and pleasant if he resigned his commission. It wouldn’t bother her in the least to see him go off to London every morning on the train. The Fenworth Building Society. Offices throughout Great Britain and Northern Ireland, their advertisements pasted on buses and boardings and the walls of the underground—“Build a Future—Invest in the Fenworth Society.” What was wrong with that?
    Fenton switched off the bedside lamp and opened the window drapes. Moonlight filtered into the room in an ivory glow. He stood by the window gazing out at the dark buildings across the square.
    â€œMy mind’s racing like a bloody engine,” he said.
    â€œNot as quickly as my own.”
    â€œI could have Peterson send up a bottle of champagne. Nothing like the bubbly to make one drowsy.”
    â€œI associate champagne with celebrations. I hardly feel like celebrating anything at the moment.”
    He walked over to the bed and sat beside her. “We have a lot of things we could raise a glass to. Or, anyway, I do.”
    â€œDo you, Fenton?”
    â€œI have you. That’s worth a toast.”
    She reached out and touched his hand. “I’ve been lying here feeling sorry for myself. Prenatal collywobbles, I suppose. I’ll get over it.”
    He bent down and kissed her. “I love you, Winnie, and I want you to be happy.”
    â€œIt would make me happy to see you going off to work every day in the city, but only if it was what you wanted. I couldn’t bear it if you were miserable.”
    â€œI’d get used to it.”
    â€œNo you wouldn’t. I was just being selfish.”
    â€œBeneath that wonderful exterior of yours is something even more wonderful.”
    He pulled the covers back and got into bed beside her. She sat up and slipped the silk nightgown over her head and then lay back, waiting for him. His lips glided across her breasts and then down over the swell of her belly where a new life pulsed—lingering, caressing, until she clasped him tightly in her arms and drew him to her with a soft cry.
    H E DROVE PAST the palace toward the Mall. A platoon of grenadiers was leaving Wellington Barracks and marching up Birdcage Walk to the tapping of a drum. They looked splendid in their red coats and bearskin hats, the morning sun