Read Online Journey to Munich by Jacqueline Winspear - Free Book Online

woman with responsibility to her child, her husband, and her parents. It’s time she grew up.”
    The butler entered, and Lorraine asked him to bring some freshly warmed milk. As he was leaving, she added, “Oh, and please tell Nanny to bring the little man down in about half an hour. I am sure Miss Dobbs would love to meet him.”
    B y the time Maisie left the Otterburn home, she was anxious to visit her father. She made her way to Charing Cross, where she placed a call from a telephone kiosk to Priscilla’s home, leaving a message with the housekeeper to the effect that she would not be in town untilSunday evening, and Mrs. Partridge should not worry—she would be with her father and stepmother. Exiting the kiosk, she joined the queue at the ticket office and paid her fare to Chelstone Station, a branch-line halt requiring a change of trains in Tonbridge. That she had not brought a case with clothing did not concern her. There was still an unpacked trunk at her father’s home; it would be taken to the Dower House as soon as she was ready to resume residence. Though her tenants had left, she had not yet felt secure enough to live in the house on her own once more.
    A cold rain was falling by the time the train pulled up to the buffers. Doors opened and slammed shut, and a snaking line of passengers made their way toward the exit, some taking their time, making sure they had their belongings, others rushing, knocking shoulders as they passed, tickets held out ready to submit to the collector. Soon the train was taking on passengers for the next journey, and though Maisie was not exposed to the elements as she waited to board, it felt as if the damp air had seeped into her clothing and was forming a film across her skin. She shivered and pulled her collar up around her neck. A guard opened the door for her, and touched his cap as she thanked him. Soon she was in the warmth of a first-class carriage, seated on heavy deep red velvet upholstery, a small cast-iron stove pumping out heat to keep the South Eastern Railway’s better-heeled passengers in relative comfort. She pulled a small notebook from her new black document case and began to make notes.
    According to Lorraine Otterburn, her daughter had fallen pregnant and given birth to a boy just over two months before she left the country. She had been living with her husband at the family’s estate in Northamptonshire. Maisie imagined the spirited Elaine languishing in a cold mansion with many rooms and no heat. Elaine was a colorful person, filled with spirit and energy—she must have felt crushed.Granted, her father had indulged her, but he had also given her a purpose—she was an accomplished aviatrix, and he had drawn her into his covert work on behalf of the British government. Admittedly, he had his reasons—keeping such work in the family as far as he could meant keeping plans close to home. She wondered to what extent he trusted James, who was not family, though Otterburn had obviously pegged him as loyal to his country, a man who understood aviation and who knew what it was to be at war. Maisie suspected that perhaps Elaine had felt less than able to be a mother, not suited to play country wife to a tweedy peer-of-the-realm landowner. Opening fêtes and judging flower arrangements at the county show would not have gone down well with a woman used to finding parties wherever she was in the world. So she had left her child and her husband and absconded from a place she must have considered a prison.
    She must miss her little man, thought Maisie, though she wondered if she were not attributing her own imagined feelings to a woman who was quite different. And why had she not just taken the boy with her to her parents’ house? It was clear they adored the child, and without doubt John Otterburn would have thrown a protective fence around his daughter. Then it occurred to her that in London, their paths would cross. Perhaps