Broken Rainbows by Catrin Collier Page B

Rivers.’
    â€˜Oh, but I think there will, with me living in your sister-in-law’s house.’
    â€˜I hardly see Bethan.’
    â€˜You don’t get on with your family?’
    â€˜Very well, but as we both work, neither of us has much time for visiting.’
    â€˜You’re a nurse too?’
    â€˜I’m in munitions.’
    â€˜You work in a factory?’
    â€˜That shocks you?’
    â€˜It’s hard, manual work.’
    â€˜But necessary, and one way I can help us to win this war.’
    â€˜It’s a sad state of affairs when a ravishing girl like you has to slave away in a factory.’
    â€˜There is a sad state of affairs in this country, Lieutenant Rivers. Haven’t you been here long enough to see it?’
    The dance ended. Slipping from his grasp, Jane applauded the band. She saw the frown on Bethan’s face, and knew that her sister-in-law had seen and understood exactly what the lieutenant had been trying to do, and judging by the amount of whispering going on at their table, so had Mrs John and Mrs Llewellyn-Jones.
    â€˜It is time for you to practise your lovemaking techniques on some other girl, Lieutenant.’
    â€˜Please call me George.’
    â€˜Well, George, I think it might be as well if I pointed you in the direction of the unmarried ones. It might save you embarrassment as well as effort.’
    â€˜As we’ve only just met, I’ll forgive you that. Love at first sight can rattle a girl, particularly when she’s married.’
    â€˜I don’t believe in love at first sight, Lieutenant.’ Looking around she realised that they’d been left, marooned on the dance floor. Leaving him she began to walk back to their table.
    â€˜I think you do, Mrs Powell.’ He grabbed her wrist.
    â€˜Let me go! If I talk to you any longer, people will gossip.’
    â€˜Not now the band is about to play again.’ He jerked her back into the centre of the floor as she continued to struggle to free herself. ‘Stop it, you’re making a scene.’ He glanced over his shoulder to see if the colonel was watching.
    â€˜And you’ve had too much to drink.’
    â€˜At the fountain of love.’
    â€˜That is not funny, and you don’t understand Pontypridd. Two dances with the same man are enough for gossips to have the couple walking down the aisle, or in my case, committing adultery.’
    â€˜Now that’s an idea. With your husband away you need someone to practise on. I am healthy, ready, willing and … ouch!’
    Stamping on his foot a second time, Jane turned on her heel and collided with Tomas D’Este and Chuck Reynolds.
    â€˜We were coming to rescue you, but it doesn’t look as though you need our help.’ Tomas took her hand for the foxtrot as the major clamped his hand on the lieutenant’s shoulder and steered him towards the door.
    â€˜A little late, but thank you anyway,’ she replied heatedly.
    â€˜George Rivers isn’t a bad fellow. Just young and let loose away from home for the first time in his life.’
    â€˜And drunk.’
    â€˜I’m not making excuses, but it’s not been easy for us. One minute we were home with our families, the next, shipped across the Atlantic into a strange country with even stranger customs, and thrown into the society of a lot of pretty women with hardly a man in sight. It’s enough to turn the head of even the most sensible guy.’
    â€˜Most of the pretty women in this room have husbands, Captain D’Este.’
    â€˜And most of the servicemen have wives, Mrs Powell, but that doesn’t mean we can’t be friends.’
    â€˜No, I suppose it doesn’t,’ she allowed grudgingly.
    â€˜Is your husband at the front?’
    â€˜With ENSA. I hate this damned war!’ She had never meant it more or missed Haydn so much. She longed for peace so she could become a part of his everyday life