Free I and My True Love by Helen MacInnes Page A

Hugenberg had said on the telephone, “just a few friends. A spur-of-the-moment party. We must celebrate. Payton can’t come? My dear, imagine arranging a meeting for tonight of all nights! Then come by yourself. Darling, you’ve got to come.”
    That’s how it had started, the party for a few friends. They numbered about fifty, at first. Uniforms everywhere, gay dresses worn for the first time in years, laughter, happy excited voices, music for dancing on the terrace, food and wine on the patio, a garden filled with flowers and lighted by sparkling stars set against black velvet. May at its best. The merry month come into its own, at last.
    “We’ve still got the Japs to lick,” a Navy captain had been saying to the group around Sylvia. But he sounded more dutiful than gloomy.
    “Tomorrow, we can remember that,” a man’s voice said as he joined the group. “But tonight—” Jan Brovic smiled down at Sylvia. “Like to risk a rumba with me?”
    And she rose, smiling too, and left the little crowd of uniforms.
    “The truth is,” Jan said as they reached the terrace, “I don’t dance very much nowadays. But I couldn’t think of any other excuse to get you away from the Navy. Insistent guys, aren’t they?”
    “If you don’t want to dance”—she remembered his wound— “it doesn’t really matter.”
    “I don’t suppose a game leg would be noticeable in a rumba. All you do, anyway, is stay on one spot and limp in rhythm.” He slipped an arm round her waist and turned her to face him. “Easy, see?”
    It was. He must have been a good dancer once. They didn’t speak, now. He held her in his arms, lightly, at a distance, as the dance required. He looked down at her face, and her eyes were caught by his. And then suddenly, the grasp round her waist tightened and he drew her nearer. He watched the colour come to her cheeks, the nervous half-smile on her lips, and he felt the sudden tenseness of her hands.
    Just then, the music stopped. They stood together, his arm still round her waist. She turned her head away, but she didn’t step away from his arm. The music began again. Now it was a waltz. “That defeats me entirely,” he said. “If it had been a polka, I might have managed it: dot and carry one is all right for a polka. But not for a waltz.”
    She laughed with him, reaching back to safe ground again, moving away from the quicksand of emotions that had almost trapped her for a moment. She was in control once more.
    She said, “I haven’t danced for months. I couldn’t manage a waltz either.” She took a step towards the wisteria-covered pergola that would lead them back to the patio. She made her way quickly, almost as if she were running away. But he followed her.
    And the patio was now crowded.
    As she hesitated, he took her arm. “No room, here,” he said. “Too bad.” He grinned. She had looked up at him as he spoke. And she had to smile.
    “This way,” he said. And he led her to the narrow flight of stairs that would take them down into the garden. She hesitated for a moment. “We’ve got to talk,” he said. “Tonight’s as good a time as any.” She went with him.
    There were people, too, in the garden, but he found a path that circled round a rosebed and then skirted a silent row of trees spreading their thick branches over a stretch of short dry grass. They sat under a copper beech, in a purpled mass of shadows. He didn’t touch her. Yes, she thought, let’s talk this thing out. Let it be decided, now. It’s too dangerous to let it drift on like this. And it was she who spoke first.
    “You think I’m a coward, don’t you?” she asked.
    He looked at her. Was it with the usual smile in his eyes? “No. You’re afraid, that’s all. And I’m afraid, too.”
    “Afraid?” She couldn’t quite believe that. Jan afraid of a woman? She laughed. “Afraid of me?” she asked with amusement.
    “Since the first time we met,” he admitted. “I looked at you for a whole