Free The Great Betrayal by Pamela Oldfield

be.
    ‘England!’
    ‘No.’
    ‘Estonia.’
    He shook his head. ‘Much nearer home.’
    A long pause. ‘Ethiopia!’
    ‘Ethiopia? That’s not nearer home. Anyway, it’s not a country, it’s a town.’
    ‘Ethiopia is a town ?’ she queried.
    ‘No! Where I’ve been to is a town!’ He tried to keep the exasperation from his voice.
    ‘I give up, then,’ she told him.
    ‘Aberdeen.’
    Raising herself on one elbow she stared into his face, trying to make out his expression in the dim light. ‘Aberdeen? You said it started with E!’
    ‘Did I say Aberdeen?’ He cursed silently. He was getting careless. ‘Sorry, dearest. My mistake. I meant Edinburgh.’ He hugged her. ‘So you see I was never far away. You worry too much.’
    ‘Anyway, I said England!’
    ‘Edinburgh is in Scotland.’
    ‘Oh yes, of course.’
    They lay silent for a while.
    Lydia said, ‘I’m glad you agreed to let Mr Phipps stay here. I think it will be good for Father as well as Adam. Especially as he’s a policeman. He must be a very upright sort of man. Trustworthy, don’t you think? Maybe a trifle dull.’
    ‘I would hope so.’ He rolled his eyes, unseen. A policeman was the last person he would have chosen as a lodger, but when confronted with a fait accompli he had been unable to think fast enough. ‘And don’t you get any ideas about him, Lydia, or let him get ideas about you. I wouldn’t like to have to fight a duel over you – I might lose!’ He laughed, but there was a hollow ring to the words. He had fought before, in his youth, and had never lost.
    ‘Get ideas about Mr Phipps? Good heavens, no!’ Lydia kissed him. ‘I like my men exciting and mysterious, like you. Anyway, he’s probably promised to a young lady back home in Bedfordshire.’
    Best place for a young lady, John thought wryly. Keep the women at arm’s-length. That’s what he himself should have done. He should have sent Dolly packing before things went too far, but the baby had complicated matters and she had threatened to throw herself off Blackfriars Bridge into the Thames if he deserted her. Now the best he could hope for was to keep the two women apart. So far he’d been rather good at that, but there was ‘many a slip between cup and lip’, as they said, and he worried about his brother. Sidney was hardly the brightest card in the pack, and expecting him to keep a secret – any secret – was fraught with risk. One day their luck would run out.
    ‘At least,’ she said sleepily, ‘we’ll be safe with a policeman in the house – if we were to be burgled or anything.’
    ‘That’s a comforting thought,’ he murmured. ‘Now go back to sleep, Lydia. It will be time to get up before we know it.’
    ‘Can you stay until Sunday? We could go to church together. I’d like that.’
    And I could confess my sins, he thought, his amusement tinged with bitterness. ‘Sorry, dearest, but no. You know how much I hate all that singing and chanting. If I’m still here we’ll go to the Saturday Market instead, and I’ll buy you a new hat and a toy for Adam. Maybe a cigar for me.’
    As she settled happily against him he drew in a deep breath. And never a thought for tomorrow, he reminded himself. In his view, tomorrows could not be trusted. He had always preferred to live for the moment and take his chances.
    Next day Dolly’s sister Mavis arrived at number sixteen just as Dolly had finished her efforts in the kitchen and was admiring the results. The sink was empty of dirty plates, and the once grimy saucepan had been hung on a convenient hook on the wall. The kitchen table had been swept free of stale crumbs, and a variety of clothes, casually draped over the few chairs, had been banished to a row of hooks on the back of the door that led out on to the small yard in which a newly washed tea towel was drying in the wind.
    When Dolly found her sister waiting on the doorstep she threw her arms around her and then, remembering her elevated status