Free The Hidden Years by Penny Jordan Page B

downstairs and outside,
so that it was impossible for her to plead that she couldn't accept
their generosity and change back into her own things.

    Lizzie couldn't cycle to meet Kit, not wearing her
borrowed finery, and at first she found it disconcerting to feel the
freer movements of her breasts as she walked.
    That the sensation of her flesh pressing against this
cotton was not entirely unpleasant shocked her, as did the sudden
illuminating knowledge that when Kit took her in his arms she would be
able to feel his body against her own separated only by such a flimsy
barrier.
    Such thoughts were forbidden, disgusting, Aunt Vi would
have said, but it wasn't disgust that welled up inside her. Far from
it. It was the same fizzing, exciting sensation she had experienced
when Kit had pressed his lips against hers, the same curling tautness
deep down inside her, which made her stop walking and instinctively
press the palm of her hand low down against her body, until she
realised what she was doing and went scarlet with shock and guilt.
    She knew all about what happened between men and
women—it would have been hard not to, when the other girls
gave such graphic and detailed descriptions of their boyfriends'
prowess or lack of it—but she had never realised until now
that the physical intimacies they had described, and which she had
found rather nauseating, could be responsible for the kind of delicious
ache that was tormenting her body and making her hurry eagerly to meet
Kit.
    She had set off in plenty of time and, when she reached
the arranged rendezvous, she was able to slip out of her own brogues
and replace them with Mary's white shoes, which looked very large and
ungainly on her own slender feet.
    The only thing she had not been provided with was a pair
of the much prized stockings, and she had firmly refused to allow her
helpers to draw lines down the backs of her legs in imitation of
stocking seams. Her ankles looked very fragile and pale, she decided,
eyeing them uncertainly, but her woollen stockings would have looked
ridiculous with Rosie's dress.
    Time passed. She seemed to have been waiting for hours.
Her stomach tensed and she began to wonder if Kit wasn't coming after
all. She had no watch and no way of telling what time it was. She
couldn't stay standing here for ever, she told herself, thankful that
the lane was seldom used so that there was no one about to witness her
humiliation.
    She could just imagine the other girls' reactions when she
went back and told them that Kit hadn't turned up. Her eyes stung with
tears. It had never occurred to her that this might happen. She had
been so certain, so sure that Kit felt as she did…
    She was just about to retrieve her shoes when she heard
the sound of a car engine. Her heart bounded, her pulses thudding
frantically as she froze and waited.
    When she saw the familiar bonnet of Kit's car coming round
the corner she almost cried with relief, unaware of how very easily he
was interpreting her reaction as he brought the car to a standstill
beside her and smiled warmly at her.
    Old Edward wouldn't think her such an innocent now, Kit
reflected cynically as he studied her. Quite a transformation.
    He looked at her dark red mouth and felt a kick of
sensation burst inside him. Sex was like a drug to Kit— the
more he had, the more he wanted—and since he had been
grounded five days ago for disobeying orders and breaking formation to
chase off an enemy plane in a dogfight over the Channel, sex had been
the only outlet he had had for the compulsive energy that drove him.
    'Sorry I'm late,' he apologised, jumping out of the car
and coming towards her.
    Relief shone in her eyes, making them glitter with the
tears which had been about to fall.
    'You look wonderful,' he lied, making her wonder if
perhaps after all the other girls had been right and that it was she
who had been wrong to have had doubts about her appearance.
    'So wonderful, in fact, that I've simply got to