Free I Could Go on Singing by John D. MacDonald Page B

neck. The skin was very smooth. There were small curling tendrils of blonde hair. He pretended to be looking at the schedule and he looked at her neck. Somehow the neck of this mature woman made him think of pussy willows. He knew it was an awkward simile, but he happened to be stuck with it. He wanted to press his mouth to the nape of that neck, wanted so badly that it dizzied him for a moment. He took a deep breath of her fragrance and moved away, swallowing against the dryness in his mouth.
    She pulled the sheets out of the machine, separated the carbons deftly. She got up and took the original over to George. Again Jason Brown was aware of the special way she moved. She was a tall woman with a strong rounded body, and though her hands were very quick and deft, she moved with constraint, like a fine taut mare too accustomed to the hobble.
    George said, “If everything else goes fine, it is still goingto be a good trick getting her on the beam by ten in the morning.”
    “Predawn, practically,” Lois said.
    “Can your slave labor take a break?” Jason asked George. They both stared at him. “There’s a park and the weather has cleared, and some daylight left.”
    “I’ve got some things I could …”
    “Go take a walk, sweetie,” George said. “I’m spoiling you. I gave you a twelve-minute lunch break even.” He got up, winked at Lois and left the room.
    She frowned at Jason. “Really, I ought to …”
    “You ought to see a little bit of London.”
    She smiled and shrugged. “See you in the lobby in five minutes, Jason.”
    She appeared within the allotted time, in lower heels, with a gray tweed cape over her green suit, hair freshly brushed and gleaming, lipstick freshened.
    He walked her to the nearest pedestrian entrance to Hyde Park. The air was clear and cool in the watery sunlight of late afternoon. Traffic roar faded behind them as he lengthened his stride, glad of the way she swung along with him.
    “All this is technically royal property,” he told her. “Originally a private hunting preserve for old Henry the Eighth. They took out a lot of old trees along here recently. Lot of fuss about it. Angry letters to the
Times
. A lot of trees came out along that stretch there. Rotten Row it’s called.”
    “What a horrible name for such a pretty place!”
    “It’s a corruption of Route du Roi, meaning King’s Way.”
    “You’re practically a professional guide, Jason,” she said with a sidelong look of amusement and respect.
    “Hardly. I’ve got one of those minds that useless pieces of information stick to. And this is my fourth trip to London.”
    “My first. The first time I’ve ever even been out of the United States.”
    As they walked he told her about the Serpentine, and John Rennie’s bridge, and the Ring, and the Tea House and the Powder Magazine, and the Kinsington Gardens wall. They sat on a bench. She was flushed with the exercise and the coolness of the air.
    “Thanks for prying me loose, Jason. It’s good to … get away from there.”
    “I wanted to be with you,” he said bluntly.
    She gave him a wary glance and looked away. “Look at the women in those lovely robes, Jason.”
    “Saris.”
    “When was the first time you were in London?”
    “A long time ago.”
    She made a face at him. “You’re truly ancient, aren’t you?”
    “Compared to then, yes. I was a fearless warrior, aged nineteen. Company clerk in an infantry company because I knew how to type. Got here four months before D-Day. Intensive training. The company landed at Omaha Beach, but Fearless Warrior was in a hospital thirty miles from London. I was looking at the sky and walked into a ditch and broke my leg. And while I was in the hospital I caught the measles.”
    She laughed. “Poor Jason. I was thirteen on D-Day. And I had a lot of excitement too. I stole a negative of my big sister in a bathing suit and had scads of copies made and sent them to soldiers and sailors and marines, with