Free Unobtainium 1: Kate on a Hot Tin Roof by Niall Teasdale Page B

but urgent. I have but a few days to secure the matter and it will take most of two to make the return journey.’
    ‘What of Miss Felix’s radiation treatment?’ Alexander asked.
    Charles was actually impressed by the show of concern. ‘I have called to make arrangements. The Royal Society has a small, experimental reactor which, under the circumstances, they are allowing access to. It is both more convenient and less dangerous than the Greenwich reactor.’
    ‘And she will lodge with me,’ Antonia added. ‘Once my business is concluded, I will be free to show her more of London. She has had a most meagre experience of that great city in her past life there, and I believe she should see more.’
    Alicia gave a sigh. ‘I should like to see that myself.’
    ‘When you are eighteen and can comport yourself properly,’ her father stated, ‘and not before.’
    Great Northern Railway Line, 2 nd June.
    Kate lay on the top bunk of the sleeping compartment watching as Antonia finished undressing. She had made suggestions that she should assist her benefactor given their natural social positions and Antonia had told her not to be a silly hen. Aside from anything else, Antonia was going to be sure that the skin balm was applied to Kate’s thigh, which was markedly less inflamed now, before retiring.
    Antonia was, Kate thought, a fine figure of a woman, but more in the classic English mould than her own sleek form. While Kate’s hips had widened in the last few months, they were still quite narrow; Antonia’s were wider though by no means excessively so. Her narrow waist and full bust added to the hourglass shape. She lacked muscle, but what she had was firm and she was clearly very fit.
    ‘You sleep unclad?’ Kate asked as Antonia, having folded her dress carefully, slipped onto the bottom bunk without first putting on a nightgown.
    ‘A habit, a bad one I might add, which I picked up in Africa. The climate is intemperate and I found sleeping in anything uncomfortably warm. Now I find nightclothes keep me awake no matter where I am. A subtle warning on the inadvisability of allowing your standards to slip, Kate.’
    Kate gave a giggle and lay back, wondering whether doing the same might seem imprudent; the cotton gown she was wearing was already beginning to rub a little on her burn. But then she would need to sleep over the sheets as well and it was not that warm a night.
    ‘Do you really think you can cure me of this malady?’ she asked.
    ‘Cure you, no. There is nothing to cure. Society refuses to accept the fact, but all women have the problem you are exhibiting. You simply have it in an intensified form.’
    ‘ You’ve felt like this?!’
    ‘On more than one occasion, but I had David who was always more than willing to ease my burden. We must find another outlet for your… passions lest, I fear, the pressure will push you into one of your atavistic episodes over time.’
    ‘I would be grateful if that could be avoided. It is a disconcerting feeling, as though the world is locked away from me. I must force myself to make understandable sentences, and I lose all function of manners and understanding of propriety. The episodes have become markedly less frequent since I have been studying with Master Sun, but I fear that you are correct in your assertion, for I feel myself on the edge of one almost all the time during these phases of… distraction.’
    ‘Then it is well that the manner of your relief will be a pleasant one.’ The light in the cabin clicked off. ‘Now, get some sleep. We have a long day ahead of us, and I do not wish you over-tired.’
    Richmond, London, 4 th June.
    The Wooster residence was not an especially large place, for Richmond, but it had two storeys of aboveground dwelling space, cellars which housed the lower-ranking staff, a rear, detached wing which housed the remainder of the staff, and between them a courtyard which Antonia referred to as her ‘sun terrace,’ when there was