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Here at Padme's Library I feature all genres but followers have probably noticed that 90% of the posts and 99% of my reviews fall under the LGBT genres, so for this year's Pride Month I am showcasing 20 of my favorite M/M historicals in no particular order. You'll find many different eras facing all kinds of drama with one thing in common: homosexuality was not only considered immoral but also illegal, not a factor that is often the whole of the story and sometimes not mentioned at all but you just know the danger is always lurking. The heart always finds a ray of light like a beacon in the dark. Though we have a long way to go, in these stories you not only are entertained but you get a better understanding of just how far society has come towards equality.
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The Poison Pen by Kate McMurray
Summary:
Puddledown Mysteries #3
Spring, 1949
All of Puddledown is excitedly preparing for the upcoming wedding of Helena Fairfax, the Viscount’s daughter, to Walter Evans, a farmer’s son. The unlikely love match is the talk of the town, but Hugo Wainwright and Tommy Granger are dealing with a distraction closer to home. Tommy’s family have announced their intention to visit.
Hugo wants nothing more than to impress his friend’s sister and mother, but Tommy’s brother-in-law, the Rev. Daniel Stone, makes it clear from the moment he arrives he has no time for Tommy. Hugo never considered himself a violent man, but Daniel’s constant dismissal of Tommy brings all his protective instincts to the surface.
Then the letters start arriving.
The community is torn apart as malicious notes are pushed through doors all over Puddledown, and when Hugo receives one, Tommy starts to panic. The police have no suspects, so it’s up to Hugo to expose the culprit before the wedding is ruined and Tommy’s family leave, perhaps never to return. Can he solve the mystery, or will the veiled threats of an anonymous stranger drive Hugo and Tommy apart forever?
Saturday's Series Spotlight: Puddledown Mysteries
Puddledown Mysteries #3
Spring, 1949
All of Puddledown is excitedly preparing for the upcoming wedding of Helena Fairfax, the Viscount’s daughter, to Walter Evans, a farmer’s son. The unlikely love match is the talk of the town, but Hugo Wainwright and Tommy Granger are dealing with a distraction closer to home. Tommy’s family have announced their intention to visit.
Hugo wants nothing more than to impress his friend’s sister and mother, but Tommy’s brother-in-law, the Rev. Daniel Stone, makes it clear from the moment he arrives he has no time for Tommy. Hugo never considered himself a violent man, but Daniel’s constant dismissal of Tommy brings all his protective instincts to the surface.
Then the letters start arriving.
The community is torn apart as malicious notes are pushed through doors all over Puddledown, and when Hugo receives one, Tommy starts to panic. The police have no suspects, so it’s up to Hugo to expose the culprit before the wedding is ruined and Tommy’s family leave, perhaps never to return. Can he solve the mystery, or will the veiled threats of an anonymous stranger drive Hugo and Tommy apart forever?
Saturday's Series Spotlight: Puddledown Mysteries
Original Review April 2015:
I think what I loved most about this installment of the Puddledown Mysteries, was how Hugo and Tommy pretty much switched places in their relationship. In The Dead Past and The Coward's Way, Tommy was more confident and outgoing but here we have Hugo stepping up and taking the lead. I think a lot of that has to do with the visit from Tommy's family. Most of us turn back the clock a little towards our childhood when we find ourselves with our parents, and here we have Tommy's mother, sister, and brother-in-law visiting Puddledown in The Poison Pen. As for Daniel, the brother-in-law, he's quite a pill to swallow so I won't even begin to go there. As for the mystery letters, it may not be murder but I found it just as intriguing because everyone has something they don't want others knowing, so it truly can be anyone wielding The Poison Pen.
RATING:
The Courage of Love by EE MontgomerySummary:
Sequel to Between Love and Honor
In 1915, after his beloved Carl died from a vicious beating, David Harrison enlisted in the Army and went to war. He returns home to find a world seemingly unchanged, while he will never be the same. At Mrs. Gill’s boarding house, he meets Bernard Donnelly, a young man suffering the aftereffects of his own war experiences. David finds himself increasingly attracted to Bernard, but that terrifies him. He blames himself for Carl’s horrific death and fears he isn’t strong enough to lose another love to violence.
Bernard needs David to help him face each day and find a way they can be together without stigma—and without putting them in legal and physical danger—but David clings to his idea that the only way to keep a lover safe is not to have one. His fears threaten to destroy everything, unless he learns that sometimes the risk is worth it and finds the courage to love.
This story is so powerful and emotions are all over the place. I'll admit that the first few shell shock induced nightmare scenes are a little confusing but afterwards, I realized that the mild confusion I felt only added to the severity of what both David and Bernard were dealing with. I've always been a bit of a history buff, so this is not my first story surrounding World War 1 veterans but the author still managed to tug at my heart when dealing with the shell shock. Some people might see the continued nightmares and David's reluctance to open his heart again after losing Carl as repetitious but I see them as showing how far they've actually come and at the same time reminding us that it's not a clear cut scenario that can be bad one day and completely fixed the next, it's ongoing. David and Bernard and even the memory of Carl, David's first love, are the main focus of the story but those around them are so important to story. Mrs. Gill is amazing, she's the mother that David should have had, she's caring but she's also right to the point. As for David's mother? She's not actually in the story much but she certainly leaves a lasting impression and it's not a nice one either. This is the first time I've read E.E. Montgomery but it won't be the last.
RATING:
Eleventh Hour by Elin GregorySummary:
The Carstairs Affairs #1
Borrowed from the Secret Intelligence Service cipher department to assist Briers Allerdale - a field agent returning to 1920s London with news of a dangerous anarchist plot - Miles Siward moves into a 'couples only' boarding house, posing as Allerdale’s 'wife'. Miles relishes the opportunity to allow his alter ego, Millie, to spread her wings but if Miles wants the other agent’s respect he can never betray how much he enjoys being Millie nor how attractive he finds Allerdale.
Pursuing a ruthless enemy who wants to throw Europe back into the horrors of the Great War, Briers and Miles are helped and hindered by nosy landladies, water board officials, suave gentlemen representing foreign powers and their own increasing attraction to each other.
Will they catch their quarry? Will they find love? Could they hope for both?
The clock is ticking.
Saturday's Series Spotlight: The Carstairs Affairs
I just want to start by saying, how this book sat in my kindle library for over two-and-a-half years before I read it is unknown to me, I suppose it just kept getting slid lower and lower on the shelf 😉😉. Well, whether you are like me and a little late to the party I can highly recommend giving Eleventh Hour a looksee. I haven't read everything by Elin Gregory but what I have read has always been a treat and Eleventh is no different.
Set in one of my favorite eras to read, the 1920s just made this extra special(which also makes me wonder how I let it go so long without reading it😉). As in her other books I've read, it is pretty obvious that the author has a healthy respect for history and that she takes time to get the small details right, sure there are probably a few liberties taken in the name of fiction but I can honestly say nothing really stood out in that area.
I won't say anything in regards to the case other than it is an attention grabber. When situations occur that I might have seen coming, I was still on the edge of my seat wanting to know what the next page and the page after that and the page after that was going to reveal. Spies, hidden agendas, undercover agents, Eleventh Hour has it all and you throw in some romance and what you're reading is true storytelling that is not to be missed.
As for the characters, whether it's as Briers and Miles or Brian and Millie, this pair's chemistry is off the charts both in early frustrations and later passions, the connection is undeniable. A powerful case of what you see is not necessarily what you get. Miles Siward may be a clerk from the cipher department with no field experience but don't let his lack of experience or his cover as Millie fool you, he may not be James Bond but he's no wilting flower either.
Eleventh Hour is a true gem that should not be missed.
RATING:
Summary:
WWI hero Sam Hines is used to wearing a face that isn’t his own. When he’s not in the trenches, he’s the most popular female impersonator on the front, but a mysterious note from an anonymous admirer leaves him worried. Everyone realizes—eventually—that Sam’s not a woman, but has somebody also worked out that he also prefers his lovers to be male?
When Sam meets—and falls for—fellow officer Johnny Browne after the war, he wonders whether he could be the man who wrote the note. If so, is he the answer to Sam’s dreams or just another predatory blackmailer, ready to profit from a love that dare not speak its name?
Not much more I can say about Awfully Glad that I didn't say when I originally read it back 2015. Watching Sam and Johnny navigate the whole "is he or isn't he" debate is just as fulfilling as it was over three years ago. Like I said before, if they just communicated more clearly so many answers would have been discovered but then not only would that make this little gem way too short but not very accurate either. Nobody wants their nose broken if they got the assumptions wrong and it was also illegal to be in a homosexual relationship so its no wonder they were edging around the question. Once again Charlie Cochrane has proven her respect for the era as well as her respect for her readers with her storytelling in this little gem.
Original Review February 2015:
A nice little tale of war, post war, romance, and a bit of "what's he after?" thrown in for good measure. Sam is such an interesting character but as himself and as Madeline, who brought such joy to the men during the war. Now that the war is over and he's put Madeline behind him, he is reunited with one of the men he met after one of his Madeline's shows. I just love watching Sam trying to figure Johnny out and what he's after. Of course, there's a bit of "if they just communicated" but then the story would be even shorter and where's the fun in that? Definitely a great addition to my library and once again, I was not let down by the writings of Charlie Cochrane.
RATING:
Summary:
When a vaudeville dancer meets a sexy mobster in a speakeasy for men, the sparks fly, the gin flows, the jazz sizzles—and the heat is on…
New York City, 1927.
Eddie Cotton is a talented song-and-dance man with a sassy sidekick, a crowd-pleasing act, and a promising future on Broadway. What he doesn’t have is someone to love. Being gay in an era of prohibition and police raids, Eddie doesn’t have many opportunities to meet men like himself—until he discovers a hot new jazz club for gentlemen of a certain bent...and sets eyes on the most seductive, and dangerous, man he’s ever seen.
Lane Carillo is a handsome young Sicilian who looks like Valentino—and works for the Mob. He’s never hidden his sexuality from his boss, which is why he was chosen to run a private night club for men. When Lane spots Eddie at the bar, it’s lust at first sight. Soon, the unlikely pair are falling hard and fast—in love. But when their whirlwind romance starts raising eyebrows all across town, Lane and Eddie have to decide if their relationship is doomed…or something special worth fighting for.
The Roaring 20s and Prohibition is a particular favorite era of my love of history so to find a romance that stayed true to the times in the M/M genre really hit all my buttons. I really enjoy the connection between the big tough Mob guy Lane and the song-and-dance Eddie. Lane may be a bit of a romantic at heart looking for that one special guy but he is certainly no pushover. Eddie on the other hand may want fun but he's not looking for love. The passion between these two definitely burn up the pages(or short-circuit your ereader) but it's not easy and you might be surprised just where or who the potholes in their journey come from. For me, what really cemented the era was the secondary characters, from Eddie's partner to Lane's boss, the good and the bad, they all help the story and the main characters evolve without overshadowing the love story. Such a Dance is simply put, an all around. completely satisifying read and great addition to my historical shelf.
RATING:
The Poison Pen by Kate Aaron
CHAPTER ONE
It was a pleasant morning in February of 1949, and spring seemed to have come early to the small English town of Puddledown. Hugo Wainwright had risen with the dawn and now, still a little before nine o’clock, the sun was already shining brightly through the window in Hugo’s kitchen, a chorus of twittering sparrows serenading him from the hedgerows as he stoked a small fire in the open range, placed a kettle on the hob to boil, and laid out teapot, cup, and saucer on his table.
The kettle had just begun to whistle when a familiar head passed by the window, and a moment later, Tommy Granger let himself in.
“Good timing,” Hugo said, greeting Tommy with a kiss. “Kettle’s just boiled.”
Tommy grinned and sat at the table as Hugo set out an extra mug and glass ashtray, and filled the teapot. Tommy removed his flat cap, lit a cigarette, and relaxed in his chair, idly stirring his tea while he waited for it to cool.
It wasn’t unknown for Hugo and Tommy to share a companionable breakfast, but it was unusual to find Tommy in Hugo’s kitchen so early on a morning when he hadn’t spent the previous night. As groundskeeper for the Crowe Estate, Tommy lived a little way out of Puddledown, managing the woods in which he lived, plus the acres of open land surrounding the Hall, where Viscount Crowe kept horses and livestock. The Estate itself comprised much of the county, but the vast majority was leased to tenant farmers. Still, there was more than enough work to keep one man busy, and Hugo rather suspected they’d had an easy time of it over the winter. Come summer, he doubted he’d see Tommy barely at all.
“Looks nice out,” Hugo observed, slicing a crusty loaf of bread he’d procured the previous day from Mrs May at the bakery and spearing the rounds on the tines of a large fork for toasting over the open fire.
“It is.” Tommy nodded. “It’d be fine for May, this weather.”
“Forecast says it’s set to stay for the month.”
“That’ll be good. I can get a start on some of the jobs I’ve had backin’ up.”
“Is that what you plan for today?” Hugo asked, removing the browned slices of bread and turning them to toast the other side. He didn’t like to intrude on Tommy’s work and couldn’t understand why the man would make the effort to call on him if he had chores which needed doing.
Tommy took a drag of his cigarette, rolled the lit end delicately against the edges of the ashtray to remove the excess ash, and contem- plated the pointed tip he’d created. “Mebbe.”
“Tommy, is something wrong?” As a rule, Hugo disliked con- frontation, but his friend appeared to be out of sorts, and he disliked that even more. Ever since he’d met Tommy, some four months earlier, he’d found himself acting more and more in a manner he would once have considered out of character. He supposed at this point, he would be better off accepting that his character had changed. Drab, dull Hugo Wainwright was no more: in his place stood a man in every way his better—no matter what the law had to say on the matter.
Tommy, with a great show of reluctance, took a crumpled envelope from his jacket pocket and tossed it onto the table.
Removing the toast from the fire—the rounds weren’t quite done, but they were close enough—Hugo shook them gently off the fork onto a plate and placed it on the table beside the envelope, noting it hadn’t been opened.
“What is it?” he asked, straining for nonchalance as he lifted the lid from the butter dish and set it and a knife on the table.
“It’s from our Beth.” Tommy’s sister, Hugo knew. From what he understood, they had rather lost contact when she married a vicar and moved with him to Scarborough. Tommy’s mother now lived with her, too.
“Why ever haven’t you opened it?” Hugo asked, sitting opposite. “I should have thought you’d have been thrilled to hear from her.”
“I’ve had several letters,” Tommy admitted, stubbing his cigarette in the ashtray and repositioning himself on his chair. He wouldn’t meet Hugo’s eyes, and his dark hair was sticking out at all angles from the back of his head, usually the result of him running a nervous hand through it.
“And you didn’t tell me?” Hugo couldn’t keep the hurt out of his voice. Tommy’s family was important, and although they could never know him for who he was in Tommy’s life, Hugo hadn’t thought the reverse was true: that Tommy would keep from telling him about them.
“It weren’t supposed to be anythin’ much,” Tommy said, having the grace to colour slightly. “After that business with Reg Davies.... Well, he said he’d been there, didn’t he? To Scarborough. I needed to know they was all right.”
“And are they?” Hugo asked, fresh worry gripping him. Reg Davies had been a madman who blamed Tommy for the death of his son. He had planned to murder Tommy, but not before he killed everyone Tommy held dear first. Hugo felt he was only just beginning to put the night Reg had come for them behind him, and he still flinched whenever he heard his name. He hadn’t thought, in all the time which had passed since, of the safety of Tommy’s family. He felt an utter heel for not suggesting Tommy contact them.
Tommy shrugged. “Beth says so.”
“Well what’s preventing you from opening this letter, then?”
Tommy hung his head. “I invited them to stay,” he admitted.
“You did what?”
“It were a spur of the moment thing.” Tommy looked at him, brown eyes wide. “An’ now our Beth’s replied, an’ I don’t know which is worse, if she says she’ll come or not. An’ I feel like a fool for not knowin’.”
“Now then.” Hugo reached across the table and took Tommy’s hand. “It’s perfectly understandable you’d be conflicted. You haven’t seen them for a long time, and you miss them, but at the same time, you value your independence. That’s not so unusual.”
“Would you open it?” Tommy asked quietly.
“Of course, if that’s what you’d prefer.” Hugo released Tommy’s hand and took up the envelope. “Are you sure?” he asked, and at Tommy’s nod, he ripped it open.
Beth Stone wrote with a small, neat hand in black ink. The paper was expensive and bore the letterhead of the diocese of York, where her husband, the Reverend Daniel Stone, was incumbent. It took Hugo a moment to decipher the handwriting and pass over the usual opening of greeting and well-wishes to get to the crux of the matter. “They’re coming,” he said. “All three of them.”
“They ain’t!” Tommy snatched the letter to read it for himself. “Oh Lord,” he said, slumping in his chair. “I never expected her to bring him.”
That Tommy had a fraught relationship with his brother-in-law, Hugo already knew. How much the Rev. Stone actually understood of Tommy’s nature, however, was a mystery.
“I’m sure it’ll be all right,” he said in an effort to be consoling. “You’ll get a chance to see your mother and sister again. Look at it that way.”
“There is that,” Tommy grudgingly conceded. “But where am I going to put them up? It says here Daniel’s got a fortnight off, an’ I can’t afford to lodge them in the coach house for two whole weeks.”
“They can stay here,” Hugo suggested.
“I can’t let you do that,” Tommy exclaimed.
“Of course you can. I’ve got two bedrooms.”
“An’ where will you sleep?”
“I’ll stay with you.”
Tommy pulled a face. “I can’t see Daniel acceptin’ that.”
“Folks do it all the time,” Hugo said easily. “You’ve got a sofa. I’ll say I’m sleeping there.”
“An’ let them think they’re puttin’ you out of a bed, when you’re a stranger to them?” Tommy shook his head. “It ain’t goin’ to work. I’ll have to speak to Lord Crowe, see if he can forward me some of my wages.”
Hugo didn’t doubt the Viscount would forward the money and more, happily, given that only days before Christmas he’d offered Tommy the sum of five thousand pounds as reward for his part in convincing his runaway daughter to return home. Money Tommy had refused at the time, seeing no need to have such a large fortune to his name.
Still, Hugo disliked the idea of Tommy going cap-in-hand to his employer, no matter how highly the man thought of him, and it was a terrible way to squander Tommy’s hard-earned wages when there was no need to go to such expense.
“I insist,” Hugo said firmly. “If they’re here for a fortnight, I assume I’ll be meeting them anyway, in the guise of friend. For all they know, I’m a little eccentric and enjoy spending my nights on my friends’ furniture.”
Tommy laughed grudgingly at that. “They’ll think you’re queer all right,” he said. “Do you really mean it?”
“I wouldn’t have offered if I didn’t.” Hugo smiled at his friend. “I must confess to an ulterior motive, however. The thought of having an excuse for spending two weeks sleeping in your cabin is simply too good to pass up.”
Tommy smiled properly at that, his dark eyes dancing with mischievous intent. “There is that.”
It wasn’t like Hugo hadn’t spent many nights with Tommy over the previous four months, but there was always the concern of being seen, of his neighbours noticing the nights his house was left empty, or the mornings on which Tommy snuck out before dawn. He and Tommy lived and loved outside the law, and it would never do for them to forget that fact, no matter how improbable or unfair it seemed.
Hugo knew he couldn’t meet Tommy’s family as the man who loved him—couldn’t ask his mother’s permission to court her son, couldn’t greet his sister as his own—but he still wanted to make a good impression. He realised he wanted them to approve of him, in whatever small way; he wanted them to be happy he was part of Tommy’s life. Hugo liked to think his mama would have accepted Tommy, although she had passed long before they’d met. He only hoped he could earn the respect of Tommy’s family during the short time they were visiting.
The Courage to Love by EE Montgomery
Chapter One
Brisbane, July 1919
THE westerlies began early this year. The icy winter wind cut straight through my clothes. I tugged my collar closer around my face, shoved my gloved hands into the pockets of my overcoat, and stared at the weathered headstone. The words carved into the pale granite were now dark and legible. The southern side of the stone held a slight greenish tinge, the beginnings of moss growth, but someone had been caring for Carl. The grass around the grave was neatly trimmed, and there was a small bowl of fresh camellias beside the headstone.
We could not say good-bye.
My heart is broken.
“It still is, Carl,” I whispered. “Every day.”
Eventually, my shivering became so extreme I had to leave. I looked up at a sky tinged orange and pink and knew if I didn’t run, I’d miss the last tram into the city.
MOTHER’S shrill voice started before I finished unbuttoning my coat. “Where have you been, David? Dinner’s been ready for over an hour. You know what time to be home.” The diminutive woman who ruled my every waking moment when I was at home came into the front hall. She had pulled her graying hair back into her usual severe bun, her thin lips were pinched in disapproval, and her gray eyes glared accusingly as I turned from hanging my coat on the coat stand. “Well?”
“I was just walking around, Mother.”
“Mrs. Edwards and Esther came for afternoon tea. I expected you to be home.”
I stifled the sigh that wanted to escape, but judging by the frown on Mother’s face, I probably didn’t hide my relief very well. The excuses I’d once used dried on my tongue. I would no longer pretend to be someone I wasn’t. After Carl, I’d not get drawn or trapped into marrying a woman my mother chose. Or any woman.
“Did you go to the Post Office and get your job back?”
I couldn’t control the sigh this time. I had gone in there in the morning, and nothing had changed. The checkered tiles still muted footsteps from the doors to the counter. The polished oak counter and stair railings gleamed in the light as they had before. The large room still smelled of old paper, ink, and furniture polish. The only difference was the new faces behind the counter. And me. I was different too, but no one understood that, least of all my mother. I didn’t want to go back to the Post Office, but I wanted to stay in this house even less.
“I begin on Monday.”
Her consideration of me changed, and I suppressed a cringe, standing taller, my back rigid, knowing what she’d say next.
“Good, then you’ll be able to pay more board.” She returned to the living room and sat among the threadbare spotlessness of worn carpets and upholstery. A small fire burned in the grate, lending a homey feel to the one room my mother spent time in. She positioned her feet precisely together, as a lady should, and picked up her mending. “Your dinner is in the oven.”
Dried-out cottage pie and wrinkled, woody carrots, burned on the tips, sat forlornly on an enameled plate in the hot side of the wood-fired oven. I sat at the scarred kitchen table and shoveled the food into my mouth, chewing and swallowing without tasting anything. I didn’t care what my mother served. Everything here tasted better than what I’d eaten the last four years. If I never saw bully beef, tinned peaches, or golden syrup again, it would be too soon.
When I finished, I placed my plate in the tub of water sitting in the sink and stared at the dim reflection of myself in the grubby window. I shuffled my feet against the gritty, sticky floor, then went up the stairs to my room, grateful every day that it was positioned directly over the kitchen and its warmth.
I pulled my suitcase from the top of the wardrobe, sneezed at the dust that came down with it, and packed as many of my clothes and books as would fit. I put the filled suitcase back on top of the wardrobe, hung my pants, coat, and shirt over a chair, crawled into my narrow bed, and stared at the stained ceiling.
I woke in the dark hours before dawn to screams echoing in my room and, from what I knew from her complaints after other nightmares, the thump of my mother’s shoe hitting the other side of the wall above my head. I rose and dressed, then went down the back stairs. Within five minutes, I was free of the house and headed for the river.
OUR glade was unchanged except for the cigarette ends that littered the flattened grass in the middle. The white paper-ends, left by careless smokers, glowed dully in the predawn light. I crawled under the drooping leaves of the willow and leaned against the trunk. I closed my eyes as I remembered the times I’d spent there with Carl, holding his warm body against mine, before the ugliness of our world exploded.
I woke reaching for my rifle, only to have my fingers bump against roots and dew-damp mulch. Murmured voices faded downriver as their unseen owners meandered along the nearby path. I stared through the fractured canopy above me until my breathing settled and my heart rate calmed. When I was sure I was in the glade and not at war, and that no one waited to shoot me, I crawled out of the dimness, brushed myself off, and walked along the riverbank toward Mrs. Gill’s in New Farm.
The house had suffered while I’d been away. The paint looked dull. Sections on the western side had begun to peel and flake away. Dirt clouded the louvered windows that formed the top half of the closed-in wraparound verandas on both the ground floor and the floor above. A small gum tree sprouted in the drooping gutter at the corner of the corrugated iron roof. The front gate needed oiling—the hinges caught and screeched as I pushed it open and closed. The grass beside the path needed cutting, while the flower beds on either side of the short set of stairs to the front door still flourished amid a tangle of weeds, though not much but azaleas were in bloom. The roses, planted in round mounds of mulch leading the way from the gate to the stairs, had been pruned and were beginning to shoot. Over to the side of the front yard, between the house and the fence, a scraggly Geraldton Wax leaned away from the wind, its purple geometrically arranged flowers whipped to a frenzy against the fence dividing this yard from the one next door.
I took the front stairs two at a time, as I always had, only remembering when I reached the landing, there was nothing worth running toward anymore. I took a deep breath and knocked on the door. I hoped Mrs. Gill remembered me and that she had a room to spare.
“Mr. Harrison, you’re back!” Mrs. Gill pulled me into the entry and enveloped me in a lavender-scented hug. Then she pushed me away and fussed with the position of a bowl of camellias on the side table. They were the same color as the flowers at Carl’s grave. “Come on in and tell me when you got back.”
I followed the bustling woman down the long hallway—past the doors to the dining room and parlor, the stairs to the upper level, and the short hallway that led to boarders’ rooms and the downstairs bathroom—to the back of the house and stepped down the single step into the warm kitchen.
There were only good memories in this room. Mrs. Gill’s stove was the same model as my mother’s, but where my mother’s was dull black and smoked from its poorly cleaned flue, Mrs. Gill’s shone from Stove Black and produced a sweet, clean warmth that immediately soothed me. Mrs. Gill tapped the back of one of the wooden chairs as she passed. “Sit, sit, Mr. Harrison.”
She dragged a heavy kettle from the back right corner of the stove to the left, directly above the fire. I looked around the room as I sat. The scrubbed wooden table top was the same, but the large basket that usually contained fruit was gone. The potato sack hanging on the back of the open pantry door was half-full. On the floor in the pantry was a bucket filled with turnips and cabbages. The icebox in the corner of the room didn’t sweat as it usually did when freshly stocked with ice but appeared to be the same temperature as the rest of the room. The stone floor gleamed, clean and smooth in the early morning light that streamed in through the windows over the stove.
Outside, in the backyard, the vegetable patch brought memories of lazy Sunday afternoons in my room, laughing as Carl, naked and flushed from our loving, leaned out the window and tried to scare the crows from the corn. Tall stalks of corn and trellised beans waved in the breeze, but appeared neglected, overgrown with weeds, like a remnant of a better life that would never be seen again. The tall jacaranda tree in the back corner appeared unchanged, and provided shade over nearly half the yard. In front of the vegetable garden, over to the side of the privy, white sheets flapped in the breeze on lines strung across the yard from the small washhouse.
“I’ll make us a nice cup of tea, and you can tell me all that you’ve been doing since you came back and what you have planned now.” Mrs. Gill pulled down cups and saucers from the dresser against the wall facing the sink.
I sat and breathed deeply for the first time in what felt like months. Everyone else wanted to know about the war. They asked if I’d had fun in France and how many French women I’d met. They told me I must be “so proud to have served King and country” and be pleased to have driven the Huns back. I’m glad Mrs. Gill didn’t.
“So how are you settling back in, Mr. Harrison? Several of our young men from here never returned.” She cleared her throat. “But you’d know more about that than I would, I expect.” She placed a cup of steaming tea in front of me and pushed the sugar over. “We lost nearly half our chickens in a storm a few months ago, so it’s going to be difficult to keep eggs on the table until new ones arrive, but I’m sure we’ll manage, dear. We always do.” She sat and, pulling the saucer, drew her teacup toward her.
I flinched at the rattled china-scrape across the table.
Mrs. Gill added milk to her tea, picked up a teaspoon, and stirred it as she stared at the swirling liquid. “I suppose you’ve found better accommodations since you returned?”
“Actually, no, Mrs. Gill. I’ve been staying with my mother, but I was wondering if my old room was available.” My speech was as I had rehearsed, but my throat felt scratchy, like I wanted to cough or vomit. I had no idea what I’d do if Mrs. Gill had rented my room to someone else. The only thing I knew for sure was I couldn’t spend another night under my mother’s roof.
“Oh.” Mrs. Gill looked up at me, her faded blue eyes showing an endearing combination of surprise, pleasure, and dismay. “Actually, it’s not available, Mr. Harrison. I put Mr. Donnelly in your old room, on account of it being at the back of the house and quieter.”
I nodded and tried to smile, but my stomach churned. I twisted my fingers together in my lap, my nerves stretched so tight I thought I would start screaming and never stop.
“I expect you’re looking for a quiet room as well.” She considered me carefully for several seconds. I was relieved that she seemed to instinctively understand. “With so many motor cars around lately, all the front rooms will be too noisy for you. You could have Mr. George’s old room if you wanted.” After making this statement, Mrs. Gill jumped up, grabbed a cloth, and wiped the table down, then refilled my cup, even though I’d barely taken two sips from it.
“It’s not taken?” My heart pounded and I closed my eyes against the image of Carl, in pain, his eyes crying out his love for me even as he breathed his last. I didn’t know if I could go back into that room, yet part of me couldn’t stay away.
“No.” Mrs. Gill hesitated. “Some gentlemen don’t like the thought that someone died there, but you and Mr. George were such close friends, I thought you wouldn’t mind.”
The alternative was my mother’s. I’d rather be somewhere Carl had been. “I start back at the Post Office on Monday. Would I be able to move in today and pay the board after I receive my first wage?”
Mrs. Gill beamed at me. “Of course, dear. You didn’t bring anything with you?” She looked around the kitchen as if expecting to see a suitcase materialize even though we both knew I hadn’t arrived with anything. Mrs. Gill reached over and patted my arm. “It’s good to have you back, Mr. Harrison.”
I smiled at her. “And it’s good to be back, Mrs. Gill.”
For the first time since the ship had landed back in Australia, I meant those words.
I RETURNED to my mother’s house in the afternoon. Today was her library afternoon, in which she met several like-minded matrons at the local library and they discussed in hushed whispers the state of the neighborhood. It was cowardly, but I didn’t want to face her. I’d had enough of people screaming at me, and if I had to listen to one more of her tirades, I would say something irrevocable. As much as I no longer wanted to live with her, she was my mother, and I needed to treat her with as much respect as I was able to. Unfortunately, that meant behaving like the basest coward and running away.
I left a note on the kitchen table, collected my suitcase, and shoved the front door key under the door as I left.
CARL’S room felt like me: it looked the same, but it was empty. The washstand still held the same fluted blue-and-white basin and jug, but his brushes and shaving gear were gone. I laid out my toiletries precisely but on the opposite side of the basin from where he’d always stored his. After hanging my clothes in the single wardrobe, I pushed them to the left, leaving enough room for as many again beside them. Then I positioned the suitcase on its side on top of the wardrobe. I stared at the bed, but didn’t touch it. His bed had always been narrower than mine, so I’d never slept in it. If I closed my eyes, I could see Carl as he was the last time I saw him, belly swollen, bones broken, tears streaming down his face.
I didn’t close my eyes.
Mrs. Gill let me take one of the brocade wing-back chairs from the downstairs sitting room. I positioned it near the window, facing out so I could sit and look at the garden, with the branches of the jacaranda tree gracefully protecting the corner of the vegetable garden from the midday sun. I kept it at an angle so I could also see the door. On the floor beside the chair, I placed a sturdy branch that had fallen from the gum tree in the neighbor’s yard.
At dinner that night, I met the other boarders. I remembered one from my previous time there, but the other two were new. I forgot their names before I’d finished shaking their hands. They took their places at the dining table, leaving one place setting unclaimed. They sat silently and avoided looking at each other, a stark contrast to the noisy conversation that had heralded their arrival. The two other dining tables were bare of place settings. I went to the kitchen.
“Mrs. Gill, is there anything I can help you with?” I asked as I walked into the room.
A crash greeted me, and I looked over to see a tall, thin young man, with a head of unruly mahogany curls, crouched over a smashed plate. He frantically scooped scattered food onto the largest piece of plate. As I watched, blood bloomed on his hand, and I rushed over to him.
“Mr. Harrison, don’t.”
“You’ve cut yourself,” I murmured as I reached for the young man’s hand. “Let me see.”
I wasn’t sure exactly what happened next. One moment I crouched next to the injured man, the next I lay sprawled on the floor with food splattered over me and the young man curled into a whimpering ball, pressed against the wall beside the stove. His trousers rode up his ankles as he curled in on himself, but I could see the fabric gathering under his belt, a testament to recently lost weight.
“Mr. Harrison, come away now.”
I looked up to see Mrs. Gill standing on the far side of the table, concern etching wrinkles into her forehead.
“Come now, Mr. Harrison, I’ll put your dinner in the dining room with the others.” She loaded a large wooden tray with plates of steaming food and left. I glanced at the man on the floor, and I felt torn between doing as Mrs. Gill instructed and helping the man.
The whimpers had stopped, but the man hadn’t moved, his face resolutely hidden from me. I determined to ask Mrs. Gill about him after dinner, then went to eat my meal.
By the time I’d finished eating, I’d decided I would ask Mrs. Gill if I could eat in the kitchen from then on. Anything would be better than the uncomfortable silences alternating with generalized complaints against society that had accompanied my meal in the dining room.
“THAT’S Mr. Donnelly.” Mrs. Gill efficiently dried plates and put them in a stack with a clack. “I mentioned him this morning.”
“Is he…?”
“He was in the war, Mr. Harrison.” Mrs. Gill turned to stare at me. “I’m sure you know the kinds of things he might have experienced.”
Shell shock. I’d seen it before. Good soldiers, even great soldiers, started to sob and not stop, even when the medics came to carry them out. Others experienced flashbacks so bad they went on rampages and shot everything that moved. Hell, I’d even experienced some of that myself. I still had nightmares.
“How long has he been with you?”
“Only a couple of months. He just needs things quiet for a while, I think.”
Hence giving him the back bedroom. I placed my hand on her shoulder. “You’re a good woman, Mrs. Gill.”
Eleventh Hour by Elin Gregory
Siward picked up a small leather bag and led Briers out of the back of the building into a cobbled court.
"Nice car," Briers said, admiring the vehicle's powerful lines. "Armstrong-Siddeley?"
Siward opened the dickey seat and crammed his bag down into it. "Four-Fourteen Tourer, Mendip model. It was George's," he said as he got into his seat. "He only drove it twice. I'm keeping it in tune while he's convalescing."
Briers waited until Siward had turned the car and driven it out onto Buckingham Gate before he spoke again.
"How is your brother?" he asked.
"As well as can be expected." Siward drove carefully, without much dash, content to follow a coster's cart until sure it was safe to pass it. He glanced at Briers and smiled – a polite but unconvincing grimace. "Thank you for asking. He's walking now, at least, and is his cheerful self, but we don't know how long it will be before he can get back to work. He misses it."
Briers expected he did. He didn't know the details – all very hush-hush – and hesitated to embarrass Siward by asking. "Your brother's a brave man. He could have cut and run. He didn't owe his informant anything."
"Yes, he did." Siward's reply was sharp. "The man was risking just as much as George was, if not more. And he got George to the border, injured though he was. I hope ... I hope if ever I'm in a similar situation, I have half the courage. In comparison with that, anyone should be proud to do what they can, even if it's not what they expected to be asked to do."
"I see," Briers said. Once Siward had taken the turn into Victoria Street he broke their silence again. "So – this business. Mildred?"
"Dear God in Heaven." Siward sighed. "Don't think I'm doing it because I like it. I just happen to be very, very good at it."
"And how did you discover that?" Briers asked. "No, honestly. I'm genuinely curious, not poking fun." He turned a little on the broad seat and studied Siward's profile. "We're going to be in close quarters for a while and I like to know a bit about the people I work with. Was it at school?"
Siward's flush was immediate. Even the narrow strips of skin visible between his cuffs and his driving gloves went pink. "I didn't go to school. I had rheumatic fever when I was six and again when I was nine, so I stayed with my parents and we hired a local tutor wherever we happened to be. Hence all the different languages, I suppose. No, it was when I went up to Cambridge. I read English and wasn't doing too well. My supervisor – dear me, even he was a war hero – suggested I join the Shakespeare performance society. He felt it might give me more insight. I'm not sure it worked as he intended but, over my time there, I think I played all the main female leads – Viola, Ophelia, Rosalind, Beatrice, even Lady Macbeth. I enjoyed the challenge but that was Shakespeare, with all the weight of tradition of men playing female roles. Out in the street, it's something else entirely."
"We all have to play roles in this business," Briers said. "Just remember you are doing something unique. Something I most certainly couldn't do."
Siward replied with a peevish snort. "Well, no, because you are a proper stalwart type. You don't get people sneering at you barely behind your back. I bet you played rugger and boxed for your college."
"Good guess." Briers chuckled. "Rugby League was the big thing in my house. Pa was a follower of St Helens and when I was born, the week before they played in the Challenge Cup, he named me after the entire front row."
"Briers?" Siward's tone was sympathetic.
"Briers Winstanley Allerdale," Briers said. "Actually it should have been Winstanley Briers Winstanley, because the brothers were playing, but even Pa wouldn't go that far. Being Brian Carstairs for a week or two will come as something of a relief."
Siward chuckled. "So your father was a Rugby League enthusiast. What about your mother? Are they still with you?"
"Yes, bless them. Pa is a country doctor, with a practice outside Eccleston. Ma – well she organises things, mostly Pa. I've got a younger brother who's in the practice with Pa and a sister who's courting."
"Someone suitable, I hope?" Siward said. "Do they know what you do?"
Briers shrugged. "I think Pa has guessed. The others think I'm something to do with steel production, which I am some of the time."
"That must be difficult," Siward said. "At least when I write to my family I can tell them a little of my daily life. A clerical post with the government is close enough to the truth."
"Just how many languages do you speak?" Briers asked.
"Five usefully." Siward's tone was matter of fact. "One picks them up easily as an infant and my nursemaids were a mixed bunch. I could speak Czech and Serbian by the time I was three and learned this odd kind of dialect mixture of Macedonian and Bulgarian from an Embassy driver who had the most wonderful pet ferrets."
Briers laughed. "So if ever I need someone to give a talk to the ferret fanciers of Skopje...?"
"I'm your man," Siward said. Their eyes met for a moment and both grinned. "Charing Cross." Siward nodded to the turn ahead. "Why don't you nip in and get your baggage while I turn the car around?"
Awfully Glad by Charlie Cochrane
A makeshift stage. An audience. An entirely male audience, in khaki. A high sense of anticipation. The Macaronis concert party about to perform. Music starts, curtain is pulled across—to an outbreak of applause—revealing a group of men in evening dress, who take up the tune. The show begins.
They’d reached the part where the comic had finished his rendition of “Gilbert the Filbert,” leaving the stage to guffaws of laughter and thundering applause, and the tenor had come on to the opening strains of “Roses of Picardy.” The audience settled down, lulled by the familiar tune but with the first buzz of expectation starting to rise. They’d been briefed about this concert party by a couple of the officers whose friends had seen them perform before. So far, the advance information had been correct—good singing, good jokes, a couple of things slightly near the knuckle but not going too far.
And now, the much-vaunted and long-awaited “Roses of Picardy.” That song could only mean one thing—the imminent appearance of the lovely Miss Madeleine.
Second Lieutenant Hampson nudged his fellow officer in the ribs. “She’s on her way. I wonder if she’s really as hot a piece of stuff as they say.”
Lieutenant Browne shrugged. “I hope so. I’ve been looking forward to this a long while.”
An agitated “Shh!” from somewhere along the line of spectators put a stop to conversation as the tenor’s rendition of the verse began. The holding of breaths within the audience became palpable, especially when the curtain to one side of what passed for a stage twitched slightly. The chorus came, and with it Madeleine, gorgeous in a lavender dress to match her eyes and a sumptuous hat, worn at a coquettish angle. An outbreak of wolf whistling, a single shout of “Cor!” and more “Shh!”s, mainly from the colonel in the front row who’d leaned forward to get a better view of the trim ankles that appeared as she sashayed across the stage.
“What a peach,” Hampson whispered, staring up at the stage, spellbound.
“Not bad at all.” Browne tipped his head to one side to set up a better line of observation of the trim waist, the pert backside, and the well-proportioned décolletage. Those curves were just what you wanted in a woman.
The song came to an end among rapturous applause, whistling, and stomping of feet. The tenor kissed Miss Madeleine’s hand and led her upstage, where she prepared for her solo, batting her eyelashes flirtatiously at the colonel. She looked like a nice girl, dressed like a nice girl, was rumoured to have no truck with any of the officers who beat a path to her stage door, but there was a roguish twinkle in her eye which belied all of that.
The first few bars of “Home Fires Burning” welling up from the small orchestra stifled any expectations of a saucy song to match the saucy twinkle. Her voice was clear, bell-like, incredibly moving. By the time the song had finished, sleeves were being drawn across faces and noses blown. Even Hampson, who had never been known to show much in the way of emotion—apart from getting worked up over a shapely, slim-waisted form—had a tear in his eye.
“Marvellous,” he said, clapping wildly. “And think. We’re the lucky blighters who’ll get to meet her afterwards.”
Browne laughed. “She’ll never look twice at you. Not with that shock of hair—she’ll think a scarecrow’s come in.”
“Is it that bad? Could you lend me a comb?” Hampson tried—in vain—to flatten his locks into submission.
“We’ll have you turned out like the Queen of the May.” Browne grinned. “Now hush.”
Madeleine had been joined by the tenor for a haunting love duet, one which soon had the audience thinking of home and happier times, far away from trench foot and whiz-bangs. They’d be back to that soon enough, but for now they had a glimpse of something heavenly, and not just in the form of Madeleine’s shapely arms.
Such a Dance by Kate McMurray
Eddie took a cautious step forward and was immediately pulled into a room full of hot air and cool tempers. Everything was draped in red velvet and blue fabric. Men around him danced and sang and cavorted. It was everything he expected and nothing like he could have anticipated.
He pulled down the brim of his fedora, took a look around, and tried to get a handle on the situation. Did anyone recognize him? It didn’t seem so; his arrival was unheralded and no one so much as spared him a glance. Was there anyone he recognized? Not for certain. A few faces seemed vaguely familiar, like they might have been stagehands or people he worked with at the theater. No one whose name he could recall. Did anyone there catch his eye? Wasn’t that the bigger question?
There was one man, sitting by himself at a table in the corner, smoking a cigarette. He seemed to be surveying the room as well. He occasionally put the cigarette in an ashtray and picked up a highball glass full of God knew what and took a slow sip. He was remarkably handsome, that was what Eddie noticed, with a shock of black hair on top of his head, dark eyes, and a shadow of stubble along his chin. He was athletic-looking, too; thin, but with broad shoulders. He had olive skin, like maybe he was Italian or Greek. He was a sheik, Eddie thought, like Valentino.
Eddie found himself drawn to this stranger for reasons he couldn’t articulate beyond that he liked the man’s face, liked his masculine carriage, liked the way everything around him seemed to spell man—and he wanted to keep looking at that face for a while, wanted to see what the man’s hair would feel like under his fingers, wanted to know what it would be like to kiss and taste this man.
Which of course was impossible. Or was it? There was not a single woman in this club. Eddie suspected that if he hadn’t known the password, he never would have been admitted. But this man was seated alone at a table. Maybe his date had gone to the men’s room. Maybe he was only there to look.
The man looked up and made eye contact with Eddie. He crooked his finger. Come here, he beckoned.
So Eddie went.
The man kicked out the other chair at his table. “Have a seat,” he said.
“Hello,” said Eddie as he slowly sat.
The man took a drag on his cigarette and squinted at Eddie. “Do I know you from somewhere?”
Eddie considered asking if the man had ever been to the Doozies, but then the man would know for sure who he was. And Eddie was certain he had not met this man face-to-face before. This was someone he would have remembered. “I don’t think so.”
The man put his cigarette on the ashtray and took a sip of his drink. “You look a little lost.”
“I’m not.”
“You were looking at me.” The man picked the cigarette back up and took a long drag. The action drew a lot of attention to the man’s mouth, his thin but soft-looking lips, and Eddie couldn’t stop himself from continuing to look.
He blinked. He couldn’t figure this man out. Was he dressing down Eddie? Did he really recognize him? Was he a mobster who would take offense at Eddie looking? “You’re nice to look at,” he said with no small measure of defiance in his voice.
He braced himself for the impact of the man’s retaliation—for Eddie then recognized the small circular pin on the man’s lapel as marking him as a member of some kind of Mob organization—but the man laughed. “Well, thank you,” he said, still chuckling. “Are you sure we’ve never met? You look terribly familiar.”
“I’m sure.”
The man smothered the stub of his cigarette in the ashtray. He extracted a slim silver case from his pocket, opened it, and displayed a neat row of cigarettes. “You want?”
Eddie shook his head.
The man shrugged and selected one. He slid the case back into his pocket and picked up a matchbook from the table. He looked right at Eddie as he lit the cigarette. Then, as casually as Eddie had seen anyone do anything, he shook the flame off the match and said, “We don’t get many celebrities in here, Mr. Cotton.”
CHAPTER ONE
It was a pleasant morning in February of 1949, and spring seemed to have come early to the small English town of Puddledown. Hugo Wainwright had risen with the dawn and now, still a little before nine o’clock, the sun was already shining brightly through the window in Hugo’s kitchen, a chorus of twittering sparrows serenading him from the hedgerows as he stoked a small fire in the open range, placed a kettle on the hob to boil, and laid out teapot, cup, and saucer on his table.
The kettle had just begun to whistle when a familiar head passed by the window, and a moment later, Tommy Granger let himself in.
“Good timing,” Hugo said, greeting Tommy with a kiss. “Kettle’s just boiled.”
Tommy grinned and sat at the table as Hugo set out an extra mug and glass ashtray, and filled the teapot. Tommy removed his flat cap, lit a cigarette, and relaxed in his chair, idly stirring his tea while he waited for it to cool.
It wasn’t unknown for Hugo and Tommy to share a companionable breakfast, but it was unusual to find Tommy in Hugo’s kitchen so early on a morning when he hadn’t spent the previous night. As groundskeeper for the Crowe Estate, Tommy lived a little way out of Puddledown, managing the woods in which he lived, plus the acres of open land surrounding the Hall, where Viscount Crowe kept horses and livestock. The Estate itself comprised much of the county, but the vast majority was leased to tenant farmers. Still, there was more than enough work to keep one man busy, and Hugo rather suspected they’d had an easy time of it over the winter. Come summer, he doubted he’d see Tommy barely at all.
“Looks nice out,” Hugo observed, slicing a crusty loaf of bread he’d procured the previous day from Mrs May at the bakery and spearing the rounds on the tines of a large fork for toasting over the open fire.
“It is.” Tommy nodded. “It’d be fine for May, this weather.”
“Forecast says it’s set to stay for the month.”
“That’ll be good. I can get a start on some of the jobs I’ve had backin’ up.”
“Is that what you plan for today?” Hugo asked, removing the browned slices of bread and turning them to toast the other side. He didn’t like to intrude on Tommy’s work and couldn’t understand why the man would make the effort to call on him if he had chores which needed doing.
Tommy took a drag of his cigarette, rolled the lit end delicately against the edges of the ashtray to remove the excess ash, and contem- plated the pointed tip he’d created. “Mebbe.”
“Tommy, is something wrong?” As a rule, Hugo disliked con- frontation, but his friend appeared to be out of sorts, and he disliked that even more. Ever since he’d met Tommy, some four months earlier, he’d found himself acting more and more in a manner he would once have considered out of character. He supposed at this point, he would be better off accepting that his character had changed. Drab, dull Hugo Wainwright was no more: in his place stood a man in every way his better—no matter what the law had to say on the matter.
Tommy, with a great show of reluctance, took a crumpled envelope from his jacket pocket and tossed it onto the table.
Removing the toast from the fire—the rounds weren’t quite done, but they were close enough—Hugo shook them gently off the fork onto a plate and placed it on the table beside the envelope, noting it hadn’t been opened.
“What is it?” he asked, straining for nonchalance as he lifted the lid from the butter dish and set it and a knife on the table.
“It’s from our Beth.” Tommy’s sister, Hugo knew. From what he understood, they had rather lost contact when she married a vicar and moved with him to Scarborough. Tommy’s mother now lived with her, too.
“Why ever haven’t you opened it?” Hugo asked, sitting opposite. “I should have thought you’d have been thrilled to hear from her.”
“I’ve had several letters,” Tommy admitted, stubbing his cigarette in the ashtray and repositioning himself on his chair. He wouldn’t meet Hugo’s eyes, and his dark hair was sticking out at all angles from the back of his head, usually the result of him running a nervous hand through it.
“And you didn’t tell me?” Hugo couldn’t keep the hurt out of his voice. Tommy’s family was important, and although they could never know him for who he was in Tommy’s life, Hugo hadn’t thought the reverse was true: that Tommy would keep from telling him about them.
“It weren’t supposed to be anythin’ much,” Tommy said, having the grace to colour slightly. “After that business with Reg Davies.... Well, he said he’d been there, didn’t he? To Scarborough. I needed to know they was all right.”
“And are they?” Hugo asked, fresh worry gripping him. Reg Davies had been a madman who blamed Tommy for the death of his son. He had planned to murder Tommy, but not before he killed everyone Tommy held dear first. Hugo felt he was only just beginning to put the night Reg had come for them behind him, and he still flinched whenever he heard his name. He hadn’t thought, in all the time which had passed since, of the safety of Tommy’s family. He felt an utter heel for not suggesting Tommy contact them.
Tommy shrugged. “Beth says so.”
“Well what’s preventing you from opening this letter, then?”
Tommy hung his head. “I invited them to stay,” he admitted.
“You did what?”
“It were a spur of the moment thing.” Tommy looked at him, brown eyes wide. “An’ now our Beth’s replied, an’ I don’t know which is worse, if she says she’ll come or not. An’ I feel like a fool for not knowin’.”
“Now then.” Hugo reached across the table and took Tommy’s hand. “It’s perfectly understandable you’d be conflicted. You haven’t seen them for a long time, and you miss them, but at the same time, you value your independence. That’s not so unusual.”
“Would you open it?” Tommy asked quietly.
“Of course, if that’s what you’d prefer.” Hugo released Tommy’s hand and took up the envelope. “Are you sure?” he asked, and at Tommy’s nod, he ripped it open.
Beth Stone wrote with a small, neat hand in black ink. The paper was expensive and bore the letterhead of the diocese of York, where her husband, the Reverend Daniel Stone, was incumbent. It took Hugo a moment to decipher the handwriting and pass over the usual opening of greeting and well-wishes to get to the crux of the matter. “They’re coming,” he said. “All three of them.”
“They ain’t!” Tommy snatched the letter to read it for himself. “Oh Lord,” he said, slumping in his chair. “I never expected her to bring him.”
That Tommy had a fraught relationship with his brother-in-law, Hugo already knew. How much the Rev. Stone actually understood of Tommy’s nature, however, was a mystery.
“I’m sure it’ll be all right,” he said in an effort to be consoling. “You’ll get a chance to see your mother and sister again. Look at it that way.”
“There is that,” Tommy grudgingly conceded. “But where am I going to put them up? It says here Daniel’s got a fortnight off, an’ I can’t afford to lodge them in the coach house for two whole weeks.”
“They can stay here,” Hugo suggested.
“I can’t let you do that,” Tommy exclaimed.
“Of course you can. I’ve got two bedrooms.”
“An’ where will you sleep?”
“I’ll stay with you.”
Tommy pulled a face. “I can’t see Daniel acceptin’ that.”
“Folks do it all the time,” Hugo said easily. “You’ve got a sofa. I’ll say I’m sleeping there.”
“An’ let them think they’re puttin’ you out of a bed, when you’re a stranger to them?” Tommy shook his head. “It ain’t goin’ to work. I’ll have to speak to Lord Crowe, see if he can forward me some of my wages.”
Hugo didn’t doubt the Viscount would forward the money and more, happily, given that only days before Christmas he’d offered Tommy the sum of five thousand pounds as reward for his part in convincing his runaway daughter to return home. Money Tommy had refused at the time, seeing no need to have such a large fortune to his name.
Still, Hugo disliked the idea of Tommy going cap-in-hand to his employer, no matter how highly the man thought of him, and it was a terrible way to squander Tommy’s hard-earned wages when there was no need to go to such expense.
“I insist,” Hugo said firmly. “If they’re here for a fortnight, I assume I’ll be meeting them anyway, in the guise of friend. For all they know, I’m a little eccentric and enjoy spending my nights on my friends’ furniture.”
Tommy laughed grudgingly at that. “They’ll think you’re queer all right,” he said. “Do you really mean it?”
“I wouldn’t have offered if I didn’t.” Hugo smiled at his friend. “I must confess to an ulterior motive, however. The thought of having an excuse for spending two weeks sleeping in your cabin is simply too good to pass up.”
Tommy smiled properly at that, his dark eyes dancing with mischievous intent. “There is that.”
It wasn’t like Hugo hadn’t spent many nights with Tommy over the previous four months, but there was always the concern of being seen, of his neighbours noticing the nights his house was left empty, or the mornings on which Tommy snuck out before dawn. He and Tommy lived and loved outside the law, and it would never do for them to forget that fact, no matter how improbable or unfair it seemed.
Hugo knew he couldn’t meet Tommy’s family as the man who loved him—couldn’t ask his mother’s permission to court her son, couldn’t greet his sister as his own—but he still wanted to make a good impression. He realised he wanted them to approve of him, in whatever small way; he wanted them to be happy he was part of Tommy’s life. Hugo liked to think his mama would have accepted Tommy, although she had passed long before they’d met. He only hoped he could earn the respect of Tommy’s family during the short time they were visiting.
The Courage to Love by EE Montgomery
Chapter One
Brisbane, July 1919
THE westerlies began early this year. The icy winter wind cut straight through my clothes. I tugged my collar closer around my face, shoved my gloved hands into the pockets of my overcoat, and stared at the weathered headstone. The words carved into the pale granite were now dark and legible. The southern side of the stone held a slight greenish tinge, the beginnings of moss growth, but someone had been caring for Carl. The grass around the grave was neatly trimmed, and there was a small bowl of fresh camellias beside the headstone.
We could not say good-bye.
My heart is broken.
“It still is, Carl,” I whispered. “Every day.”
Eventually, my shivering became so extreme I had to leave. I looked up at a sky tinged orange and pink and knew if I didn’t run, I’d miss the last tram into the city.
MOTHER’S shrill voice started before I finished unbuttoning my coat. “Where have you been, David? Dinner’s been ready for over an hour. You know what time to be home.” The diminutive woman who ruled my every waking moment when I was at home came into the front hall. She had pulled her graying hair back into her usual severe bun, her thin lips were pinched in disapproval, and her gray eyes glared accusingly as I turned from hanging my coat on the coat stand. “Well?”
“I was just walking around, Mother.”
“Mrs. Edwards and Esther came for afternoon tea. I expected you to be home.”
I stifled the sigh that wanted to escape, but judging by the frown on Mother’s face, I probably didn’t hide my relief very well. The excuses I’d once used dried on my tongue. I would no longer pretend to be someone I wasn’t. After Carl, I’d not get drawn or trapped into marrying a woman my mother chose. Or any woman.
“Did you go to the Post Office and get your job back?”
I couldn’t control the sigh this time. I had gone in there in the morning, and nothing had changed. The checkered tiles still muted footsteps from the doors to the counter. The polished oak counter and stair railings gleamed in the light as they had before. The large room still smelled of old paper, ink, and furniture polish. The only difference was the new faces behind the counter. And me. I was different too, but no one understood that, least of all my mother. I didn’t want to go back to the Post Office, but I wanted to stay in this house even less.
“I begin on Monday.”
Her consideration of me changed, and I suppressed a cringe, standing taller, my back rigid, knowing what she’d say next.
“Good, then you’ll be able to pay more board.” She returned to the living room and sat among the threadbare spotlessness of worn carpets and upholstery. A small fire burned in the grate, lending a homey feel to the one room my mother spent time in. She positioned her feet precisely together, as a lady should, and picked up her mending. “Your dinner is in the oven.”
Dried-out cottage pie and wrinkled, woody carrots, burned on the tips, sat forlornly on an enameled plate in the hot side of the wood-fired oven. I sat at the scarred kitchen table and shoveled the food into my mouth, chewing and swallowing without tasting anything. I didn’t care what my mother served. Everything here tasted better than what I’d eaten the last four years. If I never saw bully beef, tinned peaches, or golden syrup again, it would be too soon.
When I finished, I placed my plate in the tub of water sitting in the sink and stared at the dim reflection of myself in the grubby window. I shuffled my feet against the gritty, sticky floor, then went up the stairs to my room, grateful every day that it was positioned directly over the kitchen and its warmth.
I pulled my suitcase from the top of the wardrobe, sneezed at the dust that came down with it, and packed as many of my clothes and books as would fit. I put the filled suitcase back on top of the wardrobe, hung my pants, coat, and shirt over a chair, crawled into my narrow bed, and stared at the stained ceiling.
I woke in the dark hours before dawn to screams echoing in my room and, from what I knew from her complaints after other nightmares, the thump of my mother’s shoe hitting the other side of the wall above my head. I rose and dressed, then went down the back stairs. Within five minutes, I was free of the house and headed for the river.
OUR glade was unchanged except for the cigarette ends that littered the flattened grass in the middle. The white paper-ends, left by careless smokers, glowed dully in the predawn light. I crawled under the drooping leaves of the willow and leaned against the trunk. I closed my eyes as I remembered the times I’d spent there with Carl, holding his warm body against mine, before the ugliness of our world exploded.
I woke reaching for my rifle, only to have my fingers bump against roots and dew-damp mulch. Murmured voices faded downriver as their unseen owners meandered along the nearby path. I stared through the fractured canopy above me until my breathing settled and my heart rate calmed. When I was sure I was in the glade and not at war, and that no one waited to shoot me, I crawled out of the dimness, brushed myself off, and walked along the riverbank toward Mrs. Gill’s in New Farm.
The house had suffered while I’d been away. The paint looked dull. Sections on the western side had begun to peel and flake away. Dirt clouded the louvered windows that formed the top half of the closed-in wraparound verandas on both the ground floor and the floor above. A small gum tree sprouted in the drooping gutter at the corner of the corrugated iron roof. The front gate needed oiling—the hinges caught and screeched as I pushed it open and closed. The grass beside the path needed cutting, while the flower beds on either side of the short set of stairs to the front door still flourished amid a tangle of weeds, though not much but azaleas were in bloom. The roses, planted in round mounds of mulch leading the way from the gate to the stairs, had been pruned and were beginning to shoot. Over to the side of the front yard, between the house and the fence, a scraggly Geraldton Wax leaned away from the wind, its purple geometrically arranged flowers whipped to a frenzy against the fence dividing this yard from the one next door.
I took the front stairs two at a time, as I always had, only remembering when I reached the landing, there was nothing worth running toward anymore. I took a deep breath and knocked on the door. I hoped Mrs. Gill remembered me and that she had a room to spare.
“Mr. Harrison, you’re back!” Mrs. Gill pulled me into the entry and enveloped me in a lavender-scented hug. Then she pushed me away and fussed with the position of a bowl of camellias on the side table. They were the same color as the flowers at Carl’s grave. “Come on in and tell me when you got back.”
I followed the bustling woman down the long hallway—past the doors to the dining room and parlor, the stairs to the upper level, and the short hallway that led to boarders’ rooms and the downstairs bathroom—to the back of the house and stepped down the single step into the warm kitchen.
There were only good memories in this room. Mrs. Gill’s stove was the same model as my mother’s, but where my mother’s was dull black and smoked from its poorly cleaned flue, Mrs. Gill’s shone from Stove Black and produced a sweet, clean warmth that immediately soothed me. Mrs. Gill tapped the back of one of the wooden chairs as she passed. “Sit, sit, Mr. Harrison.”
She dragged a heavy kettle from the back right corner of the stove to the left, directly above the fire. I looked around the room as I sat. The scrubbed wooden table top was the same, but the large basket that usually contained fruit was gone. The potato sack hanging on the back of the open pantry door was half-full. On the floor in the pantry was a bucket filled with turnips and cabbages. The icebox in the corner of the room didn’t sweat as it usually did when freshly stocked with ice but appeared to be the same temperature as the rest of the room. The stone floor gleamed, clean and smooth in the early morning light that streamed in through the windows over the stove.
Outside, in the backyard, the vegetable patch brought memories of lazy Sunday afternoons in my room, laughing as Carl, naked and flushed from our loving, leaned out the window and tried to scare the crows from the corn. Tall stalks of corn and trellised beans waved in the breeze, but appeared neglected, overgrown with weeds, like a remnant of a better life that would never be seen again. The tall jacaranda tree in the back corner appeared unchanged, and provided shade over nearly half the yard. In front of the vegetable garden, over to the side of the privy, white sheets flapped in the breeze on lines strung across the yard from the small washhouse.
“I’ll make us a nice cup of tea, and you can tell me all that you’ve been doing since you came back and what you have planned now.” Mrs. Gill pulled down cups and saucers from the dresser against the wall facing the sink.
I sat and breathed deeply for the first time in what felt like months. Everyone else wanted to know about the war. They asked if I’d had fun in France and how many French women I’d met. They told me I must be “so proud to have served King and country” and be pleased to have driven the Huns back. I’m glad Mrs. Gill didn’t.
“So how are you settling back in, Mr. Harrison? Several of our young men from here never returned.” She cleared her throat. “But you’d know more about that than I would, I expect.” She placed a cup of steaming tea in front of me and pushed the sugar over. “We lost nearly half our chickens in a storm a few months ago, so it’s going to be difficult to keep eggs on the table until new ones arrive, but I’m sure we’ll manage, dear. We always do.” She sat and, pulling the saucer, drew her teacup toward her.
I flinched at the rattled china-scrape across the table.
Mrs. Gill added milk to her tea, picked up a teaspoon, and stirred it as she stared at the swirling liquid. “I suppose you’ve found better accommodations since you returned?”
“Actually, no, Mrs. Gill. I’ve been staying with my mother, but I was wondering if my old room was available.” My speech was as I had rehearsed, but my throat felt scratchy, like I wanted to cough or vomit. I had no idea what I’d do if Mrs. Gill had rented my room to someone else. The only thing I knew for sure was I couldn’t spend another night under my mother’s roof.
“Oh.” Mrs. Gill looked up at me, her faded blue eyes showing an endearing combination of surprise, pleasure, and dismay. “Actually, it’s not available, Mr. Harrison. I put Mr. Donnelly in your old room, on account of it being at the back of the house and quieter.”
I nodded and tried to smile, but my stomach churned. I twisted my fingers together in my lap, my nerves stretched so tight I thought I would start screaming and never stop.
“I expect you’re looking for a quiet room as well.” She considered me carefully for several seconds. I was relieved that she seemed to instinctively understand. “With so many motor cars around lately, all the front rooms will be too noisy for you. You could have Mr. George’s old room if you wanted.” After making this statement, Mrs. Gill jumped up, grabbed a cloth, and wiped the table down, then refilled my cup, even though I’d barely taken two sips from it.
“It’s not taken?” My heart pounded and I closed my eyes against the image of Carl, in pain, his eyes crying out his love for me even as he breathed his last. I didn’t know if I could go back into that room, yet part of me couldn’t stay away.
“No.” Mrs. Gill hesitated. “Some gentlemen don’t like the thought that someone died there, but you and Mr. George were such close friends, I thought you wouldn’t mind.”
The alternative was my mother’s. I’d rather be somewhere Carl had been. “I start back at the Post Office on Monday. Would I be able to move in today and pay the board after I receive my first wage?”
Mrs. Gill beamed at me. “Of course, dear. You didn’t bring anything with you?” She looked around the kitchen as if expecting to see a suitcase materialize even though we both knew I hadn’t arrived with anything. Mrs. Gill reached over and patted my arm. “It’s good to have you back, Mr. Harrison.”
I smiled at her. “And it’s good to be back, Mrs. Gill.”
For the first time since the ship had landed back in Australia, I meant those words.
I RETURNED to my mother’s house in the afternoon. Today was her library afternoon, in which she met several like-minded matrons at the local library and they discussed in hushed whispers the state of the neighborhood. It was cowardly, but I didn’t want to face her. I’d had enough of people screaming at me, and if I had to listen to one more of her tirades, I would say something irrevocable. As much as I no longer wanted to live with her, she was my mother, and I needed to treat her with as much respect as I was able to. Unfortunately, that meant behaving like the basest coward and running away.
I left a note on the kitchen table, collected my suitcase, and shoved the front door key under the door as I left.
CARL’S room felt like me: it looked the same, but it was empty. The washstand still held the same fluted blue-and-white basin and jug, but his brushes and shaving gear were gone. I laid out my toiletries precisely but on the opposite side of the basin from where he’d always stored his. After hanging my clothes in the single wardrobe, I pushed them to the left, leaving enough room for as many again beside them. Then I positioned the suitcase on its side on top of the wardrobe. I stared at the bed, but didn’t touch it. His bed had always been narrower than mine, so I’d never slept in it. If I closed my eyes, I could see Carl as he was the last time I saw him, belly swollen, bones broken, tears streaming down his face.
I didn’t close my eyes.
Mrs. Gill let me take one of the brocade wing-back chairs from the downstairs sitting room. I positioned it near the window, facing out so I could sit and look at the garden, with the branches of the jacaranda tree gracefully protecting the corner of the vegetable garden from the midday sun. I kept it at an angle so I could also see the door. On the floor beside the chair, I placed a sturdy branch that had fallen from the gum tree in the neighbor’s yard.
At dinner that night, I met the other boarders. I remembered one from my previous time there, but the other two were new. I forgot their names before I’d finished shaking their hands. They took their places at the dining table, leaving one place setting unclaimed. They sat silently and avoided looking at each other, a stark contrast to the noisy conversation that had heralded their arrival. The two other dining tables were bare of place settings. I went to the kitchen.
“Mrs. Gill, is there anything I can help you with?” I asked as I walked into the room.
A crash greeted me, and I looked over to see a tall, thin young man, with a head of unruly mahogany curls, crouched over a smashed plate. He frantically scooped scattered food onto the largest piece of plate. As I watched, blood bloomed on his hand, and I rushed over to him.
“Mr. Harrison, don’t.”
“You’ve cut yourself,” I murmured as I reached for the young man’s hand. “Let me see.”
I wasn’t sure exactly what happened next. One moment I crouched next to the injured man, the next I lay sprawled on the floor with food splattered over me and the young man curled into a whimpering ball, pressed against the wall beside the stove. His trousers rode up his ankles as he curled in on himself, but I could see the fabric gathering under his belt, a testament to recently lost weight.
“Mr. Harrison, come away now.”
I looked up to see Mrs. Gill standing on the far side of the table, concern etching wrinkles into her forehead.
“Come now, Mr. Harrison, I’ll put your dinner in the dining room with the others.” She loaded a large wooden tray with plates of steaming food and left. I glanced at the man on the floor, and I felt torn between doing as Mrs. Gill instructed and helping the man.
The whimpers had stopped, but the man hadn’t moved, his face resolutely hidden from me. I determined to ask Mrs. Gill about him after dinner, then went to eat my meal.
By the time I’d finished eating, I’d decided I would ask Mrs. Gill if I could eat in the kitchen from then on. Anything would be better than the uncomfortable silences alternating with generalized complaints against society that had accompanied my meal in the dining room.
“THAT’S Mr. Donnelly.” Mrs. Gill efficiently dried plates and put them in a stack with a clack. “I mentioned him this morning.”
“Is he…?”
“He was in the war, Mr. Harrison.” Mrs. Gill turned to stare at me. “I’m sure you know the kinds of things he might have experienced.”
Shell shock. I’d seen it before. Good soldiers, even great soldiers, started to sob and not stop, even when the medics came to carry them out. Others experienced flashbacks so bad they went on rampages and shot everything that moved. Hell, I’d even experienced some of that myself. I still had nightmares.
“How long has he been with you?”
“Only a couple of months. He just needs things quiet for a while, I think.”
Hence giving him the back bedroom. I placed my hand on her shoulder. “You’re a good woman, Mrs. Gill.”
Eleventh Hour by Elin Gregory
Siward picked up a small leather bag and led Briers out of the back of the building into a cobbled court.
"Nice car," Briers said, admiring the vehicle's powerful lines. "Armstrong-Siddeley?"
Siward opened the dickey seat and crammed his bag down into it. "Four-Fourteen Tourer, Mendip model. It was George's," he said as he got into his seat. "He only drove it twice. I'm keeping it in tune while he's convalescing."
Briers waited until Siward had turned the car and driven it out onto Buckingham Gate before he spoke again.
"How is your brother?" he asked.
"As well as can be expected." Siward drove carefully, without much dash, content to follow a coster's cart until sure it was safe to pass it. He glanced at Briers and smiled – a polite but unconvincing grimace. "Thank you for asking. He's walking now, at least, and is his cheerful self, but we don't know how long it will be before he can get back to work. He misses it."
Briers expected he did. He didn't know the details – all very hush-hush – and hesitated to embarrass Siward by asking. "Your brother's a brave man. He could have cut and run. He didn't owe his informant anything."
"Yes, he did." Siward's reply was sharp. "The man was risking just as much as George was, if not more. And he got George to the border, injured though he was. I hope ... I hope if ever I'm in a similar situation, I have half the courage. In comparison with that, anyone should be proud to do what they can, even if it's not what they expected to be asked to do."
"I see," Briers said. Once Siward had taken the turn into Victoria Street he broke their silence again. "So – this business. Mildred?"
"Dear God in Heaven." Siward sighed. "Don't think I'm doing it because I like it. I just happen to be very, very good at it."
"And how did you discover that?" Briers asked. "No, honestly. I'm genuinely curious, not poking fun." He turned a little on the broad seat and studied Siward's profile. "We're going to be in close quarters for a while and I like to know a bit about the people I work with. Was it at school?"
Siward's flush was immediate. Even the narrow strips of skin visible between his cuffs and his driving gloves went pink. "I didn't go to school. I had rheumatic fever when I was six and again when I was nine, so I stayed with my parents and we hired a local tutor wherever we happened to be. Hence all the different languages, I suppose. No, it was when I went up to Cambridge. I read English and wasn't doing too well. My supervisor – dear me, even he was a war hero – suggested I join the Shakespeare performance society. He felt it might give me more insight. I'm not sure it worked as he intended but, over my time there, I think I played all the main female leads – Viola, Ophelia, Rosalind, Beatrice, even Lady Macbeth. I enjoyed the challenge but that was Shakespeare, with all the weight of tradition of men playing female roles. Out in the street, it's something else entirely."
"We all have to play roles in this business," Briers said. "Just remember you are doing something unique. Something I most certainly couldn't do."
Siward replied with a peevish snort. "Well, no, because you are a proper stalwart type. You don't get people sneering at you barely behind your back. I bet you played rugger and boxed for your college."
"Good guess." Briers chuckled. "Rugby League was the big thing in my house. Pa was a follower of St Helens and when I was born, the week before they played in the Challenge Cup, he named me after the entire front row."
"Briers?" Siward's tone was sympathetic.
"Briers Winstanley Allerdale," Briers said. "Actually it should have been Winstanley Briers Winstanley, because the brothers were playing, but even Pa wouldn't go that far. Being Brian Carstairs for a week or two will come as something of a relief."
Siward chuckled. "So your father was a Rugby League enthusiast. What about your mother? Are they still with you?"
"Yes, bless them. Pa is a country doctor, with a practice outside Eccleston. Ma – well she organises things, mostly Pa. I've got a younger brother who's in the practice with Pa and a sister who's courting."
"Someone suitable, I hope?" Siward said. "Do they know what you do?"
Briers shrugged. "I think Pa has guessed. The others think I'm something to do with steel production, which I am some of the time."
"That must be difficult," Siward said. "At least when I write to my family I can tell them a little of my daily life. A clerical post with the government is close enough to the truth."
"Just how many languages do you speak?" Briers asked.
"Five usefully." Siward's tone was matter of fact. "One picks them up easily as an infant and my nursemaids were a mixed bunch. I could speak Czech and Serbian by the time I was three and learned this odd kind of dialect mixture of Macedonian and Bulgarian from an Embassy driver who had the most wonderful pet ferrets."
Briers laughed. "So if ever I need someone to give a talk to the ferret fanciers of Skopje...?"
"I'm your man," Siward said. Their eyes met for a moment and both grinned. "Charing Cross." Siward nodded to the turn ahead. "Why don't you nip in and get your baggage while I turn the car around?"
Awfully Glad by Charlie Cochrane
A makeshift stage. An audience. An entirely male audience, in khaki. A high sense of anticipation. The Macaronis concert party about to perform. Music starts, curtain is pulled across—to an outbreak of applause—revealing a group of men in evening dress, who take up the tune. The show begins.
They’d reached the part where the comic had finished his rendition of “Gilbert the Filbert,” leaving the stage to guffaws of laughter and thundering applause, and the tenor had come on to the opening strains of “Roses of Picardy.” The audience settled down, lulled by the familiar tune but with the first buzz of expectation starting to rise. They’d been briefed about this concert party by a couple of the officers whose friends had seen them perform before. So far, the advance information had been correct—good singing, good jokes, a couple of things slightly near the knuckle but not going too far.
And now, the much-vaunted and long-awaited “Roses of Picardy.” That song could only mean one thing—the imminent appearance of the lovely Miss Madeleine.
Second Lieutenant Hampson nudged his fellow officer in the ribs. “She’s on her way. I wonder if she’s really as hot a piece of stuff as they say.”
Lieutenant Browne shrugged. “I hope so. I’ve been looking forward to this a long while.”
An agitated “Shh!” from somewhere along the line of spectators put a stop to conversation as the tenor’s rendition of the verse began. The holding of breaths within the audience became palpable, especially when the curtain to one side of what passed for a stage twitched slightly. The chorus came, and with it Madeleine, gorgeous in a lavender dress to match her eyes and a sumptuous hat, worn at a coquettish angle. An outbreak of wolf whistling, a single shout of “Cor!” and more “Shh!”s, mainly from the colonel in the front row who’d leaned forward to get a better view of the trim ankles that appeared as she sashayed across the stage.
“What a peach,” Hampson whispered, staring up at the stage, spellbound.
“Not bad at all.” Browne tipped his head to one side to set up a better line of observation of the trim waist, the pert backside, and the well-proportioned décolletage. Those curves were just what you wanted in a woman.
The song came to an end among rapturous applause, whistling, and stomping of feet. The tenor kissed Miss Madeleine’s hand and led her upstage, where she prepared for her solo, batting her eyelashes flirtatiously at the colonel. She looked like a nice girl, dressed like a nice girl, was rumoured to have no truck with any of the officers who beat a path to her stage door, but there was a roguish twinkle in her eye which belied all of that.
The first few bars of “Home Fires Burning” welling up from the small orchestra stifled any expectations of a saucy song to match the saucy twinkle. Her voice was clear, bell-like, incredibly moving. By the time the song had finished, sleeves were being drawn across faces and noses blown. Even Hampson, who had never been known to show much in the way of emotion—apart from getting worked up over a shapely, slim-waisted form—had a tear in his eye.
“Marvellous,” he said, clapping wildly. “And think. We’re the lucky blighters who’ll get to meet her afterwards.”
Browne laughed. “She’ll never look twice at you. Not with that shock of hair—she’ll think a scarecrow’s come in.”
“Is it that bad? Could you lend me a comb?” Hampson tried—in vain—to flatten his locks into submission.
“We’ll have you turned out like the Queen of the May.” Browne grinned. “Now hush.”
Madeleine had been joined by the tenor for a haunting love duet, one which soon had the audience thinking of home and happier times, far away from trench foot and whiz-bangs. They’d be back to that soon enough, but for now they had a glimpse of something heavenly, and not just in the form of Madeleine’s shapely arms.
Such a Dance by Kate McMurray
Eddie took a cautious step forward and was immediately pulled into a room full of hot air and cool tempers. Everything was draped in red velvet and blue fabric. Men around him danced and sang and cavorted. It was everything he expected and nothing like he could have anticipated.
He pulled down the brim of his fedora, took a look around, and tried to get a handle on the situation. Did anyone recognize him? It didn’t seem so; his arrival was unheralded and no one so much as spared him a glance. Was there anyone he recognized? Not for certain. A few faces seemed vaguely familiar, like they might have been stagehands or people he worked with at the theater. No one whose name he could recall. Did anyone there catch his eye? Wasn’t that the bigger question?
There was one man, sitting by himself at a table in the corner, smoking a cigarette. He seemed to be surveying the room as well. He occasionally put the cigarette in an ashtray and picked up a highball glass full of God knew what and took a slow sip. He was remarkably handsome, that was what Eddie noticed, with a shock of black hair on top of his head, dark eyes, and a shadow of stubble along his chin. He was athletic-looking, too; thin, but with broad shoulders. He had olive skin, like maybe he was Italian or Greek. He was a sheik, Eddie thought, like Valentino.
Eddie found himself drawn to this stranger for reasons he couldn’t articulate beyond that he liked the man’s face, liked his masculine carriage, liked the way everything around him seemed to spell man—and he wanted to keep looking at that face for a while, wanted to see what the man’s hair would feel like under his fingers, wanted to know what it would be like to kiss and taste this man.
Which of course was impossible. Or was it? There was not a single woman in this club. Eddie suspected that if he hadn’t known the password, he never would have been admitted. But this man was seated alone at a table. Maybe his date had gone to the men’s room. Maybe he was only there to look.
The man looked up and made eye contact with Eddie. He crooked his finger. Come here, he beckoned.
So Eddie went.
The man kicked out the other chair at his table. “Have a seat,” he said.
“Hello,” said Eddie as he slowly sat.
The man took a drag on his cigarette and squinted at Eddie. “Do I know you from somewhere?”
Eddie considered asking if the man had ever been to the Doozies, but then the man would know for sure who he was. And Eddie was certain he had not met this man face-to-face before. This was someone he would have remembered. “I don’t think so.”
The man put his cigarette on the ashtray and took a sip of his drink. “You look a little lost.”
“I’m not.”
“You were looking at me.” The man picked the cigarette back up and took a long drag. The action drew a lot of attention to the man’s mouth, his thin but soft-looking lips, and Eddie couldn’t stop himself from continuing to look.
He blinked. He couldn’t figure this man out. Was he dressing down Eddie? Did he really recognize him? Was he a mobster who would take offense at Eddie looking? “You’re nice to look at,” he said with no small measure of defiance in his voice.
He braced himself for the impact of the man’s retaliation—for Eddie then recognized the small circular pin on the man’s lapel as marking him as a member of some kind of Mob organization—but the man laughed. “Well, thank you,” he said, still chuckling. “Are you sure we’ve never met? You look terribly familiar.”
“I’m sure.”
The man smothered the stub of his cigarette in the ashtray. He extracted a slim silver case from his pocket, opened it, and displayed a neat row of cigarettes. “You want?”
Eddie shook his head.
The man shrugged and selected one. He slid the case back into his pocket and picked up a matchbook from the table. He looked right at Eddie as he lit the cigarette. Then, as casually as Eddie had seen anyone do anything, he shook the flame off the match and said, “We don’t get many celebrities in here, Mr. Cotton.”
Born in Liverpool, Kate Aaron is a bestselling author of the #1 LGBT romances What He Wants, Ace, The Slave, and other works.
She holds a BA (Hons) in English Language and Literature, and an MA in Gender, Sexuality and Culture, and is an outspoken advocate for equal rights.
Kate swapped the North West for the Midwest in October 2015 and married award-winning author AJ Rose. Together they plan to take over the world.
E E Montgomery wants the world to be a better place, with equality and acceptance for all. Her philosophy is: We can’t change the world but we can change our small part of it and, in that way, influence the whole. Writing stories that show people finding their own ‘better place’ is part of E E Montgomery’s own small contribution.
Thankfully, there’s never a shortage of inspiration for stories that show people growing in their acceptance and love of themselves and others. A dedicated people-watcher, E E finds stories everywhere. In a cafe, a cemetery, a book on space exploration or on the news, there’ll be a story of personal growth, love, and unconditional acceptance there somewhere.
Elin Gregory lives in South Wales and works in a museum in a castle built on the edge of a Roman Fort! She reckons that's a pretty cool job.
Elin usually writes on historical subjects, and enjoys weaving the weird and wonderful facts she comes across in her research into her plots. She likes her heroes hard as nails but capable of tenderness when circumstances allow. Often they are in danger, frequently they have to make hard choices, but happy endings are always assured.
Current works in progress include one set during the Great War, another in WW2, one set in the Dark Ages and a series of contemporary romances set in a small town on the Welsh border.
Charlie Cochrane
As Charlie Cochrane couldn't be trusted to do any of her jobs of choice - like managing a rugby team - she writes. Her favourite genre is gay fiction, predominantly historical romances/mysteries, but she's making an increasing number of forays into the modern day. She's even been known to write about gay werewolves - albeit highly respectable ones.
Her Cambridge Fellows series of Edwardian romantic mysteries were instrumental in seeing her named Speak Its Name Author of the Year 2009. She’s a member of both the Romantic Novelists’ Association and International Thriller Writers Inc.
Kate McMurrayKate McMurray is a nonfiction editor. Also, she is crafty (mostly knitting and sewing, but she also wields power tools), she plays the violin, and she dabbles in various other pursuits. She’s maybe a tiny bit obsessed with baseball. She lives in Brooklyn, NY, with a presumptuous cat.
Kate Aaron
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EE Montgomery
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Elin Gregory
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Charlie Cochrane
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The Poison Pen by Kate Aaron
The Courage to Love by EE Montgomery
Eleventh Hour by Elin Gregory
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Awfully Glad by Charlie Cochrane
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Such a Dance by Kate McMurray
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Awfully Glad by Charlie Cochrane
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Such a Dance by Kate McMurray
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