D-Notice by Bill Walker (big ebook reader txt) 📗

He was solicitous, as always, and that only increased her silent terror. Closing the door, she followed him into the sitting room where she found him tapping out his pipe into the fireplace.

“Where is Michael?” she asked.

When he didn’t answer right away, Lillian felt a sharp knot of fear twisting inside her stomach that steadily worsened while she watched him refill his pipe and relight it with excruciating deliberateness, taking extra care to tamp the full-bodied tobacco down just so.

“Something’s happened to him, hasn’t it?” she said, at last giving voice to her deepest fear.

The old man looked shocked. “My Lord. Is that what you think?”

“Why else would you be here?”

“Please forgive me,” he said, shaking his head. “I get so wrapped up in my own little world that I scarcely think of what others must think. Michael’s fine, my dear. But there is something we need to discuss.”

He’d gone on to tell her that her husband had been sent to Lisbon on a special mission to translate documents captured from a German courier, documents, he said, that were far too valuable to risk being sent by the usual channels. And that he would be gone for two days.

It sounded reasonable, and totally within the purview of Michael’s job with the Foreign Office; but something in the older man’s manner gave her pause, made her realize that he wasn’t telling her the whole truth. She’d pressed him, then, asking pointed questions; and that had only made Sir Basil vague and evasive. At every point, he begged off, citing the Official Secrets Act. It was infuriating; and it took every ounce of her will not to lose her temper and throw him out of the house.

Now, two nights later, with her fear and worry at fever pitch, she thought of one other question she’d neglected to ask, and now seemed horribly obvious in the light of 20-20 hindsight: What if something happens to him?

Even now, the question brought hot salty tears to her eyes. Of course, Sir Basil would not have been able to answer it. And even if he had, she knew the answer would have been as dissatisfying as all the others.

A sound outside the window interrupted her thoughts. For a moment she couldn’t identify it. And then she knew: It was the sound of a car door closing.

Throwing off the bedclothes, she ran to the window, pulled aside the blackout curtain and looked out in time to see Michael walking up the front walk, his little red Morgan parked at the curb. His gait was slow and measured, the pace of a man weighed down by exhaustion and the pressures of his job. Her heart went out to him.

Racing down the stairs, she waited until he’d opened the door, then flung herself into his arms. She buried her face into his neck and sobbed, her tears as much from joy as they were from fear. Startled, at first, Thorley embraced her.

“Oh, God, Michael, I was so worried, I—”

Her sobbing renewed itself, the tears coursing down her cheeks, as she collapsed against him.

“It’s all right, now,” he said, rocking her back and forth in his arms. “I’m all right, I’m fine.”

She kissed him then, ignoring his sour breath, tasting him hungrily, greedily. He started to speak, to protest, and she shut him up with another passionate kiss that left no doubt as to what was on her mind.

He pushed her back gently, and her hurt and puzzlement must have shown on her face, for he immediately took her back in his arms, caressing her as he said, “Don’t you even think that I don’t want you,” he said. “Not for a bloody moment. But we have to talk. Something’s come up.”

She felt the panic all over again and pulled away from him.

“Sir Basil came to see me two nights ago.”

Michael nodded. “He told me he would.”

“Why did he lie to me, Michael?”

He looked at her strangely. “What did he tell you?”

“That you were going to Lisbon to translate some documents.”

She saw his lips tighten with anger. “I might have expected as much.”

“What really happened?”

“I can’t tell you,” he said, sounding exhausted.

“Don’t start with the damned Official Secrets—”

Michael stalked into the sitting room, throwing his hat and coat onto a chair. “I have no choice, Lillian. I can’t tell you anything!”

“I’m your wife.”

“It doesn’t matter. I gave my word.”

His hard, determined look brought her up short, and she forced herself to calm down. “You’re right, I’m sorry. It doesn’t matter anymore, anyway. You’re home, and you’re safe. That’s all that matters.”

Michael walked to the hearth and studied the dying embers. His little boy lost look tore her heart. She went to him, enfolding him in her arms. “I can tell something else is bothering you. What is it?” she asked, after a moment of tender silence.

He looked away, as if to marshal his thoughts, then he turned back to her. “I don’t know how to tell you this, so I’ll just say it. They’re sending me to Egypt...to the front.”

His words rocked her.

“What?” she asked, standing back from him, her eyes like saucers.

“I leave for camp in three days.”

This was all too much. If she didn’t know Michael as well as she did, she would’ve sworn that this was some hideous practical joke. But the look in her husband’s eyes told her it was all-too-real.

“But how—how can they do that? You’re not a soldier.”

A heavy sigh. “Actually, I am. The only way they would let me go on the mission to Portugal was to accept a commission. I’m now a Major in the Royal Guards.”

“You could have refused. Why didn’t you? How could you do such a thing?”

He stared at