The Legacy: Trouble Comes Disguised As Family (Unspoken Book 2) by T. Belshaw (the best books to read .txt) 📗

liberated female before the term had been invented. Martha would have been outraged at the thought of her mother seducing her lawyer in his own office, and if she thought Jess’s shorts were indecent, what would she have made of Alice going out on a date without bothering to pull on her knickers?

Jess sat down at the table and opened up her laptop only to see the dreaded blue light come on as soon as she lifted the lid. She immediately thought back to her conversation of the night before, picked up her phone and called Wade.

‘Hello, Jess.’

‘Hi, Wade, I hope I haven’t caught you at a bad time.’

‘No, it’s cool. How can I help you?’

‘I’ve been thinking about the spyware that could be on my computer. You said you’d only need it for a day or so. Could I book you to have a look at it, please?’

‘Of course, I could drop by tomorrow lunchtime. I can’t do it tonight; I have a hot date.’

Jess almost clapped with relief. ‘Well done! You see, you weren’t doing anything wrong. You just had to meet the right girl at the right time.’

‘She’s a cracker too,’ Wade boasted. ‘I met her this morning at Costa, she works there.’

‘Well, I hope you have a lovely night out. Where are you taking her?’

‘The Computer Games Fair in Gillingham. She’s a mad gamer too.’

‘Fabulous, looks like you were made for each other. I’m hopeless at computer games.’

‘We wouldn’t have got on then,’ said Wade, seriously. ‘I’m a gamer first and a lover second.’

‘Thank goodness we didn’t click then,’ replied Jess. ‘One of us would have been very disappointed.’

Jess moved her mouse around the screen and found it hovering over the notes she had made from Alice’s memoirs.

‘I won’t lose any work, will I? I have a lot of files on here that are really precious to me.’

‘Back it up before I call. I’ll do a secondary back-up of docs and pics before I start work. It should be fine though. I think we’re talking basic tracker software here, not ransomware or anything like that.’

‘Ransomware? I’ve read about that,’ Jess replied. ‘Pay up or lose the contents of your computer forever. Why do people want to do such things?’

‘Greed. It’s as simple as that.’ He was silent for a moment. ‘Right, I’ll see you at lunchtime tomorrow.’

‘Have a lovely gaming night,’ said Jess, pressing the red button on her screen to end the call.

Returning her attention to her computer, Jess opened the folder containing the two article projects, created a new, blank document in her word processor and typed in a title. ARE THE TIMES REALLY CHANGING? She pressed the enter key then typed a subtitle. Society’s Reaction To The Female Sexual Revolution. 1939-2019.

Satisfied with the working title, Jess saved the document and began to think about the opening line. Ten minutes later, with nothing more on the page, she closed the document, opened Alice’s Memoir and turned to the last chapter in the 1939 notebook. She ran her hand over the page written in Alice’s beautiful script, opened her own jotter, and made a new heading.

December 1939

The month started out rather mild, weather-wise, and we thought we were in for another in a run of warmish Decembers, but by the second week the temperature began to drop and we had heavy frosts and freezing fog at night. The fog hardly cleared during the daylight hours which meant the sort of work we could do on the farm was very restricted. When an eight mile stretch of the Thames froze over, people were, at first, relieved as they thought it would stop the Germans sailing up the river to attack London. We also breathed more easily knowing the fog would hamper the Luftwaffe’s efforts to bomb us into submission.

The farm’s finances were helped by only having eight farm workers to pay for being mostly idle. I deliberately left Miriam out of that statement because she didn’t have a minute of the day in which to take a breather. The two new recruits to our family, Stephen and Harriet, had settled in well but with the weather as it was, their activities were limited and they were desperate for some outdoor time to enable them to burn off all that excess energy.

When I came in one morning from cleaning out the pigs, I was almost knocked over by Stephen as he ran laps of the kitchen pretending to be Godfrey Brown, the athlete who had won a gold medal for Britain in Hitler’s 1936 Olympic Games.

Hearing the name Godfrey made me think of my Gangster Lawyer who I had seen nothing of since he departed for Chatham a few weeks before but, as if I had suddenly developed the ability to use telepathy, less than two minutes later the telephone rang.

‘Alice?’

My heart swelled. ‘Godfrey? I was just thinking about you. How are you? How is training going? Are they feeding you well? Have they made you a General yet?’

Godfrey laughed.

‘They turned me down, Alice. For military service at least. I found out this morning. They noticed my limited fighting skills and decided that my efforts would be better suited to activities elsewhere.’

I jumped up and down in excitement. ‘So, where are they sending you?’

‘I am to liaise between The War Office, the Home Office, and local councils in the Kent area. Apparently, my ability to understand legalise, makes me indispensable in this field. Basically, I will have to explain government orders and regulations to local officials who will put them into practice. I’ll basically be doing my old job, but for much less money. I do get a uniform to wear though, so I can pretend I’m doing my bit.’

Godfrey sounded so disappointed. I hurried to reassured hm.

‘Of course you’ll be doing your bit, and I’m so relieved to have you carrying a fountain pen around instead of a rifle. I honestly can’t see you with a Lee Enfield in your hands.’

‘Nor could the army,’ said Godfrey,