A Christmas Candle by Katie Flynn

Author:Katie Flynn
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Random House
Published: 2017-08-24T04:00:00+00:00

Chapter Eight

Auntie Bess cleared away the last of the uneaten food – not that there was very much – and then settled down at the table with a nice hot cup of cocoa before her, smiling as she did so. Peace had descended at last, leaving just her, Uncle Reg and the land girls in the kitchen.

‘The pair of you worked like the Trojans you are,’ she told them. ‘Oh, I know it was all supposed to be great fun, but fun has its price and you’ll pay it in tiredness.’ She chuckled. ‘In half an hour there won’t be one person still awake at Drake’s Farm and that’s as it should be.’ She turned to Lily, eyebrows rising. ‘Well, how does it feel to be twenty-one years old? I only wish we could have found ourselves a magic carpet and brought your young man home on it, if only for half an hour. But this war can’t go on for ever, or so I tell myself, and you and your Colin will be together sooner than you may think.’

Lily stood up and went round the table to give Auntie Bess a kiss on her round, pink cheek.

‘Thanks for a wonderful day,’ she said. ‘As you say, it would have been marvellous if Colin could have come, but so long as he’s safe and happy I don’t grumble.’

‘And now it’s time you two girls went to bed, otherwise you won’t be much use to anyone tomorrow,’ Auntie Bess said. She held out both hands to help Uncle Reg to his feet. ‘We’ve all had a wonderful day, thanks to you, Lily my dear, but the party’s finished now and tomorrow the work starts all over again.’

Lily lay on her back in the darkness staring at the ceiling, which was low and covered in fine cracks. Ever since she had arrived at the farm and been installed in the attic bedroom she had planned to get hold of some whitewash from somewhere so that she could erase the lines. But gradually she’d grown to rather enjoy the many pictures which her imagination created above her head. There was an old man with a pipe in his mouth and a bulgy woman aboard what looked like a ship, and now Lily found she had no desire to get rid of them. Instead, she made up stories about them, though usually not for long since sleep came rapidly when one lived an active outdoor life.

However, on this occasion no new adventures befell her hero and heroine. Her thoughts were racing, and to control them she decided that she would relive as much of the day as she could, whilst waiting for her companions to fall asleep. She had no intention of opening the envelope from Colin, let alone reading its contents, before she could do so in complete privacy.

For a moment she lay in the dark, listening to the stirring of her companions. She had had a busy morning pretending to ignore the

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