A Small Slice Of Summer by Betty Neels

Author:Betty Neels [NEELS, BETTY]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Romance, Fiction
Published: 2011-03-11T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER SIX

because it was still early in the evening, he took her to a restaurant which catered for theatregoers, Le Gaulois in Chancery Lane. She had read of it in the glossy magazines but she had never expected to see it from the inside. Jason ushered her in, explaining: “We’re not going to a theatre, but we can talk here in peace and eat early.”

It was a small place and very French, already more than half full as they were shown to their table. When they were seated, Letitia asked in a small voice: “Were you so sure that I should come?”

His brows rose a fraction, but his voice was friendly.

“I booked a table while you were changing.” He smiled a little then and went on:

“I’m famished—we had a scratch meal at midday, didn’t we? We’ll have a drink and decide what to order, shall we?”

She sipped her Dubonnet and studied the menu. There was a great deal to choose from and to her at least it was wildly expensive. She remembered the canteen at the hospital, where they all counted their money before they decided what to eat, and uncannily he read her thoughts.

“The food’s pretty basic at St. Athel’s, isn’t it? What does it cost you to eat there?”

He asked the question with seeming idleness so that she was lulled into an unthinking answer.

“Well, I try to keep it down to three or four pounds a day, less if I can—we can’t get pudding for that or any of the extras, but we all have tea and biscuits in our rooms, you know, and we share those round—and we buy chips.”

His expression didn’t alter, only his eyes narrowed so that she was unable to read the expression in his face. She went on: “Of course, we all eat too much starch, but it’s nice and filling even though it’s awfully bad for our figures.”

His voice was pleasantly detached.

“There doesn’t seem much wrong with yours, dear girl,” and he twinkled at her so nicely that she chuckled.

“Well, I run round rather a lot, don’t I?”

“You do—you work damned hard. I like your Mrs. Mead, by the way. What a sensible woman she is—your right hand, I presume.”

The talk drifted to the shared interest of their work, and it was several minutes before he asked:

“Now, what shall we have? How about pate for a start? We could follow it with salmon—they do it very nicely here with asparagus tips and quenelles of sole.”

Letitia wasn’t at all sure what a quenelle was,

but it sounded nice. She agreed happily, disposed of the pate when it came with real pleasure, and ate the salmon which followed it with an excellent appetite, and when she sipped the wine he had taken time in ordering, she said appropriately:

“Oh, claret, isn’t it?”

He looked at her with some interest.

“How delightful to take out a girl who doesn’t think only in terms of champagne and sherry. Where did you get your knowledge from? Do wines interest you?”

“I expect they would if I drank them more often,” she told him ingenuously.

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