Knights of the Air Book 3: Lost by Iain Stewart

Author:Iain Stewart [Stewart, Iain]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Atmosphere Press
Published: 2022-08-30T16:00:00+00:00

~

Lance scratched his head. How did he end up precisely where had no desire to be—alone with Gwen? A crying Gwen at that. Still, look on the bright side. She wasn’t crying because of him.

“What’s up with Arthur?” Lance asked. “He is usually Mr. Chivalrous and now he’s left you alone in tears.”

She tucked the handkerchief up her sleeve. “I’ve been crying a lot recently. It’s the bloody war and all the broken bodies. I think he’s tired of my tears.” She smiled bravely. “I know I am. He’s got his own stresses with 100 Wing, without having to handle mine with the hospital.”

He eased her into a matching grey coat with fur ruffs and shrugged into his own scruffy greatcoat. They stepped into the blustery wind that howled down the Strand from Trafalgar Square, whipping debris and paper along the street. Gwen clutched her wide-brimmed hat onto her head.

“You might be fighting a losing battle with that hat,” Lance said. “You want a carriage or a taxi?”

“Tosh,” she said. “It is a ten-minute walk, if that.” The wind pushed at their backs, making her totter. Automatically, he offered her his arm in support and she took it with a smile of thanks.

The warmth of her hand burned his arm as they walked. It felt like they were a couple. Why had he offered an arm? What a bloody stupid gesture to make when he was trying to distance himself from her. Idiot!

They walked down the street towards the Savoy Hotel, her sensible shoes clicking on the pavement and the faint waft of her scent on the wind.

“So how did you end up marrying Arthur?” he asked, desperate to occupy his mind.

“Arthur and Papa had met socially, and Arthur asked Papa for ideas on how to modernise the Wolsey Estates, and all three of us started looking into it, mainly to take Papa’s mind off his disease.

“But we all got hooked, investigating the potential for new agricultural methods, new farm machinery, new animal medicine and breeding, new building methodologies, especially by piping water and sewage. This ignited a fire in Papa. He forgot about his illness and threw himself into working with Arthur, and I looked after Papa while he did that, so I saw a lot of Arthur.”

They paused as they dodged the bustle coming from Charing Cross Station.

She tucked up the collar of her coat around her ears as they walked on. “I liked Arthur from the first minute, but I didn’t think of marriage. It was Papa who came up with the idea. He saw us as ideally matched, and it became an obsession for him. He thought that with Arthur’s standing and willingness to change, our family money and my understanding of business, the Wolsey Estates would revolutionise how the landed gentry of England ran their estates.”

Lance raised his eyebrows. Gwen was talking like an investor, not a lover. “But surely you loved Arthur? Any girl would.”

“I was wary at first. With my upbringing I intended

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