The French Girl by Catherine Law

Author:Catherine Law [Law, Catherine]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2023-12-13T16:00:00+00:00

As they glided up the escalator to Piccadilly Circus ticket hall, Nell became giddy with excitement, her stomach jittery. Alex was near her, Alex was with her – and she had thought she would never see him again. Even though the lights had been switched off all over the country and gloom settled so deeply that it was hard to recall a time when it wasn’t all dreariness, she enjoyed taking in the jolly couples, the glint of medals pinned to pockets, particularly splendid make-do-and-mend hats.

The sky over the West End was as pink and as luminous as the inside of a shell. Warm midsummer evening air settled over crowds out in search of merriment. The four of them crossed Regent Street and plunged into the streets of Mayfair, where grand stucco houses glowed white in the soft light.

‘Ha,’ said Henri, ‘I see they’ve all still got their railings. This is how it is, with you British. Only the poor people give them up for Spitfires.’

‘Oh, shush,’ Sylvie said. ‘As well you know, Henri, you and I might as well be classed as British now, so you better get used to the whys and wherefores of this strange nation.’

She linked her arm through Henri’s, leaving Nell to walk behind beside Alex. They had not spoken much amid the flurry of the Champagne and the trot off to Baker Street Station. On the crowded tube train, Alex had kept a polite distance from Nell and she was grateful to him. She was struggling, but little by little, as her shock faded, or at least, as she got used to it, the memory of last summer returned as a reality. And her guilt embraced her. She had inexplicably, brutally, sent Alex on his way. She looked at him now in the evening light of the Mayfair street and wondered over and over again – why?

‘Here we are,’ said Sylvie, lifting her gown and stepping carefully down some steps. ‘The Velvet Rose.’

‘Oh good,’ said Alex. ‘A basement, where we can feel nice and safe.’

Nell glanced from her cousin to Alex and back again and was struck suddenly by panic: why had Sylvie never mentioned before that she’d met Alex in London?

The doorman doffed his top hat and opened the door onto the marble lobby where walls were hung with drapes of berry-red velvet. There were little gold crowns embroidered onto the corners of the fabric and engraved onto the opaque glass doors.

‘They have a royal appointment, no less,’ Sylvie confided, handing her coat to the attendant. ‘Wonder who will be in tonight?’

‘This girl never ceases to amaze me,’ said Henri. ‘She takes you to all the best places, doesn’t she, Alex, old man?’

Nell paused as she unbuttoned her coat. What Henri said and the way he was laughing was loaded with meaning. She glanced at Alex.

‘Well, we have to make the best of everything, these days, don’t we?’ said Sylvie, blandly.

The maître d’ held open the double doors and Nell found herself in the half-light of a hexagonal room, muffled by sumptuous plum velvet.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.