Workhouse to War 02.Stray Angel by Kay Brellend

Author:Kay Brellend [Kay Brellend]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780349425153
Publisher: Little, Brown Book Group
Published: 2021-07-28T23:00:00+00:00

Chapter Fifteen

‘Have I told you, you brush up well, Lily Larkin?’

‘You have, guv’nor, but thanks again for the compliment,’ Lily cheekily replied.

She was again wearing her elegant blue outfit and had styled her glossy chestnut-brown hair into loose curls. The lavender water had been liberally sprinkled and the sapphire was back on her finger. A few wonderful hours were stretching in front of them and anticipation was making her heart race.

Beneath the excitement, though, she felt rather subdued. When all dolled up, with the van’s horn tooting outside, she’d done a twirl for Fanny and had been given the thumbs up. But no approval from Margie who had already gone out. While Lily had been having a wash, Margie had left with barely a farewell and no indication of where she was off to. Fanny had said to pay her no mind. Lily did mind, and ached inside for the melancholy girl who was her best friend. But she didn’t know how to help Margie mend her breaking heart. How hard it must be for her to smile and congratulate them, while yearning for it to be her turn to be the one celebrating good news.

Lily bucked herself up. Greg deserved her full attention and some light-hearted fun on this of all evenings. She’d been aware of him taking his eyes off the road at intervals to direct more admiring glances her way. She returned the compliment.

‘You don’t look too bad yourself, you know.’ She cocked her head, studied him, dressed in his suit and tie with neatly combed hair and his lean jaw freshly shaven. He’d looked like this the first time she’d seen him, arranging her discharge from the workhouse into his custody. No donkey-jacketed barrow boy on that occasion either; he’d appeared sophisticated and every inch the successful businessman when confronting the master in his office. She’d been fifteen and had thought the blond stranger wonderfully handsome with his bright shiny hair and tigerish eyes. Back then, the only men Lily saw were the master and his son. And Adam Reeve, the medical officer who had become her dearest adult friend. The segregation of the sexes had been the harshest rule to bear: husbands separated from wives, and brothers from sisters. Whole families were split up on admission, some never to be reunited. At ten years old she’d been too young to join her mother in the women’s quarter and had never seen Maude Larkin again.

Gregory Wilding’s arrival had been a momentous event, destined to change her life; she’d not stopped thinking about him, or longing for him to return for her. He’d promised to give her a job, and reunite her with her twin brother. Back then Davy, rather than her new guv’nor, had been her whole world. Her twin had been the only relative she had left, so she’d believed. Only later had she learned her mother had had a baby in the workhouse and the sire’s identity was being kept secret to avert a scandal.

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.