‘No.’ His breath caught in his throat as she glanced up and saw him watching her in the mirror. ‘Just admiring my very beautiful wife.’ Reaching out, he caressed her shoulders and nuzzled the back of her neck.
‘I’m all wet,’ she remonstrated.
‘Soap and water will soon dry off.’
‘I’m amazed you have the energy after last night.’
‘Anne needs a brother or sister. And the sooner the better. An only child invariably gets spoilt.’
‘Not much chance of her being an only child with you around.’
He bent his head to hers.
‘Don’t you have to be in work?’
‘Work can wait for ten minutes.’
‘Haydn …’
The half-hearted protest faded into silence as he pulled her round to face him. His lips sought hers as he unfastened the button on her skirt. It fell around her ankles in a soft swish of cotton.
‘Please, don’t ask me to leave you,’ she whispered.
‘It won’t be for long.’ Slipping her petticoat and bloomers over her hips, he explored her naked body with his hands, pulling her even closer.
‘And in the meantime you’d find someone else to do this with?’ She needed reassurance, not only because her body hadn’t yet recovered from the demands pregnancy had made on it, but because she’d met some of the women he worked with. Beautiful women, like Ruth and Marilyn Simmonds who sang chorus for all the radio stars. She knew they’d like nothing better than an affair with a celebrity as good-looking and famous as Haydn in the hope that some of his success would rub off on them.
‘You and Anne are the only women I want in my life.’
‘I need to spend part of every day with you to believe it.’
‘Why, when you know I love you?’
‘Because you’re blue-eyed, blond and handsome, and I’m mousy and ugly; and because I saw the way the chorus girls in the Town Hall fought over you before you married me.’ Haydn’s roving eye and numerous affairs had been legendary, and not only in Pontypridd.
‘I promised you on our wedding day that I’d never stray again, and I meant it.’ Taking her weight in his arms, he pushed her gently on to the rug in front of the sink, staring at her while he stripped off his uniform. They would have been more comfortable in the bedroom, but his need was too great, too urgent. His last thought before entering her body was how incredibly, wonderfully kind the fates had been in giving him a loving wife, a beautiful daughter and a home in England at a time when so many other couples had been forcibly separated with no hope of knowing when, if ever, they’d see, let alone live with one another again.
Perhaps Jane was right. Perhaps they should stay together and brave the bombs. After all, who, other than Hitler, knew where they were going to fall next?
The HEARTS OF GOLD series
by Catrin Collier
www.accentpress.co.uk
Pontypridd 05 - Such Sweet Sorrow Page 42