AllFreeNovel
Share Us
‘Mmm...Charlotte Foster. You don’t know her. She graduated a year ahead of me and she’s been working for a children’s charity. She’s just come back to this country and I bumped into her the other day in town.’
Dee listened in silence.
‘It will perhaps mean that I shall have to spend longer in the field than we’d planned.’
‘You mean it might mean that we are going to have to spend longer in the field than we had planned,’ Dee corrected him gently. She saw instantly that she had said exactly the right thing.
‘I knew you’d understand,’ Hugo exulted as he hugged her tightly. ‘It will mean having to put off having a family for rather longer than we agreed.’
He shook his head and groaned.
‘Charlotte was telling me that they go into the most unbelievable details before taking people on their permanent staff. There have been so many scandals involving people misusing charity money that now they check and double-check to make sure there’s absolutely no chance that anyone they employ carries even the merest whiff of scandal. Charlotte told me that they’ve recently asked one of their executives to leave because his stepfather turned out to have been under suspicion of being involved in some kind of financial fraud. But then, of course, you can understand why they have to be so careful.’
‘Mmm...’ Dee agreed.
‘You’re wonderful. Do you know that?’ Hugo told her happily. ‘The ideal woman for me...the ideal wife!’
* * *
The next few days were busy ones for Hugo. His decision to make his commitment to working for an aid charity a permanent rather than a temporary one meant that, with Charlotte’s encouragement, he was toing and froing from Lexminster to London, seeing people and being interviewed.
‘There’s so much we still need to learn,’ he told Dee excitedly one afternoon, after he had returned from a briefing session with the agency Charlotte had recommended him to.
‘We’re finding that the people themselves actually teach us how we can best help them. Charlotte says—’
It was less than a month until Dee sat her finals. She had been studying when Hugo had rushed in, and, despite Hugo’s insistence that Charlotte was simply a friend, to Dee it was quite obvious that the other woman was in love with him. Her patience snapped.
‘I don’t care what Charlotte says,’ she told him sharply. ‘There are other things in life, you know, Hugo, like the fact that I’ve got my finals in four weeks’ time.’
‘You’ll pass them,’ Hugo assured her cheerfully. ‘Look, Charlotte’s invited us out for a celebratory dinner tonight.’
‘A celebratory dinner?’ Dee queried.
‘Mmm... She’s pretty sure that I’m going to be offered a permanent post with the agency. Come on, you can shower first.’
‘Hugo, I can’t go out...not tonight,’ Dee protested, indicating the books in front of her. ‘I’ve got to study. Look, you go,’ she told him in a gentler voice. She hated having to spoil his pleasure, but she still had to break the news to her father that they would be gone longer than they had originally planned, and that Hugo intended to make a permanent career in the aid field—which meant that they would be travelling the world for most of their married lives, Dee suspected. There was no way she could study with Hugo prowling the flat in his present electrified, excited state. She would be able to work far better if she was on her own.
‘Well, if you’re sure you don’t mind,’ Hugo said.
‘Mmm...I love you,’ he whispered to her half an hour later, just before he left. Smiling at him, Dee returned his kiss.
‘You can show me how much later,’ she teased him.
Oddly, once he had gone she found it almost impossible to settle back into her work. On impulse she went over to the telephone and dialled her father’s number.
He answered almost straight away, and Dee could tell from the way he said her name that he had been hoping that she might be someone else. That alone was enough to make her frown. Her father was never too busy to speak to her when she phoned—in fact he was always complaining that she didn’t ring often enough— and besides, some sixth sense, some daughterly awareness, made her instantly pick up that something was wrong.
‘Dad—’ she began urgently, but he was already cutting her off, telling her curtly,
‘Dee, I have to go. I’m expecting another call...’
‘Dad,’ she protested, but it was too late. He had already hung up.
Dee waited ten minutes and then rang again, but the line was engaged. It was still engaged when she tried a second time and then a third.
It was now nearly ten o’clock, but, late though it was, Dee knew that she just had to see her father.
Scribbling Hugo a note, she hurried out to her car.
