Forbidden Places Read online

  ALSO BY THE SAME AUTHOR

  No Angel

  Something Dangerous

  Into Temptation

  Almost a Crime

  The Dilemma

  An Outrageous Affair

  Sheer Abandon

  An Absolute Scandal

  Windfall

  Copyright

  This edition first published in the United States in 2011 by

  The Overlook Press, Peter Mayer Publishers, Inc.

  141 Wooster Street

  New York, NY 10012

  www.overlookpress.com

  For bulk and special sales, please contact [email protected]

  Copyright © 1995 by Penny Vincenzi

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system now known or to be invented, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer who wishes to quote brief passages in connection with a review written for inclusion in a magazine, newspaper, or broadcast.

  ISBN 978-1-46830-679-8

  For Paul

  For a lot of nerve-steadying, and hand-holding as the going got rough and the deadline loomed, not to mention help of a more practical nature with plots, counter plots and on more than one occasion when there seemed a serious danger of there being no plot at all!!!

  Contents

  Cover

  Copyright

  Also by the Same Author

  Acknowledgements

  The Main Characters

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgements

  As always a large supporting cast helped me get this book on stage: in no particular order I would like to call them most gratefully from the wings.

  Captain A. R. Simpson, RE. TM., John Casson, O.B.E., Jill Saxton, Ronald Wilson, Mrs Estelle Lee who worked for the WVS, Mrs Joyce Haydn Jones, Mrs Glenys Thomas, and Miss Pam Elson who were all in the WRNS, Mrs Jean Proctor and Mrs Irene Price who worked with the Women’s Land Army, Monica Joyce and George Kiddle.

  There were also several books which were outstandingly helpful to me: Elizabeth’s Britain and London at War, both by Philip Ziegler, McIndoe’s Army, by Peter Williams and Ted Harrison, Spitfire Patrol by Group Captain Colin Gray and The Day they took the Children by Ben Wicks.

  No one ever had better publishers: Katie Pope and Caroleen Conquest guided the book safely into harbour (bit of a mixed metaphor here, but never mind) and tied up a thousand loose ends brilliantly, Claire Hegarty made sure it looked wonderful, Louise Page made sure everyone knew about it, and Rosie Cheetham, brilliant editor (and amazingly still good friend!) as always, knew exactly how it should be and made sure I got it right.

  Desmond Elliott, not so much an agent, more a delightful way of life, did much to keep me both sane and sanguine; and last, but of course not least, my family helped enormously simply be being there, listening to my frequent wails of despair and assuring me with admirable patience that it would all be all right in the end.

  The Main Characters

  Grace Bennett

  Charles Bennett (Major), solicitor, her husband

  Frank and Betty Marchant, Grace’s parents

  Clifford and Muriel Bennett, Charles’s parents

  Florence, his sister and Imogen, her daughter

  Robert Grieg (Major), Florence’s husband

  Clarissa Compton Brown, an old friend of Charles’s

  Jack (Squadron Leader), her husband

  Giles Henry (Lt-Cdr, RN), a musician friend of Florence’s

  David and Daniel Lucas, two young evacuees from Acton

  Ben Lucas (Sgt), their father, and Linda, their mother

  May Potter, a fellow WREN with Clarissa

  Michael Jacobs, senior partner at Bennett & Bennett Solicitors

  Archibald McIndoe, Pioneer plastic surgeon

  Corporal Brian Meredith, a returning POW

  KEY VILLAGE CHARACTERS

  Mrs Boscombe, operator of the local telephone exchange

  Mrs Lacey, Grace’s superior on the Women’s Land Army committee

  Mrs Merton, the village schoolmistress

  Miss Baines, Imogen’s nanny

  Elspeth Dunn, a music pupil of Grace’s

  Jeannette, an evacuee housekeeping for Muriel and Florence, and her daughter Mamie

  Prologue

  June 24th 1995

  ‘I’m going to make her tell us today. She’s kept that secret from us for fifty years now, and I really feel that’s quite long enough.’ These words, spoken in a clear, melodic and extremely well-bred voice, echoed through the Palm Court of the Ritz Hotel, halting several conversations in mid-sentence, if not word and causing several more cups to rattle in their saucers; the owner of the voice, elegant and extremely stylish, dressed in a white silk suit, long shapely legs curled neatly beneath her gilt chair, became aware of the fact and smiled pleasedly at her companion. The companion, dressed more conservatively but still with considerable chic, in a black wool dress, a wide pearl choker round her long, graceful neck, looked back at her seriously for a moment and then said, ‘Well I’d put my money on Grace personally, Clarissa. You’ve been working on her all this time with a complete lack of success. Anyway, does it really matter? As you say it’s fifty years. Probably best left I’d have thought.’

  ‘I just don’t like not knowing things,’ said Clarissa. ‘Secrets irritate me, Florence. Fifty-year-old secrets irritate me even more. And that one of Grace’s is a particularly intriguing one.’

  ‘And I suppose you haven’t got any yourself?’ said Florence lightly.

  ‘Me!’ said Clarissa, her large brown eyes opening very wide, her smile sweetly frank as she looked at Florence. ‘Of course not. Always tell everybody everything, I do. Can’t keep anything to myself at all. You should know that, Florence darling.’

  ‘Mmm,’ said Florence; she looked back at Clarissa, her grey eyes thoughtful.

  ‘And what’s that supposed to mean?’

  ‘Nothing. Nothing at all.’ She visibly brushed the question aside. ‘Only that we all three of us had a fairly – well, a very – eventful war. Wouldn’t you say? None of us got off exactly lightly. Lots of interesting stories all round. And secrets come to that.’

  ‘Well yes, but you and I knew each other’s,’ said Clarissa. ‘Grace’s has remained her own. Well, the main one anyway. And I think she owes it to us – oh now look there she is, the darling, now.’

  She stood up and waved a graceful arm; ‘Grace, over here!’

  ‘Hallo, Clarissa, Florence!’ said Grace, embracing them both, settling herself into her chair, tugging at her gloves. ‘Sorry to be so late. I got stuck in traffic coming through the par
k. And then I was thinking, as I sat there, how it was all allotments once, and your friend, whatever was she called, Clarissa, oh yes, Bunty, she joined the pig club they ran from it. A pig farm, right under the Albert Memorial. Who’d believe that now?’

  ‘Nobody I’m sure,’ said Clarissa. ‘Sit down, darling, and have some tea. Or shall we have some champagne? I think the occasion merits it, don’t you? Let’s get that sweet waiter over and ask for some.’

  ‘Champagne!’ said Florence. ‘Clarissa, it’s only half past four.’

  ‘I know, I know. But I think one of the compensations of being our immense age is being able to do exactly what we like when we like. And just at the moment I’d like some champagne.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Florence, ‘and you think it might loosen Grace’s tongue. I warn you, Grace, she’s going to get you talking today. Hell bent on it.’

  ‘Oh really?’ said Grace. ‘About what I wonder.’

  ‘You know what about,’ said Clarissa, ‘you know perfectly well. And I think after fifty years you really owe it to us to—’

  ‘That is such a lovely suit, Clarissa,’ said Grace. ‘Where did you get it?’

  ‘Oh you are so irritating,’ said Clarissa. ‘I got it at Harvey Nichols. If it matters.’

  ‘It does to me, I like to know these things. I feel I’m still catching up. I’ve never quite got over being the country mouse on clothing coupons while you swanned round looking dazzling in your Wrens uniform.’

  ‘Yes, well I must say you did often look a bit dreary,’ said Florence, reaching for a sandwich with a slender, beautifully manicured hand, ‘quite a lot of the time anyway.’

  ‘Thanks, Florence. And you did know how to make me feel worse. Quite a lot of the time.’

  ‘Girls, girls,’ said Clarissa, ‘let us not get rowdy. Not here anyway. Ah, the champagne. How lovely. Grace, darling, you first.’

  ‘Thank you,’ said Grace, ‘but I think I should warn you, Clarissa, I have absolutely no intention of having my tongue loosened. If Florence is right and that’s what you want.’

  ‘Oh really!’ said Clarissa. ‘What harm could it possibly do now? For you to tell us all about it? And anyway as if we’d tell.’

  ‘I might not tell, Clarissa,’ said Florence, ‘but you certainly would. Anyone and everyone who’d listen.’

  ‘Oh, how unkind,’ said Clarissa. ‘Of course I wouldn’t. And anyway, who’d listen to the ramblings of an old lady?’

  ‘Everyone listens to you,’ said Florence briskly, ‘they have to, they don’t have any choice.’

  ‘I do hope you’re more tactful when you’re in the House of Commons, Florence darling,’ said Clarissa, ‘although I suppose it’s not really a very tactful place. If I talked like that to my shareholders, I’d be in a lot of trouble. Anyway, as I said in the first place, Grace, the time has come.’

  ‘But why?’ said Grace. ‘Why specially now?’

  ‘Well, because it’s such a milestone. As I said. Fifty years we’ve been meeting here in this restaurant, every single midsummer day, such a lovely idea I must say, even though I say it myself, and never missed once, have we, no matter what happened?’

  ‘Well, except that one year when Florence was canvassing and we all went to help, and had the meeting up there,’ said Grace.

  ‘And the other year when Grace took all her pupils to play at that lovely festival in Ireland and we went to listen,’ said Florence, ‘and don’t forget when you were in New York, opening your company there, and we all went up the Empire State together—’

  ‘Yes, all right, all right,’ said Clarissa, ‘you’re just proving my point. We’ve always had the meeting, and we’ve always stayed absolutely and utterly close. And supported each other. Husbands, babies, success and failure, heartaches and happiness, shared it all. And still Grace keeps this huge secret to herself. And I absolutely know for a fact there is a secret, that there was much more to it all than you ever let on. I think it’s very mean of you.’

  ‘Well I’m sorry,’ said Grace, ‘sorry if you think I’m mean. But I still can’t tell you.’

  ‘But—’

  ‘Excuse me,’ said Florence, ‘fascinating as this is, I simply have to go and make a phone call. Check out what’s happening with the European vote. I’ll be back very soon. Don’t tell her a thing, Grace, will you?’

  ‘Now Clarissa,’ said Grace, watching Florence disappear in the direction of the foyer and the phones, and her blue eyes had a surprisingly steely expression in them suddenly. ‘I wasn’t the only one with a secret, was I? We all had them. And you wouldn’t want me to try and make you tell yours, would you?’

  ‘No, but that’s quite different,’ said Clarissa smiling sweetly, and there was a flush suddenly on her still-lovely English rose skin. ‘Mine was – well – more personal. As you might say.’ She looked round to make sure Florence was not yet returning. ‘It could hurt still if it was told. Your story – what we know of it anyway,’ she added briskly, ‘was the sort they make movies about. Unbelievably exciting. A husband who—’

  ‘Not different at all,’ said Grace interrupting her, smiling equally sweetly. ‘A secret is a secret. And I made a promise, all those years ago, never to tell anyone mine, and I never have. And I never will.’

  Chapter 1

  Spring 1938

  The first thing Grace Marchant did on meeting her future husband was burst into tears. This was not because he did or said anything unkind to her, rather the reverse; it was because she was in considerable physical pain, having fallen off her bicycle, and mental anguish, having tipped a box of eggs and a pound bag of sugar out of the basket and onto the road as a result.

  The reason she fell off the bicycle was partly her own fault and partly that of Miss Parkin’s Scottie which everyone in the village agreed – with the exception of Miss Parkin herself – should be kept on the lead, certainly in the High Street. He had seen a cat coming out of the butcher’s shop and charged; Grace, who was not concentrating wholly on what she was doing, but was enjoying the feel of the late spring sunshine on her face and admiring the cherry blossom trailing over the wall of the vicarage, collided with him. The Scottie was fine, despite a lot of anguished yelping; Grace suffered two cut knees, a badly grazed elbow, and the wrath of Miss Parkin who told her she should be looking where she was going. Grace was too well brought up and too gentle to argue, and too clearsighted not to realize Miss Parkin had at least some right on her side, but as she was picking herself up, Miss Parkin hovering irritably by her, trying to recover her dignity and to suppress the pain of her stinging knees – no wonder children cried so much when they fell over – she heard a car pull up beside her and what her mother would call a dark brown voice say, ‘Are you all right there?’ Grace looked up into the face of an extremely handsome man (amazed afterwards at how much she took in, thick blond hair, brilliant blue eyes, very nice mouth, lightly tanned skin) and then down again at her muddy skirt, her bleeding knees and the congealing mass of egg and sugar on the road and started – to her greatly increased humiliation – to cry.

  ‘Oh look, let me help,’ he said and he got out of his car – a rather nice little MG, she noticed distractedly – picked up the bike, set it against the wall of the butcher’s shop, and then took her hand and led her to the wooden seat set by it (more usually used for tying dogs to than sitting on), and sat her down. Grace looked up at him and tried to smile, groping in her pocket for a handkerchief; the young man passed her his own, and went to rescue her bike.

  ‘It’s fine,’ he said, ‘no lasting damage there.’

  ‘Well of course not,’ said Miss Parkin (a degree of anxiety and guilt clearly setting in), ‘it was only a tumble. And I’m sorry if Mackie got in your way, Grace, but I really can’t be held responsible for the butcher’s cat.’

  ‘No of course you can’t,’ said the young man, ‘but perhaps your dog should be on the lead. In the middle of the village.’

  And he smiled at her very charmingly.<
br />
  ‘Mackie on the lead!’ said Miss Parkin, in tones that implied he might as well have suggested Mackie should have been sent off to work in a travelling circus or do a little bear-baiting. ‘Mackie has never been on the lead, ever, he—’

  ‘Miss Parkin, never mind,’ said Grace, fearing that Miss Parkin was about to go into one of the quivering states of umbrage for which she was famous. ‘It’s all right, really. I – should have been looking where I was going. You were right.’

  Miss Parkin was clearly mollified by this, and offered to replace the eggs; Grace shook her head and gratefully accepted the glass of water Mr Briggs the butcher had brought her, enjoying his shop’s place in the drama.

  ‘Well now,’ said the young man, coming back to the seat, sitting down beside her. ‘You must let me see you home. You look quite pale. Oh, and by the way,’ – he held out his hand – ‘Charles Bennett. How do you do.’

  ‘How do you do,’ said Grace, taking the hand rather weakly. It was a nice hand, she thought, very firm, nice and dry – she feared her own was a bit clammy – ‘Grace Marchant.’

  ‘And do you live in Westhorne?’

  ‘Yes, I do. Just on the edge of the village. By the green.’

  ‘Then I insist on taking you home. Come along, I’ll wheel your bicycle. You’re in no state to ride it. I’ll just move my car along a bit to a wider place, and then we’ll go.’

  Grace’s conquest, as her mother insisted on describing it to her father at supper, was considerable.

  ‘He’s the son of Clifford Bennett, you know? The solicitor in Shaftesbury. And he has a share in a practice in London as well. They’re very rich, they live in the most beautiful house over at Thorpe Magna. His mother is an Honourable…’ Grace’s father caught her eye and winked. ‘The Honourable Muriel Saxton, she was, she was quite a well-known social figure. Her own daughter, that is Charles’s sister—’

  ‘That would quite possibly figure,’ said Frank Marchant with one of his quick sweet smiles.

  Mrs Marchant ignored him. ‘Charles’s sister, she was quite a well-known debutante, I believe. She lives in London, married a barrister. It was a very big wedding—’