Victory Roll – Chapter 5 (M)

Summary:

(M-rated version of Chapter 5 of "Victory Roll")

May 1942. Five months after the US enters World War II, Foyle is dazzled by a smile at The Royal Victoria Hotel, nearly comes to grief on Castle Hill, and is treated to some good old southern comfort.

Disclaimer:

The creative rights to the characters and plotlines in "Foyle's War" belong to Anthony Horowitz. This story is a not-for-profit homage to the television series, to the talented actors who bring its characters to life, and to a fascinating era.

Author's Notes:

For the T-rated version of this chapter, (and indeed for all other chapters of this fic), go to the story entitled, simply, "Victory Roll".

...

Before antibiotics came into their own—which they gradually did in the course of World War II— sulphonamides (particularly sulfanilamide, a.k.a sulfa powder) were the combat medicine of choice for fighting bacterial infection in wounds. It has even been contended that the contribution of sulphonamides to the fight against bacteria was the real revolution in medicine, subsequently undervalued in the rush to praise the new-generation antibacterials, penicillin and streptomycin.

Sulphonamides were a between-the-wars German discovery.

...

Trojans. Still a proud brand of prophylactic, I believe!

...

Guy Grindley is my own interpretation of a well-loved and respected real-life doctor who attended my grandmother and her family. He also appears in Chapter 18 of L'Aimant.

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'Nick' is Britslang for police station.

...

For dancesabove.

Previously, in "Victory Roll"

Her voice rose through his ministrations to a rhythmic catena of high-pitched breathy squeals of consummation. He could feel the throbbing underneath his lips and drank her juices like a parched man lying prone and drinking from a mountain stream.

Jocelyn's ecstasy washed over him, leaving him slaked and smiling idiotically into her nether flesh.

When her legs had ceased to tremble round his ears, Foyle shifted his weight onto his left side, and lay grinning at her stockinged thigh.

"I have a question for you, Sweet." A small smile spread across his stubble-darkened cheeks.

"Uh-huh?" panted Jocelyn, gaping blindly at the ceiling as she fought to catch her breath. "What's that, Hon?"

"Did you ever think of training for the opera?"

Jocelyn felt a chuckle start low in her belly and travel up until it set her chest and shoulders shaking. All of a sudden she was giggling helplessly, and couldn't stop. And underneath it all, the steady basso rumble of Foyle's closed-mouthed laughter burrowing into her thigh. Post-coital hysteria had claimed them both.

Oh, please God that there would be more. And soon.

Chapter 5

Later Sunday Afternoon, 17th May 1942

Jocelyn reached down to tease the short, greying curls that framed the back of Christopher's ear. "Come up to me," she hummed. "Gimme some sugar."

Foyle was about to apologise for the lack of sugar in his pantry—a microcosm of Britain's situation over food in general—when the sound of the telephone ringing in the downstairs hallway reached his ears. He tried to push himself up off the bed, but the position into which he'd forced his body around Jocelyn's hips made him wince. Pleasure, he reflected, came at a demanding price.

"Drat," he grumbled. "If I don't answer that, Sam'll have Milner round here on a mercy mission." He hesitated, unsure of his right to ask. "Jocelyn… would you mind…? Before he rings off…?"

"Leave it to me, Hon." Not even pausing to grab her discarded brassiere, Jocelyn swept her leg with acrobatic ease over Foyle's head, and hot-footed it down the staircase to the phone.

In one nimble move, she snatched the Bakelite receiver from its cradle.

"Hel-lo?" she crooned mellifluously into the handset, "Foyle residence? How may I help youuu?... Why, Sergeant Milner! We already met… Mrs St Just… Miss Stooart surely told you… on the hill with Mr Foyle… uh-huh… American Red Cross, Sea Terrace Restaurant?... You got it!... Mr Foyle? Just flesh wounds… Sure. He's very sore, but fine. Been resting for the past few hours. Shall Ah see if he's awake?... Mah pleasure, Sergeant. Don't you go 'way now…"

By this time, Foyle had struggled to the landing in his dressing gown. Even as he cursed the stiffness in his leg and shoulder, Jocelyn's honey tones drifted up the stairwell, recalling to him Mr Churchill's appreciative assessment of American womanhood: "The most beautiful voice in the world is that of an educated Southern woman." His lips curved upward almost imperceptibly. How singularly apposite the observation was.

His striped pyjama jacket was slung over his left arm. Mindful of Jocelyn's precipitate departure from the bedroom in a state of undress, he had grabbed the nearest thing around for her to wear. Now, as he peered down into the hall, he caught an eyeful of his lovely nurse-cum-playmate, telephone in hand, and naked from the waist up in her satin underwear. Endeavouring to force his mind to focus, he pinched the bridge of his nose, but concentration failed him altogether when she set down the receiver on the table, and jogged unselfconsciously upstairs to lend a hand with his descent.

Jocelyn halted on the stair below the landing, smiling up at him, her sooty lashes batting in a gentle tease.

"Help ya down? It's Mr Milner."

Foyle swallowed. "Thank you, Jocelyn, but I'll manage." He kept his voice low, hoping that his words would not be picked up by their caller; then held out the pyjama jacket to her.

"Here, put this on," he urged her with a pleading look, adding pointedly, "you must be cold."

Jocelyn's reply was unadulterated devilment. She shook her head. "Nuh-uh. I'm warm enough. Still glowin' from beforrrre," she grinned, plucking the pyjama top from his hand, and allowing it to dangle provocatively from her upturned forefinger.

Foyle's eyes narrowed. He closed a hand around the finger, bringing his face down to hers so that their noses almost touched.

"Imp," he hissed. "I can't converse with Milner with you bouncing around like that."

"Aww. Is that so?" Jocelyn's mischief drove her to affect a plaintive tone. "You asked me to get movin', so I moved. Cain't hardly help what bounces."

She tossed her hair in playful indignation, then turned, and rolled her shoulder, proffering the back of it to Foyle. Her neck arched round, and two dark eyes gazed up at him seductively. "Lean on me, Dee Cee Ess Foyle," she purred.

Outflanked and outmanoeuvred, Foyle rolled his eyes in resignation and brought his left hand down to rest on Jocelyn's milky shoulder. Together they began a tentative descent of the stairs.

Once they were safely at the bottom, Jocelyn darted off into the next room and returned with a straight-backed dining chair for Christopher. With her charge safely seated, she gave his fuzzy scalp the briefest stroke, then trotted back upstairs, pyjama jacket swinging from her finger.

Foyle watched in mute appreciation, and with large, appraising eyes, until she'd disappeared into the bedroom. Biting his lip, he slid one hand under his dressing gown to quell the tribute rising there. Then with his other hand he reached for the receiver lying on the table.

"Foyle... Yes, hello, Milner… Oh well, not too bad, considering…"

Reassuring his sergeant as to his wellbeing was easy, but the bigger problem turned out to be Sam, whose presence Foyle detected in the background, agitating to be party to the phone call. His suspicion was soon vindicated when sotto voce bargaining began with Milner at the other end of the line, around the general theme of what time Sam was to collect her boss from home the next day. After the umpteenth interruption, Milner's flustered voice came back on the line: "…says she'll—er—hang on, Sir… yes… that she'll be with you at twelve sharp."

Foyle fought back irritation. His driver was effectively demoting his sergeant to the role of ventriloquist's dummy, and it simply wouldn't do. His voice took on a steely tone.

"Tell her two o'clock, and not before. There'll be plenty of time tomorrow afternoon to go through casualty and damage reports."

There followed next a dilatory attempt by the two men to discuss the afternoon's raid, but persistent background interference from Samantha served to ruin Milner's concentration. Eventually, the poor man just gave up the fight and posed the question being hissed into his ear. "…wants to know if she should come round there and cook your dinner, Sir."

Foyle gave a start that nearly knocked him sideways off his chair. His eyes stretched in alarm. "Nunno! Thank her for me, but no. Absolutely not. I shall be, um, eating a light snack, then off to bed."

Some muffled discussion-bordering-on-argument was audible through Milner's hand, strategically placed over the receiver at the other end, followed by the noise of a door being closed less than quietly.

When he'd hung up at last, Foyle blinked and let out one long, hissing breath, then leant back in the chair, rubbing both hands up and down his face. To his astonishment, he found that he was sweating. Why all the perishing fuss? What does she… ? I'm not dying, for pity's sake.

He rose, manoeuvring himself across to the foot of the staircase, where he then stood surveying the dozen or so steps that rose in front of him. Without his stick, forgotten in the bedroom, they seemed a daunting prospect. Climbing them unaided looked a tiny bit too much for him. He swallowed his pride, and called upstairs for aid.

"Um, Sam? Would you mind help—"

In horror he bit off his words. Dear God! Foyle squeezed both eyes tight shut and winced, then opened one a crack, in full expectation of Jocelyn glaring down at him, incensed, from the top of the staircase.

Instead he heard the sound of the lavatory flushing upstairs.

A moment later, Jocelyn stepped through the bathroom door, enveloped in his striped pyjama jacket. "Hi, Honey," she greeted him softly. "You comin' up, or am I comin' down?"

Foyle gazed up at his lover, leaning on the balustrade, one slender ankle crossed in front of the other, and his mind wandered back to that first sight of her in the Sea Terrace restaurant: a study in elegance, shod in those delightful, wonderfully frivolous pom-pom shoes. Now here she stood outside his bedroom, clad in the top half of his pyjamas over satin underwear, dishevelled, in her stocking feet. And he had never seen a vision of such loveliness. Oh, he was coming up, all right. At this rate of up-comingness, he wouldn't need a stick to lean on as he climbed the stairs.

Gritting his teeth, Foyle prepared to scale the north face of the Eiger. He managed several steps, but then, around the halfway mark, a bloom of blood began to seep out though the beige wool of his dressing gown where it touched his thigh, compelling him to stop.

"Uh-oh!" In an instant, Jocelyn was down the stairs and at his side, wrapping a supporting arm around his waist. "Easy on the exercise for you now, soldier."

Please God! Not now! Foyle hardly knew which hurt more: the bleeding thigh or the blood-engorged dishonourable member. Clearly, the repeated rushes of blood to his groin that afternoon, coupled with the climb upstairs, had started the wound off bleeding again.

Jocelyn helped him through onto the bed. "Fresh bandages, then dinner. You rest there, Hon. Bring ya a tray when the time comes."

She fetched more bandages and patiently re-dressed his thigh, binding it more tightly this time. He tried—he really did—to keep his mind above the waist, but something in the way she wrapped his wound—her serious expression, and her gentleness, aroused him yet again.

Jocelyn raised an eyebrow, as if to request guidance. He leant, eyes closed, against the headboard. "Sorry," he told her gruffly. "Forgotten its manners in the presence of a lady." He reached down to quell his excitement, as he had earlier, but she stayed his hand.

Foyle's eyes peeled open.

Leaning in from her bedside perch, Jocelyn's lips sought out his eyelids, nipping gently at the long eyelashes that framed his weary blue orbs. "You are so beautiful," she breathed. "God forgive me, Christopher, I just can't let you waste this one."

She eased out of her satin knickers, pushed her slip up round her hips, and moved to sit astride him, taking care to keep all pressure off his injured thigh. The evidence of Christopher's interest bobbed eagerly before her belly. Jocelyn reached down to grasp him, noting once again his surprising length and ample girth. Privately, she wondered quite how things were going fit, given that this aperture was rather more restricted than the other one had been. The imp inside her wondered whether joining with him in this way might actually produce a tickle in her throat from the opposite direction.

There was only one way to find out, and Lordy! Jocelyn was anxious for an answer. She raised herself a little on her knees and shimmied forwards to align herself just over his arousal. Christopher's eyes took in the concentration on her face, and he smiled warmly at her, stroking up and down her thighs in light, encouraging caresses.

Finally, his hands alighted on her hips. "I can't believe we're doing this," he whispered. "It's been such a long, long time for me, Jocelyn. Will you be… safe?"

Loving him for his fond concern, she trailed a finger down his chest. "I'm not exactly… regular… these days. But just so happens that I finished Friday last. So we should be okayyy." A nervous giggle escaped her.

Christopher sent her a questioning look.

"You see," she said, "we had no kids. I always figured it was me. But what do I know? Greg would never see a doctor. You're the only guy I've taken things this far with since he died. The other times… I never felt I trusted…" She gave a little shrug. Foyle saw that she was on the verge of tears.

He reached up and caressed her face. "Lovely girl. I'm so proud that you've chosen to trust me." His eyes crinkled into an adoring smile. "May I tell you something?"

Jocelyn relaxed back down onto his legs and nodded, fondling his good thigh. "Sure, Christopher."

He took a deep breath. "Rosalind, my wife, and I, were modern in our outlook. That's to say she thought—we thought—she ought to have some time to do the things she loved before she settled to a family. And so we… I… was diligent in using birth control. Rosalind, you see, enjoyed her painting."

"But you have a son, you said."

"We have—I have." Foyle's eyes twinkled as he continued. "The French letters that we used were always fairly sturdy to the naked eye. Rosalind (in fact, we used to laugh about it), used them to store her paintbrushes overnight to... you know, to keep the bristles moist. One night, she added water for good measure. But by the next morning, every bit of water in the johnny had leaked out. Turns out the whole batch that I'd bought was faulty. Eight months later, Andrew was born. Wouldn't swap him for the world, but at that stage in our marriage, he was entirely accidental."

"How did she… How did Rosalind take it?"

Foyle raised an eyebrow. "Like a Trojan."

The giggles started low, then mounted. Jocelyn rocked back against his legs in gales of mirth. It was a little while before she managed to check and brace herself, remembering his injury. "You sure know how to tell 'em, Sugar," she chuckled. "Is there more?"

"There's more," he nodded, with mock gravity. "Every single Frenchie we used after that, she tested. Filled every one with water, and pegged it on a line slung from her easel. And once she'd satisfied herself it didn't leak, she'd empty it and roll it up again. Always had several on test at once. Used to joke the easel would make quite a conversation piece with guests. But we never tried it out on company. She kept the whole lot in the attic."

Foyle's face was deadpan. His delivery was flat. But oh! The eyes! His eyes had such a glint of mischief that Jocelyn could barely stop the giggles. But once her laughter calmed, the true significance of what he'd told her started to sink in.

"Baby," she breathed, incredulous. "Are you tellin' me you've never done it… without?"

He gave her an unflinching look. "A few times only. When my wife was already expecting Andrew. Just a few, mind you—the pregnancy was… a difficult one. But apart from those times… nup."

"Aw, Sweetie!" Her hand crept to caress his cheek. "This is gonna feel sooo nice for you. And I can hardly wait to show you how nice."

Jocelyn grasped him then, and slowly, lovingly guided him up inside her, never letting her eyes stray from his. She watched his eyelids flutter as he glided into her, and gave a firm but gentle intimate salute, to let him know, in case he was in any doubt, that he was home.

Foyle felt the pulsing sweetness of her inner walls. "Like plush velvet," he whispered. "You feel softer than an eiderdown, and stronger than a vice. I think I'm going to like it here…"

He reached up to take a breast in each hand, stroking up her nipples through the satin fabric of her slip. Jocelyn leant into him and squeezed again.

"I'm going to milk you dry, DCS Foyle," she grinned. "Hang on to me—we're goin' for a bareback ride."

Monday, 18th May, 1942

Their sleep was gloriously deep and long—dinner had been entirely forgotten in the aftermath of passion. When Foyle awoke, the first rays of the early morning sun were chasing out the shadows in the room. He felt relaxed, as if he'd slept for twenty years.

Slowly, memories of the previous night crept back into his consciousness. Along with them, the dull aches in his shoulder and his thigh became realities again, but they were tempered by the happy knowledge that he wasn't lying in his bed alone.

He turned his head, and drank in the lovely vision on the pillow next to his. Jocelyn St Just. Sweet as honey on the outside, smooth as velvet on the inside. Never had he felt such yielding softness in a woman.

Foyle rolled onto his left flank, savouring the sight of her. Jocelyn lay on her back, right arm bent up at the elbow, her forearm resting on the pillow by her ear. The bedclothes had slid away from her upper body, and the strap of her slip had worked its way down to the crook of her elbow, revealing one perfect ivory breast. Pale and firm, the flesh set off her darker areola, puckered in the early morning chill. He should cover her with the bedclothes—he knew he should. But somehow it seemed sacrilege to veil such natural beauty. Instead, he let his right hand reach and cup her breast, savouring the coolness underneath his palm. He stroked it lightly and with wordless wonder, recalling every detail of their unprotected coupling the night before.

Jocelyn stirred amidst a halo of dark chestnut waves, delightfully unruly and dishevelled. On opening her eyes, she was distantly aware of Christopher beside her, his blue eyes crinkling in affection. "Chris'fer," she cooed. "H'ney," and stroked her other hand across his, where it rested on her breast. She snoozed again.

The wave of tenderness that swelled inside him as he watched her was a revelation. Nothing could have warned him of its power. Still raw and real, the memory of last night's lovemaking bid his member rise in honour of it. Here and now, he felt the force of his desire to be inside her once again, burying all the years of loneliness, and feeling something of the life and joy this woman's courage and her ardour could dispense.

"Beautiful. You're beautiful," he breathed, half inwardly. Then, a little louder, "Would you…? Could you stand to…? Jocelyn…?" He bent and nudged his nose into the crook of her neck, lapping at her earlobe, his hand now kneading lightly at her breast. His right knee crept between her thighs, and met with no resistance as he eased them wider. There was warmth there, and—oh Lord!—that wetness. Had she dreamed of him to put her in this state? He smiled contentedly, and pushed his fresh arousal up against her hip, aware of stiffening to his limit as his feelings of mere tenderness transformed to burning lust. A momentary panic checked him. Could he do this? Pain was gnawing at his thigh, but, mercifully, the urge to quell this new desire was stronger. "Sweet girl," he hummed his urgent plea, "wake up for me. I'm wide awake for you."

Jocelyn surfaced slowly to the feel of Christopher, against and half across her. His male scent filled her nostrils, invoking dreams and strong desires that worked to moisten her already twitching core. Barely yet awake, she longed for him inside her to relieve the ache of emptiness. She felt his hardness at her hip, and heard the sweet cajoling in her ear. A throbbing started low inside her, fuelling the melting flow of her arousal, "Christopher," she crooned, still half asleep, and turned her lips towards the breath of warmth upon her neck.

The meeting of their lips became the new explosive focus of her world. His tongue was in her mouth, consuming her and making her devour him in return. Oh this, oh this was wide-awake acceptance, and she was there for him and wanted more. If Christopher would only take her now there'd be a deep, warm welcome for him in the velvet of her body. Nothing mattered but to feel him plunge inside her. Nothing mattered but to draw him in and lose herself in his embrace.

Jocelyn welcomed him; he filled her in one deft deep thrust. The silken feel of Christopher inside her made her clench her walls around his thickened shaft. His rhythmic plunging drew from her a gasp of awe—there was so much of him, it felt as if he'd breach her natural barrier and thunder on into her womb. Both thought and feeling made the breath hitch in her throat.

She tried to fold him to her, but his hands had pinned her wrists against the pillow. He was sucking—feeding—at the juncture of her neck and shoulder. Panting, "Jocelyn—can you—feel me—gorgeous—woman—dear God!—mustn't—not with—out you—CHRIST!"

Foyle tore himself out of his rhythm with a sob of effort not to shoot himself inside her and curtail their pleasure. His eyes squeezed shut from the strain of holding back, and for a moment he was fearful he had strayed beyond his own ability to contain himself. With a supreme force of will, he fought shy of the precipice, gaining enough safe ground so that, when Jocelyn then sent him an appreciative intimate salute, he was powerfully aroused, but no longer under threat of falling.

Underneath him, a contented moan from Jocelyn sent a shockwave through his crotch, and a reminder of his pleasurable responsibilities. Easing himself carefully onto his left elbow, he fixed his eyes on Jocelyn's passion-slackened face, and reached down between their bodies to seek out her centre of arousal. The point at which their bodies joined was slick with their combined excitement. The pad of his thumb slipped easily around her nub in a light circling motion that drew sharp gasps of appreciation. Jocelyn's eyes flew open. "Heaven. Don't stop. Ah!"

Foyle smiled in open pleasure at her rapt enjoyment. "Want you ready for me when I come inside you, Love," he soothed.

He resumed their coupling with one gentle, teasing thrust to see how well she liked it, and a mewl of helpless rapture from Jocelyn spurred him to deliver more, still keeping up the stimulation of her pleasure centre. His lips parted in earnest concentration as he lifted his chin to observe and gauge each nuance of her sensual response. Jocelyn was arching up to meet him now, straining her muscles inside and out to keep pace with her own rising tension and Christopher's relentless teasing of her tissues, and his thrusts. She was held in thrall by his worshipful, solicitous expression under puckered brows as he watched her climb to her completion. To see him working her to ecstasy this way very nearly undid her, but Jocelyn had no desire to finish on her own.

"Christopher," she panted. "You, too. Soon. Now. Please—ah!—come with me."

Foyle's eyelids fluttered, feeding on the visual flavour of Jocelyn's mounting ecstasy. His facial muscles twitched, his nostrils flared to fuel his imminent completion. Heady on the smell of her arousal rising up between their bodies, he closed his eyes and lowered himself onto his left elbow, wrapping his right arm under Jocelyn's hips. "Time… to finish… what we've… started…"

She whimpered underneath him and his thrusts began in earnest, startling her with their vigour. Jocelyn wrapped her legs around his back, acceding to his sudden power. Her whimpers changed to deeper, throaty cries of building ecstasy. Foyle pumped into her now with a relentless rhythm and force that shook her smaller body like a chain of mini earthquakes. The tension built within her till there was no outlet but completion. Jocelyn's cries climbed to a loud crescendo. She felt her insides spasm round his hungry, thrusting member and called his name. "For you. Ah! Christopher!" Her body shuddered its completion round him, and as her spasms ran their course, he gripped her tightly to him, thrusting once, twice, thrice—and burst into her body with a helpless sob of "Jocelyn" on his lips.

They lay entwined, and stunned with the raw intensity of their union. Jocelyn ran her fingers through the soft curls of his nape, and Christopher pressed his lips against the tender flesh behind her ear, feeding on the perspiration pooled there.

"Can't tell you what that meant to me," he murmured. "Thank you, Love."

"I'll never forget today," she answered softly. And her cheeks were wet.

…

Some while later, as they ate a tardy breakfast downstairs in the kitchen, Christopher lapsed into silence.

Jocelyn's heart went out to him. She rose and leant over the back of his chair, resting a hand on his good shoulder. Pressing her lips into the fuzz of his scalp, she asked gently, "What's up, Honey?" Well, as if she didn't know.

Christopher reached up to stroke her hand, feeding his fingers through hers. "I'd like to think that we could have this time again."

"Speak for yourself, Buster," she drawled, a little too lightheartedly. "I can barely walk."

Christopher tried again. "When you're next in Hastings, we should try for that champagne."

She squeezed his fingers. "Sure, Honey. Champagne's such a treat to have. But I hope you won't wait too long 'fore you crack open a bottle… even if it's with another girl."

Christopher gazed sightlessly ahead, and launched a familiar assault upon his inside cheek.

…

Unwilling to linger till the bitter end, Jocelyn gathered her things together as the clock struck one, and stood in Foyle's hallway with her hands on his shoulders, gazing up at him through misty eyes.

"I'll send Sam," Foyle said gruffly, wrestling his emotions firmly into submission. "She'll run you from the hotel to the railway station this evening."

Jocelyn laughed gamely, sniffing back a tear. "You sure 'bout that, Dee Cee Ess Foyle? Miss Samantha Stooart might have different ideas."

"She'll do it if I ask her…" Foyle drew her close into his arms, and spoke into her hair. "Jocelyn—what will you do? I'll truly miss you."

Her forearms rested resolutely on his chest to keep an inch or two of distance. It really was a case of If I wrap my arms around him this time, I'll never be able to leave.

She steeled herself and gave him her best, dazzling beam. "'Life's a Charleston,' as my Carolina granny used to say. 'One step forward, one step back, but what the hey, you gotta keep on dancin'." She placed a cool hand on his cheek. "What will you do, Hon?"

Intense blue eyes locked onto hers. "I think the vision of you dancing on the hill will stay with me as one of the enduring memories of my life." Foyle took a shuddering breath. "But since you ask, I might just… take a leaf out of your book. Begin to live a little, outside work."

He bent his head and crushed his lips to hers, for what they knew would be their last, heart-rending, soul-enhancing time.

…

Jocelyn St Just stepped out of Foyle's front door and headed downhill to the sea front. She turned west along The Stade and walked back to St Leonards with the sea breeze blowing in her hair.

She slowly packed her things that afternoon with pensive care. Atop her neatly folded clothes, she placed a soft white cotton drawstring bag. Inside it were her pom-pom shoes, and the blue silk handkerchief that Christopher had bid her use up on the hill to wipe her hand clean of his blood.

She stripped out of her underthings, and held against her cheek the slip she'd worn as she'd lain next to Christopher all night in bed. The satin garment was no longer pristine—their frantic morning activities had seen to that—but, even had she had the time to launder it, nothing on this earth would have induced Jocelyn to do so. Folding the slip, she slid it carefully into the cotton bag with her other treasures, then tied the drawstring in a careful bow.

Jocelyn sighed wistfully. Time to take stock of what had happened. For the sake of her sanity. Time to be… ack!... realistic.

She thought of Christopher, and the joyful, liberating intimacy they'd shared that day. And she thought of home, and all the loving years she'd had with Greg. Her brief time spent with Christopher had made a piece of England feel like home for this short while, and yet the pull of over forty years of memories still tugged her Stateside. Her posting to the British Isles had fed her taste for new experience and adventure, but there was still, she told herself, a lot back home she wouldn't want to leave behind forever. And though she realised she may not see 'back home' again for months—or even years—America, she knew, was where her future life would be.

She knew it in the self-same measure as she knew that Christopher could not be hers.

Despite the lonely image he'd projected on their first acquaintance, Christopher Foyle—she'd seen it clearly from that moment he'd unleashed his anger at Samantha on the hill—was not a man whose affections were completely unengaged. Rather, he had allowed his personal desires to lapse, and languish into dormancy. He'd needed just to rouse himself to the emotional possibilities within his grasp. It was Jocelyn's unselfish hope that, at the very least, she had awakened him to the attractive prospects right there on his doorstep. Particularly, she wanted to have planted in his mind the idea that he might one day find happiness with Samantha Stewart.

All for the best, she told herself, sighing raggedly.

And, accentuating the positive…

In return, he'd given Jocelyn a glorious reminder of the passion missing from her life since she had tragically lost her husband. Despite her forwardness at their first meeting—whatever had possessed her, she was not a bit sure—dalliances since her husband's death had been extremely rare. But something in this Englishman's demeanour had drawn her in, and made him too enticing to resist. In their short time together, Christopher had given her respect, amusement, intimacy, and passion. He had even come perilously close to laying down his life to offer her protection, and had done so unhesitatingly, without a second thought.

With such a store of riches gathered in these forty-eight short hours, Jocelyn's hope chest had been bountifully replenished. Quite simply, Christopher had, with quiet goodness, set the standard and revived her aspirations of rebuilding an emotional life—perhaps of someday finding happiness with a gentle, passionate, supportive man who understood the music of her soul.

Jocelyn St Just smiled to herself through wistful tears, and wrapped her arms around her middle, savouring her memory of the tenderness, solicitude and quiet passion of one man's nature.

"Loved ya for a single day to last a lifetime, Christopher," she breathed.

…

Around half past one, the doorbell rang, and Foyle heaved himself out of the wing easy where he'd been sitting, miserably, with a glass of Jack Daniel's for company, since Jocelyn had left. He had been contemplating putting on his hat and coat as best he could, in preparation for Sam's arrival, and smiled in resignation at her blatant disregard of his two o'clock, no earlier instruction.

A full half-an-hour early. He raised an eyebrow. Might have known.

Walking stick in hand, Foyle limped to his front door and pulled it open. There, to his genuine surprise, he saw his family doctor leaning on the railings.

"Guy? What…?"

The gentle giant on his doorstep was Dr Grindley. Sixty-ish. A perfect advert for the resilience of the medical profession. Slept on his feet; ate on the hoof. Held patients' hands into the night and fuelled himself on whisky. Everybody loved him; some of his patients even paid him. Others were apt to slip him a bag of carrots or, if he was lucky, a quarter of tea.

"Hear you had a run-in with The Hun, old chap." Grindley raised his bag. "You going to let me in, or what?"

Foyle took an awkward step back from the door to let his caller pass. "And you, um, heard this where?" Foyle limped in Grindley's wake towards the sitting room.

"Saw your young lady driver at Hastings Nick an hour ago. Your sergeant asked me to call in and countersign some medical reports. From what the lassie tells me, you are under the illusion you can walk on water."

Foyle was irked. His head tilted sideways, underlining his denial. "Nnnot a fair description of the circumstance. I had medical attention. Thought your time was better spent elsewhere."

"That might have been a decent reason yesterday. Today, it stinks of stubbornness. I've come to check you over. Strip."

"Guy, I…"

"Off. I haven't got all day." Grindley tossed his hat onto the settee, and settled his bag on a convenient table. Then he turned and helped Foyle shed his waistcoat, shirt and trousers.

"Who saw to you?" he asked.

"American Red Cross. Trained in first aid. 'xtremely competent."

"Nurse?"

"Mmmight as well have been." Foyle bit back his inclination to talk about Jocelyn. Her departure was still painfully raw—his chest was throbbing from it, much in the manner of his flesh wounds.

"Sulfa powder sprinkled on the wounds?"

"Nup."

Grindley sucked his teeth. "We'll have to see, then. All depends how good a job she did of cleaning you up. No substitute for proper irrigation and debridement. What did she use?"

"Carbolic soap and alcohol. It bloody stung, at any rate."

The doctor nodded as he unwound the bandages. "I can well imagine, man."

Foyle held his breath for any signs of medical disapprobation—with Grindley these were usually tuts and pouts. In the event, both wounds passed muster. Jocelyn's work had met with his professional approval.

"Decent nurse," observed Grindley. "I could do with somebody like her. Where is she now?"

Foyle felt his pulse skip. "Staying at The Royal V… but she'll be gone by evening. Leaving Hastings for another posting. So you're out of luck." And so am I, he thought.

"Open wide." Grindley jammed a thermometer into Foyle's mouth, then stepped back from his patient and rolled his shoulders. "Right, well. Just as a precaution—going to apply sulfanilomide for good measure. But the girl did well. No sign of infection." He turned and rifled through his bag. Finding the yellow powder, he sprinkled it over Foyle's wounds.

"You know," the doctor's manner shifted to expansive mode as he removed the thermometer from under Foyle's tongue and checked the reading, "if Jerry had stuck to medicine, we'd all be laughing. But no. First, he gives us stuff like this,"—he held up the sulfa powder—"convinces us he's human… then, by God! the bugger's off again and up to his old tricks. The only sulphur coming out of Germany these days is that whiff of the diabolical, off Hitler and his cronies."

Foyle's shoulders shook with silent laughter as the doctor re-bound his wounds. When he'd finished, Grindley patted Foyle on his good arm.

"You're done. I'll help you dress, but first…" he solemnly produced from his bag a loaded syringe, topped with a four-inch needle.

"Bend over, man. Don't want you getting tetanus, Jerry flu, or worse."

Afterwards, Foyle winced and rubbed his buttock. "What the bloody blazes was in that?"

Grindley smirked. "Vitamin injection. I'm out of tetanus vaccine. Sorry."

"What the—!"

"Serves you right for thinking you can dodge the medical profession."

"Guy?"

"Yes, old chap?"

"Piss off. My driver's coming. I've got work to do." He fumbled to do up his trousers.

Grindley spied the glass of whiskey next to Foyle's chair and promptly rehoused the contents in his stomach. "Bad for you, this stuff," he declared. "Thins the blood. Increases risk of bleeding."

"Don't imagine yours clots very easily then," Foyle observed drily.

Grindley licked his lips and jammed his hat down on his silver hair. "Not if I can help it. Ah, well! Duty calls. The more deserving cases."

Foyle quirked a smile. "Mind your step on the way out, Guy." He reached and shook the doctor's hand. "Don't, um, break your neck or anything," he added brightly.

…

That evening, a polite request from Foyle sent Samantha and the Wolseley to The Royal V to collect Mrs St Just and take her to her train. It was an awkward sort of reunion. Once formal greetings had been exchanged in the hotel foyer, and they'd climbed into the car, a weighty silence settled over the two women.

Five minutes into the journey, Jocelyn grasped the nettle. "Sam, would you consider sharing what's bothering you?"

Sam's chin went up. "It's… really none of your business," she declared airily.

"Ooo-kaay. Fine." Jocelyn squinted through the passenger window for inspiration, then, swivelling in her seat, she turned to face Samantha's stony profile. "I'll give ya a free pass. Ask me anything you like. It stays between us."

Sam's eyes remained rigidly fixed on the road. "I hardly know you."

Jocelyn shrugged, still looking steadily across at Sam. "Offer's still on the table." She watched the younger woman's coolness doing battle with her curiosity, and waited.

Curiosity won out.

In one decisive movement, Samantha pulled the car into the kerb, and turned her eyes to lock with Jocelyn's. They were defiant, fierce with entitlement… and desperate. Sam's mouth opened for an instant and she tilted her head, as if to formulate a complex query. But the question, when it came, was quite simple in construction. She took a breath.

"Did Mr Foyle make love to you?"

Jocelyn lowered her eyes to rest on the gloved hands folded in her lap, and scrupulously edited their morning lovemaking from her memories. How ardently she'd made love to Christopher Foyle. How responsively… he'd let her.

She sighed and shook her head. "No, Sam, he didn't." She heard the younger woman catch her breath. "But Ah sure do wish he had."

All done and dusted now. Jocelyn gazed sightlessly through the windscreen. She had bent truth in service of a kindness. Because she knew for certain what was kind. But truth? Well, heavens above! The truth was always so subjective anyway.

"I won't be coming back, Sam." Jocelyn's gaze was quietly earnest. "Promise you'll look after him."

Sam blinked back tears of raw relief. "I always try to... when he'll let me. And… thank you."

****** TBC - what will happen in Chapter 6? Cross over to the 'T' rated story to find out... ******

More Author's Notes:

"Turns out the whole batch that I'd bought was faulty."

Condom quality control in the Twenties wasn't brilliant. They often leaked.

…

"The most beautiful voice in the world is that of an educated Southern woman."

Mr Churchill's special fondness for the tones of the American South was drawn to my attention by ImaLateBloomer. Thanks!

...

"'Loved ya for a single day to last a lifetime, Christopher,' she breathed."

As I was writing this story, dancesabove acquainted me with Heathcliff's declaration of love to Cathy in Emily Brontë's Wuthering Heights:

"If he loved you with all the power of his soul for a whole lifetime, he couldn't love you as much as I do in a single day."

We idly (hungrily) wondered how these words would sound on the charismatic lips of Mr Kitchen. (And, as he has read the audiobook, we were able to hear them!)

…

More soon.

GiuC