Up with the lark, to bed with the wren

Chapter 5

Emma de los Nardos

OK, here goes another chapter.

I wanted to respond a bit to my reviewers first. It sounds like people are coming down on the side of "nothing sexual would ever happen between the two of them before marriage." That's valid, and I'm inclined to agree, but part of the fun of fan fiction is writing what the show's authors didn't write. I haven't decided yet how things will end up between Sam and Foyle, but the point of this story is to explore the conflicts that would exist inside each of them if they were to start a romantic relationship together while they were still professional colleagues. So I'm struggling with those questions, too, as I write this story. I'm glad that it has got people thinking about what would happen, though. And I very much appreciate your comments.

Emma

Foyle felt a mixture of intense relief and irritation when he saw Andrew locked up in the R.A.F. cell. If he were a demonstrative man, he would have rushed to hug his son. But Foyle was aware that, even during their reunion, they were being watched by the R.A.F. officers. It was better to maintain some distance between the two of them and not let on—to anyone—how much he had been bothered by his son's disappearance.

Though it might have sounded irrational, part of Foyle wondered if Andrew were in some way responsible for being locked up. He is too much like me, Foyle thought. He probably thought it would be a good idea to play detective on the base and find out what had happened to that plotter. This never would have happened if he had just kept his mouth shut. Of course, the very things that Foyle faulted in Andrew were traits that he himself possessed—traits that had, in fact, been copied from him. Seeing Andrew in the cell was a reminder of his own failure to kowtow to authority. It had never landed him behind bars, but Foyle suspected that he would have been doing something more important for the war effort than investigating small town murders, if he had not made a point in his career of revealing corruption among higher-ranking officers. But if I were working for military intelligence right now I would not even know that Andrew were missing. He would still be locked up and alone. And I would never have met Sam.

Perhaps Foyle was in the right place, after all.

Andrew was talking about some funny things that had happened on the base before he had ever been posted there. Before Foyle even asked him, he confirmed his father's suspicions: "A lot of strange things have been going on around here, even before I got posted. A girl killed herself…Lucy." Foyle nodded, not surprised, but even so—he imagined what it had been like for Andrew to work on a unit where a suicide had happened not long before. This whole experience had been difficult for Andrew, he could see that—he had to remind himself that Andrew was still very, very young. He was about the same age as Sam but the distance between them could have been a decade. Why is it that girls mature so much faster than boys? Foyle asked himself. How could my son not have known that there were men in his unit who might do terrible things to the women under their command?

The thought of the girl's suicide troubled Foyle more than he wanted to admit. She had killed herself because of the shame of an unwanted child, and it was a regrettable, unnecessary death. No wonder someone wanted to avenge her. Thinking of his driver, Foyle considered that he could hardly blame her father for wanting Sam to go back home with him. Nor could he reasonably expect a favorable response if he were to ask the vicar's permission to see his daughter. Ha! Foyle thought. One step like that on my part, and she would be whisked off to Lyminster before I could say another word. No, he would have to keep his affection for Sam a secret, at least for now. And he would have to be completely straight with Sam about his intentions towards her. The last thing he wanted was to cause her needless distress if she believed that he wanted to seduce her and leave her pregnant, as Graeme had done to the young woman in his unit.

As much as Foyle wanted to keep thinking about his driver, he knew that Sam herself was waiting for him outside. He wanted to leave as soon as possible, with his son this time, and get back to the station to tell Milner what he had learned. But the R.A.F. men told him that they wouldn't let Andrew go until Foyle had presented them with the evidence for Graeme's murder. And so Foyle and Sam headed back to the station again, to see what Milner had learned about the other loose ends of the case.

Later that day, Sam bid her father farewell at the Royal Victoria Hotel, packing him into a cab bound for the train station. She could hardly believe that he had consented to let her stay in Hastings, working for Mr. Foyle, and had to ask him again to make sure it was really true.

"You're quite sure about this, Dad?" Sam said as they left the hotel.

"Oh, yes, I think so," he answered in a friendly tone. He had been quite impressed by the work that he had observed Sergeant Milner do on the case of the missing statue, not the least because of his own role in identifying the object.

"It was good to see you," Sam told him.

"You take care of yourself, my dear," he answered back, relieved that she would be going back to work "I don't doubt that you're in safe hands with Mr. Foyle, but even so, these are unhealthy times."

"Absolutely," she said, nodding in agreement. "But don't worry, I'll take care."

"Very well. Good-bye." He kissed her cheek.

"Send my love to mother." Sam smiled to herself with satisfaction as the vicar got into the car. She had got what she wanted, to stay in Hastings and continue to work with Mr. Foyle. Sam could hardly wait to tell him herself.

Back at the station, a lot had changed since the early morning. While Foyle had worked out the connection between Graeme and the plotter, Milner had been hard at work investigating the origin of the statue found in the ruins of Graham Smith's house. Sam's father had helped him to identify the broken statue as a valuable Berault, which led Milner to suspect that the museum's perfect inventory had not been as perfect as it had seemed the first time around.

Milner felt no small pride at his discovery. He sometimes felt that his efforts went unnoticed by Mr. Foyle, who expected so much from his subordinates that even extraordinary work felt ordinary by comparison. But Foyle had complimented him on the fine job that he had done solving the case, and even seemed impressed when Milner mentioned that he had gotten a signed confession from the London art dealer. Foyle and Milner were discussing the case when they heard a knock on the door, followed by Sam's entry. She had told them that she was probably leaving with her father that night, and they did not know whether to expect her back or not.

"Hello," she said, a beaming smile on her face. She nodded to Foyle.

"You're still here!" he said, trying to hide the emotion that he felt. Milner, after all, was in the room.

Sam took a breath and then spoke: "I'm afraid it's not quite that easy to get rid of me." She looked down. "My father changed his mind."

"So you persuaded him," Foyle surmised.

"Uh, no, Sir. In fact, it was you and Sergeant Milner. He was so excited to have helped solve a crime, it revised his opinion of the whole thing and he decided that perhaps, after all, I was doing an important job and that I should stay." Milner was smiling at the news, and so was Foyle. He would get to take her out that night, after all—unless Andrew was back again. Part of him wished that his son could stay another night in detention, or find a posting somewhere far from Hastings.

"Well, that's wonderful," the Chief Superintendent said, putting on his hat. "We don't have to walk." Sam laughed. Foyle moved towards the door and motioned for the two of them to follow him. There was somewhere else that they needed to be that day, and Sam was just the person to take them.

While Milner and Foyle spoke with the parents of the deceased plotter, Sam waited for them in the Wolesley. Foyle had specified that he didn't want her to come in with them; to himself, he thought that it might be too much for Sam to take if she were to find out the entire story about Alistair Graeme and Lucy Smith. The two men listened to her father recount how Graeme had forced himself on her, "Made her have relations up against the wall, said she couldn't get pregnant that way." It was a terrible story, a tragedy really—Lucy Smith as another Tess of the d'Urbervilles, raped by her employer and left with her own sorrow. Lucy's father would hang for two murders, Foyle knew, but the real criminal was beyond the reach of the law. Mr. Graeme was dead, but as a result of his actions, Andrew was still locked up in an R.A.F. cell. One more task for Foyle to solve that day—getting Andrew out of jail

The morning never seemed to end. One revelation followed another: Graeme's death, Sam's continuation on the job, the confession of the art dealer, the confession of Mr. Smith. Still later that day, Foyle would confront the other R.A.F. officer about his role in covering up Graeme's transgression and in planting stolen documents in Andrew's locker.

"Graeme was terrified it was all going to come out, and he used the investigation to keep my son out of the way," Foyle told the other man at the R.A.F. base.

"I was against it, I was against the whole idea," the officer said, shaking his head.

"And what he did to Lucy Smith might not have been perhaps strictly criminal, but it was immoral, improper, and downright disgusting," Foyle said righteously. "It would have cost him his job, not to mention his marriage."

Foyle believed what he said, but he couldn't help but compare his own behavior the night before to that of Graeme's. Who was he to take the high moral road, if he himself were consorting with a woman under his command? Foyle knew that he needed to sort things out between himself and Sam, to make sure that there was absolutely no chance of a misunderstanding between the two of him. What he felt towards Sam was more love than lust—though he couldn't deny that she was a far prettier woman than he deserved at his age—and he needed to let her know that. But first—always first—Andrew.

"I want Andrew released," Foyle said to the officer, "and I don't want a word of this to go on his record." Minutes later, the cell was opened and Foyle asked Andrew to come with him.

"You are brilliant, Dad," Andrew said. "You know that?"

"Yep," Foyle said, smugly. He didn't get to hear Andrew compliment him very often.

The two men walked onto the grounds of the base, discussing Graeme, the documents, and Andrew's suspicion that Graeme had also tinkered with his plane, a hypothesis which Foyle refuted. Just as Foyle was thinking about how nice it would be to eat something at last—it was nearly three in the afternoon and he hadn't had anything since mid-morning tea—two bombs landed, very nearby. Startled, the Foyles ran for cover as the air raid sirens started. The shelter that Andrew picked for them was probably the worst place that they could be—a fuel dump—but the bombing was over quickly. As if they had planned it, as soon as Andrew and Foyle left their hiding place, Sam and Milner pulled up in the Wolesley.

"We were getting worried about you, Sir," Sam said. Well, I was at least. I can't say the same for Milner—he seemed calm as always. "Are you all right?" she asked. Foyle opened the door to get in.

"All well, no thanks to this one," he said. Milner offered Foyle the front seat, next to Sam, but the detective refused it. He'd sit next to his son on this ride; wouldn't do to let the boy out of his sight so quickly.

That night, however, as Sam waited outside Foyle's office for him to say when it was time to leave for the evening, Foyle couldn't help but wish that Andrew had another place to stay. If Andrew's earlier curiosity about his father's personal life was any indication, he would give his father no end of grief if he invited Sam in for another drink. Foyle had told Andrew that he had to work late that night, to not expect him back for supper, yet he wondered if the young man would be hurt by his father's apparent neglect, just when he had be freed. On the other hand, thought Foyle, it was just as likely that Andrew would be spending the evening drinking at the pub, or dancing at the Hall, and would give his father no more than a passing thought. With this reflection, Foyle felt less guilty as he instructed Sam to drive to Eastborne.

"I thought we'd get something to eat at a little restaurant there," he told her once they had gotten into the car. "You don't have to be home by a certain hour, do you?" Sam glanced over at him.

"No, Sir, the landlady isn't very particular about hours. I'm lucky there!" She grinned. "Just show me the way."

"Sam—" he began. "I need to know something first." He spoke seriously, and she turned again to look at him.

"What is it?" she asked.

"Do you want to come to dinner with me, or are you just saying yes because I am your boss?" He had begun to play with the buttons on his waistcoat, which he always did when he was uncomfortable.

"Of course I want to go to dinner with you," she said. "I told you I would, didn't I? That is, if I didn't have to go back to Lyminster today instead!"

"Well, that was certainly fortunate," Foyle remarked. "You could have been home at the vicarage by now, instead of driving me to dinner."

"Driving us to dinner," she corrected him.

"Yes, quite," he said. "Listen, Sam, I chose this place because Hastings folk don't go here often. We haven't talked about—I mean—" He paused, choosing his words carefully. "Sam, I should like to—how do you young people say it?—step out? With you, I mean."

"You mean you want to see more of me?" she asked in amusement. "I'm glad to hear it." She smiled to herself, then turned and smiled at him.

"Sam, watch the road!" Foyle said in alarm. "You're drifting over the center line."

"Well, how can I pay attention to the road when you are asking if you can step out with me?" she asked him, careful to look straight ahead. "Would you like me to pull over?" she inquired, swerving the car on purpose. Foyle grabbed the edge of the car door and held on to it in surprise.

"Sam!" he nearly shouted. "Get back in your lane or pull over!"

Sam pulled the car over to the side of the road, near a farmer's hedgerow. Foyle straightened his tie before he spoke.

"Was that really necessary?" His mouth twitched.

"It wouldn't have been, if you had been patient enough to wait until we got to the restaurant to talk to me about stepping out together."

"And if I couldn't wait?" he asked pointedly.

Sam blushed and played with her driving gloves, pulling them off and putting them on again, then taking them off and laying them down beside her.

"I needed to tell you this, Sam," he said slowly. "I don't want you to think that I am like Alistair Graeme, preying on you because you are a young woman under my command. You are free at any time to report on me to your superior officers. What I did last night is probably enough to make me lose my job." He took a deep breath. "I'm telling you this because I want the choice to be up to you. You can leave the police at any time. You can tell me you don't want to step out with me, and I will try to figure out what is wrong, but if you still don't want to see me, you won't have to. I won't ever make you do something that you don't want to do. Is that clear?" he looked up at her.

"And if I want to see you, then what?" she countered.

"You'll see me at work, and whenever you'd like to see me otherwise. Listen, Sam—what I'd really like is if I could visit you at your father's house, and court you like you deserve to be courted. But I think that we can agree that that wouldn't go over well with your father, at least not right now, and perhaps we should wait a while before this is out in the open. See what we think of each other, get to know each other, that sort of thing."

"I see your point," she said. "Just like ordinary couples—except no one will know about us except ourselves."

"Er—yes," he said, a bit uncomfortable. "I wish it didn't have to be this way. I wish—" she had turned to look straight at him, examining his face as he spoke.

"What do you wish for, Christopher?" she asked softly.

"I wish that I were fifteen years younger," he said. "I wish that you were not my employee when we met. I wish that there weren't a war going on just now."

"Things are damned difficult, aren't they?" she said lightly.

"They are difficult," he said. She was still looking at him, and he wondered what else she wanted him to say. "Is there something else, Sam?"

"I was just wondering when you were going to kiss me again." She smiled, pleased that she had caught him off-guard. The look on his face was priceless. "That seems like the easiest part of all this, doesn't it?"

Foyle leaned closer to her, taking her hand off the steering wheel and holding it in his own. He stroked her palm and she felt a shiver run up her arm when she felt his touch. He noticed how she closed her eyes and took a shallow breath when she felt his hand on hers. Foyle liked to watch how she responded to the most minimal touch of his. He was pleased beyond words that it was him, and not another man, who made her react in that way.

It was awkward, there in the car, with hardly any room to move in the cabin. But somehow Foyle maneuvered himself to face her. He moved his hands up her arms, over her uniform, until he reached her shoulders. Pulling her closer to him, he kissed her lips. They kissed lightly at first, maintaining a polite distance between the two of them, their kisses brief passes across each other's lips. He loved how she kissed him back, telling him what she wanted without saying a word; he felt exhilarated, young, desired. She pulled back from his kisses for a minute to look at his face.

"Now this is more like it," she breathlessly said, before Foyle reached forward to place another kiss on her open mouth. He opened his mouth, too, to grab her lower lip with his. Sam made a sort of gasping noise as he sucked, ever so gently, at her lip. He can't be—what in the world-he is doing this! Sam thought. In a moment, her concept of what a kiss could be was turned upside down.

In its most basic form, a kiss was still the pressure of his lips on hers, but he was beginning to show her what it could also be: an exploration, a tease, a supplication. He was exploring this small part of her body, her lower lip, trying to find out what she liked and what she didn't. He sucked at the soft inner side of the lip, then ran his tongue along it. From her heavy breathing, he could tell that she liked this kind of kissing very much, but had been surprised by it. Again he reminded himself that she was a vicar's daughter. He imagined the kinds of kisses that she had had before, heartily planted by well-meaning boys who might have suffocated her with their eagerness. It had taken Foyle years to learn how to kiss his wife, and while he was loath to compare Sam with Rosalind, he had to admit that he was proud to offer those years of experience to Sam.

He didn't entirely intend his kisses to be a tease—in fact, he was in no hurry whatsoever—but that is how they felt to Sam. She glimpsed the depth of knowledge that he possessed about a woman's body, and she keenly felt her own ignorance. To her, his kisses suggested other forms of touch, in that they heightened her sensitivity along the other areas of her body. Even as he played with her lower lip, she imagined him sucking on her fingers, kissing the inside of her elbow, or caressing her collarbone. The car cabin felt very small; she yearned for more space, to be able to press back against him with her entire body.

The kiss was also a supplication; in this, Foyle would have agreed. He still feared that Sam would push him away or tell him that she had made a mistake. His kisses were his way of asking her to accept him as her lover, though he would never have used that word with her. "Stepping out," he had called it, though he thought that was hardly the appropriate term to use when they were unlikely to frequent many public places together. It bothered him that, for now, their relationship would have to remain a secret, but then again, perhaps that gave them the freedom to find out for themselves what worked and what did not when it came to the two of them. Social conventions could be so rigid; he rather liked the idea of Sam and him setting the rules for themselves, when they were alone. And so he secretly thought of himself as her lover: first, because he loved her, and second, because he wanted to teach her how to love in return. But while Foyle was determined to do nothing that Sam did not wish to do herself, he did not know if she knew this.

"Sam," he said suddenly, pulling back a little from her. "I want you to know something."

She put her hand to the back of her head, checking to make sure that her hair was still in place. It wouldn't do to turn up at the restaurant with her pins falling out, no matter how out-of-the-way Eastborne was.

"What's that?" she asked, disappointed that the kisses had stopped.

"I want you to know that—what I said before—about not making you do anything that you don't want to do—I meant it." He couldn't look her in the eye just then; he was planning his words carefully. "I know how I feel about you, Sam, and I think it's unlikely that you already feel the same way towards me. I'll admit that I wonder about your reasons for wanting to spend time like this with your superior officer. But I would like to have the chance to make you love me. And I think it is important that you know that I am not just looking for the opportunity to get you into bed."

Sam, inexplicably, felt hurt. Did he have any idea how she felt about him? How she wanted his attention, and his regard, and most of all his affection? How could he imagine otherwise? While there might be women in the forces who chased after the high-ranking men in their units, Sam did not like Foyle merely because he was the Detective Chief Superintendent of Hastings. It made her blush, too, that Foyle would discuss the question of "getting her into bed" so openly. It made her feel as if the tenderness between the two of them were somehow suspect. But he said that he wants me to love him, Sam reminded herself.

"I—I would very much like to give you the chance you just mentioned," she told him.

"Meaning?" he asked.

"The chance to make me love you," she said. Foyle closed his eyes and pressed one hand across his forehead. He felt as if he would explode from love for her. He wanted to reach over and embrace her and show her, again, what he felt for her. But it was beginning to grow dark, and they had a purpose that night.

"Sam, you don't know what it means to me to hear you say that I have a chance, at least," he told her. She was struck by the emotion in his voice. "We should talk about this further, but I'm worried about the time."

"Shall we go on to Eastborne, then?" Sam asked brightly.

"Drive on, Sam," he said. "I promise I won't make you stop another time."

"Any time is fine with me," she said meaningfully. "Just say the word."