Disclaimer: I really am very grateful that Anthony Horowitz doesn't mind us playing with the characters he created. Did you know that there are about a dozen authors who have forbidden fans from writing about their creations on this site?

Author's Notes: As always, thanks to my Beta, GiulliettaC, whose tinkering never fails to improve my prose.

This chapter is recommended for mature readers, though not for the usual reasons...

Late November, 1942

For reasons best known to himself, the Reverend Mr. Harding, vicar of St. Clements, Hastings, had decided to take Matthew, Chapter Five, Verses 27 and 28 as his text for the week: Ye have heard that it was said by them of old time, Thou shalt not commit adultery. But I say unto you, That whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart.

Sitting in church for Sunday services, stealing occasional glances at Paul in the seat next to hers, Sam wondered idly whether the pair of them were going to go to hell. The prohibition against adultery was, after all, one of the Ten Commandments. And while she and Paul had never gone so far as that by any stretch, there was no getting around the fact that he was still married.

Married to a woman who had left him over his war injury for Heaven's sake and who hadn't been seen or heard from in nearly two years. No, Sam decided, God certainly understood, no matter what Matthew had to say on the subject.

Her parents, however, would be another matter entirely. She could hear the horror in their voices and see it in their faces if they discovered she had Taken Up With a Married Man. In the strictest sense of the words, of course, that was precisely what she had done. And if Sam had tried to tell them that Jane and Paul were all wrong for each other, that Jane was beastly and didn't understand him (which was also true)…that would sound as if Paul had fed her the sort of line that most married men used when they seduced bright, young girls.

Except that those sorts of men were horrid, and when they said that their wives didn't understand them, it meant that the husbands in question were bored to death of their routines and impatient with the signs of age creeping into their wives' faces and bodies. Sam had met a fair number of men like that, the most repulsive being that vile Group Captain who had pinched her…"seat" after five minutes' acquaintance, and caused that poor WAAF to throw herself under a train.

If her relationship with Paul qualified as an "affair," Sam decided that theirs must be one of the tamest known to mankind. Over three months had passed since she and Paul had come to their understanding, while she was recovering from that bout of anthrax. During that time, they had built up a routine that was…well, positively domestic. And really quite…innocent, all things considered. In addition to their previous itinerary of going to the pictures and to dances, they had begun queuing together at the shops on Saturday mornings, pooling their resources in anticipation of Sunday dinner.

Then, once they had returned to Paul's house and put away their purchases, they spent an hour or so performing some household chores. While Paul cleaned the bathroom, Sam swept the downstairs rooms, wiped down the kitchen counters, and dusted the sitting room. This was a much more pleasant occupation than anyone (including Sam herself) would have imagined; they played the wireless while they worked, interrupting each other now and again to chat for a few minutes about nothing in particular or to steal a few kisses.

On Sunday, they met at St. Clement's for the morning service, then walked to Paul's and cooked their dinner. Paul had a predilection for kissing the nape of Sam's neck while she was in the midst of cooking, which always made her toes curl with delight. After eating and doing the washing up, they would spend several hours in the sitting room, talking, or reading, or just listening to the wireless as their fancy took them. Sam thought their present arrangement was rather like playing at being married, but without the bother and trouble of responsibility over an entire household. It also, frustratingly, lacked the pleasures of marital intimacy.

…

Sam and Paul had reached that decision together at the end of August, a week or so after she had been discharged from St. Mary's. She was fully recovered from her exposure to anthrax and had just returned to work, but still felt rather tired and wasn't in the mood to go out anywhere when she and Paul had ended work for the day. After hesitating for a moment or two, Paul had suggested that they go back to his house and have a quiet night in. Sam had brightened at the prospect, remembering how lovely their last evening at Paul's had been. She had been pleased to see that Paul had dusted the sitting room since her last visit, though Sam was willing to wager that he had only done it once; a thin film was already discernible on the disused surfaces of the furniture. But on this occasion, she had refrained from comment.

The evening was warm, and Sam had been glad to shed her tunic, which she draped over one of the kitchen chairs. Paul had similarly discarded his suit jacket before rummaging in the pantry and throwing together something for them to eat. He'd refused Sam's initial offer to help with the washing up on the grounds that she was still recuperating, but she insisted that she wanted to do something, so he brought the clean dishes to the kitchen table and Sam had dried them while remaining seated. Then they moved to the sitting room and settled themselves on the sofa. They sat without speaking for a moment, simply enjoying the contentment of being with each other once again.

Then, apropos of nothing, Sam commented with a smile: "Do you know, I quite adore your eyebrows." So saying, she gently traced the one above Paul's left eye with her index finger. Moments later they exchanged their first kiss of the evening. Paul's kisses were as wonderful as Sam remembered. Tonight, though, she thought they seemed…hungrier than they had before. Not that she minded. She was quite as eager to feel his lips on hers. Paul's fingers tangled themselves in her hair as he deepened the kiss and Sam wrapped her arms around his neck. She sensed, vaguely, when one of Paul's hands left her hair, leaving a trail of caresses from her cheek to her shoulder and down her arm.

Then she had been startled to feel his fingertips brush the skin above her breasts. Breaking the kiss, Sam glanced down and saw that Paul had undone several of the buttons on her blouse. Glancing up at Paul's face and judging by the look of shock that she saw there, Sam was prepared to swear that he was equally surprised by this turn of events.

Except that in Paul's case, "surprise" seemed to only half cover his reaction. Sam watched as his expression changed from shocked to appalled. He snatched his hands away from her as though he'd scalded himself, then he'd scrambled to his feet and rushed into the kitchen. Moments later, she heard the tap running.

Paul leaned over the kitchen sink and splashed cold water on his face, wishing that the tap were a shower that he could jump into, or better yet, a lake. He could distinctly feel the erratic beating of his heart and the burning desire that he had only half managed to subdue coursing through his blood. Paul glared accusingly at his hands, which seemed to have undone Sam's buttons without any conscious input from his brain. As he stood by the sink, he felt all of his senses unite in proclaiming how inexpressibly beloved Sam was to him, how close he had come to losing her to anthrax, and how deeply he longed to show her these things with his body, to make her his own. He fished a handkerchief out of his pocket and mopped his streaming face. Then he stood still, leaning against the sink, shoulders bowed and breathing deeply.

"Paul?" He turned his head and saw Sam standing in the doorway, doing up the last of the buttons on her blouse.

"I never meant… When I asked you over, this wasn't what I…" Shame had taken the upper hand from Passion; he found himself barely able to frame the words of an apology.

"I know we got a little…carried away," Sam ventured gravely, smoothing back her disheveled hair. "But there's no harm done. I'm perfectly fine."

Paul had gone back to staring down into the kitchen sink. "That day when we talked in the Wolseley," he began, not looking at Sam as he spoke. "We chose to ignore a lot of very important things. I think that we need to talk about them now."

"All right, Paul. But let me make some tea first." Paul pushed himself away from the sink and took a seat at the kitchen table. Sam took her time making the tea, hoping to give Paul more time to calm himself and think through what he wanted to say. At last she poured two cups, handed one to Paul, and sat down across the table from him.

He took a sip and started to speak, calmly, yet with an undertone of despondency. "We can't be married. Not until Jane and I get divorced. And the statute stipulates that desertion doesn't become grounds for divorce until three years have passed. I won't be free of her until the beginning of 1944, well over a year from now. And even when that's all settled, we won't be allowed to marry in the church."

"We'll just have to make do with the registrar's office then," Sam replied calmly, though she squirmed a little inside. Making a life together with Paul meant more to her than what sort of ceremony allowed them to do so, but she had been raised with the belief that a religious service held more weight, meaning, and authority than a secular function ever could. And she acknowledged the pang she felt at having to give that up.

"Your father's a vicar," Paul continued, fiddling with his cup as he spoke, "I don't imagine he would think very highly of a marriage that couldn't be sanctified by the Church. Do you really think your parents could ever accept me as a son-in-law? Honestly?"

"You're not…trying to end things between us, are you, Paul?" Sam could feel tears pricking the back of her eyes as she tried to gulp down a rising panic.

"No, I'm not. I probably should." Paul looked miserably across the table at Sam. He probably should have never let all of this start in the first place. "But I can't let you go."

"Good." Sam swallowed again and reached across the table to interlace her fingers with Paul's. "Because I don't want to be let go of and have no intention of going anywhere."

"You haven't answered my question, though, about your parents. They'll think that because Jane and I got divorced that I don't appreciate the sanctity of marriage. Won't they?"

Sam studied the surface of the kitchen table for a few moments as she tried to marshal her thoughts. When she had, she looked back up at Paul. "Marriage is supposed to be a sacred thing. But I don't think there was anything about the way that woman treated you that was respectful of the vows of marriage. There's nothing left between the pair of you but a tangle of laws. I don't see anything so terrible in ending something like that. And I'll make my parents understand that too, when the time comes."

Paul raised their entwined hands to his mouth and kissed the back of Sam's hand as a way to thank her for the wonderful sincerity and courage behind her words. He couldn't imagine what he'd done in his life to deserve someone like her.

"About before…" he began.

"You just took me by surprise," Sam interrupted, hoping to forestall any more painful attempts at apologies or self-flagellation from Paul, "I wasn't frightened." Truth be told, once she had recovered from her surprise, she'd been a little disappointed that Paul had pulled himself up short so quickly.

"I was," Paul admitted, disentangling his fingers from Sam's.

"Why?" After all, Sam reasoned, Paul was the one with…experience in such things.

"I thought I had better control of myself," he muttered morosely, staring down into his cooling tea.

"I thought you got control of yourself again very quickly," Sam retorted, becoming slightly impatient with Paul's self-castigation. After all, it wasn't as though he'd tried to force himself on her…

"There's too much at stake. We can't let ourselves get…carried away." That had been his main reason for panicking; the possible consequences and ramifications of any act of intimacy between the two of them had hit him with the clarity of glass and the force of a sledgehammer. "What if I got you in trouble? I wouldn't even be able to marry you. And I would never be able to forgive myself if I let any harm come to you."

"I know." Sam hadn't been thinking quite as far ahead as Paul had this evening, although she knew enough about the facts of life to blushingly acknowledge the truth behind his statements. She took a sip of her lukewarm tea. "Well," she added after a short, rather awkward silence, "There's still no reason for you to be putting on sack-cloth and ashes. We'll both do our best to behave ourselves. I trust you even if you don't trust yourself. Agreed?" She had given Paul a comically stern look meant to convey that she would brook no more self-pity that evening, and extended her hand across the table.

"Agreed," Paul had replied, reaching out and grasping Sam's hand. When he started to pull it away, however, she tightened her grip.

"But don't you dare stop kissing me after tonight, Paul," Sam had added, skewering him with the vehemence in her eyes, "Because I won't stand for it." Paul had laughed, which was Sam's intention, though she had also meant every word.

…

That had been three months ago, Sam thought as they walked out of church together, and they had been managing to keep hold of their resolution from that evening. They had been Behaving Themselves. But it was hard, harder than she had anticipated, always holding themselves back and making sure that they didn't go too far. Her body often seemed engaged in a conspiracy to undermine her resolution, clamoring for more of Paul's physical affection than it could get. And wasn't this sort of thing supposed to be harder for men than women?

Today's dinner had been another teetotal coq au vin; while they ate they had engaged in a rather comical debate over whether they ought to rename the dish for the duration of the war. After all, they hadn't used wine, there weren't any onions to be had, and there hadn't been any bacon this time either. Of course, "chicken, potato, and carrot casserole" didn't sound nearly so sophisticated – or quite as appetizing.

When the dishes had been done and put away, they moved to the sitting room. They spent the next hour or so sitting together on the sofa and sharing the newspaper. Their hands brushed when they exchanged pages, and even as she read articles with every outward sign of deep concentration, Sam could feel the electricity between herself and Paul, the way it welled up within her with the same sort of inexorable pull as an incoming tide. Her heart seemed to have relocated itself nearer her throat, beating with a kind of smothering yearning. When Paul finally gave up his own pretense of reading as well and slid his arm around her shoulders, Sam's insides seemed to dissolve into bubbles, like champagne, and she nestled herself further into Paul's embrace. These torturous, yet glorious moments were what made Sunday afternoon the best – and worst – part of the whole week.

Though they had never really compared notes, Paul shared Sam's feelings about their Sunday afternoons together, although – privately – he routinely questioned the sanity of these rendezvous. He knew they were playing with fire, spending time together alone in his house, with every opportunity to give in to temptation if they chose to do so. And every week he reasoned and bargained with his conscience that it would be in the middle of the day, with the blackout curtains open to the world outside.

He had nightmares sometimes, about what might happen, if he were to relax his vigilance, if he and Sam ever succumbed to desire. Sometimes his dreaming self envisaged a divorce court, with Sam being interrogated as a co-respondent, badgered by Jane's solicitor and reduced to tears. In others, Paul saw her pointed at, heard gossips whispering about her, witnessed her being snubbed and insulted – always powerless to come to Sam's rescue. The worst of these visions by far had been the one where Sam had died in attempting to terminate a pregnancy.

It would be easy enough to simply take precautions, of course. But in the event that any of those precautions failed, they wouldn't even have the luxury of a special license and a quick trip to the registrar's office. In such a case, the consequences for Sam didn't even bear thinking about. So Paul was determined to avoid them in the surest way possible. He wasn't going to be the cause of ruining Sam's life. What kind of poor repayment would that be for the miraculous transformation she had wrought in his? So far they had managed to successfully balance the competing forces of indulgence and restraint.

"My Darling," Paul whispered, placing a kiss on Sam's temple, then slowly working his way down and across her cheek until his lips found hers. His free arm curled around her waist and pulled her close as they deepened the kiss, while Sam's arms wound themselves around his neck. They stayed like that for some little while, occasionally readjusting the angle from which their two heads were meeting.

"Oh, Paul," Sam murmured breathily, as he finally left off kissing her mouth, moved back across her cheek, and began nibbling on her ear. He loved to hear her say his name like this; she turned the single syllable into a half kiss and a half moan. It was moments like this when Paul longed to take Sam up to his room…to make it their room. To start kissing her and simply not stop.

Which meant that he had to stop what he was doing now, while he could still think coherently. Taking a deep, slightly shaky breath, Paul rested his forehead against Sam's for a long moment. Then he kissed it and leaned back against the sofa, putting a little space between their bodies. Paul heard Sam give a deep sigh, tinged with a regret and frustration that matched his own. "I should walk you home now," he said. Sam nodded mutely and began straightening her clothes and smoothing her hair.

Taking a walk had become another part of their Sunday routine, a way to cool their ardour and clear their heads without sacrificing each other's proximity and the chance to maintain some physical contact. A few months ago, when the weather was warmer, they had often gone down to the shore and strolled along the promenade. Now that the days were growing shorter and colder, their walk usually consisted of seeing Sam to her own door. Then Sam would invite Paul in, and the last few hours of their Sunday would pass by in the most sedate and proper way imaginable, over tea, chaperoned by Sam's landlady, Mrs. Lovell.

Mrs. Lovell was a widow with greying, reddish hair, two married daughters who lived in Brighton, and a tendency to loquacity. She had approved most thoroughly of Paul from the moment the two had been introduced, and never lost an opportunity of repeating this to Sam.

"Such a nice young man," Mrs. Lovell had commented as Sam wandered into the kitchen after saying goodbye to Paul in the entryway.

"I couldn't agree more," Sam smiled. She could still feel his parting kisses on her lips and the grip of his hands on her shoulders. It was such a relief being able to talk to someone about Paul, since telling her parents anything was still completely out of the question. Mrs. Lovell was washing up the tea things; Sam picked up a dishcloth and began doing the drying.

"My older sister, Barbara, she was married to a policeman. And a steadier, kinder man than her Fred there never was. Not enough girls appreciate a fellow who's steady, I find, and I'm very glad to see that you do."

"Yes, the last chap I walked out with wasn't very dependable." Sam wondered briefly if Andrew was still seeing whoever it was that he'd thrown her over for, or whether he'd moved on to someone else once again.

"And such a good looking and well set up man too," Mrs. Lovell chattered on as she collected the dry tea things and returned them to their cupboard, "The two of you make a lovely couple, if you don't mind my saying so." She went on in this vein for another ten minutes before Sam finally excused herself and headed upstairs to prepare for bed.

As she undressed, Sam breathed in the residual aroma of her clothes, hoping to catch traces of Paul's scent from their too-brief tryst on his sofa. She thought that she detected something on her blouse. The aroma was composed partly of Paul's soap and aftershave, which didn't really offer much in the way of an explanation for why her heart gave funny little jumps whenever she managed to catch a whiff of it on her own clothes. She knew, from a little discreet snooping in Paul's bathroom, that both his soap and his aftershave were quite common brands, nothing out of the ordinary. But beneath those more obvious scents there was something else that belonged uniquely to him, and Sam wished that they were back on his sofa so that she could breathe it in again.

Sam slipped under her bedclothes, reviewing the day, trying to appreciate and be pleased with the fact that she and Paul had enjoyed another Sunday together without overstepping their own self-imposed boundaries. Sam was proud of their mutual will power, but she was becoming heartily sick of having to exercise it. It wouldn't be quite accurate for Sam to say that she had made any formal promise – either to herself or her parents – to save herself for marriage, although she knew this was the way that any "nice" girl was expected to behave, vicar's daughter or not. If she were being totally honest with herself, the source of her own willpower was really – at bottom – a kind of bloody-minded stubbornness to prove to her parents that she could be trusted to look after herself, despite the fact that she was living on her own, without the eyes of all her father's parishioners scrutinizing her every move.

She had never dwelt on her father's one and only visit to Hastings. He had arrived intent on dragging her home to Lyminster lest she…forget herself and wind up surrendering her virginity to the first comer, ending up In Trouble or someone's Kept Woman. Sam had put the episode behind her, but on the rare occasions that she did think about it, she found that the memory re-ignited a still-smouldering resentment. Because, apparently, her parents had thought so little of her good judgment that they considered her liable to abandon everything about her upbringing once she was away from their direct control. Because she hadn't been able to make her parents see that the work she did for Mr. Foyle had its importance. And because she had been spineless enough to obey her father's commands to go when leaving had been the last thing in the world that she had wanted to do. Despite her ill-considered flippancy when she had told her father that he needn't worry about her getting Pregnant Without Permission, her statement had nevertheless been perfectly sincere. She had been taught that physical intimacy belonged within the confines of marriage. It was part of what made marriage special and different from other relationships. To engage in such acts lightly or thoughtlessly would be to cheapen them. Sam had had no intention of disregarding this particular view of the world.

In these past few months, however, Sam sometimes found herself wondering whether, after all, she and Paul might not be biting off their nose to spite their face in their determination not to go all the way with each other. Because being in Paul's arms, being close to him, felt so good and so right. Powerfully so. It made her want to be closer still, to feel his body against hers with no barriers between them…

But that was the point, wasn't it? That just because it felt so good didn't mean that acting on those longings mightn't have very serious consequences. She knew that Paul was absolutely right. Suppose she were to end up in the family way, with Paul quite unable to take responsibility and marry her? She had once allowed herself a half hour of daydreaming that in that event she could simply buy herself a wedding band, move in with him, and they could tell people that they had opted for something quiet at the registrar's office. And then simply let people draw their own conclusions. But Sam knew, deep down, that this little fantasy was not really at all possible; it was the sort of thing one read about in novels. And in novels, this kind of web of deceit always blew up in the faces of the people who had spun it in the first place, invariably in the worst possible way.

Sam liked to think that she had become a stronger and more independent person, living on her own these past few years, than she had been when she had arrived in Hastings. She didn't think that she would bend to her father's will a second time, if he were to try dragging her off to Lyminster again. But Sam didn't like to think of what other people – either her parents or any other faceless figure of authority – might be able to make her do if her back was really up against the wall. The idea of having Paul's baby, and then being forced to give it up, made her feel rather sick.

Sam ran her fingers through her hair, imagining the leaves of her calendar, all of the blank months that lay ahead. Thirteen months until Paul could finally get a divorce. Four times thirteen Sundays until they could be together in the most meaningful way.

It was going to be a very long year.