Lies and Misdemeanours Read Online Free PDF Page A

nodded his acknowledgement of the unspoken warning.
    “There is more going on than you realise,” Charlie warned. He winced at his rather poor choice of words when Wally’s brows shot up, and he turned an accusing glare on Hetty.
    “What?” her brother demanded querulously.
    “Not with Hetty,” Charlie snapped. “God, man; what do you take me for? I mean, with me.” He sighed and shook his head. “Where is Simon?”
    “Getting the ales in,” Wally groused. “I came to see what was taking you so long.”
    Fed up of the men sizing each other up like a pair of fighting cocks, Hetty glanced down the road at her friend’s house.
    “When you two are finished, I am going.” She threw a dark look at Wally. “Try not to get too drunk.”
    “You go and get the ales in. I will take Hetty to her friend’s house,” Wally suggested as he sidled past Charlie, and nodded down the street. “Come on, Hetty.”
    Hetty opened her mouth to object to Wally’s high-handedness, but caught the wink Charlie gave her before he turned and dutifully sauntered away. She stared after him a little nonplussed, and would have thought that she had imagined the last several moments; if it wasn’t for the fact that her lips still tingled from the force of his kisses.
    “There is more to him than meets the eye,” Wally warned as he ambled beside her.
    “I know,” Hetty replied somewhat dreamily. She jumped when Wally gasped and glared at her.
    “Now, I am not going to stand for any of that wantonness from you, Hetty Jones. You have not been brought up to be that kind of woman.”
    “How dare you cast aspersions on my character?” Hetty burst out. The glare she threw at her brother could have blistered stone and, even in the darkness, she watched the tips of his ears turn pink as a somewhat abashed look swept over his face. “I know I am not that kind of lady. How dare you suggest otherwise?”
    “Charlie is a handsome man, that’s all I am saying. All the tavern wenches think so,” Wally replied somewhat awkwardly.
    A surge of jealousy swept through Hetty, and she scowled darkly at the tavern door as it closed behind the man in question.
    “I am sure they do, and they can have him with bells on, I am sure,” she snapped in disgust.
    “Just don’t let him dally with you, that’s all I am saying.”
    “I shall do no such thing Walter Jones,” Hetty snapped in her sternest voice. “How dare you even suggest that I would?”
    “I am just saying that he isn’t going to be in the area for long,” Wally sighed. “Just don’t let him use you for amusement while he is here.”
    “Amusement? Oh, right, so that’s the only reason why anyone like him would look at me right?” Hetty snorted in disgust as her temper flared at his mention of the one niggling doubt of her own that refused to be ignored.
    “No, I am not saying that at all,” Wally sighed in exasperation.
    “So? What are you saying? That I am so desperate to snare myself a husband that I would be prepared to dally with the first man who does nothing more than escorts me to my friend’s house when it is dark so that I am safe, and my brothers can continue to prop up the bar?”
    As she spoke, her voice rose in volume to the point that she was nearly shouting by the time she lapsed into affronted silence. She folded her arms defensively and watched her brother’s mouth open and close several times.
    He glanced furtively around the empty road, as though he rather wished that he was propping up the bar.
    “We are here,” he grumbled in an attempt to avoid having to answer her. He nodded to the house that was still several feet away, but made no attempt to escort her the rest of the way.
    Hetty made a point of looking at the ground they were standing on to the front door of her friend’s house, and sighed – loudly.
    “I will see you later,” Wally urged when she made no attempt to move.
    “Yes, I shall make my own way home – alone – in the dark, shall