Little Girl Lost Read Online Free PDF

opening the door and slipping inside, closing it softly behind her.
    For a moment, Brendan just stood there as the key clicked in the lock, listening to the soft patter of her receding footsteps. Then he walked slowly and cautiously across the back yard, let himself out of the gate, and stood in the jigger leaning his broad shoulders against the tall brick wall. After a moment, his hand stole up and touched his cheek. He had been kissed by other girls, but he had never before felt the giddying, wonderful feeling that had swept over him as Sylvie’s mouth had gently touched his skin for the second time. Am I in love, he asked himself, with a girl I scarcely know who’s married to a feller with a deal more money than I’m ever likely to have? Yet I’ve been brought up to believe that marriage is for better for worse, for richer for poorer, and that divorce is a real sin. I’d never be able to call Sylvie mine.
    It was not a bright or hopeful picture that Brendan painted as he strode through the dark streets towards his lodgings, so it was strange that he smiled blissfully as he walked, and was still smiling when he climbed into his bed at last.
    In her own bed, Sylvie smiled, too. She liked that young constable, really liked him. He was good-looking, of course, and very tall, with the typical Irish dark blue eyes and black hair, curly as a lamb’s fleece. But she told herself that this was not why she liked him. He was reliable, sensible and very much on her side. She loved Annie dearly but it had not been her sister who had been able to suggest a solution to her problem, but the young constable. He was going to try to arrange a temporary home for her, with his cousin in Dublin, until the child within her was born.
    He had saved her life, of course, and she was grateful on that count, but she reminded herself that had he not loomed so suddenly out of the driving rain she would never have tripped over the bollard and landed in the water. Not that it was his fault; she had been too full of her own troubles to watch where she was going.
    He was so sympathetic, too. She could still remember the way his eyes softened when she told him of her troubles; remembered, too, how those same eyes had hardened when she spoke of her broken ribs, her crushed and blackened toes.
    Snuggling down beneath her blankets, Sylvie thought, rather guiltily, that she had not been strictly truthful about those broken ribs. The blow which had done the damage had been aimed at a young man who had had one drink too many; he had seen Sylvie coming into the bar one night to collect empty glasses and had grabbed for her, making a very rude remark as he did so. He had not known she was Len’s wife, of course, but unfortunately he had turned away at the crucial moment, making an even ruder remark, and Len’s heavy fist had already been travelling far too fast to stop. She had dropped like a stone, gasping for breath, crying out to Len that he had killed her, which at least had saved the customer from the well-deserved battering he might otherwise have received. It had been her first intimation that Len could be violent, however, and she had been frightened by the murderous look on his face as he had crossed the bar. But Len had assured her that he was truly sorry for hurting her, had taken her to the nearest hospital explaining, more or less truthfully, that she had accidentally intervened in a ‘bit of bother’, and had been hurt by sheer bad luck. A doctor had strapped up her ribs and Len had treated her like a princess for weeks.
    However, she had told him that he should never hit a man foolish with drink and endeavoured to make him promise to think before flying into a rage again. He had said, humbly, that he would try to do so, but even then she had doubted his ability to control his temper and had been anxious that his anger should never be directed at her.
    ‘I know it were an accident, but next time it might be me chin, or me eyes,’ she had