The Price of Love Read Online Free

him and called him ‘four-eyes’ because he wore glasses and was afraid to join in any of the rougher games for fear of breaking them. Sam and Robert had befriended him. When he was about twelve and his father paid for him to attend a private school they still considered him a friend and let him go around with them at the weekends.
    Although she had been Sam’s girlfriend since their schooldays, Patsy, with her long blonde hair, hour-glass figure and wide smile that made heads turn, was giggly and a born flirt and often led Percy on when they all went out together, even though she confided in Lucy that he was pretty dumb.
    Nevertheless, it was Lucy whom Percy appeared to be attracted to, not Patsy. The two girls were the exact opposite of each other. Lucy was quiet and sensible, very slim with dark hair and eyes and a shy smile. Even though she made it quite clear that she wasn’t interested in him other than as a friend, it had been because he wanted to be in Lucy’s company that Percy had come to the bonfire night in Priory Terrace.
    Patsy and Lucy had been working at Carter’s Cars more or less the same length of time. Patsy’s father, though, had paid for her to have shorthand and typing lessons so as well as occasionally helping out on the switchboard whenever they were short-staffed, Patsy also worked directly under Miss Yorke. Occasionally, when Miss Yorke was away, Patsy even acted as secretary to Mr Carter.
    As soon as Percy realised that his father was blaming Sam and Robert for his accident he explained to his father that what had happened was his own fault.
    ‘I wanted to see what fireworks Robert had in the box and when I bent down to look at them my glasses came off and as I reached out to pick them up, I tripped over something lying on the ground and I fell forward on to the fire.’
    It was a couple of days, though, before he told his father this and in the meantime Robert and Sam were regarded as the young villains responsible for the terrible accident by most of the staff at Carter’s Cars. Some people even went as far as to say that Sam deserved to suffer and that his badly burned hands were his punishment.
    Once the true events came out into the open, then everyone was full of praise as well as sympathy for Sam and even Mr Carter said how brave he’d been.
    Although Sam was fit enough to be back at work the following week, he wasn’t able to carry out his duties as an apprentice mechanic in the workshop. Instead, he was filling in his time running errands for Mr Fitzpatrick the engineering foreman and doing odd jobs around the car showroom that didn’t require any practical skills.
    ‘I might just as well stay home,’ he complained when his father commented about it one evening.
    ‘You make the best of it, son,’ his father advised. ‘Seeing that you’re not fit to do your job, Mr Carter could have stood you off with no pay, remember. As it is, he’s paying your wages in full even though you’ve had two days off this week to go to the hospital to have your dressings changed, so think yourself lucky.’
    ‘He’s probably only doing that because he feels guilty about accusing me now that he knows it was Percy’s own fault.’
    ‘Well, keep quiet about it; you can’t expect him to admit he was mistaken, now can you? As it is, he’s been saying how brave you were so that’s an accolade in itself.’
    ‘He should admit he was wrong to blame me for doing such a stupid thing,’ Sam argued.
    ‘Robert was accused as well as you and he’s not had Mr Carter praising him or saying how brave he is,’ Lucy chipped in.
    ‘That’s enough,’ Mr Collins said firmly. ‘Mr Carter is a good boss and it’s only natural that he was extremely upset that such an accident should happen to his son. Let’s hope the lad is better soon and out of hospital and that things get back to normal. Have they told you how long it will be before your bandages are off, Sam?’
    ‘Probably sometime next