For Better For Worse Read Online Free Page B

ceremony, which was breathtakingly short, Annie kept looking around, hoping that Mum and Father would come dashing in muttering apologies that their car had broken down or the bus was late or they’d missed the train, but it never happened.
    Of course, Henry could see how upset she was and he was kindness itself.
    ‘It’ll be all right, darling,’ he’d nuzzled in her ear. ‘Don’t let it spoil our special day,’ and his tender kisses helped to take some of the disappointment away. So long as she did what he told her, Henry was her hero, her knight in shining armour.
    Instead of a reception, they’d had a meal in a pretty restaurant. Somehow the people found out that they’d just got married (probably Henry’s doing again) and they’d made a huge fuss of them, giving them a free glass of wine each and handshakes all round. Annie blushed modestly and thought herself lucky or blessed or a mixture of both. Henry was light-haired, suave and sophisticated and, in her eyes, even better looking than Ronald Colman, the star he so much admired. He was so loving and caring as well. Her honeymoon nights spent right here in their own home were full of his lovemaking and her days packed with his kisses. He paid her compliments all the time and she was convinced that she would be the envy of all her friends if ever she got to tell them. Henry wasn’t one for visiting. He said he preferred them to spend their weekends by themselves, so she hadn’t seen anybody for ages. Still, it didn’t matter. Not really. She smiled to herself. Henry was so romantic, just like the film stars at the pictures. Whenever she and Henry went out, he was even mildly jealous when other men looked at her. She’d laugh gaily and tell him it was his own fault because he would keep buying her pretty dresses and scarves as well as things that were for his eyes only in the bedroom. Henry was exciting, passionate and all hers …
    When she’d written to tell her parents they were married, Mum wrote back protesting that they’d never received the invitation.
    ‘Of course they did,’ Henry had said crossly. ‘I posted it myself.’
    ‘I’ll pop over and see them,’ she’d said, but Henry didn’t feel it was wise.
    ‘Why ever not?’ she’d protested.
    ‘Leave it for a while,’ he’d counselled. ‘Let things settle down.’
    Annie was reluctant, but then her new husband had given her a wounded look and complained that everyone was ganging up on him, so she’d let it go.
    Annie had settled down to domesticity and looking after Henry. He wouldn’t hear of her getting a job. ‘No wife of mine will ever have to go out to work,’ he’d declared stoutly. It was fun at first, but she soon got bored.
    She had only been married for five months when she discovered she was pregnant. Henry was over the moon and did his best to treat her like a piece of delicate china.
    ‘I’m only pregnant,’ she’d laughed, ‘not ill.’
    Henry had screwed up his nose. ‘Don’t use that word, darling,’ he said. ‘It sounds so vulgar.’
    She was taken aback. ‘Then what …’
    ‘Say you’re in the family way,’ he said, kissing her ear. He was funny like that. Prudish over some things and yet such an accomplished lover in the bedroom. She supposed it might be because of his Rhodesian upbringing. Henry had come to this country as a boy to get an English education and for some reason far beyond Annie’s understanding, had never gone back.
    As soon as she heard Henry moving about upstairs, Annie put a pan of water on the gas stove and lit the flame underneath. She took the loaf out of the breadbin and unwrapped it. She always kept it covered with a damp tea towel to keep it fresh. Her neighbour, Mrs Holborn, had given her that useful tip. All she had to do now was make the tea.
    Annie had met Henry just over a year ago. He didn’t talk much about his past or his wartime experiences because he had been captured in the early days and spent almost all of