He parked his car on the far side of the quadrangle and followed the sound of music and voices to the apartment in the ancient lodgings across the leafy grounds. Penny had sent him a note to join her at one of her famous Oxford parties, some end of term thing. The idea had not appealed to Terry in the least. It was a world that excluded him completely and he knew he would stick out like a sore thumb in such a circle. But he wanted to see her and she wanted to see him and so he had done what he was asked to like a good boy despite the fact he was exhausted. They had reached the base early morning after a gruelling long haul flight in a military transport plane and then he had been in debrief until evening. It had only left time for a quick shower and shave and then the drive up to Oxford.

As he crossed the lawn speckled with snowdrops he shivered in the cold blast of the late March air. Back home it would still be summer. What was he doing in this inhospitable land, a boy from the Antipodes like himself? He pulled his jacket collar closer and shoved his hands deep in his trouser pocket. Penny always laughed at him for being too tough to wear gloves or a scarf. He supposed she was right.

He nodded at the old chap on the entrance, muttering the name of the host that Penny had given him. These old residences were so steeped in the obscure rituals of Oxford tradition that he felt he could have been stepping back a hundred years - and have probably found the same dusty old caretaker behind the desk, still browbeaten by spoiled young undergraduates and spending his evening polishing their shoes and silverware. Terry found himself cringing at the social order that England was steeped in. He had not been raised to doff his cap like his parents had. "Evening, mate...cold out, huh?" he smiled at the old fellow, trying to convey a sense of comradeship. But the man merely sniffed and looked down his glasses in contempt. The chip sat so heavily embedded on these underlings that they were as judgemental as the toffs they served. He was an Australian. You couldn't get much lower than that.

With a wry smile, he took the stairs at a run, a bottle of wine in his right hand. He stepped over a couple stretched out on the treads, already past first base. They were dressed oddly. She appeared to be a Greek goddess and he was in Elizabethan costume. Terry shrugged. If anyone asked, he was a twentieth century soldier on R and R. Normally he wore a cod piece. "'Scuse me, love..."he muttered as he passed them.

The music was louder than ever now, banging out some recent chart hit that seemed strikingly at odds with the revellers. This was urban new wave and they were the privileged upper classes against whose order bands like these were rebelling. Obviously they didn't quite get it. He entered the open door and surveyed the room decorated with the heavy cluttered wood panelled formality of middle England, peopled with pretentious fools  in what he would have called fancy dress and ringing with strident and opinionated voices all carrying that bored blasé tone that was quintessentially Home Counties.

Terry scoped them all until he caught sight of Penny with her back to the door talking to a small group of people. There was one young man in the ensemble, lounging back against a wall. He was slender, blonde and effete although that wouldn't have been the word Terry chose to describe him. Limpwristed wanker would have been closer to the mark. One glance and Terry knew the bloke was sizing up Penny, watching her animated chatter with his indolent superiority.

Pushing through the melee, Terry made his way over to his girlfriend. 'Wanker' noticed his approach, a flash of challenge instantaneous in his hooded eyes as he immediately understood who the interloper was. Terry eyeballed him back steadily even as he placed gentle hands on Penny's waist and nuzzled her ear. "I made it....sorry it took so long..."

She spun round already grinning from ear to ear, delighted he was there. "Terry! Darling! You're here....! This is Terry...I told you all about him, didn't I? He's a super soldier - but I can't say anymore than that. It's all secret stuff, isn't it, darling? Oh...did I say too much? Now you'll have to kill me!" she giggled.

Penny had dragged on his hand and brought him into the group. The other girls looked suitably impressed; the long man did not. But he held out his right hand in the courtesy ritual  keeping up the charade of urbanity if in reality his velvet gloves were really off.. 'How do you do...Terrence, is it? Lytton Strachey... Now, let me guess...I would have said Ian Fleming - but he would never have worn denims..."

Terry frowned, recognising the putdown, knowing he was being mocked for his ignorance, but failing to work it out. "Mr. Strachey? I'm afraid you have the advantage..."

Penny broke in chortling. "His name's not Lytton Strachey, silly! That's who he is tonight! We're all dressed as a literary greats! Hence the clothes....his real name's  Augustus Napier. We call him Gussie...he's such a silly boy... His father's in the high court. Lord Napier? Surely even you've heard of him?"

Terry swallowed down the reaction that almost burst out of him involuntarily. She didn't mean it the way it sounded. It was just that plummy style of talking these kids adopted up in the ivory towers. "Yes, I have heard of him. We even have law courts in Australia these days, you know? Had to really, after the likes of Ned Kelly and all those other wild colonials kept trying to upset the Brits..."

Gussie smiled wanly. "So....if not Ian Fleming...?"

"...Banjo Patterson...you not familiar with that great classic, The Man from Snowy River? Mate, you can't tell me you haven't read that? Your education is sadly lacking. He was known for his love of jeans..." Terry riposted sarcastically. "So, Pen...who might you be tonight?"

"Sylvia Plath...she was a famous poet..."Penny began.

"...Liked a bit of rough, so they say..." Gussie aimed his dart carefully. The girls all giggled nervously, realising he was hitching up the tension but after all, what was a night all about if there wasn't a single fight? And this would be a good one.

Terry smiled coldly. "Something you'd not be able to offer then. This Strachey bloke...I heard he was a famous nonce....bent as a nine bob note...looks like you got him covered, hey?"

Gussie licked his lips slowly. "Does it make you feel better now you've insulted my manhood? Your lower class prejudices are showing, Terrence, my boy. That sort of thing won't go down well in the Regiment. They're rather partial to raving queers in the battle line...all that 'dying for a comrade' tosh...I am sure you are familiar with the War poets..."

Terry thrust the wine bottle on Gussie and grabbed Penny's hand. "Go drown your sorrows, mate. I've got better things to do than listen to you..." Dragging her back through the throng, he made for the door.

Penny struggled against his grip and stopped him. "Hey! My coat and bag...don't be such a lout, Terry...! Why do you always do that? Play up to their assumptions about you?"

Terry turned around. People were beginning to watch the exchange, eagerly anticipating some fun. "Get your things. I'll be waiting downstairs...but don't expect me to wait for long..." She could hear the ultimatum in his voice. If she didn't show some solidarity with him now, he would walk out of her life for ever. Penny had the feeling that in some perverse side of his nature, Terry was almost asking for her to give him cause. As much as it annoyed her to give way to him in one of his stupid macho moods, she knew she had no option. She couldn't lose him. She would die if he left her.

"I'll be two minutes..." she answered as he abruptly backed away, knocking a path for himself roughly through the crowded room to make his escape. The strains of Soft Cell's Tainted Love were thudding through the room. It was a ironical apt anthem for the moment had either of them been listening.

Sometimes I feel I've got to 
Run away... I've got to 
Get away... 
From the pain that you drive into the heart of me 
The love we share 
Seems to go nowhere 
And I've lost my light 
For I toss and turn, I can't sleep at night 

Once I ran to you (I ran) 
Now I'll run from you 
This tainted love you've given 
I give you all a boy could give you 
Take my tears and that's not nearly all 
Oh...tainted love 
Tainted love...
Don't touch me, please
I can't stand the way you tease...
I love you though you hurt me so
Now I'm going to pack my things and go... 

He was sitting on the hood of his car, hunched over against the cold, smoking a cigarette when she emerged wrapped in a long wool coat, picking her way delicately across the quad. He loved how she moved with her feminine grace, making even the simple action of running towards him on her high heels in a tight skirt an irresistible come on. He felt his blood surge, the after effects of abstinence, stress, anger and desire. He knew he was a powder keg at the moment and his touch paper was asking to be lit. Taking a few deep breaths and a final long drag on the cigarette, he flicked it onto the pavement, grinding it beneath his heel forcefully.

"Look, I'm sorry, Terry...Gussie can be a bit of a clever dick..."

"You don't say? Get in...!" He dragged open the door for her and slammed it shut as she slipped into the passenger seat. He wasn't so far gone as to have forgotten that he actually was a gentleman, unlike some of those creeps she associated with. Then he ran round to his door, pulled that open and was screeching away almost before the door was closed.

Penny said nothing as Terry drove too fast through the quiet roads of the college grounds and then out onto the main streets of Oxford. She hoped he wouldn't get stopped by the police. She doubted he had been drinking. He was just angry and burning off the momentum by trashing his gear box. It wasn't the first time he had behaved like this.

After a while she chanced a comment. "Maybe you should slow down? It's Friday night and the coppers will be crawling around at this time..."

"Your concern is touching..."

"I was worried about my own safety actually...you're big enough to make up your own mind if you want to kill yourself in a high speed smash or get yourself arrested for dangerous driving..."Penny bit back.

He laughed wryly but eased his foot off the gas. "I've had a hard week or two. I could have done without tonight..."

"I know. It was a bad idea. I just thought you might like to meet my friends. Terry...they're okay for the most part. A bit up their own arses at times but it's all just posturing. They're  kids out of their depth for the main part. Not like you. You're a real man. You don't have to feel in competition with them. They might sneer at your politics but secretly they're impressed..."

Terry broke in. "...I feel so much better now you've explained why I have to stand there and be made a fool of by twats who barely know where their own dicks are..."

"Terry!"

He winced. "Okay, I'm sorry...I'm on a short fuse. Maybe I should take you back home and we should call it a night...?"

"NO!" Penny exclaimed. "No! I've been waiting for you to come back all week! The party was just a bit of fun...it's you I want to be with! Not them! " she insisted.

Terry shrugged, drove on a few streets more and then stopped the car suddenly, sinking his head in his hands and rubbing wearily at his face. "Why are we fighting?"

"I don't know," she answered softly. "I'm not even sure we are. I'm not angry with you, and I don't think you're really angry with me. Things are just difficult. We live in two very different worlds...it's bound to become a problem from time to time..."

He sighed and turned to her, stroking his hand gently down her face, touching her chin, tracing the seam of her mouth with his fingers. "I want things to be good between us...you mean a lot to me, Penelope...more than I ever tell you...when I'm away...sometimes things are really shitty and I think of you so much...I'm sorry that I don't tell you enough about what you mean to me..."

His comment affected her deeply, confirmation of what he so seldom said but she had always hoped he meant. He did love her too. Her voice choked; a tear trickling down her cheek, he used his thumb to tenderly wipe it away as he bent towards her, his lips barely nuzzling her skin, his breath soft on her mouth. They stayed like that for moments, just observing each other close at hand, intimacy restored between them, nothing but their emotions and sexuality between them now.

"I want you..." he muttered. "Let's go to a hotel....not your rooms..."

He felt her body loosen and a shudder of desire run through her. "I have a better idea," she murmured. For a few minutes her comment didn't permeate his sexually charged brain; he carried on with his assault to her senses, his hands moving down her body sensuously.

"What do you mean?" he whispered. "...better idea...?"

She kissed him again, reluctant to break from their lip lock to answer, her fingers already nimbly freeing his T-shirt from his jeans and seeking out the touch of his warm, inviting flesh. Pulling away with a soft moan, she murmured into his ear, her tongue flickering in and out. "My parents...they're in Italy...the house is empty for two whole weeks...come on...let's go there...a decent place...and don't pretend you wouldn't get off on fucking me there..."

"...I get off on.... fucking you...anywhere..."he answered huskily, but sat back up all the same, zipping up his jeans and restarting the engine. With a hand over his face to compose himself, he pulled away. She reached for his groin and massaged the obscene bulge of his erection; he gently moved her hand away.

"Give me a break, love...you want me to come in my pants?" he smiled over. She laughed seductively and snuggled up close to him. He put his arm round her, drawing her close, as he took the slip road to the motorway, heading for home.

They had intended a two week break in Tuscany over Easter before the weather became too hot. Penny said she wasn't coming back anyway - she had plans to visit friends in London over the holiday weekend, or so she had said. The rest of the time she claimed she wanted to use for revision as her exams would be coming up in the next term. Annabella doubted that was the attraction. Penny had obviously met some adorable young thing and was planning on spending the holiday in his bed, she supposed. It made her smile. What else was youth for? She remembered her own Swinging Sixties deb years in London with fondness. A girl needs to experiment before she settles down to respectability. And if there was any girl who needed to get rebellion out of her system, it was her daughter.

They had only just arrived at the charming rustic rental when the call came through. Her mother had fallen badly on an icy path and broken her leg. Annabella would have to foreshorten her vacation and go home. Mother could come and stay with them until she was mobile again. There was nothing they could do about it. Gerald insisted he came back with her in his usual brusque fashion. What the hell was he going to do out here alone without her?

They caught an early morning flight and were back at home by midday, just enough time for lunch and a quick shower before afternoon visiting when they could make arrangements for Mother to be discharged into their care. Annabella was already planning to engage a home nurse to assist her in the more personal tasks.

As the taxi nosed into their wide driveway, Gerald observed a car parked outside the house, just along from the entrance - but he dismissed it as insignificant. They lived off a fairly busy arterial route on an small avenue that led to a popular cross country trail path. Hikers often left their cars nearby while they had a ramble. Not that a brand new silver Datsun  280XZ Turbo sports car was the usual vehicle of choice for the avid walker. He should have realized that straight away.

The couple entered the large hallway of their beautiful home, an eighteenth century manor, left to Gerald Wallis by his father, which they had extensively renovated but kept in a traditional style, tastefully furnished with antiques. The walls were thick, solid stone, built to last the test of time and the wooden floors, thickly laid with rugs and carpet treads cushioned all sound.

Certainly, they did not hear the low voices of their daughter and her lover still abed at twelve thirty in the afternoon, deep into another passionate session of lovemaking. They did, however, notice Penny's coat and handbag lying on the hall table. "Penny's home...!" Annabella announced as she walked into the kitchen to put on the kettle for a cup of tea.

"Hmmm?" Gerald answered vaguely as he rifled through a few mails. " Thought she wasn't coming down this holiday?"

Annabella passed him to mount the stairs. "You know Penny. She changes her mind as often as her lipstick...I'm going to take a quick shower, darling...be a dear and fill that pot with water when it boils?"

Running lightly up to the first floor, she made her way down a long corridor to the master bedroom which stood on its own in the east wing. It was quiet as she passed Penny's room. The girl was probably still asleep. She could stay in bed for hours after a late night on the town.

Her hand reached out and pushed the heavy oak door to her room- and her discovery was instantaneous. Her eyes settled on them almost as soon as her ears picked up the groans of a couple on the brink of orgasm.

"Oh my God!" she exclaimed, her hand flying to her mouth. All she could see was a naked man, only partially covered by a sheet, thrusting deep and hard into a woman who had to be Penny, even though all Annabella could make out was a leg wrapped high around his waist and a tumble of blonde hair spread out on the pillow. The girl arched and cried out almost at the same moment as she spun her head in the direction of the door. Her cry of ecstasy turned into one of shock.

"Ahhhh.......! Christ...! Mum...!"

Terry froze, as much as he was able to at a moment like that. The lower half of his body, however, refused to cooperate as he shuddered his coming helplessly. Sinking his face to the pillow for a few seconds to clear his brain, he pulled away, dragging the sheet over them both as Penny did the same, whimpering and protesting. He said nothing, just kept his back turned and reached out a hand for his jeans thankfully discarded on the floor nearby. He left Penny to make the feeble excuses for them both and prepared himself for the coming storm.

"Mum...what are you doing back? Oh God...I didn't want you to see this...! I'm so sorry, Mum...we didn't mean to offend you...please, Mummy...don't be cross...!I'm sorry...I'm sorry...!"

Annabella had stepped back a few paces initially, breathing deeply to try and steady her nerves. Her instinct was to run from this sight, but she couldn't tear her eyes off the scene in the bed before her. It was as if it held her transfixed.

Taking the stairs two at a time, Gerald ran up concerned, having heard his wife's horrified exclamation. He was imagining that she might have foiled a burglary attempt and feared for her safety. On the way he had grabbed a walking stick from a collection he had in the hall stand, ready to defend his wife and property if it came down to that. "Bella...what is it? What's the matter, for God's sake...?"

He soon found out what had shocked her so as he brushed past to enter into their bedroom.

 His daughter was sitting against the headboard of his bed with her knees drawn up to her chest, trying to cover her body with a sheet. A naked young man, back turned, was struggling into his jeans. There was something oddly familiar about him. Where had he seen that broad muscular back and the thick wavy brown hair before?

"Good God! You brazen little hussy! And in my bed? I suppose that made it so much more appealing, hey?" he thundered out as his mind struggled to wrap itself around the image.

He strode further into the room, picking up his wife's dressing gown from the back of the door and throwing it at his daughter. "Get that on and get out while I talk to your boyfriend here...!" He waved the walking stick menacingly. It would have been a farcical scene if anyone involved had actually felt like laughing. "Do I know you, you filthy little bastard?"

Terry flinched but did not respond, merely dragging on his jeans and zipping up. Penny sullenly donned the robe and slithered out of the bed. "Terry...I'm so sorry...!" she whispered.

He shrugged. "Not your fault. I'll see you later..."

"...Not if I bloody well have anything to do with it, you won't...!" Gerald Wallis interjected. "Well, turn round, man! Or haven't you got any balls left now you've just shot them into my daughter?" he added crudely.

Terry turned round slowly, his chin rising to counteract the terrible embarrassment and humiliation he felt. He knew this was a very dangerous moment, one on which his entire career rested. He didn't examine how strange it was that this was the first thought that had come into his mind, way before any consideration of where it now left his relationship with a girl he had all but professed love moments before.

"Sir..."

"Jesus Christ! The Wallaby scum! Thorne? Penny..you let this filth shag you?" 

Penny's only response was to whimper even more; she ran from the room in shame. 

"...Sir, I am so sorry you had to discover about us like this..."

"How long has this been going on?" Wallis was uninterested in apologies.

"A long time, sir. Since last summer. Sir!" Terry found himself responding to the general as if this was an army matter. Somehow it was easier to distance himself by falling into the routine subservient obedience of the soldier to his superior officer. It also allowed a modicum of that special sort of insubordination soldiers perfect where their very exaggerated obsequiousness is a challenge that the officer recognises but is at a loss to discipline.

"What? So, you've been creeping around behind our backs for months?"

"Well, not exactly, sir. Penny's been up at Oxford , so..."

"...Ah... you've got a little love nest up there, have you? I'll bet you've had some fun in the mess with this one, hey? Bragging of how you gave the Brigadier's daughter a good seeing to?"

"No, sir. I would never do that, Sir!" He held his head high and his back straight, soldier-style, as much as he could with a bare chest, a neck peppered with love bites and his hair all awry.

"Not much, you wouldn't. I think you set this up to get back at me, Thorne. You know I can't stand the sight of you. You're not what we need in the modern Regiment. I don't give a damn if you're an able soldier. You're low class and nothing but a thug with a few brains. So you took my daughter for sport, did you? I'll destroy you for that, you know? Fuck your career up so tight that you'll disappear without a bloody trace..." Wallis was shaking with rage, his pale face contorted to a purple misshapen scowl.Terry swallowed hard. "This is not about my career. This is a private matter. I love your daughter. I'm sorry you walked in on us like this but I can't help how we feel about each other..."

"...Love? Don't make me laugh! What would you know about love, you wretch? All men like you know about is sticking your pricks in where they don't belong...I'm not wasting my breath on you...Thames House...Monday morning... eight thirty...I've something just up your street, you little tosspot...undercover...dirty ops....let's see if you can get it up in the real game, hey?"

The meeting was held in a conference room deep in the heart of MI5's headquarters at Millbank, a stone's throw from Lambeth Bridge. The room was wood panelled, flanked with an art gallery of worthy eighteenth century gentlemen that would have graced any stately home. Privilege and power hung heavily in the air, as did the claustrophobic paranoia that seemed to seep from the senior officials, mired in their world of secrets for so long that they were incapable of trusting even their own aides.

Terry Thorne was not required to make much input in this high level briefing. He sat flanked by Wallis and Howe, like a dancing bear on a chain while the conversation flew fast and furious around the table, detailing the mission for which he had been selected. If selected was strictly the correct word.

His superior officers spoke in the same 'need to know' type jargon of the spook chiefs. Terry was catching the drift but well aware that a large portion of it all was way above his head. Whether this was on purpose or simply that he would receive the full briefing later remained to be seen. In the meantime, he listened carefully and examined the fellow MI5 agent with whom he would be liaising.

Tessa Phillips. She looked very young. That was the first thought that struck him as he observed her sitting directly opposite across the highly polished mahogany board room table. Like him, she was placed between the head of counter intelligence, George Mason, and a cool, supercilious departmental manager, Harry Pearce.

Pearce was another member of the party who looked deceptively young, like one of those Oxford chums of Penny's, with his curly sandy blond hair, round rather pretty childlike face and fresh ruddy complexion. He looked wholesome. It was a great disguise.

But back to the blushing bride. Tessa gave off the impression of a farm girl from Oxfordshire, raised on apples, fresh milk, horse riding and hockey. She was a pretty girl, chestnut hair, smooth pale golden skin, large glassy grey eyes and a wide full mouth. He could read a sharp intelligence and a serene self confidence in her. She was tougher than she looked. He'd be a fool to let her girlish demeanour fool him. They would only have selected their best for something like this.

"Any questions?" Harry Pearce concluded his contribution briskly.

"Actually, I do have one..." Terry answered. Pearce surveyed him thoughtfully but with an indefinable air of disdain.

"Go ahead, Lt. Thorne..."

Brigadier Wallis flashed Terry a glance. 

"Why are we here?"

"I beg your pardon?" 

"I mean, why is MI5 involved? The way I see it, this is MI6 territory. Am I missing something? I know I'm army and we're just the bully boys, but, with respect, sir, I think I should be told the parts that you seem to be leaving out..." Terry returned Mason's hostile gaze with a smooth and professionally polished smile. He blanked the lower ranked Pearce completely.

"The reasons are bureaucratic. Operationally irrelevant. The Prime Minister has sanctioned this venture personally. As such that is all you need to know. You've signed the Official Secrets' Act. Call this an official secret. Is that understood?" Mason replied tersely.

Terry made a sardonic face. "That so? I'd still like it on record that I differed with your opinion..."

"...Lieutenant Thorne is Australian, as you know. You must forgive his lack of social skills. Fortunately they should not interfere with what he will be called upon to do..." Brigadier Wallis' cool dismissal drew apprehensive glances from the Intelligence people. There was obviously no love lost between the two men. Was it significant?

But Thorne merely nodded and drew himself up straight, returning himself back to the alert attention he had shown throughout. He had accepted the explanation even if it went no way to answering his question. Or he appeared to do so. No one in the room thought for one moment that the young SAS officer had let the matter go. None of them would have. Why would he?

They sat across a desk from each other in the small office that was more of a store room to judge by the files that were piled up in every corner, spilling from boxes and stacked up high. Terry looked about him. "Real hi tech stuff, hey? Nation's secrets carefully guarded from prying eyes, huh?"

Tessa grinned. "Most of it's routine listening post transcripts. It's all waiting to be uploaded to the computer system and then cross referenced. But it takes ages. If the truth were known we're always months behind..."

"...where do you get most of your good intel then? BBC News?"

"That observation is truer than you think. We might be entering the computer age but it will be a while before we have it all at the click of a button. Until then, we're still using the old methods...and perusing the news is still right up there with the best of them..."

"Need England tremble with you lot in the front line?" Terry grinned.

"You too now as well, Mr. Aussie man. You're an odd choice for this caper, though, I must say. You sure you're qualified for it?"

Terry surveyed her thoughtfully, wondering how much she actually knew about it all herself. He wouldn't put it past these spook lords to have left out most of the important details for both of them. "Don't you mean rather that my allegiance to the cause might be suspect? Me not being British and all that jazz?"

It was Tessa's turn to give him a close scrutiny. He felt like they were two boxers about to launch the first punch. "Not at all. You colonials are always so eager to prove your loyalty to the motherland. We normally find you Commonwealth chappies are even more devoted to the idea of preserving the British empire than our own. No, I meant what I said. You're very young to be in this position- and woefully without intelligence experience. Super soldier you may be, but this is a very different story..."

Terry blew out air slowly, reaching over to play with the packet of cigarettes set between them. "I'd guess we were about the same age, love. I don't imagine you've got much field experience either. Not at this level any way. What was it? Cambridge and then the invitation to join the club? And if you've got the nous... well, that's what you're here for, sweetheart. I'm here to be the protection and the muscle, should it be needed. You're here to supply the tradecraft. As for my part in all this.... I doubt if your poncy upper class colleagues in MI5 have quite the same skills at interrogation and assault as I possess..."

Tessa pursed her lips in thought. Terry Thorne wasn't quite what she had expected. Having liaised before with military intelligence and special forces, she had presumed Lt. Thorne was going to be another arrogant SAS headbanger with an over active trigger finger, sneering at government agents and ready to take command with as much finesse as a bull in a china shop. But the man sitting before her was nothing of the sort. He was rather reserved, although quite capable of giving as good as he got, contained within himself, intelligent and wary.  She could sense he was confident but also that there was something worrying him beneath it all. Tessa doubted it was the dangerous undercover mission they were being sent on that was making him uneasy. The challenge of that she suspected he relished. But something was bothering him, without a doubt.

"Why MI5?" Terry suddenly threw that question at her. She had expected he would return to this. He had the look of a dog shaking a particularly juicy bone. "I don't get it. I'm SAS...fair enough, we handle counter terrorism both at home and abroad. But it's not your job to take on the international cases. Why is MI6 not in on this? I'm not buying that they couldn't come up with one attractive young woman with the necessary cred to carry this off..."

Tessa blew put a plume of grey smoke and stubbed out the cigarette with a business-like air. "They said it wasn't relevant..."

"You know. Why don't I? I don't want to be kept in the dark when my bloody neck's on the line. Something doesn't smell right here..." He pursed his lips and fixed her a piercing stare. She was not a woman who was easily intimidated but despite his pleasant general manner, there was something in this man that unsettled her. It would not be hard to resist his will if he wanted to know something.

She sighed in a manner that conveyed a lack of interest in general. "I don't know why they chose you, you don't know why they chose me...but  I'm not the one complaining..."

He reached over and covered her hand with his. Tessa's head shot up to find those eyes holding her again. "I'm an Australian. The two happy campers whose identities we are stealing happen to live in Australia, although the woman is English born. I am also a highly trained military officer being sent to an area of Near East which is highly volatile. That seems to make sense to me. But why are you here? What possible authority does MI5 have to conduct a covert operation with a highly morally contentious premise on foreign soil? Isn't that the sort of dirty tricks that MI6 dream up? You know the answer. So tell me. Because if I'm not satisfied that this won't end in me being left to carry some can and dropped as if no one ever heard my name before then I am not playing spook games..."

Tessa guessed that herein lay the root of Thorne's uncertainty. There was some reason for him to believe that his Regiment might just be using him as a fall guy. She wondered what he'd done? He might not be entirely wrong either. But then, if he was being set up here as he seemed to suspect, then her life was also in the balance. She needed to know what was going on too.

"MI6 are not in on this because if they knew they would block it. The current policy is total cooperation with Israel behind the scenes. Publicly, there is, of course, criticism of aggressive Zionist encroachment where it is beyond the acceptable border harassment, defensive response and so in...but officially our government severely discourages any violent Isreali response towards Palestine that might provoke the PLO and other Islamic nations in the region. Behind the scenes if is a different matter though. MI6 works closely with Mossad and in reality they bend over and take it up the arse wherever the Israeli government says jump. Why? Because Mossad is the main supplier of intelligence throughout the whole region and beyond. They are the best sourced intelligence agency in the world - bar none- with the most skilled and ruthless agents and they know as much about the CIA and The Russkies as they do about their closer enemies. We need them even more than the Beeb..."

Terry listened carefully. "So you're saying the British government's working against its own intelligence agency? Why? What's the thinking behind that? Has paranoia gone completely out of control? " he asked bluntly.

Tessa shrugged. "Work it out, Terry! And welcome to the world of espionage, mate..."

"..They want to shaft the Israelis? This is about setting up Israel, isn't it...? But what for? To defuse tension in the region? We deal with them for what we can get but we need to tie their hands in some way before they get to out of control and the whole area blows?"

She raised her eyebrows, impressed by his quick grasp of the situation. "Got it in one. This is straight from the Cabinet, Terry, and if MI6 get wind they will try and stop us..."

He groaned as the whole implication hit him. "What's the chances of Mossad not finding out? You telling me Mossad are going to be on our tails as well? We could be wading our way against Israeli and British Intelligence with possibly a bit of interference from Our American Cousins who are bound to be wet nursing the Zionistas - Who we really fucking working for? Syria? Lebanon? Do we even remember any more?"

Tessa gave him a supercilious look. "That's the deal. You can't hack it then say so now...or stop whinging...you're beginning to sound like a Pom, Terry...Talk about acclimatising..."

He buried his face in his hands for a moment and then stood up abruptly, shunting back his chair and striding over to the window, pulling up the sash and taking a breath of the sharp March air. It was grey and grizzly out. He could do with a few weeks back in the sun.

This was a shit hole of a job - but if he came back with the prize then he would be 'The Man'. You want to be the best, you've got to grab the chance when it comes. There were no easy rides in this job. "...Wallis found me and his daughter in bed...his bed, just to make it all even sweeter...I'm here because he thinks I'm not good enough, Tessa. He's hoping for a body bag..."

She whistled softly. But he hadn't needed to tell her. Her respect for him grew.  "I doubt our people know that. So you are out of your depth, that what you're saying? Is he seriously sending out a man with the express purpose of seeing the operation fail and British agents compromised, all because of his wounded parental pride? I need to report this..."

She rose and made for the door. In a few strides, Terry was across the room and gripping her arm. "No...please, Tessa! It's not as simple as that. He knows I'm capable. He wouldn't send me otherwise. This is a test, though. I might die...and he wouldn't be crying at the funeral...but if I pull it off, I establish a reputation which he can then use to offset the public embarrassment he will have to field at the golf club when they find out his daughter's dating a bit of rough...Or maybe he's secretly working for Mossad? We could both be totally on the wrong track, you know....?" He grinned and she gave him a wry look back. "Come on, love, please...you know I'm not pulling the wool...I'm the best there is...You've already worked that out. This will not compromise the assignment...I promise..." He gave her a pleading look with his limpid green eyes, his thick lashes lowered in a way that was at odds with his imposing masculinity. Tessa was suddenly aware of his bulk and powerful frame towering over her. A sensation of weakness coursed through her. He was quite a specimen of a man. Lucky Miss Wallis.

She bit her lip in thought for a moment before sighing heavily. "You'd better be  as hot as you talk, Thorne...because I am going out on a major limb for you on this one....but my instinct tells me you're good for it. Let's just make sure you are....okay...? Now, back to work...Let's go over our legends, again. From now on we only use the identities given to us and we do not refer to our real lives, even in passing...That means Little Miss Brigadier's Daughter is not even to feature in your dirty little dreams...We have to completely inhabit the people we are supposed to be. Night and day. Never even think about our former lives..."

"...Fine with me, Rebecca...I could do with the fucking break from my reality...." Terry opened up the packet of cigarettes, offered her one, lit them both and then sat back in his seat. "My name is Mark Cresnic. I am an Australian of Yugoslavian ancestry. You are my wife, Rebecca Cresnic, nee Goldstein. Your family emigrated from Britain to Australia when you were a teenager and you have since settled down, got an education and have just completed your masters in European languages at the University of Brisbane. I'm a law graduate and working for the bar. We recently got married and you and I have decided to take a year out travelling Europe.... It just so happens that you havr a burning desire to pay something back before you enter the world of work by breaking your extended holiday working on a kibbutz for six months. You persuaded your new bridegroom to experience the life and show some solidarity with beleagured Israel struggling against the forces of terrorism to establish a Zionist state. Mark's not interested in the politics but fancies the outdoor life for a while. He's a keen photographer and is hoping he might get some good human interest stuff in the region. He has a vague idea he'd like to put on an exhibition of his work in one of the small private galleries back home when he returns to Brissie...did I forget anything? Oh yeah...he's got two brothers and a sister, all older, his parents are dead, he plays cricket and rugby, quite well having been on the university squad...By the way...just one small matter...I'm not the Jewish one...so, no need to go for authenticity, hey?"

Tessa frowned. "You mean you still have your overcoat? I prefer cut myself..."

Terry smiled. "Well, it's a good job we're only playacting, isn't it? I won't disappoint you then..."

Eilot was the southernmost kibbutzim in Israel, located in the Aravah region, just north of the resort town of Eilat and the Gulf of Aqaba in the Red Sea. It was one of the smaller communities, in an area that was one of the least problematic in the country, near a wealthy sea side town that was a popular holiday resort. This was a solidly agricultural community unlike some of their more militant kibbutzim in the northern border areas which were involved in heavier industrial production, even in some cases artillery. Bucolic Eilot, on the balmy hills above the sea was famous for its date production as well as a variety of other fruit, vegetable and dairy products.

For the first few days 'Mark' and 'Rebecca' contented themselves with settling into the camp which would be their home for the next six months. Their quarters were a simple wooden cabin in a row of similar plots adjacent to the longer barracks where the unmarried men, women and children stayed. There was little privacy, communal showers, meals taken in the canteen, long hours working and most of the rest time spent with others. Their accommodation was only for sleeping. It suited them both. The less time spent together the better in many ways.

Terry was involved in the field work, Tessa working into the crèche with the younger children, those not yet in school. 

She was none too fond of the job she had been allocated. Children were not her forte. She didn't want them and had no desire, even by way of a cover, to spend any time with them. It became a joke as she complained each evening before they went to bed. "I thought this was supposed to be about the ultimate egalitarian Utopia? So how come women still get the crappy jobs?"

Terry grinned as he dragged off his shirt and shucked away his work jeans, pulling on a pair of sports shorts, throwing a towel over his shoulder and picking up his shaving kit. "Fairer sex, love. It's hard graft out in those fields even this early in the season. And the children are the future. Most important job in the place is taking care of the anklebiters... Kibbutz rule number one. Just wait until we have a few, darling..." She threw a pillow at him as he stuck paste on his toothbrush and sauntered off to the shower room, brushing his teeth as he went, amused by her indignation.

"Mark....how are you?" He fell in beside a dark haired young man, Chaim Barak who was also off to bathe. He and his wife, Leah, had shared a table in the canteen with them a few times. Chaim was a serious young intellectual, an archaeologist, who was a member of the kibbutz, not a volunteer. He was also a coordinator for the university of Haifa of the archaeological sites situated in the valley of Aravah. An idealist, he was non-political and openly critical of the government. His hope was for peace and his dream was that the various people of the region would set aside the religious and tribal differences to embrace their common shared heritage.

"I'm good. Well, worn out, but I still feel great. There's nothing like honest sweat to make a man feel he's done a decent day's work..." Terry stopped chewing on his toothbrush and spat out onto the scrubby grass at the side of the path.

Chaim grinned. "You are so right. I think that's the problem with our western world today. If we all had to work our fingers to the bone every day just to survive then we wouldn't have time to fight each other or build up justifications for imagined wrongs..."

Terry scoffed. "I'm not the historian, mate, but they never had wars back then? Seems I remember it differently when I was at school..."

They had reached the male shower block and entered, both men stripping off their shorts and making their way to the jets, standing in the open tiled bathroom in simply partitioned troughs set side by side as they let the water wash away the grime of the day. For a while they were silent, soaping and rinsing. Then Chaim shouted across. "Men have always found reasons to fight. It is built into their natures. I may be an idealist but I am not a fool, Mark. But...if we have any desire to change the world, it must start within each and everyone of us. If we ensure that our own families are raised with a new vision then we have done our best. Even better if we gather together with likeminded people and work to show others how a brighter future is possible..."

"...Hence the kibbutz..."

"Indeed." Chaim turned off his tap and reached for his towel.

"You don't work for the kibbutz though...how does that play...?" Terry asked him as they stepped out and dried off.

"It was a concession because of my career. I wanted to be part of the movement but they recognised my contribution to society was better served if I continued with my chosen profession uncovering the legacy of the past. My salary from the university is channeled into the general fund. I take no private income..."

Terry was impressed. He liked Chaim. They were world's apart as men but had felt drawn to each other from their first meeting, as if their differences were the magnet that attracted them to friendship. He knew Chaim was that rare man, a genuinely honest and guileless soul, who was prepared to live his life by the principles that governed him, no matter what it cost him. That took real bravery.

"Leah's an amazing woman. She was out in the orchards today running tests on the plants. We were fertilising the new stock with potassium chloride....she just rolled up her sleeves, put on a mask and jumped right in and joined us..."

Chaim beamed fondly at the mention of his tiny vivacious wife. "She and I are so different! I am the bookish one while she has endless energy! Growing is her passion. She is working on her PhD in Agronomics as well as everything else...how she finds the time, no one knows...!"

Terry laughed. "Wait till she has a little one...that'll slow her down..."

Chaim blushed. "As a matter of fact, we have good news on that score. She's pregnant...early days still, but it is confirmed.  We are both overjoyed. We were trying for months...it was beginning to upset her. This woman who lives to see crops growing feared she would not be fruitful herself...what an irony!"

Terry nodded sympathetically. "Great news, mate. Can't imagine what it must feel like..."

"You'll know soon enough...have you and Rebecca been thinking along those lines yet or it is too soon?"

He grinned as he strolled over to the sinks to shave. "Not till we get home, you know? But yeah, why else get married? That's what life's about. Love... men and women... children...all the rest is just what you do..." His words seemed to stick in his craw. He wasn't sure why lying to Chaim bothered him so much. He was supposed to lie. That was his job, sanctioned by higher authorities for some perceived community benefit. He was doing his own community service quite as much as the kibbutzniks were. This was another man talking, the real Mark Cresnic. His own personal philosophies were irrelevant. Yet, he hated what he had just said, playing into what he hoped the other man wished to hear, using the man's essential goodness as a weapon against him.

Terry was glad he was still sufficiently unaffected by the paranoid world of espionage to hate what he had to do. He hoped it would always remain thus. His job was to be a soldier. The military seemed a far more honorable and simple world, even in the Special Forces area he inhabited, than the murky ambiguities of the intelligence circles. He had always been determined to keep sight of himself whatever he was asked to do for the good of the cause. Even as a soldier he applied that rule. Killing was one thing and had to be done in battle or field situations - but liking it was another matter.

There was also the significance of the new revelation Chaim had made. Leah was pregnant. That made what might follow a whole different ball game. But he also knew that there was nothing they could do but use this to their further advantage. That was how it worked.

"We should get together as two couples one night soon, you know?" Chaim interrupted his thoughts. "That's one of the drawbacks of communal living, I guess. This would be the point in our friendship where we invited you and Rebecca back to our home for dinner. I have never really believed that this community of ours should entirely discourage exclusive bonds. It is natural that we gravitate to some people more that others. There are always personal considerations, intellectual compatibility, shared interests - and of course the trust we build up with one person and not another. Are we in danger of becoming the opposite of what we aspire to by overregulation?" Chaim wondered aloud. Terry just felt even worse.

Scraping off the last of the foam with the blade, he washed off the traces, wiped his face dry and turned to offer an idea to Chaim. "How about we do it anyway? Get the girls to set a table nicely, chill a few bottles of wine and turn the canteen into a restaurant for the night? I think we could even find a few candles and persuade them to play some more conducive music...what do you say? Call it couples night? Make it open to the rest if they organize their own table? Have a bit of dancing...?"

Chaim's eyes lit up. He patted Terry's back affectionately. "You see, there is a solution to everything if we just take the trouble to find one! Good man. Let's get the girls onto it. They'll love it..."

Back at his room, he found Tessa sprawled out on the bed, smoothing on some body cream while idly reading a magazine. She was wearing a skimpy pair of cotton shorts and a strappy sleep vest. He noticed her legs, long and shapely, already beginning to turn a light shade of golden brown, polished and smooth. He could see the outline of her pert nipples against the soft cling of the top. He felt the stirring of subliminal desire. Why wouldn't he? She was an attractive girl and they were living together intimately. It was obvious that she would get under his radar no matter how much he remained detached. He was a man. Sex was always there, just below the surface. Especially when tension was running high.

"You look dapper and fresh...." Tessa looked up and smiled. He thought he detected an unconscious seductive cast in her lowered eyelashes and the shy smile as she appraised him. Or was he just imagining it because she had hit a certain button and he was looking for a reason to make a move? He thrust temptation down. What was he thinking of?

"Least I could do. I wouldn't want to have inflicted my sweaty body on you..." he replied realizing as he spoke the words that he was still subconsciously thinking along sexual lines. "Listen, I'm wide awake. Fancy a walk?" He had a strong feeling that he shouldn't join her on the bed right now. Even if he did nothing, he wasn't sure his body wouldn't betray him. The cream she was using had a pleasant flowery, citrus scent. He had an sudden urge to nuzzle up close and smell it on her skin.

"Sure..." she answered brightly, shuffling off the bed and slipping on a loose skirt and a cardigan, tying a scarf around her hair in the demure way women here tended to prefer in public.

He threw on a pair of sweat pants and a long sleeved T-shirt. The night was cool, a wind blowing in from the hills. It was still late April. Holding the door for her, he stepped back as she walked out. Tessa looked up at him and he again thought he saw something in her eyes that was not part of the game. Was she giving him the message that they could, if they wished, make this even more authentic? It would be hard to work together if he read this wrong, though. Careful, Terry...very careful.

They strolled up to the hills and looked down towards the plain that led down to Eilat and the Red Sea, watching the twinkling city lights in the distance. She shivered. He offered her his arm and drew her closer. As she leaned against his chest, she whispered:

"So, what did you need to say? Something happened?"

Her comment jolted him back to sanity. Tessa thought he had asked her for a walk in the moonlight because he had something he needed to discuss. Who knew if they were suspected already? Their cabin might have been bugged and they might even now be under surveillance. But he covered quickly. "Met Chaim. Leah's pregnant. Did you know?"

She shook her head. "Even better. Gives us more leverage..."

"That's a shitty thing to say..."

"It's a shitty job...but someone has to do it...just remember that..." Tessa warned softly.

He didn't answer that remark, merely going on to tell her about the plans for dinner. "I'll get onto it with some of the girls tomorrow. They'll love it. Good idea...there was something else. We've had a contact..."

Tessa was in charge of the drop and pick up of messages. She was freer to come and go than he was on a team of labourers all day, so she would look for a chance to take some of the little ones for a walk or push a baby out in a pram and check the 'box'.

"Yeah? Significant?"

"Pretty much. Barak's in Geneva on Wednesday next week. Confirmed. That's when the approach will be..."

"Then we better get a move on. This dinner....make it Saturday night...then we make a suggestion. Why not go into Eilat and catch a movie next week....? No harm in that, huh? We can lift them then..."

She seemed to agree. "They're showing Gandhi...I'm sure that will appeal to their sweet little idealist principles..."

Terry's disapproval of her remark showed in his face. "You don't have to share a belief to respect it..."he reminded her. "Chaim's a good bloke. Leah's an exceptional and dedicated woman. This is not about them...they are just the pawns..."

"Come on, Terry! It's easy  for them to be idealists and pat themselves on the back for a life spent virtuously in the pursuit of peace and harmony. But it's a cop out! His father's the Prime Minister of this country. If Chaim and Leah are as honest as they claim then they must have issues with the national policy. So what do they do? They opt out and let Daddy arrange for them to live in the wilderness - but the safest one in Israel. No dangerous borders for them. Bodyguards disguised as kibbutzniks...They're wearing blinkers...that's not purity of soul...it's naivete. Like hippies all over the world. You don't solve anything by dropping out..."

He conceded her point. "...but you don't blame a son for his father's choices. Or vice versa..." He thought then of his own father and his Republican army past. He wondered if that was why Pearce had seemed so cold with him. His file had mentioned Pearce's earlier army intelligence service in Northern Ireland. He doubted Pearce had much time for anyone connected to the IRA, no matter how distantly.

"You like Chaim and Leah. That's okay. It's okay to like the mark. It's actually better if our relationships with them are authentic. But you have to keep sight of the goal. I like them too. But they are not our friends. They are the friends of Mark and Rebecca. It's an illusion that we have to be sure not to fall into."

Tessa slipped her arm round his waist. To an onlooker it would have been a natural moment between a young couple in love, late night, talking quietly, ready to take this further in their room together alone later. Terry felt a sadness settle on his soul. It actually almost felt real. He could almost convince himself that this woman at his side was his young wife. In one sense it felt more real that his own life which was beginning already to take on the feel of surreality. The edges were becoming blurred. He wasn't sure he wanted to sharpen the focus just yet.

He turned to look at her as her fingers absently caressed his stomach. She was looking up at him. Her eyes glittered in the moonlight, shutting out everything else but the pull she was exerting. He felt her hand slip further down, ease beneath the hem of his T-shirt and find his bare flesh. This was more than an impression.

Pulling away, he took her hand and began to walk down the hill. "It's cold. Let's go back," he muttered gruffly, dragging her along with him.

They regained the path in silence. Tessa was unsure whether this was rejection or not. She wasn't even sure why she had done it. Well, she knew what she had done it, but she wasn't sure why she had done it now. In truth, she had been attracted to Terry physically from the start and the past ten days had merely increased the way she felt about him. She had come to know the man himself, as much as one could get to know someone when you were both living a lie.

Tessa Phillips was not a woman to bother much about the morality of her behaviour, either in her career or her private life. In fact to her, morality was a weakness that clouded judgment. It was just an excuse for sentimentality over intellectual reasoning. So what if Terry had a girlfriend and a life back home? They were in the field where different rules applied. And undercover work by its very nature brought an intense intimacy between agents which almost drove men and women to interrelate sexually. It was the only way to reach out and give something of yourself in the midst of this charade they were living.

The fact of the matter was - she wanted Terry Thorne and she was going to have him. Just for now. Where it didn't hurt anyone or anything. She had no interest in what happened when they got back to their real lives. She would probably never see him again. Her career was always going to come first. Marriage and relationships, children and a home were not on her life plan. So, what was holding her back?

Nothing. Except a little voice down deep somewhere in her brain that was warning her that Terry Thorne might just have the abilities to get under her radar in a way she neither wanted - nor could afford. She ought to nip this in the bud before she complicated her life by doing the one thing she thought she was incapable of.

Falling in love.

The door shut. Terry did not even stop before he roughly pushed her against it and his mouth found hers. They kissed wildly, hungrily, hands ripping at clothes struggling out of them, staggering back across the floor in the direction of the bed, before falling back on it heavily, the wooden struts groaning under the assault.

Neither spoke, except the absurd utterances of lovemaking: trite sentiment and crude profanity. Terry was on the edge of rough but always holding back enough to be tender when it counted. Tessa was abandoned, giving herself over completely to desire in that way of people who generally live like coiled springs, suppressing their natures. Sex was her release mechanism, when she allowed herself to be the type of woman she would regard as weak and vulnerable in real life. No man ever got one over on her there. To succeed in her profession she had to be tougher than the toughest man.

But here in this bed, naked in the arms of such a man as Terry Thorne, she could allow her femininity and softness to have free rein - in much the same way as he was demonstrating to her the formidable unleashing of his virility. It was a wild and heady combination.

"I want you...I want you so bad..." she muttered as he slipped down her body, sucking hard on her nipple, crushing the other breast in his large hand. She ran her fingers through his hair as she writhed beneath him, feeling him suckle in the same beat as he unconsciously rocked his hardness against her thigh.

His hair was like everything about him - thick, strong, ripe with life and vitality, coarse and yet soft, a symbol of his potent sexuality and powerful masculinity. Tessa gasped as his tongue lapped her navel then she groaned as his finger slid between her legs and forced a way inside her. The long deep moan he uttered seemed to reverberate about her insides as his lips, pressed against her belly, traced a path further and further down.

She was wet, so wet, her body lithe and open. He knew he could do anything to her and she would let him. Some women are just like that when you hit the right note with them. You can never quite predict which ones will be the most instinctual. Tessa Phillips had looked like she had ice in her knickers when they first met.

A bloke can get it so wrong.

The scent of her sex drew him down until he was gazing on that secret place that fascinates and disturbs men in equal measure. His sure hands gripped the top of each silky thigh and pushed her legs apart and up, widening and increasing his access and vision. For a moment he stopped and looked.

Then he blew gently, smiled as the soft velvet of her brown pubic hair ruffled before plunging down to savour. She bucked fiercely, her hands grasping the sheets for anchorage as he shunted her up the bed and gave her the benefit of his relentless attentions. Her orgasm was sudden and violent, trapping his head between her legs as she bore down on him, riding the ways of intense pleasure.

Terry forced her to open up, gently rolled her back onto the pillow and raised himself above her. He took his cock in his right hand and slicked it through her juices, finding her hole and pushing in. He was close to coming as he slid through her, feeling the strong pulsing waves of the orgasm that was still holding her in its grip. He paused long enough to make it slow, not to hurt her, give them both time to adjust. Her legs wrapped round him and she sought to draw him close. He knew then that he couldn't hold back much longer.

"Do I need to...use something?" he gasped with the few remaining wits he had left.

"No...spooks are always prepared... for everything..." she murmured with a husky laugh. He didn't wait to say anything else as he pulled back and thrust down, down, down, down...into oblivion......

"Mummy...I have something to tell you..." Penny had turned up on the Saturday morning unexpectedly. After the terrible events of the previous episode, she had returned to Oxford under a cloud and apart from a weekly phone call, there had been no real contact. When she rang she had polite and distant, rather as her mother was, and the incident had not been discussed. Annabella knew that the soldier had been posted away somewhere and had decided to give him no more thought. She hoped it had frightened him off. As for Penny, the less said to her the better. The girl was so stubborn that if they alienated her too much she would never let this character go, just to spite them.

Penny sat down at the kitchen table. Annabella poured out two cups of tea. 

"I'm pregnant. Definite. It's Terry's."

She didn't even try to break it gracefully. What could she say? Whichever way you said it, it was still a disaster.

Annabella paled. "I thought you were on the pill!"

Penny shrugged. "I kept forgetting. We used condoms. Sometimes..."

"What?" her mother shouted, unable to believe the lame excuse. "How could you be so irresponsible? I mean, he's a man...they never can be trusted to think ahead....but Penny! There's no excuse in this day and age...the pill is widely available. You're educated woman...what were you thinking of?"

Penny dabbed at her eyes with a soggy tissue. She felt like she'd been crying all week ever since she had done the test and then gone to the family planning centre for official confirmation.  They had been brisk, matter-of-fact, gentle when she wept but firm. They suggested she seriously consider an abortion. "I wasn't thinking...that was the point. I love him so much. I think part of me wanted this...Oh God, not consciously, but I was in some kind of denial...I was always worried he would leave me...I wanted him to make a commitment...I didn't mean to trap him but...somehow...I think I let it happen. Played with fire..." She broke down and sobbed bitterly, interspersing the tears with pitiful observations. "I didn't really want to have a baby...I don't know what to do! I can't handle this....! I just can't...! I don't even know where he is...he said he would call but I haven't heard from him for two weeks...! He said he was being posted somewhere...but maybe he was lying...?"

Annabella held her close. However angry and disappointed she felt, however worried and concerned, she knew that it was pointless punishing Penny further for this. The girl had punished herself already. She had always needed life to teach her daughter a few home truths, but never had she expected the old trap to be lying in wait for her beautiful spirited girl. The oldest mistake in the book. Love.

"What am I going to do, Mummy?"

Annabella paused. "I'll have to tell your father..."

"Oh...Mummy! He'll be so ashamed of me..."

Her mother smiled sadly. "That's his problem...this is about you, not him. Penny...it's up to you, but I really think you need to consider a termination...it's early days and it wouldn't be too unpleasant at this stage. I can arrange a private hospital and no one would ever know about it...even Daddy if we act quickly..."

She felt her daughter's body stiffen as she talked. The crying fit subsided. Annabella waited for a response, praying silently that Penny would see reason and not let her emotions for the baby's father cloud her judgment.

"I'm not sure...I don't know what Terry would say...he deserves to know...it's his baby too...he always knows what to do..." Penny whispered.

"We don't have much time. And it's all very well saying he's the one who makes the decisions, but this is your life, not his. Whatever happens, it doesn't affect him. Just think what you would have to give up? You can't stay at Oxford. You'd have to come down. It's nine months, Penny...and then the fun and games really start...and what can he offer you anyway? You think he intends to marry you? You're not even sure he'll call again...it's a bit of a stretch to think he's ready for all that..."

"He's a good man. I know Terry. He would never abandon me over this. He would stand by me. Do the right thing..."

Annabella grimaced. She would have preferred a real rogue to a man who might be capable of sticking around. "Is that what you want? To force a man to marry you simply because he has principles? Marriage is hard enough even when you are both crazy for each other and want to be together...you are both so young...how would you live...?"

Penny shrugged. "He's well paid. He's one of the elite boys...they get a good salary...and I can work..."

"Oh, Penny...! What about your education? Your dreams for a career? This can't be what you really want! And even a good salary won't be what you're used to. You've grown up in a very privileged lifestyle. Daddy is a senior general but his salary wouldn't go anywhere near paying for the way we live. He and I are both living on trust funds - very sizeable ones....Penny, I don't think you understand the reality of existing on a normal wage..."

"I can learn! I love him. I don't care what anyone says...I'll make this work...he will come back to me and I will show him how much I love him...!" Penny had talked herself into a hysterical reaction. Annabella calmed her down.

"I understand. We've got a few weeks to think about things. No need to make an immediate decision. If he calls in a week or so, then you can talk it through with him and make the choices together. But I want you to give what I have said some serious thought in the meantime. I won't tell Daddy yet. I'll give you some space. But he will need to know soon. He is your father. And he will be angry.... Don't forget...it isn't just about you. Daddy is Lt. Thorne's commanding officer. He can make it difficult for him if he wishes. And you know Daddy... Do you want your man's career ruined over this?"

It was emotional blackmail, Annabella knew it, but frankly she didn't care. This matter had to be solved and there was only one way to do it. Penny would have a termination and Gerald would never find out. But she would have to handle this very delicately. That man -she couldn't even bring herself to say his name- was exerting a very strong influence on her daughter. Whatever he had going for him, he had it in spades. Penny was not a girl who would easily throw her life away for any young man. She wondered where the boy was and what Gerald had recruited him for. With any luck, it might be exceedingly dangerous...