No More Lonely Nights Read Free Page A

never raised their voices nor addressed others impolitely. Probably he never had to. His orders would be followed, whether or not he was in uniform.
    Dominique continued to study Hampton as he read her paperwork, his brow furrowed in concentration. She was usually outgoing and would have tried to engage the officer in small talk, but there was about him a cool reserve that held her at arm’s length. It was hard to imagine Group Captain Hampton ever being flirtatious, despite the split second of interest she had detected in his first glance.
    “Your scores for typing and grammar are excellent,” he said, not taking his eyes from the paper.
    “Thank you,” Dominique replied. She watched his face as he scanned the rest of her application. She could discern nothing from his expression.
    Finally, he raised his eyes. Dominique saw them linger on the gold watch dangling from her wrist, then travel to the saucy Paris creation she wore on her head. He looked back down at her file.
    “It says here that you speak Italian, French, English, and Arabic. I assume you read and write English fluently, since you graduated from the American College. Do you read and write Arabic and Italian as well?”
    She shook her head. “Italian, yes, but only a little Arabic.” Europeans living in Egypt were rarely fluent in Arabic. They attended mostly French schools, learned English or Italian as a second language, and used Arabic mainly with the household help.
    “Hmmm.” Hampton’s reaction was noncommittal. With Hampton’s eyes focused on the papers on his desk, Dominique was free to look around his office. It was large, of course, as befitted a group captain. On a credenza behind him were perhaps a dozen photographs. There was one of Hampton standing in front of an airplane.
    He must be a war hero, Dominique speculated. That was why he had attained high rank at such a young age. She looked at the left pocket of his uniform. It bore many decorations, but she didn’t know the meaning of most of them. Still, an unfamiliar feeling of awe crept over her.
    She turned her attention back to the photographs. There was one of a woman and two children. The woman was young—a classic English beauty. Dominique looked at Hampton’s ring finger. He wore no wedding band. But there were many married men who chose not to. Dominique went back to studying the photos. The largest was of Winston Churchill and it bore an inscription, but Dominique was too far away to read it. The rest of the photographs appeared to have been taken in England, perhaps at Hampton’s home. It was a large Tudor-style estate in the country—smaller than the manor of the Avallons’ cotton plantation outside Cairo, but impressive nonetheless. In one of the photographs, Hampton held the bridle of a horse. The two children from the first picture sat on the horse’s back. There was a pond surrounded by irises in the background. In another photograph, a middle-aged couple sat on the terrace of the house.
    Hampton looked up, then at the picture. “My parents,” he said somberly. “They were killed in the war. Their home in London was destroyed by a German bomb.” Despite his economy of speech, Dominique could sense in Hampton a profound sadness at their loss.
    Her heart warmed with real sympathy. “I’m so sorry. It must have been a terrible blow to lose them both at once.” She thought of her own father, dead when she was only nine. Dominique still missed him.
    She blinked and shifted her gaze to another family photo. “Your wife and children?” she asked in a subdued voice. “They’re lovely.”
    Hampton turned to face the credenza. He picked up the photo of the two children on horseback. “Lily and James,” he said fondly, “eight and ten.”
    “You must miss them terribly.”
    He sighed. “I do. But they’re away at school now. I usually manage to get leave when they’re on holiday.”
    Dominique thought they seemed young to be at boarding school, but the English