Unforgettable Read Free Page A

voice, and that at least she might have one decent dance this evening, with someone who didn’t hold her as if she was another sack of coal. She opened her eyes quickly, a ready smile on her lips, and then gaped.
    The saxophone player, looking just as handsome close to as he had on his exalted position on the stage, was smiling down at her.
    â€˜Oh—I—yes, thank you!’ She was momentarily as tongue-tied as Billy had ever been. And then he held out his hand to take hers, and she forgot Billy existed as she walked down to the dance floor with the saxophone player, aware of people watching and whispering, recognizing him from the band, and obviously envying the girl he’d chosen to be his partner.
    â€˜I’ve been wanting to dance with you from the moment I saw you come in,’ he said, as he took her in his arms.
    â€˜Have you?’ Gracie asked faintly, knowing this was absolutely the wrong way to react. She should be as cool as a cucumber, like the debs who were pictured in the newspapers, all with their noses in the air and wearing theirlovely gowns, and reeking with their daddy’s money.
    â€˜Don’t say you didn’t notice me looking at you,’ the saxophone player said with an easy smile. ‘I couldn’t take my eyes off you until I had to. That’s the penalty of playing in a band. It’s only in the interval when they play gramophone records that I get the chance to dance with a beautiful girl.’
    Without warning, Gracie felt madly, ridiculously jealous of all the beautiful girls he’d danced with before.
    â€˜I bet you say that to all your dancing partners,’ she said.
    â€˜Not all of it,’ he said, whisking her expertly around the room. ‘And I’m being guilty of appalling bad manners, because I haven’t introduced myself. My name’s Charles Morrison, but everyone calls me Charlie.’
    â€˜And I’m plain Gracie Brown.’
    Charlie laughed softly, his arm tightening around her waist to steer her out of the way of the other dancers.
    â€˜Oh, there’s nothing in the least plain about you, Gracie Brown.’
    She looked up into his eyes, as blue as her own, and she felt a tingling deep inside her such as she had never experienced before. So this was how it felt when you met the knight on the white charger who was going to sweepyou off your feet, Gracie thought weakly. Only in her case, it was the saxophone player at the local Palais who was whirling her around the dance-floor and making her dizzy.

2
    â€˜Blimey, you didn’t waste much time,’ Dolly said. ‘You were looking at that bloke as if you could eat him.’
    â€˜At least I wasn’t fastened so tightly to him that you couldn’t put a penny between us,’ Gracie said crossly.
    â€˜So what? Jim’s a real man, not a poncy dance-band player.’
    â€˜There’s nothing poncy about Charles. Charlie, I mean.’
    â€˜Oh my gawd.
Charles
, is it? Going up in the world, ain’t you? I bet you didn’t tell him you worked for Lawson’s Shirt Factory.’
    â€˜We were only dancing, not telling each other our life histories.’
    But she felt a touch of dismay as she said the words. Charlie—Charles Morrison—was obviously out of her class. He was clever for a start, nimble with his fingers in an artistic and different way from the way she kept her machine going at the sweat shop. She might look the part tonight, and he might think she was a society girl and not a humble shirt-maker. But the thought of her being mistaken for a society girl made her laugh.
    â€˜What’s got into you now?’ Dolly said, pressing more of her favourite Tangee lipstick on to her scarlet lips.
    â€˜I was just wondering what Charlie would think if he knew how my old man sweated for a living down Southampton docks, that’s all.’
    â€˜What difference does that make to a pound of