Chapter 9
He couldn’t get the image out of his mind. He toyed with the chicken on his plate and ran through the whole thing again. How beautiful they looked. How natural. How loving. The conclusion that he had drawn was, thank God it had been him who found them. If Hawkins had seen them Lord alone knew what he would have done. Probably been outraged and thrown them off without a reference. It made him angry. Angry that good men, loving men, could be treated that way. It made him realise with a jolt that part of his constant larking about was to avoid finding himself in that situation. Falling in love was something that he simply couldn’t afford to do. He wasn’t entirely averse to female company. There had been a few females along the way that he had been genuinely fond of and genuinely at
