A Different World (30 page)
Authors: Mary Nichols
After the wedding breakfast, the guests went home, leaving Jan and Louise to enjoy the rest of the weekend together. They wandered about the town, visited the castle, walked along by the river, stayed in bed late. She couldn’t say that the years apart had shrunk to nothing because they were both older and perhaps wiser, but their feelings for each other had not diminished. They were still young, young enough to enjoy each other, to look forward and not backward.
Jan watched her cross the playground and usher her pupils inside, then he set off for Cambridge and his first day in his new job. The misery of the post-war years in a Poland he could not recognise was behind him and the future beckoned. One day, when Poland was truly free, he would take his wife and daughter on a visit. Until then, he was content.
I would like to acknowledge the generous help given to me by Adam Zamoyski, who vetted my spelling of Polish words and set me right about people and events.
Mr Zamoyski is an award-winning historian and author of several books on European and world history, among them
A History of Poland
and
The Forgotten Few: The Polish Air Force in World War II
. He is also a distinguished commentator and reviewer. I am in his debt. Any errors remaining are, of course, my own.
The following are among the many books I used in researching this novel.
Rising ’44: The Battle for Warsaw
by Norman Davies, Pan Books, 2004
The Forgotten Few: The Polish Air Force in World War II
by Adam Zamoyski, Pen & Sword Aviation Books, 2009
For Your Freedom and Ours: The Ko
ś
ciuszkco Squadron
by Lynne Olson and Stanley Cloud, Arrow Books, 2004
Story of a Secret State: My Report to the World
by Jan Karski, Penguin Classics, 1944
Poland Alone: Britain, SOE and the Collapse of the Polish Resistance 1944
by Jonathan Walker, Spellmount
The Struggle: Biography of a Fighter Pilot
by Franciszek Kornicki, published in Poland by Stratus 2008 and in England by Mushroom Model Publications
The Spy Who Loved: The Secrets and Lives of Christine Granville
by Clare Mulley, Macmillan, 2013
Spies in the Sky: The Secret Battle for Aerial Intelligence during WWI
by Taylor Downing, Little Brown, 2011
RAF Evaders: The Comprehensive Story of Thousands of Escapers and Their Escape Lines; Western Europe, 1940-1945
by Oliver Clutton-Brock, Bounty Books, 2009
A World to Build: Austerity Britain 1945-48
by David Kynaston, Bloomsbury, 2007
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M
ARY
N
ICHOLS
has spent much of her life in East Anglia and often sets her novels in that area. She has written numerous short stories, historical romances and family sagas, as well as a biography of her grandmother. Mary is the bestselling author of
The Summer House, The Fountain, The Girl on the Beach, Escape by Moonlight
and
The Kirilov Star
.
The Summer House
The Fountain
The Kirilov Star
The Girl on the Beach
Escape by Moonlight
A Different World
Allison & Busby Limited
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London W1T 6DW
www.allisonandbusby.com
First published in Great Britain by Allison & Busby in 2014.
This ebook edition first published in 2014.
Copyright © 2014 by Mary NIchols
The moral right of the author is hereby asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All characters and events in this publication other than those clearly in the public domain are fictitious and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent buyer.
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN 978–0–7490–1558–9