Chapter 4

As soon as she left the café, the breeze caught again at her hair and skirt, one particularly nasty gust lifting the red garment almost waist high for a second, revealing her legs in all their majesty. It was possible, at that moment, for the discerning observer to spot that she wearing a thong. A workman, toiling away at some roadwork or other, whistled appreciatively. Veronica blushed.

She looked down the hill and at her watch. Not much time if she were not to miss the bus! She put her best foot forward and this was no easy matter. Normally shod, she would have made the short distance to the George in minutes, but with one foot bare and the other clad in the high heeled monstrosity that she was forbidden to remove, it was a nightmare.

As she struggled, cold no longer, but perspiring freely, she saw to her horror that a bus was toiling up Pond Street and she still had a little way to go. Running was an imperative if she were not to miss out on the dream of a lifetime! Those who had the privilege to witness her hurried progress were to remember to their dying day the sight of a pretty young woman, her golden hair streaming behind her and her fine young legs revealed for all to see. They would relive in their minds' eye the lurching and gyrating gait of this unlikely vision as she ran towards the bus as well as the look of relief on her face as she made it with only a split second to spare.

She paid her £1 fare to the driver. This gentleman was a middle-aged West Indian, whose impassive features betrayed no sign of any inner surprise the sight of this lady might have occasioned. She walked or limped to the back seat as the letter had instructed and sat in the middle of it. The next bit was very hard for her to do and it was only with a massive effort of will power that she obeyed the instruction.

She had been told to sit with her legs crossed and so she crossed her legs as detailed by her mischievous benefactor! The unshod leg was to be crossed over the other and this she accordingly did. Of course, her skirt slid sideways to reveal her thighs in their entirety.

I should mention at this point that Veronica was tall for a woman, some five feet eleven inches in fact. It might be of further interest to the reader to know that her legs formed a proportionately above average part of her height. In other words, she had lovely legs and plenty of them! Although the sun had not touched these milky white thighs at all this year so far, the lack of a tan was more than made up for by the delicate tracery of blue veins which adorned that satin smooth and warm surface.

I should further add that Miss Harmsworth was an active and fit young lady who ran, swam and worked out as frequently as her work permitted. The fruits of all this exercise were plain for all to see, as, with her calf muscle pressed against her knee, the fine long shin bone on her raised leg was accentuated in the most appetising fashion. Add to this the sight of her bare foot - a foot unblemished by callouses or deformity thanks to a childhood and early youth spent going for ever barefoot in rural South Africa - with its red painted toenails as it bobbed about in keeping with the bus's movement along the pothole covered streets, and it will become clear to the reader that the other passengers had a visual treat of the utmost richness as they glanced up the aisle at the seated lovely and her deliciously displayed wares.

It was only by incessantly and silently repeating, mantra like, the words "One million Pounds, One million Pounds" that the embarrassed Veronica was able to keep her composure and steel herself to continue with her ordeal.

She had only just begun to master her emotions and forget her embarrassment when at Chalk Farm a large Afro Caribbean youth boarded the bus. This young man wore jeans and trainers which would have cost a Third World peasant two years wages and a spotlessly clean white vest., despite the coldness of the day.