by Jane Feather
“Certainly,” Max said.
The dining-car attendant bowed and withdrew, drawing the compartment door closed behind him, and Constance turned back to the carriage.
“A train journey wouldn't be the same without brown Windsor soup in one's lap,” Prudence observed, unfolding a copy of the Times and adjusting her spectacles.
“Oh, I love eating on the train,” Chastity declared. “Particularly tea. Those delicious scones and clotted cream, and those lovely little chocolate sponge cakes. Although,” she added, “breakfast runs it a close second. Kippers and brown bread and butter.”
“Pork sausages,” Constance said. “Sausages and tomatoes.”
“I get the impression you ladies are hungry,” Max observed with amusement.
“Well, we were up very early and it's been a long time since breakfast,” Prudence said. None of them mentioned that since Lord Duncan had not graced the breakfast table the usual delicacies had not appeared. The sisters made do with toast and marmalade.
“Do you do crosswords, Mr. . . . uh . . . Max?” Prudence took a sharpened pencil from her handbag.
“Not habitually, but I'm willing to help.” He rested his head against the starched white antimacassar and prepared to relax.
Constance was sitting opposite him and he was enjoying the view. She had unfastened the top buttons of her blue linen jacket, which nipped her waist in the most satisfactory fashion. He could see the pulse at the base of her throat, the slender rise of her neck, the slight glisten of moisture on her skin in the stuffy warmth of the compartment. Her legs were crossed at the ankles, very slender ankles, he noticed, and very long and slender feet encased in navy blue kid shoes. He wondered lazily about the rest of her leg, the calves and knees and thighs running up beneath the thin material of her skirt. Her legs were long, that fact required little detective work. And they would be as slender as the rest of her. Her wrists were slim, her fingers long, but her hands nevertheless had a strength to them. They were competent hands. Miss Duncan was a competent woman. Combative, however. But he'd always liked a challenge and this one promised to be more than ordinarily enticing.
She was leaning now to look at the newspaper her sister held, a frown on her brow as she puzzled over a clue. He could see the faint blue veins in her temple. Suddenly she raised her eyes and looked at him. Her eyes were dark green, the green of moss beneath the trunk of an ancient oak. They held a question, a hint of speculation, and he knew she had been aware of his observation. He had a feeling she was sizing him up in her turn.
Max smiled and she dropped her eyes to the crossword again, but not before he'd seen the tiny twitch of her mouth. The weekend, he reflected, could take some interesting turns.
Chapter 8
Where are you going to put him?” Prudence asked in a low voice as they stood on the platform of Romsey station. Max was out of earshot, supervising the unloading of their bags.
“The South Turret,” Constance replied in the same conspiratorial undertone.
Chastity chuckled, adjusting the wide brim on her beribboned straw boater. The South Turret had one rather special attribute. “Just what do you have in mind, Con?”
A speculative glint sparked in her sister's eyes. “I'm thinking I'd like to show Mr. Ensor what can happen when a woman takes the initiative. I don't actually think he believes that women can take the initiative. I'm certain he believes they shouldn't,” she added. “It might open his eyes a little to the idea of women playing on an even field. What do you think?”
“Not to pour cold water or anything, Con, but you might be a little overconfident,” Prudence observed with a frown. “I don't think the Right Honorable Gentleman is that easy a target. He certainly gave you your own on the train.” She took off her glasses and blinked myopically at her sister in the bright sunshine.
Constance grimaced. Practical Prudence, as usual, had put her finger on the flaw in her plan. “I hate to admit it but he had a point,” she said ruefully. “But that just makes it more of a challenge.” She thought about Max's speculative and almost hungry scrutiny in the railway carriage. If she could exploit that, it would be a weapon in her arsenal more than powerful enough to meet the challenge.
“So you're going to try to seduce him?” Chastity asked, with a hint of alarm. Her hazel eyes beneath the brim of her hat were filled with doubt.
“Not entirely,” Constance denied. “Just play with him a little, make him feel a little less sure of himself. He'll be more fertile soil for planting if he loses some of that utterly masculine conviction of superiority.”
“I hope you know what you're doing,” Chastity said.
“I'm not sure that I do,” her sister confessed. “But the idea's appealing. I'll just see where it leads.”
A man in the leather waistcoat, apron, and britches of a groom emerged from the tiny station house. “Bags are all loaded, Miss Con. The gentleman's waiting with the trap.”
“Thank you, George.” The sisters followed him through the station, calling a greeting to the stationmaster, who touched his forelock in salute. The Duncan family had owned Romsey village and most of the outlying countryside since feudal times. In these more enlightened days the tenant farmers and villagers worked independently of the Manor House, but social tradition died hard.
Outside, on a sunny square of daisy-studded grass, a dun-colored pony in the harness of a trap nibbled the grass. Max stood at its head, idly scratching between the animal's pointed ears. Marcel was adjusting the straps that held the bags securely on a shelf at the rear of the trap.
“Is it far to walk to the house?” Max asked as the sisters came over.
“About a mile. Why? Who wants to walk?” Prudence asked.
Max gestured to the trap. “I doubt there's room for us all in the trap. I'm happy to walk; I could do with stretching my legs after the train.”
“Oh, two of us can stay here and George will come back,” Chastity said. “It'll only take half an hour.”
“Actually, I wouldn't mind the walk myself,” Constance said casually.
“Then that's settled.” Max waved a hand towards the lane in invitation. “‘Lead on, Macduff.' ”
“It's actually ‘Lay on, Macduff,' ” Constance corrected him. “People always get it wrong.” She declaimed with a theatrical air, “‘Lay on, Macduff; and damned be him that first cries.' ” She paused and her sisters joined in with a rousing chorus, “‘Hold, enough!' ”
“I can see I'll have to be a little more careful with my quotations,” Max observed wryly.
“Oh, yes, around us you will,” Prudence agreed, climbing into the trap. “We are the daughters of Emily Duncan, whose knowledge of Shakespeare was quite awe-inspiring. She could pluck a quote out of midair to suit any occasion.”
“How intimidating,” Max murmured.
“It was, rather,” Chastity agreed, settling on the bench beside her sister. “And it wasn't only Shakespeare Mother had at her fingertips. She could quote freely from all of the major poets and most of the minor. We'll see you back at the house.” She waved gaily as George cracked his whip in a halfhearted fashion and the pony with an equal lack of enthusiasm raised its head from the grass and sauntered off down the lane.
“Your mother was a scholar, it seems,” Max observed as he and Constance followed the trap.
“She was very erudite,” Constance agreed. “Let's go over the stile; we don't want to swallow their dust, and anyway, it's prettier across the fields.” She gathered up her skirt and waded through knee-high yarrow and ragged robin to a crooked and very rickety stile half buried in the overgrown hedge.
Max surveyed the stile doubtfully. “That doesn't look very safe.”
“Oh, it's perfectly safe. I just have to be careful not to tear my skirt on a loose nail.” She examined the obstacle in her turn. “Actually, I'll have to hitch my skirt up fairly high.”
“I'll close my eyes,” he offered.
“That's very gallant but quite unnecessary,�
�� she said. “I won't show you my knickers.” With which she raised her skirts above her knees and hopped with agility if without elegance over the stile, giving Max all the empirical evidence he needed to confirm his guess about the length and shapeliness of her legs.
“There.” She shook down her skirt and gave him a grin that was pure seductive mischief and completely took his breath away. “Now you. Watch out for the nail on the top bar. It's right where you have to swing your leg over.” She pointed helpfully to the sharp piece of rusty nail. “It could catch you in the most awkward spot.”
Max pulled on his right earlobe. It was an automatic gesture going back to his childhood whenever he was at a loss for words or confused by a situation. At present he was suffering from both conditions. Either this woman was teasing him shamelessly or she was issuing an equally shameless invitation. There were two questions: Which was it? And what in either case should he do about it?
Constance stood with her head to one side, watching him. “If you're afraid you'll tear your clothes I'll come back over and we'll go on the lane.”
He made no answer, merely stepped onto the crosspiece, swung his leg over the top bar, and jumped down into the clover-strewn field beside her. She nodded her approval and turned to head across the field.
Max decided that whatever the answer to the first question, he knew what he was going to do about it. “Just a minute,” he said. He caught her arm and swung her back towards him, turning her into his body. Her look of surprise was very gratifying. “I think I can take a hint,” he said, clasping her face between both hands.
It was a hard kiss, nothing exploratory about it, and Constance, after a startled instant, let it happen. Her head fell back and she opened her mouth beneath the insistent pressure of his lips and tongue. He moved a hand behind her head and held her firmly for the utter possession of his mouth and tongue. He drove deep within the moist softness of her mouth, his tongue probing every corner of her cheeks, the roof of her mouth, the even lines of her teeth; their tongues joined in a dancing duel until Constance was breathless, her head held so firmly she couldn't move it aside if she wanted to.
She could feel his body hardening against her, the insistent nudge of his penis into her lower belly, and her loins tightened, then seemed to swell and open in response. She caught herself thinking that this was not the way she had intended to play this, but nevertheless she was clasping his buttocks, pressing her fingers deeply into the rock-hard muscles, squeezing and kneading, holding him tightly against her so that he could feel the knobbly bones of her hips beneath the fine linen of her skirt.
And then he let his hand fall from her head and lifted his mouth from hers. He stepped back from her, drawing a ragged breath. She saw the rigid bulge in his trousers and could guess at his discomfort. Her own disjointed sense of interruption, of abrupt deprivation, so disoriented her for a moment that she could only stand there, taking quick shallow breaths through her mouth.
Finally she closed her mouth, put her hands to her face, feeling its heat. She touched her lips; they felt twice their normal size. “Yes,” she said. “You could say that.”
“Say what?”
“That you can take a hint.” Her eyes involuntarily darted down his body again. He was still hard.
He followed her eyes and gave a rueful sigh. “An inevitable consequence.”
“Yes, I realize. If it's any consolation, I'm not exactly comfortable myself.”
“One should not begin something one's not prepared to finish,” Max said dryly. “But you were extremely provoking.”
And she had been right that he needed to have the upper hand, Constance reflected. It was a pity she'd been so sure of herself she hadn't anticipated such a response to provocation. She began to wonder if Prue was right and perhaps she had bitten off more than she could chew. Seduction was a dangerous game if it got out of hand, and she'd certainly lost the initiative in this round.
Max seemed unaware of her cogitation. He was much more interested in the field around them. “We appear to have entertained the cows at least.”
Constance saw that they were surrounded by a circle of interested bovines, placidly chewing the cud and gazing at them with soulful brown eyes. She advanced a few steps, stamped her foot, and clapped her hands. They ignored her.
“I actually don't like cows,” Max confided, regarding their audience dubiously. “I'm not a country boy, I'm afraid.”
“They won't hurt us. We'll just walk through them.” Constance stepped forward with a purposeful air, still clapping her hands. To Max's relief the cows turned aside as if the curtain had come down on a theatrical performance.
They continued their walk in a reflective silence. Uneasily, Constance tried to sort out what had just happened. It was clearly the opening volley in a game, one she had started, but now she wasn't so sure that she wanted to continue it. It was one thing to control the moves, quite another to have them controlled. Maybe seduction was not the way to go about converting Max to her cause. He had proved himself a dominating man—not domineering necessarily, but definitely dominating. She had thought she could handle him, manipulate him to her own ends, but she had not reckoned with her own responses. That kiss had shaken her out of her complacency. It had happened so quickly, taken her off guard, but whatever excuses she made she could not deny that it had rocked her to her core. She had kissed many men with varying degrees of enthusiasm. Only Douglas had aroused her deepest responses. The last few minutes had opened something inside she had almost forgotten. A very dangerous hunger. But was it a danger to be avoided or to be embraced?
Max walked just ahead of her, swishing at the overgrown hedgerows with a stick he'd snapped from the hedge. The repetitive motion quietened the turmoil in his head. He was startled at the ease with which Constance had returned his kiss. Did she habitually yield to casual sexual encounters? In general he avoided them himself but he was deeply disconcerted by the power of his own suddenly revealed lust for the woman walking nonchalantly behind him across the field. He hadn't expected it at all. He had known, or thought he had, exactly where he was going with this lightly flirtatious pursuit. He merely wanted to get some insight from this exasperating woman into the workings of the WSPU.
And then she'd provoked a response and he'd intended to teach her a little lesson by giving her more than she'd bargained for. Instead of which, the shoe had been on the other foot. So much for the best-laid plans of mice and men.
Romsey Manor was at its core a lime-washed, half-timbered Tudor house that had been added to by successive generations of Duncans, so that it now had a mix-and-match style of architecture that gave it a charmingly untidy and informal air. They walked up from the river that ran at the bottom of a sweep of lawn leading to a long terrace at the side of the house.
Prudence and Chastity were standing on the terrace, leaning over the low parapet as Max and Constance came up. “We guessed you'd come across the fields,” Chastity said.
“It's quicker,” Constance responded, hoping that all signs of that lust-filled embrace had diminished. “I'll show Max to his room.”
“Jenkins is organizing tea, and George has gone back to the station to meet the next train. William's gone with him in the gig, so they should be able to bring most people back in one trip.”
“Is Father here yet?”
“Not yet.”
“Let's hope they haven't overturned in a ditch,” Prudence said. “I don't trust Lord Barclay any farther than I can throw him. He's probably pickled in brandy by this time in the afternoon and won't be able to see straight.”
Constance grimaced. “In that case Father will be driving, and that's not going to advance our cause. You know what he's like once he gets the bit between his teeth.” She shrugged. “Come, Max, I'll show you upstairs. I expect your valet will be waiting for you.”
Max had the sense that the Duncan sisters found their father, as affable as he seemed to be, something of a trial. He followed Constance into the cool hou
se. The smell of last winter's wood smoke from the fireplace, potpourri, and beeswax mingled pleasantly in the air. A bevy of young girls, brought in from the village to help for the weekend, he guessed, were setting out tea in the long, beamed-ceiling drawing room under the watchful eye of Jenkins, who had presumably come down from London on an earlier train.
“Is Mr. Ensor's valet in his room, Jenkins?”
“Yes, Miss Con. Miss Prue said the South Turret, so I sent him there with the bags.”
Constance nodded and led Max across a dark hall, with the same Tudor beams and a massive fireplace and inglenook at one end, and up a curved Elizabethan staircase. “The South Turret is in the Queen Anne part of the house,” she said, turning aside down a long corridor. At the end there was a narrow flight of stairs spiraling upwards and around a corner.
He followed her up. At the very top was a thick oak door. Constance opened it and entered the round chamber lit by four round mullioned windows. Marcel was hanging evening clothes in a Jacobean armoire.
“It has its own bathroom.” Constance gestured to a door in the far wall. “Small but adequate. The water's heated with a gas geyser and it takes ages to run a bath.”
“I'm duly warned.” He looked around the room. It was immediately obvious that it was totally private. Anything could go on up here and no one in the rest of the house would be any the wiser. He glanced speculatively at Constance. She smiled blandly.
What was she up to now? Before the encounter in the field among the cows he would have assumed it meant nothing. Someone had to have this bedroom. And it was a very pleasant room. But now he wasn't so sure. He returned the bland smile without comment.
“It's one of my favorite rooms in the house,” Constance said. “I usually give it to first-time guests.” She turned back to the door. “Well, I'll leave you to refresh yourself and see you downstairs for tea.”
The door closed behind her. Max, whistling softly to himself, went to one of the open windows and looked out over the surrounding Hampshire countryside. From his aerie the gorse and bracken-covered heaths and hillocks of the New Forest stretched in a golden sea to a line of wind-battered pine trees on the horizon. Beyond them would lie the sea itself. He could smell the salt in the air. It was as powerful as the rich scents of lust.