Wicked Beauty

by Susan Lewis

  Rachel looked as if she was about to argue, then turned abruptly away. After a moment she took a breath to speak, wanting to insist that it had to be her; that she was Tim’s wife so it was her place to do it, but there was too much emotion blocking her throat.

  Nigel put his hands on her shoulders, and tried to look into her face. ‘I can’t do it either,’ he confessed. ‘Marsha’s having a problem with it. She thinks I’m using it to be close to you, and she could have a point. And if she does, then that’s not right either. It’s not what you want, and it’s not what she deserves. So I’ve got to back out. I’m really sorry. You know how much I want to be there for you, and you know I’ll do anything I can, I just can’t go full on the way I wanted to.’

  Rachel’s face was still averted. Her heart felt like a stone splitting in two; her world like a place that no one wanted to be, even the baby, for she’d lost some blood earlier this morning, and again just now, so maybe she was going to lose Tim’s child too. If that happened then maybe nothing would matter any more anyway. ‘It’s OK,’ she said, brokenly. ‘I understand.’

  ‘This isn’t me saying you should give up on it,’ he told her. ‘I just think you should let someone else take over. Someone who’s every bit as good as you, but detached in a way you can never be.’

  ‘Hear, hear,’ Anna said softly.

  ‘You know who I’m talking about?’ Nigel prompted.

  Barely listening, Rachel shook her head.

  ‘Rose Newman,’ he said. ‘You know her even better than I do, and her programmes always go right to the heart. I think you’d agree, she’s one of the best in the business.’

  Rachel felt dull and weak inside, but there was no denying the vague flicker of something, too remote to really distinguish, that was starting to respond to his words. It was like being exhausted and finally told that soon you could sleep. Or finding that God might not be quite ready to give up on you after all.

  ‘I haven’t talked to her yet,’ he said, ‘but I will, if you want me to.’

  Drawing back from his embrace she went to stand at the window that looked over the small back garden. She watched the rain drizzling down on to the flowers, and in some kind of parallel universe she could see the happily married couple who’d struggled to carry the mermaid fountain into place. She remembered how they’d laughed that day, and how thrilled they’d been when they’d actually got it to work. They’d celebrated with champagne, and by making love on the grass. How long had they been married then? Two years? Sometimes she’d wondered just how long the honeymoon could last, for theirs had seemed to just go on and on – right up to the day he died … And now she missed him with an ache that was impossible to contain. As each day passed it got worse. She didn’t want her life to go on without him; she wished she was dead too, or she had until this morning. Now she knew that she wanted this baby more than anything else in her life. It was her only link to Tim now, and one so precious that she must do everything in her power to protect it. Just please God it wasn’t already too late.

  ‘Shall I talk to Rose?’ Nigel said gently. ‘I could at least find out if she’s free.’

  Rachel’s eyes drifted up to the pale, cloudy sky, as though she might find some kind of sign that would tell her whether she should follow it through herself, or hand it over to somebody else. But there was only the colourless expanse of cloud, no thunderbolts or lightning, not even a small chink of blue. However, in her heart she knew Nigel was right; all these unanswered questions should be shouldered by someone who could be more objective, someone who had both the emotional and physical strength, because for her it was like standing in front of a mountain and finding she had no legs, or heart, to climb. ‘OK,’ she said finally. ‘Yes, please talk to Rose, but if she can’t do it …’ She broke off as one of the mobile phones on the coffee table started to ring.

  ‘It’s yours,’ Anna said, picking it up and handing it to Rachel.

  Rachel simply stared at it.

  ‘What is it?’ Nigel said, seeing how white she had become.

  ‘There are only two people who have the number to that phone,’ she said. She looked at Anna. ‘You and Tim.’

  Suddenly everyone’s eyes were on the phone. Nigel snatched it from Anna and clicked it on. ‘Hello?’ he said.

  No one responded.

  ‘Hello! Is anyone there?’

  There was still no answer, yet he was certain someone was at the other end.

  ‘Hello,’ he said again. ‘Katherine? Is that you?’

  Rachel’s hand went to her mouth. Anna moved to her side.

  Nigel was shaking his head. ‘They’ve gone,’ he said, cutting the line.

  ‘But you said Katherine,’ Anna cried.

  ‘It was just a guess,’ he responded. ‘I don’t know who it was, but I don’t think any of us seriously thinks it was Tim.’ He looked at Rachel. ‘Is there a chance Katherine might have the number?’ he said.

  ‘I don’t know,’ she answered, the shock still visible in her trembling limbs and ashen face. ‘Did a number show up to say where the call came from?’

  Looking at the display, he shook his head.

  ‘What made you think it was her?’ Rachel said.

  ‘I don’t know,’ he confessed. ‘She was just the first to come into my mind.’

  Rachel’s heart felt as if it was turning inside out, as the constantly shifting sands of her emotions suddenly changed her despair to fury and her grief to hate. ‘I’m going to find her, Nigel,’ she declared. ‘With or without you, or Rose, or anyone else, I’m going to find that woman. And when I do …’ She grabbed up the phone and spoke to it as though it were Katherine herself, ‘I’m going to kill you,’ she raged. ‘Do you hear me, you bitch? I’m going to find you and I’m going to kill you.’

  ‘He’s coming,’ Stacey cried, running into the house. ‘Elwyn! Felicity! He’s on his way. He’ll be here in less than ten minutes. Oh, Elwyn, there you are,’ she laughed, bumping into the young caretaker as he came out of the kitchen. ‘Saddle Athena, will you? I’m going to ride out to meet him.’

  With a jaunty salute, and an even wider grin than normal, Elwyn took off for the stables, while Stacey, hair flowing in her wake, skirted the kitchen’s large central island and disappeared out into the hall.

  From where she’d been abandoned, on a sun-dappled garden terrace, with its spectacular views of open countryside and the shimmering sea waves beyond, the diminutive, yet curvaceous, Gloria Sullivan stared after her, virtually quivering with intrigue and delight. What an added bonus to the weekend this was going to be, meeting the elusive Mr Stacey Greene, who, it seemed, was about to make an unexpectedly early return from wherever he’d been.

  ‘I take it you’ve met him before,’ she said to Petey, who appeared unmoved by Stacey’s euphoric departure, as he lay half dozing in a hammock strung between a towering beech and a pillar of the gazebo.

  Not bothering to answer such a ridiculous question, he merely yawned without troubling to cover his mouth, and pulled the cord to set himself rocking again.

  ‘Is he as gorgeous as I’ve heard?’ she pressed eagerly.

  ‘Oh dear,’ Petey groaned, irritated by her persistence and grating lack of finesse. ‘Yes, I suppose so,’ he answered, yawning again. ‘If you like that sort of thing.’

  Fingering the script they’d been studying before the phone call had erased everything else from Stacey’s mind, Gloria glanced back in through the french windows, not sure what she was expecting to see, and indeed seeing nothing more than an elegantly furnished sitting room with walls covered by an eclectic collection of art. ‘So maybe,’ she said, a hopeful gleam starting in her eye, ‘now he’s home it won’t only be you having all the fun tonight.’

  Petey’s eyebrows formed two incredulous arches, for her unsubtle reference to his little dalliance last night with the German sailor he’d met in Tesco’s, who’d come for dinner and stayed for breakfast, was almost as startling as her delusional assumption th
at things were going to hot up for her now that Stacey’s husband had returned.

  Turning pitying eyes on her, he assessed her pert, though rather brassy appearance, then assumed a mildly withering tone as he said, ‘Gloria, sweetie, you really shouldn’t believe everything you hear about what goes on in this house.’

  Flushing at his patronizing, and – considering her position in the cast – disrespectful manner, she was still trying to think of a suitable put-down when he said,

  ‘Stacey gives a lot of different impressions about herself, and her life, some of which are true, and some are false. It’s for you to distinguish between the illusion and reality, but this much I will tell you, just so’s you don’t get it wrong again: no matter what she leads you to believe about bacchanalian orgies and decadence par excellence chez elle, she shares her husband with no one. And by that I mean no one. So, if you came here believing all those deliciously lurid tales of weekend parties where inhibitions get checked at the door, and games like hide-and-seek and hunt the thimble have rather more adult variations on the theme, then I’m afraid, little sweetie, that you’re on the wrong flight.’

  Colouring to the roots of her hair, Gloria turned away and snatched up the script in a ludicrous attempt at a snub. Inside she was shrinking with humiliation, for his disdain had made her feel gauche and disgustingly obtuse. What was worse, she just knew that he’d use her blunder to turn her into a laughing stock with the rest of the cast. It was excruciating, unthinkable, the way she’d so foolishly exposed her own sexual, as well as social, aspirations, and despising him for being a party to it she began desperately trying to think of a way to repair it without inflicting any further damage.

  Upstairs, in the master suite, Stacey had already removed the long chiffon dress she’d been wearing, leaving it, and her espadrilles, in a trail up the wide, curving staircase for Felicity to gather. The sun was streaming in through the open french windows of the large yet cosy bedroom, where the exquisite hand-embroidered silk bedspread and drapes made a sumptuous Oriental contrast to the antique black iron bedstead and rough stone walls. As she padded across the carpet to the dressing room, her beguiling lavender-blue eyes were warming with pleasure, for her state of nudity, combined with the image of her husband’s expression when he saw her, was, for a woman with her acute sensitivity, almost as potent as the reality.

  Pulling open one of the closet doors she stood a moment to gaze at her reflection in the full-length mirror. Her long, glorious waves of hair were cascading around her shoulders like a shimmering fountain of gold; her flawless, alabaster skin seemed to glow with the heat of arousal. Touching her fingertips to her lips and tongue, she dampened them, then rolled the hard, crimson buds of her nipples, inflaming them with sensations that flashed through her like fire. Already she could feel his fingers taking the place of her own, the erotic moistness of his breath as his mouth hovered over the peaks before he sucked and bit them until she could take no more. Her eyes dropped to the smooth, flat contours of her tummy, the female flare of her hips, and the fiery triangle of hair that was neatly trimmed to show a clitoris already rampant for love.

  At the door Felicity, the young housekeeper, stood admiring the beauty of the woman she adored, a small, secretive smile curving her cupid’s bow mouth. Catching the girl’s eye in the mirror, Stacey watched her with a catlike intrigue, then laughed as Felicity produced a riding hat, crop and boots from behind her back.

  Neither of them spoke as Stacey pulled on first one boot, then the other, though their eyes kept meeting in a laughing, conspiratorial way. Then Stacey stooped so that Felicity could put the black, peaked hat on her head, and draw the strap tight under her chin.

  ‘Athena’s ready,’ Felicity told her, in her soft, countrified tones, and passing over the crop, she watched the most magnificent filly of all stalk proudly from the room.

  Elwyn was leading the mare across the cobbled courtyard as Stacey came out of the house. From the terrace above Gloria watched, stupefied, for the young man showed no surprise at Stacey’s nudity, nor did she show any embarrassment. He merely brought the horse round, steadied her, then cupped his hands to help his mistress into the saddle. Gloria didn’t hear what Stacey said, but she saw the youth laugh before he stood aside to watch the spectacular vision of a thoroughbred mare carrying a splendidly naked woman out to the wide open fields of the estate.

  As she left the house behind Stacey’s pulse began racing with the same power as Athena’s galloping hooves. The breeze on her body was like a stream of intimate caresses, touching her beneath the arms, between her thighs, over her bare breasts and the entire length of her legs. The growing lust in her loins was an ache of almost unbearable intensity, continually pummelled and piqued by the fall and rise of her hips. How easy it was to imagine riding him this way, up and down on his cock, feeling it pumping in and out of her, while he grabbed her hips and watched her breasts bouncing and swaying in the mayhem. Flicking the mare’s rump with the crop, she raised her buttocks higher as they sped on across the pastures, soaring over low wooden gates and babbling streams, heading for the peak of the rise, where she’d be able to see his car approaching.

  When she reached the point she reined the horse in, circled round once or twice, then panting and painfully aroused, she leaned forward to stroke the mare’s mane. As she waited she absorbed nothing of the landscape around her, that dipped and rose in a vast carpet of wilderness, where swathes of ragged green grass and brittle scrubland formed the billowing pastures that drifted randomly out to the horizon. There were almost no trees in this part of Cornwall, and the flowers, wild and colourful, clustered in shy yet defiant clumps around crumbling stone walls and petrified tree stumps. Behind her, out of sight and far from her mind, was the village she deliberately avoided, while all around this hauntingly bleak but beautiful peninsula the sea crashed and foamed over giant boulders and rocks, heaving its legendary might into the caves and gullies that turned the towering cliffs into sentries of mystery and danger. But she had no eyes or thoughts for anything beyond the narrow strip of road that snaked through the rugged terrain to the open gates at the other end of the meadow that marked the entrance to their land.

  Her wait wasn’t long, for very soon the glint of sunlight on a windscreen flashed like a silent firework in the distance, signalling his imminent arrival. Impatient as she was to see him, she remained where she was, watching the car come closer, and knowing that at any minute he would see her, an exotic outline on the horizon; an erotic force in his mind. Her heart was thumping with excitement as the car kept on coming, until finally it entered the gates and slowed to a stop. A second or two passed, then the driver’s door opened and he got out. A sharp pang of lust tore through her, for she knew he’d seen her, yet still she didn’t move, merely watched him closing the door then leaning against it, arms folded, legs crossed waiting for her to come.

  Urging Athena forward, she started down over the gently sloping pasture, thrilling to the warm, salty air on her skin and pulsing sensations in her crotch. His eyes never left her, making her feel wanton and reckless and almost feverish with lust. By the time she reached him the yearning between her legs was so extreme that she almost feared the first moment of his touch. Then she was responding to the sternness of his expression that did nothing to disguise how greatly he approved of his welcome.

  He nodded briefly towards the ground, then watched as obediently she dismounted and came to stand before him. For a long time they only looked into each other’s eyes, reading, understanding and sharing the profound desire that was slaking their bodies.

  ‘You must be the lady of the house,’ he said finally, his eyes sweeping almost insolently over her breasts.

  ‘And who might you be?’ she replied haughtily.

  He lifted a hand and grazed his palm over her right nipple. ‘Whoever you want me to be,’ he responded.

  Catching her breath with the pleasure of his touch, she looked down at his hand and said, ‘I don’t recall
giving you permission to touch me.’

  ‘I assure you, it’s not the only liberty I intend to take,’ he responded, keeping his hand where it was.

  She looked up at him, amethyst eyes smouldering with desire, her lips quivering as she said, ‘Even strangers must undress before coming on to my land.’

  His eyes darkened, and she almost cried out as he pinched her nipple hard. Reaching for her crop, he used it to flick the hair back over her shoulders. She gazed defiantly into his face, keeping up the pretence as he drew a trail with the crop over her arms, her breasts and her tummy. Then the crop descended to the join of her legs, where he held it very still, touching her very lightly, yet with enough pressure for her to feel the probing hardness of its tip. She looked down at the long, slender stem, and watched as it began to disappear slowly and exquisitely into her most intimate place. Then raising her heavy-lidded eyes to his she held his gaze again, telling him wordlessly, yet earnestly, that she was willing to do anything he wanted.

  Moving away from the car, he walked round to the boot, threw in the crop and took out a rolled-up blanket. Ignoring her, he began to wade through the long, cow parsley grass to a shady corner of the field, where he spread out the blanket then removed all his clothes.

  By the time he was naked she was beside him, still in her hat and boots, and looking down at the powerful erection that bulged from between his thighs. He waited for her eyes to come to his, then, putting a hand on the top of her head, he pushed down gently, until she was on her knees and leaning forward to take him deep into her mouth.

  As she pleasured him he stood with his hands on his hips, regarding the scenery he adored, taking in the verdant spring coating of ferns and gypsy flowers, the ragwort and prickly teasel, behaving as though it were the most natural thing in the world for him to receive this kind of attention as he surveyed his land. Then looking down as she freed him he stared into her magnificent eyes, watching as she licked the moist redness of her lips, while the breeze on his cock seemed to turn it harder than ever. Bringing her back to her feet he removed her hat, then wrapping his arms around her he crushed her beautiful mouth with his own.