“Wait on man. Lizzie!” He held up his arms and caught her waist as she slid down. Her legs wavered, and she clung to him for a moment, giving Ralph a pretty picture and much to ponder on, as Zek Gray held her close. He eyed his boss with interest.
“Are you all right?” Gray demanded quite sharply.
“Yes. Just a little stiff, thank you.” She stood away, smoothing her skirts and trying to ignore the interested eyes. Zek retrieved her bag.
“This way.”
There were other people about, but beyond a wave and a smile, he ignored them, and led Lizzie on towards the big house. There was a verandah surrounding two sides of it, and the windows were shuttered, though lamplight shone out through the slats. Lizzie shivered. How many servants would he have to run it? That would mean giving orders and... At that moment the door was flung open, and she held up a hand to shield her eyes from the sudden glare penetrating the darkness.
‘”Mr. Gray?”
A feminine voice, low and competent. Lizzie saw an opulent figure outlined against the light, and smelled lavender and sweat.
“Jessie,” Gray murmured. His hand tightened on Lizzie’s arm and dragged her unceremoniously forward. The room was cool, and sparsely furnished, but she hardly noticed that. “This is Miss Banister, Jessie, who will be taking over the position of housekeeper. Lizzie, this is Jessie Grant, Ralph’s wife. She is the cook, but has kindly given her spare time to ordering my staff until I finally got around to hiring someone like you.”
There was a stillness, and even though she was so tired and bewildered, Lizzie knew the other woman was upset. So, she was taking the other’s place? He didn’t really need a housekeeper at all!
“How do you do Miss Banister,” Jessie Grant said quietly, the greeting cool and polite.
They shook hands, and Lizzie tried to smile.
“Come into the sitting-room, Miss Banister, and I’ll find you some tea. Mr. Gray, you must be hungry?”
“A bit, Jessie, a bit. Perhaps you could show Lizzie the ropes in the morning? She’s worn out tonight.” His smile was almost tender, confusing Lizzie even further, and Jessie eyed her balefully.
“Of course, sir.”
The sitting-room was small, tidy and cozy— chairs, a sofa, a sideboard and some shelves. A desk in one corner was strewn with papers, and there was a stone fireplace, a small fire making the room seem even cozier. Lizzie had not realized until then how the temperature outside had dropped, and she came close to the flames, warming her hands. Her eyes travelled back to the other woman.
Buxom, as she’d first thought, with a round, dimpled face and smallish blue eyes. Red curls tied back, clashing a little with the pink gown. She was in her thirties, and a hard life had left deeper lines on her face than perhaps would otherwise be there. She smiled at Lizzie, but something in it made her think of steel.
“I’ll see about some food and the tea,’” she said, turning to Gray. “Mary can bring it in. I’d best get home to Ralph.”
“Of course. And thank you, Jessie.”
Her eyes dropped away. Lizzie was suddenly struck with the thought that it was going to be more than taking over a position of importance Jessie would resent about Lizzie. It was Zek Gray himself.
The door closed softly. Lizzie cleared her throat. “She didn’t tell me where my room was.”
‘I’ll show you when we’ve eaten.”
“Really, I’m not hungry. Just tea. I can have that in there, can’t I?” She wanted to get away from him, be by herself, think.
He looked at her, noting her pallor and the dark-circled eyes. “Very well. I’ll show you and Mary can bring your tea later.”
He held open the door for her to pass through, and she went by, flicking him a glance. Narrowed eyes scanned her in a frowning face. Had she displeased him already?
Her bedroom was at the back of the house, giving out on to a corridor. “Through here,” he said, and nodded her in.
She was out again in a moment, cheeks flushed, brown eyes glittering. “You can’t expect...” she stammered. “I... really!”
He was laughing, his shoulders shaking, his white teeth gleaming. “Ah God, Lizzie, you should see your face.”
“Trust you to have a bed like that,” she delivered tartly.
“But of course, I’d need a brass king-sized bed, wouldn’t I? No, I’m sorry to disappoint you, Miss Banister, but the bed was there when I bought the place. The last occupant had it dragged up here to please his new wife. When they left the bed stayed. Perhaps they were already disillusioned with marriage, or perhaps they just couldn’t afford to take it with them.” He shrugged.
Lizzie looked back into the room. The bed really was huge! It took up most of the room, though a few other pieces of furniture had been squeezed into the corners. One window graced the wall, and this was shuttered firmly. Someone had put a lighted lamp on the shelf near the door. The bed was covered in a patchwork counterpane which someone—Jessie?—had turned back invitingly, and the big white pillows were fluffed up. The brasswork gleamed with loving polishing, and Lizzie wondered if that too was Jessie’s work. A thought occurred to her, and she looked at him suddenly, where he stood, watching her with unreadable eyes.
“Where do you sleep, Mr. Gray?”
For a moment he seemed to hesitate, and then he said, “Just down the passageway, Miss Banister. Why? Are you offering to share with me?”
She slammed the door, and stood alone in the bedroom, his soft laughter mocking her through the wooden panels. His footsteps faded at last, and with a sigh, she began to unpack her bag. Undressing, she pulled on her familiar woollen nightgown. She unbound her hair, brushing it out in thick, luxuriant waves over her shoulders.
Lizzie eyed the bed rather suspiciously, as though afraid it might suddenly rear up at her. She sat down carefully on the mattress and sank in. It was very soft. She had never had anything quite like it in all her twenty-five years. Hesitantly, she slid beneath the covers, sitting up against the pillows. She felt like a child in its vast bulk, her body hardly making any impression at all under that wide expanse of coverlet.
It was the bed of a princess! She was almost frightened of it; excited too, like a little girl with a Christmas present. Why had he given her this room? She had expected some little cell with a bench-bed and maybe a dresser with a square of mirror to brush her hair in front of. That’s what servants were quartered in. Not something like this. Perhaps he still had designs on her virtue? She frowned, mulling over the problem. It seemed unlikely. Lizzie was hardly a vain girl, and she could see that Zek Gray had his pick of any one of a dozen women. He would hardly choose a plainstick of a girl with a sharp tongue and an irritating habit of blushing and hair like wire.
A knock on the door startled her, and she pulled the counterpane up to her chin, her eyes big and dark in her tired face. Mary? It must be.
“Come in.”
The door opened.
He had taken off his coat, and his shirt was unbuttoned at the throat. His hair was messed too, as though he had run his hand through it. His eyes gleamed like oil in the lamplight. He was a sight to make any girl’s heart flutter, and Lizzie despite everything was only a girl.
For a moment he said nothing, looking at her in the midst of the huge bed, her black hair falling about her, framing her pale, pointed face and the large brown eyes.
“You look like you’ve seen a ghost,” he said softly, his voice husky and strange.
“Or a wolf,” she managed, but her tone lacked its usual sting.
He smiled briefly. “I forgot to tell you that I expect you to present yourself at eight tomorrow morning in my office. I can start you off officially then, as my housekeeper. All right?”
“Oh. Thank you.”
“And I’ve informed Mary she’s to bring you a tray in here.”
“Thank you, sir.”
Why did he stare so? Hadn’t he ever seen a woman in bed? The thought made her blush, and she longed for Cook’s tart
comments on what to do in such a situation. He was being so kind to her, how could she order him out?
“Comfortable?” he asked at last, smiling.
“Very, thank you.” She sounded shy—why did his warm look make her so stupid? At least when he made her angry she could retaliate.
“Better than the workhouse sleeping accommodation, eh?”
She wondered, suddenly, if that was why he had given her the room with this ridiculous bed in it. Because he was being kind and... no, the idea was quite out of character! He must have some ulterior motive.
He was still watching her. She lifted her chin and met his gaze suspiciously. The mocking smile he gave her didn’t help, and she breathed deeply.
“Much better than the workhouse, Mr. Gray. Now, I am very tired and—”
She felt it then, crawling along her foot. She had screamed before she knew it, for Lizzie, like most other women, had a horror of all crawly things, and most especially spiders. Zek Gray was beside her before she could scream again.
“What is it? Lizzie?”
She squirmed beneath the covers, and when he put out his hands clutched them. “Spider! Oh!” and she scuttled away from whatever was crawling on her under the covers. He hesitated, and then suddenly making a decision, jerked back the covers.
A long legged spider, a little drunk from the darkness and warmth of the big bed, weaved across the white sheets. He swept it off the bed, stunning it against the wall. Lizzie watched him, crouched on the further side of the mattress, as he disappeared on to the floor. There was a series of thuds, and then he swore as he hit his head on the underpart of the bed. His face appeared over the side, rather flushed, hair falling forward into his eyes.
They stared at each other a moment, and then Lizzie felt her face beginning to falter. The laughter came rattling up inside her, her eyes wept helpless tears. He too had begun to laugh, leaning weakly against the bed. She was still laughing when she felt his hand on her arm. She looked up, smiling, and found him watching her, his face still flushed with humor, and something more that she at first failed to recognize.
“Lizzie,” he murmured, and the bed went down as he stretched out beside her, pushing her back against those ridiculous pillows.
His mouth was warm and gentle, and he coaxed her lips, his hands pinioning hers either side of her face. She stiffened with surprise, and then, as he lowered his body across her, the warmth of his chest stifling her breath, she went limp. His mouth intensified its work, and he groaned with something between pleasure and pain.
She found her hands free now, for he was cupping her face. They slid quite of their own accord about his back, and she felt his muscles rippling beneath the thin stuff of his shirt. His hands were tangling in her hair. He was kissing her throat now, and somehow her nightgown had slipped off her shoulder and he was pulling it down over both shoulders, then her arms.
“No,” she said, but he ignored her.
He half rose, looking down at her bare breasts. She met his eyes, dizzy and weak though she was. They were full of desire, and something dark and warm she couldn’t analyze. She felt suddenly humble before him.
“Lizzie,” he whispered, and pressed his mouth to the valley between her breasts, “You’re lovely.”
Lovely? The word taunted her, and she closed her eyes. He would say that, of course. He knew just how to overcome her pride and fear and reserve. He would know how she craved to be beautiful. And what woman could not be flattered at being called ‘lovely’ by a connoisseur such as he? She pressed his face to her, feeling the heat of his flesh against hers. Everything ceased to matter then, but the need in her to be totally his.
He was taking off his shirt, and his bare chest shone brown in the lamplight. She found herself running her hands up to his shoulders, tentative, wondering, afraid any moment of rejection. He smiled, bending to nibble at her bruised lips. His hand touched her thigh, caressing, gentle as a moth’s wing.
“Your legs are the longest I’ve ever seen,” he teased, between kisses. “You’re like a filly. A wild, shy, unbroken filly. Oh Lizzie, let me break you...”
His voice was muzzy, throbbing with what she herself was feeling. She tried to tell herself that last night he had been with the brunette with the red lips, and she had heard today that he loved Angelica Bailey, and even Jessie seemed to be in some way involved with him. He was a lecher, a rake, a... Oh, she wanted him to go on kissing and touching her forever, and telling her all those sweet, lying things he was telling her.
She opened her eyes, turning to kiss his cheek while he was nibbling her shoulder. Her eyes went beyond him, to the door where it stood ajar. A girl’s shocked, white face. The rattle of a tea tray. The sight of it stunned her so that for a moment she couldn’t speak. The girl, with great sang-froid, carefully set the tray on the dresser and ran.
Zek didn’t seem to have heard. Lizzie felt her flesh creep with the thought of what she had just been about to do. Self-disgust and fright combined with a rushing return of her own natural prudery. Any desire she had felt was swamped, and she began to struggle, pushing at his shoulders, and finally pummeling his bare back with her clenched fists.
The fact of her unwillingness seemed to penetrate at last, and he lifted himself up on his hands, looking down into her face with black, blurred eyes. He was so devilishly handsome that for a moment she was almost lost again, but then all his perfidies came back to remind her. Lizzie rolled away from under him, dragging her nightgown up to her neck, and fumbling to button it with fingers that shook and trembled.
“No,” she said, her voice shaking and squeaky. “No, no, no. If you... if you think I’m here for your convenience, Mr. Gray, you may think again! I’ve come as housekeeper, and not as... as your mistress!”
He stared at her, and then pushed himself up to his knees, running his hands through his hair. His eyes slowly lost their look of confusion, and he began to pull on his shirt.
“I never suggested such a thing.”
His voice was cool and mocking. It was the last straw. He might at least tell her he loved her, that he could no longer control his feelings, that he had lost his heart to her, that... Why was life never like penny novels?
“Get out, Mr. Gray!” she whispered, her voice shaking, and pointed at the door as she had once seen the heroine in a play do, and which had pleased the audience inordinately.
He tried to catch her, but she scuttled away to the very edge of the bed, eyes wild through her tangled hair.
“Lizzie,” he said gently, coaxingly. “What does it matter? So much fuss. I thought you wanted me to kiss you and...”
“Wanted!” she cried, and fury blinded her. “Get out, you lecher! I’m a decent woman, and that’s something you obviously know nothing about. Now get out!” She picked up the pillow and flung it at him as hard as she could.
He was at the door, looking cross and rumpled. His eyes gleamed with tiredness and mockery and irritation. “Oh I’ll get out,” he said softly. “There are plenty of others who’ll welcome me to their beds, Lizzie, if you’re too prudish to do so.”
“I don’t care what you do,” she whispered, as he slammed the door. “I don’t care!” she repeated, and wiped the tears that were running down her flushed cheeks.
He was a monster. Like one of those men whom one read of in the newspapers, assaulting innocent women, forcing their... their attentions on them. She had never known exactly what ‘attentions’ were, until this moment. And he hadn’t even had to force her! He’d used some practiced, subtle trickery, some sort of magic to make her respond. She sniffed, and pushed back her hair. He must be a monster, to be able to fascinate her into such compliance! She hoped he found someone else, someone whose husband or father would give him a punch on the nose. She hoped...
Her tears ran out of control, and she began to sob against the pillows. The thing was, she had enjoyed it. Enjoyed the touch of his hands and lips, the breath against her flesh, the murmured endearments she had never though
t to hear from such as him. It had flattered her and made her respond to him. He must have known how starved she was for compliments and affection and played on it. Cruel! And to further complicate matters, Mary had seen her, and him, in a situation that needed no further explanation. She knew too much about servants’ gossip herself to hope the girl would stay quiet. By tomorrow morning at eight, when she presented herself in that... that lecher’s office, everyone would know. Jessie Grant and Mary and Ralph and all the other nameless faces she was yet to meet! And she would be expected to exert some control over them! She took a shaking breath, and lay still, staring at the tea tray. After a moment she rose and went over to it, pouring herself a strong cup with plenty of sugar. It was done now, and she must make the best of it. She would deny all knowledge, that was the best way. Pretend it had never happened. Eventually they must forget, although... and she sighed. There was probably very little to gossip about out here, and Mary’s story could become a wonder for miles around.
***
Lizzie woke to find the place abustle with life. She lay for a moment, letting herself revel in the luxury of the big bed, until memories sent her squirming out. The curtains on her window were drawn back from open shutters, a vista over the country back towards Bathurst was revealed, and she viewed it somewhat uncertainly.
A tap on the door heralded Mary with warm water, towels and soap, which she set down on the wash stand. The girl glanced at her slyly, but smiled a good morning. Lizzie thanked her, and washed thoroughly. She could still smell that lecher’s scent on her flesh, and she scrubbed until she shone pink. Then she dressed in her clean brown gaberdine, and brushed her hair, tying it back severely.
Satisfied, she regarded herself in the mirror. She looked like a housekeeper, anyway. No one could find fault in her appearance... And, gazing a little sternly into her reflection, she decided no one would believe Mary’s story anyway. Who would think this drab, plain creature could captivate a man like Zek Gray? It was just ridiculous, and anyone with any sense could see that at a glance.
Lizzie, My Love Page 8