Friday's Child

by Stephanie Wyatt

  ‘Chauvinist,’ she teased, following him, then was stuck by an unwelcome idea, her eyes drawn to the big bed. ‘And did any of the ladies of your bachelor days share this with you?’

  He moved towards her. ‘Does it matter?’

  He had already taken off his jacket and was now removing his tie. Mirry’s heart began to bounce about in her breast. ‘I—well, I know it shouldn’t. I mean, what you did before we met…’ His hands were fondling her shoulders, sliding beneath the material of her dress, and she was losing the thread of what she was trying to say.

  He kissed her just below her ear, murmuring, ‘I told you, I left the last lady back in New York. Now, how does this pretty thing come off?’

  For a moment there was that flare of jealousy again as she imagined that New York lady sharing similar intimacies with Jay, and then, as the zip slid down and her dress pooled to the floor, the delicious, wondrous things he was doing and the promise of even more wondrous things to come drove everything else from her mind.

  She was a little shy to be naked before a man for the first time in her life, her instinct to cover herself with her hands, but Jay soon found more exciting things for those hands to do, helping him undress. There was a moment when she trembled, the age-old virgin shrinking from the aroused male, until, drawn into something stronger than fear, she touched him. He gasped, and the fires they had deliberately banked down for the last four weeks burst into a conflagration.

  At first she kept pace with him, mindless with delight at the feel of skin on skin, of his hands and mouth exploring, arousing, her slender body innocently inciting as it arched for closer contact, but then there was pain, and though a new pleasure followed she knew instinctively that he was outstripping her, convulsing into a pleasure that still eluded her before collapsing against her breasts.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he gasped. ‘God, I behaved as if I was the virgin!’ He kept his face hidden as if he was ashamed, and he sounded shaken as he added, ‘I’ve never lost control before.’

  And although Mirry still felt as if she had had the gates of paradise slammed in her face, a wave of tenderness engulfed her. Her hands caressing the skin tautly stretched over his muscular back, she said, ‘Then I take it as a compliment, darling.’

  He did raise his head then, and she saw the shamed uncertainty in his eyes. ‘But you didn’t—’ he began.

  Because she didn’t want their first time together to be marred in any way in his memory, she suggested quickly, ‘No, but don’t you think that was my lack of experience?’ A mischievous smile danced in her brown eyes. ‘Something that’s in your power to remedy, and my teachers always told me I was a quick learner.’

  He raised himself on his elbows to look into her face. ‘Did they, indeed? Wait there.’ He rolled off the bed and disappeared into the bathroom, and moments later Mirry heard water gushing. She lay there, her imagination savouring the male perfection of his naked body, but as the minutes passed curiosity was about to prompt her out of bed to see what was delaying him when he was back, scooping her up into his arms, carrying her through the door and lowering her into a bath full of scented water that boiled and churned with what she discovered to be a delicious sensation. And then he was in the water beside her, soaping her body with a suds-laden sponge and the sensation was even more delicious.

  Just when the sponge was lost and his hands took over she could never afterwards remember, but by the time he lifted her out and wrapped her in a fluffy towel her senses were heightened almost painfully. Shrugging into a bathrobe himself, he set about caressing her dry: her breasts, her belly, her hips, her thighs, spiralling the sexual tension higher and higher until she shook like a leaf. Then he discarded the towel, kneeling at her feet, his hands firm against her hips, drawing her forward until his face was buried against her sweet womanhood.

  For a few moments shock made her resist the irresistible, then, clinging to his shoulders for support, she gave herself up to a convulsion of the most exquisite sensation as she had never even imagined.

  She cried out aloud as Jay raised his head, meeting her glazed incredulity with open triumph. Then, as her legs buckled beneath her, he was sweeping her up to carry her back to bed, where for a few minutes he just held her. Before the echoes of her ecstasy had quite died away, his hands and mouth incited her again. And, having tasted such delight once, her body demanded it again, responding with an incitement of its own. This time there was no pain, but a feeling of completion, each slow thrust welcomed eagerly, each apparent withdrawal resisted as she tightened instinctively to hold him. Hers was the urgency now, every nerve in her body concentrating on the rising tension until her world exploded into wave after wave of sensation, making the pleasure she had experienced in the bathroom a mere foretaste.

  It was some time before she could get control of her sobbing breath. When she could, she asked diffidently, ‘Did you—?’

  Jay laughed, his breathing as ragged as her own. ‘Didn’t you notice?’

  She shook her head. ‘I was too… astonished by the wonderful things happening to me.’

  She had certainly banished all sign of uncertainty in those silvery-grey eyes; instead there was only exultation. He rolled over on his side, carrying her suddenly boneless body with him. ‘You incredible girl!’ He chuckled into her ear. ‘And your teachers were quite right.’

  ‘Oh?’ she questioned sleepily.

  ‘You are a quick learner.’

  And eager, too, for whether it was in a shady spot on the villa’s private beach, or while the rest of the Algarve was sleeping away the hottest part of the day, or during the warm, starlit nights, Mirry’s eagerness to learn was only matched by Jay’s willingness to teach. They swam and sunbathed and made love, they took boat trips and sightseeing tours and made love, they dined out and danced and made love. In fact, it was everything a honeymoon should be—perfect—except for one small thing. Jay told her she was incredible, that she fascinated him. He told her how exciting she was, how much he wanted her, even whispered in her ear the things he was going to do to her which made her shudder with anticipation. But he never actually said he loved her.

  Mirry told him she loved him several times a day, not only when they were making love, but across the table in a restaurant, sitting beside him on a crowded bus, shopping for souvenirs, and he would smile, his eyes gleaming in the way she recognised as a signal that he wanted to take her to bed, but he never responded with the words. She told herself it didn’t matter, that it was his upbringing that was inhibiting him, that when he was more accustomed to their closeness it would loosen his tongue, that the words didn’t really matter anyway when his actions were so loving. But it didn’t stop her waiting for the response she wanted, or soften her disappointment when he stayed silent.

  It wasn’t until their last night at the villa that Mirry discovered why she was waiting in vain. She was taking her contraceptive pill as usual in the bathroom when Jay said, ‘I wish you’d stop taking those things, Mirry.’

  She looked at him through the mirror. ‘I didn’t know you wanted to start a family right away,’ she said shyly.

  He took the glass from her hand, turning her to face him. The idea of bearing his child was melting her inside, and she waited expectantly for him to say, I want your child, Mirry. But instead he said baldly, ‘I want sons.’ He gave a self-deprecating shrug. ‘Funny, I never expected to feel this way, but then, I never expected to be my father’s heir, either. Now…well, I find I have this urge to keep the line going, even if it is… what’s the expression?…the bar sinister, and they’ll be Elphicks, not Jaystons.’

  Mirry slid her arms round his neck, happily believing it was their marriage that had brought about this change. ‘You might find yourself with a quiver full of daughters,’ she teased. ‘Medical science hasn’t perfected ordering a specific sex yet.’

  Her happiness would have been complete if he’d assured her, ‘As long as they all take after you, darling,’ but her husband seemed to be
working from a different script. He laughed the possibility aside. ‘When you’re the only girl in a family of five brothers? Hardly likely, I think.’

  Mirry went cold. Surely he didn’t mean…but he must know… it was never a secret… Her thoughts churned chaotically. And yet how would he know if no one had ever told him? And who would think to tell him something so apparently irrelevant? Why, she had almost forgotten it herself, the fact that the Greys’ ‘Little Miracle’ was an adopted daughter.

  Pulling away from Jay’s arms, Mirry lurched into the bedroom, sinking on to the edge of the bed before her wobbly knees let her down. Puzzled, Jay followed and stood watching her from the doorway. She tried to speak and had to lick her dry lips and try again before she could ask the question branded into her brain. ‘Is—is that why you married me? Because a girl with five brothers should be able to produce the sons you want?’

  He hesitated, frowning at her white face and the intensity of her question before admitting, ‘One of the reasons, yes.’

  She bowed her head, her hair falling forward to hide her stricken face. ‘And the other reasons?’ It was like speaking through shards of glass, her throat hurt so much.

  He crossed the room, running an impatient hand through his hair. ‘Where do you want me to start? I told you I found you attractive. You’re very feminine, yet surprisingly capable, highly intelligent and poised enough to cope with most situations. In fact I envy you your ease with people; it comes from growing up in a large family, I suppose. You’re loyal, not afraid to stand up for yourself or to defend others, so I could add courage to the things that appeal to me.’

  She supposed they were all compliments, yet they came across as coldly clinical observations, not virtues he was pleased to find in a much-loved wife. Mirry began to shiver.

  But he hadn’t finished. ‘And then there’s Wenlow. You know the house and the community. You belong there, and in spite of all I was brought up to believe, I find I want to belong there, too. Having you as my wife will go a long way to wiping out the stigma of being born on the wrong side of the blanket.’

  Mirry listened to him, his words hitting her like stones, and she remembered Kate’s warning. She was bleeding all over the floor and he wasn’t even aware of it. ‘And love, Jay?’ she croaked. ‘Where does that come in your catalogue of reasons?’

  For a moment he looked baffled, then his silvery eyes gleamed. ‘You mean this?’ He sat down beside her, one hand sliding beneath her hair, the other drawing her against him. ‘I knew that first morning at Wenlow when you got the sofa stuck on the stairs and turned on me like a fighting cock that you’d be fiery in bed,’ he murmured against her ear. ‘Surely you know by now you affect me more than any woman I’ve ever known.’

  He was still using the wrong script, Mirry thought sadly. In fact, it was as if she had strayed into the wrong play, so far apart were their perceptions of love. Yet, though her mind was still reeling from the blows he had dealt, her body was helplessly responding to his touch, begging for the delights he had taught it to crave, refusing to accept that the closeness of their lovemaking was an illusion.

  And, as the ripples of exquisite pleasure finally receded, even her mind clung to a last frail hope as she asked, ‘Jay, if I didn’t have five brothers, would you still have married me?’

  One arm pulled her into the curve of his now lax body and he said sleepily, ‘What sort of question is that? You have, so what’s the point of supposing?’

  The point being that she had no actual blood tie with those brothers, shared no genes, she thought miserably, trying to screw up the courage to tell him. But what should she say? You haven’t cornered the market in illegitimacy, Jay? And then go on to tell him that the mother who had given her birth had been a sixteen-year-old kid taken in by the Greys as a foster child, who had then got herself killed riding pillion on her boyfriend’s motorbike when Mirry was only a few weeks old? That that had been the way the Greys had got their ‘Little Miracle’, the daughter they had always wanted, when they had been allowed to legally adopt her?

  As she rehearsed the phrases, Jay’s deep, even breathing told her he had fallen asleep. Her confession would have to be postponed. But, though that gave her a measure of relief, Mirry was farther from sleep than she had ever been in her life, Jay’s cool, emotionless reasoning crashing around inside her skull.

  How could she reconcile the ardent, possessive lover with the man who had emotionlessly admitted he had married her for such cold-blooded reasons? As little more than a brood mare! Even though he had never given her the words, she had been sure he did love her—until tonight. And where did they go from here? When she told him in the morning how mistaken he had been in his assumptions, would he demand a divorce? The idea appalled her.

  Yet now she knew his true feelings—or lack of them— why should the thought of ending the marriage give her such anguish? By rights, when he had so unfeelingly trodden her love for him beneath his feet, he should have killed it. Painfully examining her feelings, she knew that love was still alive; bruised, battered, disillusioned, but still strong enough to view the prospect of spending the rest of her life without him unbearable.

  That was when she found herself wondering if it was really necessary to confess to Jay at all. If the subject had come up before they were married, then of course she would have told him the truth. But they were already married, their vows made before God, vows Mirry at least had made with every intention of keeping.

  But wouldn’t keeping silent be deceitful? her conscience argued. A lie by omission? If anyone had been deceitful, she justified herself, it was Jay, leading her to believe he had married her for love.

  She cried then, tears seeping silently from beneath her closed eyelids to run down into the pillow. She cried for herself and her shattered dreams of a marriage as close and happy as her parents’. She cried for Jay, whose lonely and unloved childhood had turned him into a man who was incapable of loving.

  And at last she slept, waking at first light and going to the bathroom to wash the traces of her tears away. Reaching into the bathroom cabinet, she took out the remaining pills and deliberately dropped them into the waste bin, a tacit admission of her intention to keep silent, telling herself that, just because she wasn’t related by blood to the parents who had produced five boys, it didn’t mean to say she wouldn’t be able to produce at least one male child herself, and the sooner she began trying, the better.

  She was quietly packing for the flight home when Jay woke, disgruntled to find that for the first time she wasn’t still beside him. When his command that she come straight back to bed wasn’t immediately obeyed, he came to fetch her and, as she had last night, Mirry melted in the heat of his lovemaking.

  It hurt to know that for Jay this beautiful communion went no deeper than sexual attraction, when for herself each time was an affirmation of her love. And when she would have cried that love aloud in the cataclysm of sensation, that hurt now kept her silent. It was a love Jay had no use for, so she would keep it to herself in future. But she would know it was there, the hidden framework of their life together, the buried foundation of their childrens’ lives.

  However, having grown up in a large, uninhibitedly affectionate family and been accustomed to expressing her feelings by word and gesture, over the next few weeks Mirry found suppressing her love for Jay far more difficult than she had anticipated. She was very busy, and that helped. The builder and plumber had fulfilled their promise of completing the kitchen alterations and the new heating system by their return—the prospect of work on the flat conversions dangled before them as a carrot to produce their best efforts—but both firms were still in the house installing the bathrooms. It had been Mirry’s task to supervise the clearing of both rooms before they began, and it would be for her to organise the decorators when they had finished. In the meantime she was concentrating on redesigning the master suite, turning Georgie’s sitting-room into a bedroom she and Jay would share and the original bedroom in
to a nursery, a testament of faith in an uncertain future when it was too early yet to know if she had managed to conceive, but a gesture that pleased Jay.

  Mirry enjoyed deciding which piece of antique furniture should go where, what to keep and what—reluctantly—to discard, for there was all the furniture in both wings that there would be no room for in the portion of the house remaining to them, and would either have to be stored or sent to the sale-rooms.

  Jay was often away, sometimes in London, sometimes elsewhere in the country, though he managed to get home most evenings, even when it entailed a long drive after a day’s work and arriving in time to go to bed. But Mirry found his comings and goings a mixed blessing, for though when he left she was able to relax the leash she had imposed on her naturally loving nature, she still missed him painfully, and when he returned she was back to the strain of keeping up a cool front.

  It was like a worm at the heart of an apple, eating away at her unseen, quenching her sparkle, making her strung up and liable to flashes of irritation, as when her mother remonstrated with her, finding her trying to carry a heavy chair from one of the wings into the main house by herself.

  The hurt surprise on her mother’s face had her apologising at once, but Cathy still looked anxious. ‘Mirry, everything is all right, isn’t it? You’re not regretting—’

  ‘No!’ Mirry’s hurried denial had a note of panic in it. She was aware of the reservations her parents had had about her marriage, but it wasn’t only pride that made it impossible to confide her difficulties. There was her instinctive loyalty to Jay. Besides, she was no longer a child to go crying to her mother when the going got rough.

  ‘No, of course I’m not regretting anything, Mum,’ she said more quietly. ‘It’s just that Jay had to fly off to Ireland in a hurry this morning. He won’t be home tonight, either, and I—’

  ‘And you’re already missing him.’ Her mother’s anxiety melted into an understanding smile. ‘But, Mirry, I’m sure Jay wouldn’t want you lugging heavy stuff like this around. If you’ll wait till lunch time, I’ll ask Andrew to help.’ Cathy took her arm and led her firmly to the kitchen where Martha had the coffee ready.