Players

by Karen Swan

  ‘Oh dear,’ Tor said. ‘Does he need a doctor?’

  ‘Nope,’ Kate said, looking out of the window and across the endless acres. ‘I gave him some paracetamol and he’s conked out.’

  Tor grabbed her evening bag. ‘Come on. I’m ravenous, aren’t you?’ she asked, linking her arm through Kate’s, and they walked down the corridor together.

  ‘Have you seen Harry yet?’ Tor asked in a low voice as they entered the drawing room.

  Kate shook her head. ‘Been too busy dealing with my sick husband. I’ll corner him after dinner.’

  The gathering before them looked suitably glamorous, as befitted the grand surroundings. Candles had been lit on every surface and densely cushioned sofas pouffed and plumped up to within an inch of their lives. A silver and raspberry coloured silk Persian rug was pinned to the floor by the elegant legs of the Chippendale cabinets and the row of French doors was swung open to reveal a torchlit terrace.

  Although the local team had left after beers in the clubhouse, other halves and non-playing Old Boys who hadn’t made it in time for the match had pitched up and swelled the numbers to over a hundred, and Tor was pleased she’d made a reasonable effort for the first time in a long time.

  She cast her eyes around the room. Everyone glittered with sun-lightened hair and pearly white teeth, the men looking dashing in bespoke black tie, the women catching the light with sequinned dresses and some pretty impressive jewels. She could see Harry in the middle, with a coterie of stunning girls hanging on to his every word. The chaps didn’t seem to mind. Much like with the Prince of Wales, she mused, mixing with Harry Hunter bestowed a golden cachet that exceeded the ignominy of possibly being cuckolded by him.

  Champagne buckets were placed conveniently at the arm of every sofa, and a console table had a pyramid of ‘Josephine’s breast’ champagne glasses balanced on it.

  ‘Here, allow me,’ James said, joining them at the table as they giggled over Kate’s dare of trying to jiggle a glass out from the bottom.

  Grabbing a magnum from the nearest bucket, he poured them each a breastful of fizz – which naturally didn’t bubble over the top – and led them over to where Anna and Lily were standing. A distinguished-looking grey-haired man with glasses and a rock hard –‘squash twice a week’ – torso was standing with his arm around Anna.

  ‘Tor, Kate, this is John Brightling, Anna’s husband,’ James said quickly.

  ‘Pleased to meet you,’ Tor said, shaking his hand.

  ‘We heard you’d be here tonight,’ Kate said. ‘You’ve been in the States, I hear?’

  ‘Yes. I have a clinic in Palm Beach. I go over twice a month.’ He had an odd, mid-Atlantic accent.

  ‘Palm Beach?’ Kate said. ‘You must be in plastics then?’

  ‘Yes. Good guess,’ he laughed lightly.

  Kate looked around the room at the legion of highly bred, high-maintenance women. ‘I hope you’ve brought lots of your cards with you. You’ve got a captive market here tonight.’

  John smiled, nodding.

  ‘Where are the boys?’ Tor asked, looking around for Max and Billy.

  Lily shook her head. ‘They’re playing Playstation in their room. A roomful of grown-ups standing around talking can’t compete with the attractions of Gran Turismo.’

  ‘Fair enough,’ Tor said.

  ‘Where’s Monty?’ James inquired.

  Kate sniffed indignantly. ‘Heatstroke.’

  James frowned. ‘That can be nasty. D’you want me to check on him?’

  ‘Nope. He’s fine. He’s sleeping now.’

  ‘Well, let me know if I can help. I am a doctor.’

  ‘You’ve never been any use to me up till now, James,’ she smiled dryly.

  He inclined his glass towards her. ‘Touché.’

  A gong sounded and everybody was called to sit for dinner.

  Tor was alarmed to find she was seated between Harry and Peter Temple, the weekend’s host – an icon and an aristocrat? What would she talk about? But she needn’t have worried. Peter proved to be an experienced dinner party host and absorbed her over the main course with stories and anecdotes about the big house.

  Now he in turn was being kept amused (despite Cress’s empty chair next to him) by Etienne St Clair, an Eton crony two chairs away, who was winding up Kate with his rhetoric on primogeniture. Kate caught Tor’s eye and widened hers in horror at the relic she was stuck with. Tor suppressed a giggle.

  ‘So did you see my shortlist for what I want in the apartment?’ she heard Harry ask.

  Tor turned and found him alarmingly close.

  ‘Uh, yes. I did,’ she smiled, trying to move back a bit. ‘You don’t actually want a real fire in there, do you?’

  Harry was resting his chin on his hand and smiling at her, amused. ‘I most certainly do. I like the atmosphere a fire creates. And don’t put in air-con. I can’t be doing with refrigerated air. If I need to cool down I’ll hire a bikini-clad punkawallah.’ He paused. ‘You know, you do look awfully fine in yours, I don’t suppose you’d be int––?’

  Tor smacked his hand playfully. She was getting the measure of him, she thought.

  ‘I am not going to be your punkawallah,’ she giggled.

  ‘What will you be then?’ he said, leaning in to her so that his face was inches from hers.

  ‘Your interior designer,’ she said coolly, matching his gaze.

  ‘How dull. You could be so much more, you know,’ he said tracing a lazy finger over her hand. ‘God, your hands are tiny,’ he remarked.

  ‘And your ego’s huge,’ she said cheekily. She was having fun. She couldn’t believe Harry Hunter was her plaything.

  ‘Along with other things, yes.’

  Tor laughed. ‘You really are a teenager trapped in a man’s body.’

  ‘A god’s body, don’t you mean? Have you seen my six-pack?’ And he tore open his shirt, buttons popping everywhere as he grabbed Tor’s hand and ran it suggestively over his carved stomach. Everybody cheered and Tor looked around, giggling and embarrassed.

  She rolled her eyes in mock exasperation and pulled her hand away, sitting back to allow a white-jacketed waiter to clear the plates. They’d had lobster bisque, rack of lamb and buttermilk bavarois, and she’d successfully managed to eat hers without slopping it all over her dress. Another hurdle cleared.

  She looked around the room. Laetitia Latham was in social Siberia, her resplendent black Roland Mouret dress lost and unnoticed in the farthest reaches of the room. She looked up and caught Tor’s eye, waving cheerily as though they were best friends. Tor smiled back, aware her currency had risen as Harry’s right-hand companion.

  The bottles on all the tables were being emptied and replenished at an astonishing rate – the waiters practically running to and from the cellars – and the low hum of conversation had risen to a jarring decibel, pierced by shrieks of drunken laughter and more braying than Tor had ever heard outside of a dressage event. She felt pretty tipsy herself. Harry had kept her and Kate’s glasses full all evening so she’d had no idea how much she’d had to drink.

  She wondered where the loos were – being a private house, there were no illuminated signs to help her out – and she twisted round to have a look.

  She caught sight of table sixteen behind her, only two tables away. Lily was sitting back in her chair, looking bored, Monty’s chair beside her glaringly empty. John Brightling was holding up his pretty companion’s face, examining it for a Botox consult. Tor recognized her as the girl in the pleated skirt from earlier. Anna hadn’t noticed her husband’s absorption in another woman’s lips. She was laughing coquettishly at something James had said to her, and Tor felt irritated, again, by the super-friendliness of the former couple.

  Everyone was beginning to get up and table-hop. When Tor turned back, Kate had disappeared and Harry was talking to a beautiful redhead who was bending down to talk to him and affording him far-reaching views of her splendid cleavage.

  Tor de
cided to hunt down the loos before her tummy started sticking out, but the full effect of the evening’s drinking hit her as she stood up, and she picked her way slowly through the pushed-out chairs.

  A number of people were leaning against the walls in the hall, a few more were sitting on the stairs drinking brandy, and from a room far off, Tor heard some music strike up.

  She wandered down a corridor, trying not to look up at the stuffed heads above her. She found them haunting at the best of times, but now, in the dim light, they were downright creepy.

  She tried a few doors, but two were locked and one was a store cupboard. She sighed. It would just be easier to use the bathroom in her room. She wandered back along the corridor, trailing one hand along the wall.

  ‘Excuse me, excuse me,’ Tor smiled, tiptoeing past the groups on the stairs as daintily as she could, and trying not to look as alone as she suddenly felt. Cress had bolted and Kate had disappeared. There was no one really here for her to be with. Certainly no Hugh. Never him again.

  She broke into a trot up the stairs and dashed to her door. She hadn’t bothered to lock it. No one did. It was considered bad form – this wasn’t a hotel – and she let herself in, jigging about a bit as she tried to slither her dress up her hips. It was no good. The dress was too tight, or she was too drunk. One or the other. Or maybe both. She unzipped it and hopped out, leaving it in a puddle on the floor as she dashed into the bathroom.

  As she washed her hands, she looked at her reflection in the mirror. Her hair was beginning to go limp and her blusher had worn off, although her lips were stained red by the wine and looked like she’d been snogging for hours. She quickly checked her teeth, remembering her first meeting with Hen. They were still frosty white, thank God. They were obviously drinking good stuff tonight.

  She went and stood at the window, not really noticing the rain that had begun to fall. She didn’t want to put her dress back on or reapply her make-up or fix her hair. She wanted a bath. She wanted to sleep. She wanted her children. And she wanted her husband.

  No one would notice if she slipped away. Tor turned on the taps and took off her knickers, immediately climbing into the tub and letting the water fill up around her. She liked her baths extra hot.

  She ran it up to the overflow and lay there, eyes closed, feeling the sweat trickle down her neck and shoulders. The room was filled with steam, the mirror misted, and she hoped she was sweating some of the alcohol out of her system. Tomorrow was going to be painful otherwise. She managed twenty minutes before the heat became unbearable and she stood up, grabbing a towel from the rack.

  She had just managed to wrap it round her when the colours in the room pixillated and drained to black and white. And then just to black.

  James was sitting on the bed when he heard the thump.

  ‘Tor!’ he shouted, rushing into the bathroom and finding her slumped on the floor. Immediately he scooped her up and carried her through to the bedroom, laying her out on the bed and putting some pillows beneath her feet. He sat on the bed next to her, rubbing her hands.

  ‘Tor, Tor, can you hear me?’

  Tor’s eyelids fluttered and slowly she opened them. He watched her as she focused, pushing her gently back on the bed as she frowned and tried to sit up.

  ‘What happened?’ she asked.

  ‘I think you fainted,’ he smiled, though there was concern in his eyes. ‘Has it ever happened before?’

  ‘A couple of times. I have low blood pressure,’ she said.

  ‘Mmm, that did look like a pretty hot bath. I could scarcely see you for all the steam in there. I half expected to find a couple of fat hairy Turkish men in there with you.’ He grinned at her, while holding her wrist between his fingers and thumb and checking her pulse.

  ‘I should be so lucky,’ she smiled back, thinking how gorgeous he looked in black tie. He had long since taken his jacket off, and his top button was undone, his tie hanging loosely.

  He pushed her damp hair away from her face. ‘Your colour’s returning,’ he said gently. ‘Not that it looks like it ever left your legs,’ he joked.

  She looked down and giggled. They were bright red, brighter than Monty’s scalp.

  ‘You should see my bottom, then. That’s always the worst.’

  ‘I’d love to.’

  Their laughter faded as they looked at each other.

  ‘What were you doing here?’ she said quietly.

  ‘I came to look for you. I couldn’t see you downstairs and I was starting to worry.’ He smiled. ‘And with good reason, it turns out. You clearly can’t be trusted on your own.’

  ‘What would have happened to me if you hadn’t been there? Could I have died?’ she asked teasingly.

  He laughed. ‘No. You didn’t bump your head – luckily. But you would have woken up awfully wet.’

  Tor bit her lip. ‘Well, you’re not helping on that score, doctor,’ she said quietly, scarcely able to believe she had the nerve to say it out loud.

  His eyes roamed hers as he hesitated. Had she really said it? And then he was doing it anyway, kissing her hard, urgently, bruising her with passion.

  Tor ran her hands around the back of his head, entwining her fingers in his hair, keeping him on her. He teased her with his tongue, sucking gently on her lower lip, before moving his mouth off hers and inching down her neck.

  Tor gasped for breath, from pleasure, untying her towel with one hand so that she lay naked beneath him. He pulled away and looked at her, his eyes clouded with lust. He had waited so l––

  She reached up under his arms and pulled him down again, hooking her legs around him to bring him on top of her. He shifted on to both elbows and she pushed herself up into him, wanting his weight, his hardness, feeling his tux against her bare skin.

  She writhed against him, wanting more, and he kissed her mouth again, before suddenly pushing himself up. He kept his eyes on her as he fiddled with his cuffs. Tor sat up and swung herself on to his lap, straddling him as she nibbled his ear and deftly unbuttoned his shirt with her hands. He moaned as she opened his shirt and pressed her breasts against his chest, kissing his neck wetly and running her hands through his hair. She had never been so turned on in her life. It had never been like this with . . .

  ‘Tor,’ he said, arching away a little and trying to look at her. She ignored him. ‘Tor, Tor, wait. I don’t think . . .’

  ‘Don’t think,’ she whispered into his neck, her hands fluttering down to his flies. ‘Don’t think.’

  ‘We must, Tor.’ He grabbed her wrists, trying to stop her while he still had the self-control. ‘We must. It’s too soon. You’re not ready for this.’

  Tor stared at him, incredulous.

  ‘I’m not ready? I’m not? Can you see me here, James? Can you feel me? Can you smell me? I’ve never been more ready.’

  ‘No, no,’ he shook his head, lifting her off his lap and getting up from the bed. ‘I don’t mean – I mean, you’re not ready emotionally. You’d regret this. You’d hate me if we did this.’

  ‘No. I wouldn’t. Really, I wouldn’t. I promise. Please – come back here.’ She held her hands out to him, but he turned away.

  He paced the floor, rubbing his face in his hands, his shirt open. Tor saw what her hands had just felt. His broad shoulders, the toned chest, her eyes moving along the scruff of dark hair that tapered into a narrow line down his stomach.

  He dropped his hands to his sides and faced her, his resolve deserting him as he took her in again. She was sitting on the bed with her knees together, her feet splayed out to the sides. He had never understood how women could sit comfortably like that. Her breasts were small but firm, her waist tight, her eyes beseeching. He couldn’t believe he was doing this.

  He closed his eyes and shook his head. He had to do this. He began buttoning up his shirt.

  ‘Tor, this is hard enough for me to do . . . Let’s just take a bit of time out from this. I don’t . . .’

  ‘It’s Amelia, isn’t it?�
�� Tor said angrily. ‘It’s nothing to do with me at all.’

  ‘What? No!’ he said. ‘No, she’s got nothing to do with any of this. Why would she?’

  ‘Yeah, right,’ Tor snorted derisively, scrambling off the bed and stepping into her dress. ‘Be a man, James! This has all been a game to you, hasn’t it? You said that night you’d get me any way you could. And now that you have, you can’t even be bothered to see it through.’

  ‘Tor, no! You’ve got this all wrong. You are the only woman I want. I just think we should wait. You’ve been through a lot!’

  ‘Yes! I have, James! And I’ve been through it all on my own. And I’m tired of being on my own. So right now, I just want to be with someone. Even if it’s just for tonight.’ She pulled the zip up angrily, and pushed her feet into her shoes.

  ‘Where are you going?’ he asked hurriedly.

  ‘Back to the party. What does it look like? You may not want me, James, but I know for a fact that Harry does.’

  She started for the door.

  ‘No!’

  He said it so fiercely she stopped dead in her tracks.

  ‘You are not going to him!’ he growled. ‘That man is . . . He doesn’t care about you – he doesn’t care about anyone.’

  Tor looked at him witheringly. ‘Don’t be melodramatic, James.’

  James crossed the room and put a hand against the door. ‘I said, you are not going to him.’

  She looked at him and saw the fury, the jealousy blazing all over his face. What was going on? Why wouldn’t he . . . ? She began to cry. She hid her face in her hands and sobbed.

  James moved away from the door and wrapped his arms around her, holding her head against his chest and whispering into her hair.

  ‘I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry,’ he whispered, over and over and over, until eventually he ran out of words. He tilted her head up with his hands and looked down at her tear-streaked face. Her eyes, staring back at him, looked like luminous pools and he couldn’t do the right thing any longer. He began kissing her again, pushing her backwards, walking her back until she came to the chest of drawers and stumbled back on it, still kissing him, over and over.