Players

by Karen Swan

  He slid his hands up her thighs, expertly easing her dress over her hips. With one hand he undid his flies, pushing himself into her, feeling her ankles clasp around him, her buttocks tighten as she took him, all of him, her breath quick against his ear as they rocked together. And then he heard her moan build, her muscles clamp and the sweet rush of air as she exhaled and they released together. He dropped his head on to her shoulder and bit it gently. She was his.

  Chapter Twenty-seven

  Unlike Tor, Kate had actually managed to find the loos. She’d had quite enough of pompous old duffers for one night and was sitting sideways on the loo, her legs up against the cubicle wall, listening to groups of women coming in, sniffing and then leaving again. No one ever flushed. ‘Whatever can they be doing?’ she thought ironically, inspecting her nails.

  She’d been upstairs to check on Monty, but lying next to him hadn’t been an enticing proposition. He had looked like a nightlight, his sunburn glowing like embers in the dark, and the medicine (combined with the day’s drinking) had knocked him out cold.

  She frowned to herself as she picked at a hangnail and wondered what to do next. Tor and Harry had sloped off and she couldn’t find either of them anywh–– She stiffened as the thought suddenly came to her: they couldn’t be together, could they? Harry had flirted outrageously with Tor at dinner.

  No, no. She dismissed the idea, slumping back. Tor wouldn’t. But she was sure Harry was trying to piss her off – first Cress and now Tor. He seemed to be on a mission this weekend.

  She heard the door swing open too hard and hit the back wall. Kate rolled her eyes. She just wanted a little peace. It was here or lying next to her snoring, pink shrimp of a husband.

  ‘. . . such a bore. I seriously considered drowning myself in the bisque. All he can talk about are the bloodlines. I know that horse’s family tree better than my own.’

  ‘Mmmm.’

  The door of the cubicle next to her slotted shut and Kate tried to shut her ears to the tinkle.

  ‘I must say, I’d have thought twice about coming if I’d known Harry was going to be here,’ the woman at the basin called out. ‘Did you know he was coming this year?’

  Kate’s ears pricked up.

  ‘No. No idea at all. Jamie hadn’t told me he was going to be here.’

  ‘I’m not sure he even knew, actually. He’d have been the first to blackball him.’ Kate could tell by the way the woman’s voice was slightly stretched that she was reapplying her mascara. ‘Typical of Harry, though – buying his way in. Did you know he’s paid for it all this year?’

  ‘Doesn’t surprise me. He’s always flashing his cash to muscle in.’

  There was a pause as the woman switched eyes.

  ‘And what’s all this business about it being covered by Tatler? Next year will be shocking. Everyone will want to come. Before you know it, Moët will be sponsoring it and Mahiki will have a tent.’

  ‘It’s the photographer that’s driving me crazy, Anna. He’s snooping around all over the place, practically jumping out of bushes. I caught him up by the pool earlier. I mean, what does he think he’s looking for? It’s a charity cricket match, for heaven’s sake.’

  ‘Where there’s Harry, there’s scandal, Lily.’

  ‘Talking of which, my heart stopped when he mentioned happy families. He said it right to Kate, did you see?’

  Kate felt her throat go dry.

  ‘Yes, but I don’t think he meant anything by it though. I mean – if Monty doesn’t know, and Jamie is the soul of discretion, how could he possibly know? It was just a figure of speech.’

  The loo next to Kate flushed – for once. The door opened and the voices dropped as the two women stood next to each other again. Kate got up and stood next to the door, straining to hear over the rushing water.

  ‘It was a bit too close for comfort, Anna.’

  ‘I know. Did Billy hear it?’

  Kate heard the taps turning and one of the women washed her hands.

  ‘I don’t think so. He hasn’t said anything. But even if he had overheard, I don’t think he’d have twigged. He’s not looking for it. And Monty’s hidden in plain sight, so to speak. We see them every year. There’s no reason for Billy to think . . .’

  Kate heard the door open, the voices retreating, ‘. . . other than a family friend . . .’

  Kate stood against the door, tears streaming silently down her cheeks, the pieces in the jigsaw falling into place. Of course, she had known about Lily and Monty. It had all been years ago. Sixteen years ago. They’d just had a short break, before university, a few months at most. But five minutes was all it took.

  Harry had been right. Kate was the gooseberry fool.

  James rolled Tor on to her back. She was laughing, her head thrown back and her long white neck exposed as he tickled her beneath the sheet, and felt her body wriggle against him.

  It had been one of the most glorious hours of his life and he was determined never to get out of bed from this woman again. They would be like John and Yoko and stage a lie-in. Let the world come to them.

  He released her from his grip and looked down at her lying stretched out like a slender Venus de Milo beneath him. He held up the sheet, making her blush as he took her all in, raking his eyes over her every bit as lustily as he had with his tongue just minutes before.

  ‘Please never get dressed again,’ he grinned, beginning to inch his way down the bed. ‘It’s over-rated. And actually – it doesn’t suit you. You look so . . .’ he kissed her tummy, ‘so . . .’ again – ‘so much better like this . . .’

  He grabbed her hip bone between his teeth, and she was just beginning to wind her fingers through his hair again when the door burst open.

  ‘Jesus Christ!’ he said, springing up and finding himself starkers in front of Kate.

  Kate stood there, tramlines of tears carving up her beautiful face. She’d come to find her friend, her shoulder to cry on. She couldn’t go to Monty, not yet.

  But she was completely unprepared for the scene before her and she swayed a little – literally reeled – from the shock of it.

  ‘You have got to be kidding me,’ she said finally.

  Tor sat up, the sheet clutched around her, feeling like a teenager busted by her parents. James grabbed the bath towel still lying on the edge of the bed and wrapped it around his hips.

  ‘Kate – what’s happened?’ Tor asked, taking in Kate’s blazing green eyes and red cheeks. Even her neck was wet, the tears racing each other like raindrops down a window, nestling in the hollow of her collarbone.

  Kate ignored her. Whatever had prompted her to barge into the room was by-the-by now. Standing before the lovers romping in bed, she was a dog with a new bone.

  ‘How could you sleep with him?’ Kate demanded, looking at Tor.

  Tor didn’t know what to say – why was she so angry at her and James? She looked from Kate to James and back to Kate again.

  ‘She was always going to sleep with me,’ James said calmly and with utter authority, as though directing a student nurse in theatre. ‘We’re together. It was never not going to happen.’

  Tor looked at him, not sure whether to be flattered or annoyed by his confidence on the matter. She was that predictable, was she?

  ‘Not that it’s got anything to do with you, Kate. It’s private,’ he said, picking up his trousers and putting them on. ‘What’s happened? Why are you here?’

  Kate glared at him, new tears budding. She went to speak, then stopped herself and turned away again. She couldn’t seem to face him. She looked at Tor again instead, determined not to be deterred.

  ‘I’m interested to know why – when you’re now free to take your pick of all the good men out there – why exactly you would choose a lying shit like James White?’

  Tor’s mouth dropped. ‘Kate!’

  ‘I beg your pardon?’ James said coldly. ‘And what have I done to warrant that?’

  ‘Oh, I don’t know, James,’ K
ate said, whirling around to face him, fury finally overriding shock. ‘Why don’t we go and ask your sister? Maybe she can enlighten us. I’m sure there are many things she’d like to tell me. Or shall we save her the bother? Is there anything you’d like to share with me perhaps?’

  James stood rigid, his jaw locked. So Kate knew. His brain whirred, trying to establish how it had got out. Who could have told her? Not Lily. Not Anna. Billy didn’t kn–– Harry’s comment flashed in front of him.

  Her anger flared as she saw him take stock, no doubt trying to cover their tracks, planning, scheming a new set of lies.

  ‘Why didn’t you tell me?’ she shouted. ‘You were supposed to be my friend. You all were – you, Lily, Anna. And what about Monty? He doesn’t even know? How could you be his friend and not even tell him that he has a son! What kind of family are you? What about poor Billy?’

  She turned away and walked to the wall, leaning against it for support.

  ‘A son?’ Tor watched them both – Kate standing limply, like a rag doll who’d lost her stuffing, trying to catch her breath, her thoughts. James, pale and silent.

  ‘It wasn’t for me to tell, Kate,’ he said quietly, finally. ‘I am so sorry. I didn’t agree with it, but . . .’

  Kate couldn’t bear to hear his excuses. Their justification.

  ‘Don’t give me that crap! You’ve had a ringside seat watching us try to have a family. We’ve spoken more to you about it than anyone. We confided in you. Trusted your advice. And all the time, you knew he was a father and you kept it from him.’

  ‘Kate, it wasn’t that simple. By the time Lily found out, Monty was already back with you. It was clear they had no future. She was trying to do the right thing.’

  ‘The right thing? The right thing? For whom? Certainly not for Billy! You’ve let him spend the first sixteen years of his life without a father, when he was actually there all the time. How exactly do you think he’s going to react to the knowledge that you not only lied to him, but maintained this elaborate deception for every single year of his life? How can he ever trust any of you again?’

  James crossed the room and put a hand on her arm.

  ‘Kate. I thought I was helping. I tried to do the best thing under the circumstances.’

  ‘Was there a grand plan in place to ever reveal the truth? Or were we all just going to rub along in blissful ignorance?’

  ‘It had to be Lily’s decision. She . . .’

  ‘He had the right to know, James! From the day she found out, he had that right,’ she said, fresh tears bursting through. ‘We all did. But this changes everything now. Everything! Don’t you see? Monty’s a father. He’s got what we’ve always wanted. Our impossible dream. Except that he doesn’t need me to have it. He doesn’t need me at all any more.’

  Tor gasped. ‘No, Kate,’ she said quickly, realizing her friend’s thought process, remembering the couple’s tetchiness with each other, lonely drunkenness, the sarcastic asides. ‘I know this is an awful shock – but it doesn’t mean it will change anything between . . .’

  Kate shook her head wildly, not wanting to hear platitudes, hope. Fucking hope. For all the good it ever did her. She jerked her arm away from James and fled the room, slamming the door behind her, the backdraught swinging a portrait precariously away from the wall for a few seconds.

  James came and sat on the bed. ‘Shit,’ he said, running his hands through his hair, his elbows resting on his knees.

  Tor watched the picture settle back on its hook, trying to take in the full ramifications of what had just unfolded. Billy. James lying to Monty year after year. Just this afternoon, he’d cajoled him into playing water polo with them. Put them on the same team . . .

  And then suddenly she remembered. She felt a deathly chill blanket her body as some deeply buried words floated up from her brain, taunting her, warning her. A message from the grave.

  ‘He said that,’ she whispered. ‘He warned me about this.’

  James looked at her. She was staring into space, ghostly white, that last night flooding her mind.

  ‘Who did? Who said what?’ He leant in to her and started rubbing her arm. She felt so cold.

  ‘He said that you were supposed to bring families together, not rip them apart. But you don’t. You destroy families. First mine. Now Kate’s.’

  James absorbed her words. ‘Tor, no! It’s not like that! Who said that? You can’t think . . .’

  But she got up silently from the bed, leaving the sheet behind her, and unselfconscious, unembarrassed, uncaring, walked across the room.

  She stopped at the bathroom door.

  ‘I want you to go now.’

  ‘Tor, please. Let’s just talk about this.’

  She looked at him. ‘There is nothing for us to say to each other. Just stay away from me. I can’t be around someone like you.’

  And she shut the door, climbing straight back into the chill bath and turning on the hot taps. Not because she cared about the cold water. But she’d be damned if she was going to let him hear her cry.

  ‘Just get dressed and go,’ Harry snarled at the redhead, rolling away from her and pulling on his trousers. His day was not getting any better. First Cress, then Kate fannying about with White of all people, and now even her. She had a rack you could eat your dinner off, and she still couldn’t make it work for him. His head was screwed.

  He heard her sniff as she grabbed her shoes – Louboutins again, he might have known – and burst through the doors into the drenched night. He lit a cigarette and waited for her to disappear before walking to the door himself. He inhaled a drag deeply and looked out, watching the stair-rods shattering the mirror-calm of the pool’s surface. He felt tempted to dive in. He’d always enjoyed the perverse pleasure of swimming in the rain. Like him, it was so deliciously contrary.

  He stared into the night. He was at an impasse. The fight with Cress had bothered him more than he cared to admit. After months of playing sweet, she’d bared her teeth, and she wasn’t the pushover he’d assumed. He needed to find an angle on her – and fast.

  He flicked the cigarette butt into the water, just as a door opened at the Lodge and a cone of light spilled on to the lawn. A figure ran through it and into the black. It was a woman, though he couldn’t make out who, more was the pity. She had great legs.

  She had gathered her skirt in her hands and was flying athletically down the grass towards the cricket pavilion, before turning abruptly and racing towards the poolhouse instead. Harry straightened up. The evening might be salvageable after all.

  She stopped running before she got there, falling to her hands on the terrace and staggering to a lounger by the water. Even fifty yards away, her sobs were audible above the rain, her breath ragged and heavy.

  Her profile was towards him and Harry took in her full heaving breasts, long elegant back and taut stomach. Her gown was wet through and practically sheer, her hair clinging like a helmet to her head. His heart rate quickened but he said nothing. Didn’t stir. He let the minutes pass as he watched her breathing slow, her head drop, the tears wane.

  Sensing someone’s eyes on her, Kate looked up. She saw Harry leaning against the doorway, his hair flopping forward towards those thick lashes. How long had he been there? He was wearing just his dinner trousers, his feet and chest bare. Kate didn’t know why, nor did she care. She wasn’t interested in asking questions. She just knew she’d found an answer.

  They stared at each other through the rain, neither one sure who was the predator, until she stood up and faced him square on. She tipped back her head, smoothing her hair back from her face, before bringing her hands over to the zip and slowly – so slowly – sliding it down. She held the dress up, watching his eyes, waiting for the look to cross his face that would say he didn’t believe she’d do it. And when it did, as she’d known it would, she let it drop insolently – just like that – a cloud of silk at her ankles. She side-stepped out of it and hooked it with one ankle, kicking it into th
e water. And then she just stood there, naked and glorious in front of him, daring him to come up to her, touch her, take her.

  What the redhead couldn’t manage with a D-cup and two sex toys, Kate had achieved with nothing but defiance. He walked towards her. He should have known it would be this way, on her terms. She was never going to surrender.

  Chapter Twenty-eight

  It was just after midnight when Cress put her key in the lock. The house was dark and hot and silent. She kicked off her shoes and tiptoed quickly over the cool marble floor, anticipating the alarm pips. They didn’t come.

  Cress checked the keypad. The alarm hadn’t been set. She frowned. Mark usually part-set it at night. She stared at it for a moment, before wondering if . . . Harry! She ran into the study, her heart hammering. But everything was untouched.

  She closed her eyes and tried to calm down. She was deliriously tired. Mark had just forgotten, that was all. Bachelor inertia.

  She padded into the kitchen. She kept the lights off – it was a full moon and she liked the moody silverstreams of light poking in from the orangery.

  A half-drunk bottle of Cab Sauv was sitting on the island, with a smeared glass next to it. More bachelor inertia. She grabbed a sparkling crystal glass from the cupboard and poured herself a large measure. Without bothering to inhale the bouquet, she took a deep slug of the wine – God, she was shattered; she’d been driving for six hours – and carried the bottle through to the orangery, where she curled up on her favourite armchair and looked out to the night garden.

  For the first time, Cress noticed that summer was nearly over – the leaves had begun to turn and some were already blowing gently across the lawn. Most of the beds were colourless, their bounty buried for another year, although a few hydrangeas bracketed the garden with blue and lilac notes.

  She could hear an owl in one of the bigger trees, though she couldn’t see it for love nor money. She saw a russet fox creep out from behind the bare peony bed, sniffing in the wind for tonight’s supper. He looked well fed and healthy. A sly one, she thought. She watched his stealthy progress as he picked his way across the garden, trotting quickly when he was exposed on the lawn, then stopping and looking about suspiciously from the relative camouflage of an apple tree at the top of the orchard. Confident the coast was clear, he broke cover and was stalking over the grass with something approaching machismo when a sudden noise or movement startled him and he skipped sideways, his head low, ears pricked, looking for the source.