by Flora Kidd
He parked the car and they went up to the sixth floor in the lift together. In the kitchenette of the flat Jessica put the coffee-maker on while he sat in the small dining area and studied the drawings she had made for chairs.
'Well? What do you think?' she asked when the coffee was made and she had carried a tray bearing two mugs, cream and sugar and the pot into the living part of the big room and had set it down on the coffee table. She sat down on the couch and began to pour coffee.
'I think you're a very clever designer,' said Chris, coming to sit down beside her. 'And that given the freedom to create in your own way you could become a name in furniture design.' He took the coffee mug she offered him from her and set it down on the table, then turned to her, and she became aware how close he was sitting. 'I also think you're beautiful, Jess,' he whispered. 'And I can't promise that if you come to work for me I'll be able to keep my hands off you. What are your feelings about sexual harassment on the job?'
He leaned closer to her, his eyes hooded, their glance directed deliberately and suggestively to her lips. He wanted to kiss her, make love to her. Why not? Why not? a voice taunted within her. Let him. You're an adult, and what two consenting adults do in private is their business. Her lips parted in invitation.
As soon as his lips touched hers she closed her eyes and imagined she was being kissed by Alun, that they were Alun's arms that were around her, Alun's fingers easing undone the zip at the back of her dress.
A bell rang imperatively, and Chris lifted his lips from hers and frowned down at her.
'Are you expecting someone?' he asked.
'No.' She moved away from him, pushing back her hair. 'Perhaps it was next door's.'
The bell rang again, several times, as if someone was jabbing at it with an impatient finger.
'It is yours,' said Chris, standing up. 'Shall I go?'
'No . . . no, it's all right. Might be one of the neighbours. Stay here, I'll answer the door.'
Jessica stepped out into the small hallway. The bell rang again. She opened the door, aware that Chris had followed her, wishing he hadn't. She didn't want whoever was at the door to see him. The door swung back.
'I was just beginning to think you weren't in or that I'd come to the wrong door,' said Alun, and walked right past her into the hallway as if he owned the place.
'Oh!' Pure delight that he had come to her, that he was there, actually there in the hallway, danced through her like a shower of golden sparks, lighting up her mind, her body. 'I wasn't expecting you,' she added hastily, noticing him staring at Chris.
'No?' He looked back at her, frowning. Deeply tanned, his hair a wild tangle, a growth of black beard on his cheeks and chin, he looked as if he had come straight from the rain forest to London, for he was wearing tough greenish bush clothes. 'But I sent you a card to say I'd be here today,' he said.
'When? When did you send it, and from where?'
'Last week from New Guinea.'
'It hasn't arrived yet. But how did you know my address?'
'I didn't. I sent it to Wordsworth Close—I've just come from there. Your mother told me about this place.' He glanced again at Chris.
'This . . . this is Chris Pollet, a friend of mine,' said Jessica hastily. 'Chris, this is Alun Gower.'
'Hi, Chris,' said Alun casually, humping his travelling bag before him as he edged past Chris and into the living room. 'Excuse me, I'd like to dump my things somewhere, and grab a shave and a shower.'
He went through the living room, finding his way unerringly to the passage that led to the bathroom and the bedroom, as if he had lived there before. Chris and Jessica stood and looked at each other.
'I'll get out of your way,' murmured Chris, picking up his thick woollen car-coat and slipping it on over his suit. 'You'll let me know if you want to come and work for me?'
'Yes ... yes, I'll let you know,' she muttered, following him to the flat entrance. 'Thank you for dinner. I enjoyed it very much. Goodnight, Chris.'
'Goodnight, Jess.'
The door closed behind him. Jessica stood for a moment listening to the wild beating of her heart, feeling flames burning in her cheeks. Alun had come back and had found her with another man. Now what?
She went into the living room and, picking up the mug Chris had taken, put it on the tray. Then she carried the tray into the kitchenette. She emptied both mugs of the coffee they contained and rinsed them out. Then she went along to the bedroom. The bathroom door was closed when she passed it and she assumed Alun was in there.
The clothes he had been wearing were lying on the pale thick carpet of the bedroom where he had dropped them. She picked them up, wrinkling her nose distastefully at the smell of them, and dropped them into the wicker clothes basket. Then she undressed, putting her dress away on a hanger in the closet. Her slip and other underwear went into the clothes basket. Taking a housecoat made from dark blue silk, she slipped it on and zipped it up, then pushed her feet into mules made from soft blue velveteen. And all the time her heart was singing because Alun had come back. He had come to her first. He hadn't gone to Wales.
'Jessica?' The bathroom door had opened and he was shouting, 'Is this towel the best you can provide? Don't you have anything bigger? It wouldn't dry a pygmy!'
Suddenly she was scurrying about, out into the passage to the linen closet. She had forgotten she had put the bath-towel she had used earlier in the dirty clothes basket and hadn't replaced it. She went to the bathroom door. It was partly open, steam floating through the opening and out into the passage. She stepped into the room, thinking that Alun was still in the bath, behind the shower curtain.
'I've hung it on the rail,' she said.
'Thanks,' he said from behind her, and before she could whirl to face him he put his arms around her and dragged her back against him, holding her captive.
'Oh, what do you think you're doing!' she gasped, her hands on his brawny bare arms. 'Let me go!'
'Not until you tell me what you and Pollet were doing,' he growled, putting his head down beside hers, his curls tickling her temple, his breath hot against her ear and then his teeth nibbling the lobe, biting it sharply so that she squeaked.
'We ... we weren't doing anything,' she gasped. 'I ... he's in furniture too and he was looking at some designs of mine.'
'Oh, sure,' he jeered. 'Then why did you and he both have a guilty look on your faces as if you'd been caught in the act?'
'What act?' she asked in all innocence.
'Oh, come on, Jess,' Alun drawled with a touch of weariness. 'You know what I mean. I haven't lost my memory. I know damned well he's the guy who wanted to marry you. He's your lover, isn't he.'
'No, he isn't!' Jessica spat the words out as she tried to struggle free of his hold. 'Alun, let go of me—please! Oh, what are you doing now?'
'Undressing you. I have the right to, you know,' he asserted arrogantly. Even while she had struggled he had managed to unzip the housecoat. 'We'll finish this in the shower,' he added, lifting her, his hands at her waist.
'No!' she shrieked, feeling completely helpless, lifted that way in front of him, her mules falling off as she kicked her feet frantically. 'Put me down—put me down at once!'
'Certainly,' Alun said scoffingly, putting her down in the bath and stepping in too, still behind her, holding her against him with one arm while he pulled the shower curtain across and then turned on the shower.
'Oh, no!' she yelled. 'My housecoat will be ruined! You devil—you mischievous fiend! What do you think you're doing?'
'Trying to find out the truth about you and Pollet,' he retorted, and as her housecoat slid down to lie in a wet pool at her feet he spun her round to face him while warm water sluiced over them. His fingers bit bruisingly into the soft flesh of her upper arms as he glared down at her. 'Was he making love to you when I rang the door-bell?' he demanded.
'He ... he was kissing me, yes. Alun, this is silly, standing like this, getting wet.'
'Is it? I'm finding
it rather stimulating.' Pulling her close to him, he rubbed himself against her intimately and she felt desire spring up in her. 'And if I hadn't come when I did would it have gone further than just kissing?' he demanded, his voice hoarse as he continued to hold her closely, his fingertips walking lightly over her warm skin that had been sensitised by the tingling spray of water so that every delicate nerve ending was alive and aching for his touch. Delicious sensations shot through her. Her head reeling, she groaned in pleasurable agony, wanting to feel more, and she had to lean against his hard wet body for support.
'You're jealous,' she accused gaspingly, delighted that he could be.
'I'll admit to jealousy when I know if I have any reason to be jealous,' Alun whispered menacingly. 'Now answer my question.' His hands slid along her shoulders threateningly to curve about her throat. His thumbs tantalised the pulse in the vulnerable hollow at the base. 'Would it have gone any further if I hadn't arrived when I did?'
'I don't know,' she moaned. 'I was feeling so lonely and I was longing for you. But he didn't kiss me like you do. No one has ever kissed me the way you do, or done the things you do to me.' His hands were sliding down from her throat to cup her taut breasts and his lips followed them, his wet curls tickling her already titillated skin. 'Oh, please do that again,' she whispered when his hard tongue licked one vulnerable pink point. 'Please kiss me there again. It makes me feel so....' She groaned in ecstasy.
'So what?' he asked.
'So happy to be with you again.' Jessica rubbed herself against him until he was groaning too. 'Are we going to do it here?'
'If you want to do it.' Alun's^ voice was thick with passion.
'I want to do it ... now,' she sighed, arching her body like a bow ready for an arrow to the thrust of his desire.
A long time later, when they had dried each other with thick soft towels, and were curled up in bed together, they talked sleepily in the darkness.
'I was so worried in case you went to Wales first, in case you didn't come back to me,' Jessica admitted.
'Why would I go to Wales first?' he asked.
'To ... to see Mavis Owen.'
'Now why the hell would I want to go and see her?' he spoke more sharply, no longer sleepy.
'You used to be in love with her, before she married Gareth. She told me you and she had fallen in love again and wanted to start an adventure school together.'
'Poppycock,' he said abruptly.
'What did you say?'
'I said poppycock—a good English slang word for nonsense. I was never in love with Mavis Owen and she never attracted me. And I never want to start an adventure school with her as my partner.'
'But she said you'd told her that you could only go into partnership with her if you weren't married to me,' she argued. 'And when I asked you if you'd said that to her you admitted that you had.'
'I told her I couldn't be her partner while I was married to you to stop her from pestering me,' he growled. 'I was sick and tired of her going on about the bloody adventure school and how great it would be if she and I were partners. That didn't mean I didn't want to be married to you. I was using my marriage to you as a protection against her.'
'Oh. I ... I thought you wanted a divorce,' said Jessica weakly.
'It was you who came asking for a divorce,' he retorted.
'And you said I could have one if it was what I wanted,' she retaliated, 'so when Mavis told me what you'd said to her I thought being married to me was getting in your way, preventing you from doing something that she said had been your dream; a dream you'd shared with her and Gareth, to start an adventure school.'
'That was their dream, but never mine,' said Alun. 'I'd never have gone into a business partnership with either of them. Both of them were unreliable.'
'Aren't you going to start an adventure school, then?'
'No, I'm not.'
'Then what are you going to do with the farm?'
'I've already done it. While you were lying in a coma in hospital I arranged for the farm to be amalgamated with Dai Jones's farm, with him in charge.' He paused, then asked slowly, 'Did you really believe what Mavis said, that our marriage was getting in my way?'
'It wasn't hard to believe. I knew, you see, that you'd never really wanted to be married and that you'd only married me to help me to convince my father I didn't want to and wouldn't marry Arthur Lithgow. Ouch! Alun, stop pulling my hair—it hurts!'
'I'm trying to stop you from talking poppycock,' he muttered, leaning over her. 'Now listen to me, really listen, I mean, and take in what I'm going to say to you, because I might never feel like saying it again. I married you because I wanted to marry you. I wanted you to be mine and only mine. I admit I had a few qualms about giving up my freedom, but you seemed to be willing to go along with the idea of me going away often, and we were doing pretty well until you started listening to Sally.'
'Well, how was I supposed to know Ashley King was your mother and not your lover?' she retorted. 'You never told me anything about your family.'
'My mistake.' The bitterness in his voice was directed at himself. 'I know that now. I should have explained to you, but instead I lost my temper. I was hurt, see? I was hurt because you didn't trust me the way I trusted you; because you were willing to listen to Sally's jealous tales about me and believe them. And she was jealous of you, you know. She was jealous because I preferred you to her.'
He flung himself back on his pillow. There was a long silence. The only sounds were the quickened throbs of both their hearts. After a while Jessica said forlornly,
'If only you'd come back to me when you returned from that expedition to the Canadian Arctic! If only you'd written, or phoned, or done something to communicate with me.'
'If only you'd been living at our flat when I did return,' he replied gruffly. 'But you weren't and I was hurt again believing that you'd had enough of our rather fragile marriage.'
'I missed you so much during those two years,' she whispered, snuggling closer to him. Alun raised an arm and put it around her shoulders and gathered her against him. She rested her head on his shoulder.
'I missed you too,' he replied. 'And when you did turn up at Whitewalls I was so excited that I did and said all the wrong things, frightened you away.'
'It wasn't you who frightened me away, it was Mavis. But I had to leave—I couldn't stay. I had to go back to help Mother.'
'I know you did. I understood that, but now, looking back, I realise I should have gone with you and then maybe you wouldn't have been in that accident. . . .' Alun broke off and his arm tightened about her. 'If you knew how I felt when I got your mother's letter telling me you'd been badly hurt, that you couldn't walk and had lost your memory, you'd nave no doubts about my feelings for you,' he said in a low shaken voice. 'It's a good thing your mother wasn't there in person. I'd have hit her, I think for not letting me know sooner. All that time I'd been waiting to hear that you'd filed for a divorce you'd been lying in a coma, and I hadn't known.' He drew in a long breath. 'If you'd changed your name when we got married; if you'd had something on you that had shown the police that as your husband I was your next of kin and should have been informed of any accident, I'd have known before your mother.'
'Did she ever tell you why she hadn't let you know sooner?' asked Jessica.
'She said she'd hesitated because she didn't know how things were between you and me, and also that she wasn't at all sure where I lived in Wales. She apologised for not being in touch sooner and then went on to lecture me about my responsibilities as a husband, how I should take care of you, stay with you while you were learning to walk again, help you to regain your memory.' He laughed. 'She's a very sweet lady, so I followed her advice and took you away to King's Fancy, where you pretended your memory hadn't returned, God knows why.'
'I was afraid,' she whispered. 'I was afraid you were only staying with me because it's what a husband is expected to do and not what you wanted to do.'
'Little cheat,' Alun
taunted softly, hugging her again.
'Well, you didn't seem to want me any more. You slept in another room and you didn't make love to me.'
'Because I thought you wouldn't want me to,' he replied and again bitterness edged his voice. 'The last time I'd tried you'd pushed me away and had asked me not to touch you, giving me the impression that being made love to by me was the last thing you wanted. Lust, you called it, and said it didn't mean anything.'
'I said that because I was never sure, you see, that you wanted me because you loved me,' she confessed.
'I loved you and I still love you. I've loved you ever since I met you in the Fairbourne's House and you stood there in your riding clothes, with your hair about your shoulders, and looked down your nose at me.'
'I didn't look down my nose at you,' she gasped, amazed at this view he had had of her.
'Oh yes, you did. You're always looking down your nose at me as if you're the superior princess in a fairy tale and I'm the beggar in the gutter. That's been your challenge to me always.'
'I didn't know,' Jessica said weakly.
'I had to wait a few years for you to grow up and then you played right into my hands,' he said with a note of triumph. 'Why do you think I took you in, gave you shelter and found you a job? Because I loved you and wanted you. If I hadn't I wouldn't have done a damn thing for you. I'm not the stuff of which knight errants are made, you know. I don't give help to every damsel in distress who comes my way. Only to you.'
'Oh, I wish I'd known. I wish you'd told me,' she groaned. 'I suppose you think now that I've behaved in a very silly way.'
'There have been moments when I've wondered about you,' Alun admitted dryly, 'wondered whether you would ever come to terms with yourself.'
'Would you like to know why?' she asked, raising a hand to touch his face, tracing the line of his lips until he opened them and snapped his teeth at her finger so that she snatched it away.
'As long as it doesn't take too long,' he drawled. 'I'm beginning to feel lustful again.'
'I ... I've never been sure that you loved me,' she murmured. 'I could never see what it was that you ... or someone like you, so strong and clever and adventurous, and free-spirited—could see in me, an ordinary conventional woman who likes houses and furniture and flowers and who would like so much to have babies, at least two, and would stay at home to look after them.'