by Lucy Gordon
"I am," she said, stating the simple truth.
"What about your mom's savings?"
''Dad took them. I remember him looking at the bank passbook and saying, 'I knew the bitch was hiding money from me!' I think he spent most of it on a honeymoon with Clarice."
"Wasn't there anyone to stick up for you?"
"Frank, my mother's younger brother, had a go at Dad. But Dad just told him to mind his own business. What could he do? I stuck it until I left school, then I got out."
"Cheered on by the dreadful Clarice?"
"No, she was furious. She'd got it all planned for me to work in her brother's grocery store for slave wages, and go on doing all the housework." Pippa's eyes gleamed with mischief. "I told her where she could put that," she said, with such wicked relish that Luke laughed out loud.
"I'll bet you did!" he said admiringly.
"She said she'd never heard such disgraceful language. I told her she'd hear it again if she didn't get out of my way. She screamed at me while I was packing, down the stairs, through the front door and all the way to the bus station.
"She said I'd come to a bad end in London, and I'd be crawling back in a week. I told her I'd starve first. I got on the bus and watched Clarice getting smaller and smaller until she vanished from my life and I vanished from hers. I've kicked the dust of Encaster off my feet, and it's staying off."
"Encaster? Don't think I've heard of it."
"Nobody's heard of it except the people who live there, and most of them wish they hadn't. It's about thirty miles north of London, very small and very dreary."
"Didn't your dad want you home?"
"I called him at his work once to let him know I was all right. He told me to 'stop being an idiot' and come back, because Clarice was giving him a hard time about it. That was all he cared about. If he'd been just a little bit concerned about me I'd have told him where I was. But he wasn't. So I didn't. That was the last time I talked to him. I'm still in touch with Frank, but he and Dad aren't speaking. He won't give me away."
"So you came to seek your fortune in London? At sixteen? Good for you, kid! Did you find the streets paved with gold?"
"They will be, one day. I do cookery courses in the evenings, and when I've got some diplomas I'll get a job as a cook. Then I'll do more courses, get a better job, and so on, until the gourmets of the world are beating a path to my door."
"S'cuse me, ma'am, but it's my door they're going to beat a path to."
"Well, I expect there'll be room for both of us," she conceded generously.
"You mean the three of us, don't you?" he asked with a grin. "You, me and that colossal ego of yours. They'll have to build somewhere just to house it."
"And the rest! Everyone knows Americans can't cook."
"Can't-May you be forgiven! And since you come from the nation that eats French fries-"
"Chips!"
"-with everything, doesn't think food is properly cooked unless it's swimming in grease, and can't make decent coffee-"
"All right, all right, I give in." She threw up her hands in mock surrender, then pointed to her plate. "This is really delicious, I'll admit that."
"All my own invention. When I've got it perfect I'll present it to the head chef."
''Oh, great! Now I'm a guinea pig. If I don't drop dead after eating this you'll know it's safe to offer it to the Sultan of Thingy and the Duke of Whatsit?''
"Something like that," he admitted with a grin.
She saw him regarding her outfit and said, "Nice, huh?"
"Love it, and the purple thing you were wearing when I saw you the other day."
Pippa chuckled. "The head housekeeper nearly fainted. She couldn't get me out of it and into my uniform fast enough. But I don't like people to overlook me."
''No danger of that. How do you afford fashion and pay for classes, as well?''
"I make my own fashion from other people's rejects. The jeans came from a rummage sale, the boots had been reduced five times because the color frightened people the hat came from an Oxfam shop, and I knit the sweater from remnants.". He grinned, enchanted.
His own story delighted her. He was, as she'd guessed, American, from Los Angeles, and his life seemed to have revolved around sun, sea and sand. His passion was cookery and the only books he ever opened were recipes. Beyond that there wasn't, a thought in his head apart from swimming, bodysurfing, eating, drinking and generally having a good time. There had been so little fun in Pippa's life that this young man, who seemed to make almost a religion of merriment, seemed to usher her to a new and magical world, one in which the light was always golden, the sensations exquisite and youth would last forever.
He had ambition, of a kind.
"I don't just want to be a cook,"there are plenty of them," he explained. "I want to be the cook, so I had to find something that would make me stand out from the others. I scraped together all the money I could and came to Europe, to work in some of the great hotels. I did six months in the Danieli in Venice, six in the George V in Paris, and now I'm doing the London Ritz. When my work permit's up I'll go back to Los Angeles as Luke of the Ritz. Hey, have you swallowed something the wrong way?" For Pippa was doubled up and apparently choking.
"You can't do that," she spluttered when she could speak. "Luke of the Ritz? Nobody will be able to eat for laughing."
"Oh!" he said, deflated. "You don't think they'll be impressed?"
"I think they'll chuck tomatoes at you."
The awful truth of this hit him suddenly and he began to laugh, too. The more he laughed, the more she laughed, and it became funnier and funnier.
If this were a romantic comedy, she thought, they would laugh until they fell into each other's arms. She found herself tingling with anticipation.
But Luke pulled himself together and said in a choking sort of voice, "It's late. I ought to be getting you home."
"It's not that late," she protested.
"It is when I have a 6 a.m. start. Come on."
He borrowed a battered old car from one of the other residents, and drove the couple of miles to the hostel where she lived. As he pulled up, Pippa waited for his arm around her shoulders, pulling her close, his lips on hers…
''Here we are,'' he said, pulling open the passenger door.
Reluctantly Pippa got out of the car. He came with her to the front door.
"See you tomorrow," Luke said, giving her a brief peck on the cheek. In a moment his taillights were vanishing around the corner, and she was left standing there, muttering some very unladylike words.
Pippa was proud of being a modern young woman, unshackled by the prejudices and restraints of outmoded convention, free to enjoy worldly delights on equal terms with men. If she wanted to smoke, drink and pursue the pleasures of the flesh, she had every right to do so.
That was the theory. The practice was more difficult. The only cigarette she had ever tried had been in a pub with a party of friends. She'd promptly had a violent coughing fit, upset a bowl of peanuts all over the floor and been ordered out by an exasperated publican. She hadn't tried again. It had tasted disgusting, anyway. So much for smoking.
Alcohol was also a problem. She could twirl a glass bravely, but more than a little of the cheap plonk, which was all she could afford, upset her stomach. So much for drinking.
Which left sex. And that wasn't working out brilliantly, either.
She'd naively imagined that London would be filled with attractive, lusty males, all eager to meet a liberated young woman. But a depressingly large number of them were middle-aged and boring. Too many of the young ones were studious, married or gay. They talked too much. Or too little. Or about the wrong things. It was like being back in Encaster.
She wasn't short of offers. A tall, delicately built young woman with a daft sense of humor, laughing eyes and legs up to her ears was always going to turn heads. It should have been, as the song said, a matter of picking "the height, the weight, the size." But the height was too oft
en awkward, and the weight was usually excessive. So she passed up the chance to check the size.
After two years in London Pippa was virginal, exasperated and uneasily aware that as an advertisement for riotous living she was a miserable failure. At this rate she might as well be a Victorian maiden. It was very disheartening.
She wondered if it was too late to become a nun.
But from the moment she met Luke everything changed. He won by default because he was none of the dreary things the others were. Also because his voice had a vibrant note she'd never heard before, and it produced a quickening of excitement in her. He won, too, because his eyes teased and tempted her, because his mouth was wide and mobile, and it could be tender, amused, or firm when his stubbornness was aroused.
But mostly he won because just being in the same room with him could induce a fever in her. Plus, the rotten so and so had never shown any sign of wanting to entice her into his bed. It was an insult that she couldn't let pass.
What made it more galling was that everyone at work simply assumed they were sleeping together. Luke had a reputation as a love-'em-and-leave-'ern heartbreaker.
"He calls it traveling light," one of the other maids confided. "He was going out with Janice on the third floor. Everything was lovely until she invited him to a family wedding. Big mistake. He only called her once more and that was to tell her he had to do a lot of overtime, so they'd better cool it."
Ears flapping, Pippa listened to all the gossip and made mental notes of what not to do. Deciding what to do was harder.
He never actually asked her out, but their shifts were roughly the same, and whoever finished first would wait for the other. Then they would stroll home, his arm about her shoulders, while Luke talked like a crazy man and Pippa tried not to be too aware of how badly she wanted him to stop talking and start kissing.
She decided to be subtle about it. Instead of Luke always doing the cooking, she would prepare an intimate supper, at his place, candlelight, soft music, and one thing would lead to another.
It was a disaster.
It might have worked with any other man, but Luke was constitutionally unable to sit quiet while somebody else cooked for him. With the best will in the world he couldn't refrain from suggesting that she turn the gas down and give this dish or that just a little more time.
In the end she stormed out. It was that or throw the lot over him.
Next day he was waiting for her with a posy and a heartfelt apology.
"I did you an injustice, didn't I?" he said humbly. "You weren't really going to do the creme caramel like that."
The quarrel that resulted from this remark took three days to heal. But nobody could quarrel for long with a man as sweet tempered as Luke. When he realized she wasn't going to make the first move he waited for her to leave the hotel and approached her with a finger pressed over his mouth.
"Good evening," she said frostily.
He made no sound, but pointed to the silencing finger with his other hand.
"I'm going home now," she declared.
But it was impossible. Whichever direction she took he was there before her, blocking off her exit, herding her toward the boarding house like a sheepdog with an awkward lamb.
"I don't know what you think you're playing at," she said exasperated.
From his pocket he took a small notebook on which he'd already written, "Every time I open my mouth you get mad at me."
"Oh, stop it!" she said, trying not to laugh, and completely failing.
"I'm sorry, Pippa," he said, meekly. "I just can't help it. Some people can't travel in a car as a passenger. They just have to drive. I can't be a passenger in a kitchen. I get hung up about how I'd do it and…" Catching her eye, he said hastily, "Let's drop the subject. Come home with me and I'll do the supper."
She slid her arms about him, looking up into his face. "Hope it chokes you," she said happily.
"You can sit and glare at me and make sure it does."
They laughed. He kissed the end of her nose, and they strolled the rest of the way in perfect accord, their arms about each other's waists.
What had they been arguing about? She'd forgotten before they reached home. All that was left was the joy of being in harmony with him again. That joy lifted her up so that she seemed to float on air. He existed. The world was a perfect place.
The supper was just as she had planned, soft lights, a rose beside her plate. But this time it was his doing. Afterward they sat on the sofa and he poured wine bought specially for the occasion.
"Forgive me?" he asked, lifting his glass to her.
"For what?"
"For being an insufferable know-it-all who can't stop sticking his oar in where it isn't wanted."
"Oh, that," she said airily. "I'm used to that. In fact, I'd better forgive you now for all the future occasions, too. Think how much time I'll save."
They laughed together. It was the perfect moment. She was sure of it. She leaned forward and very deliberately placed her lips against his.
She hadn't gotten it wrong, she thought eagerly. She could feel the tremor in him that was the mirror image of her own. She pressed closer, kissing him more insistently until his response leaped up like fire, and his hands were on her arms, holding her tight.
But in the same moment she felt him gently pushing her away and separating his lips from hers. Pink with embarrassment and disappointment she glared at him.
"Is there something wrong with me?" she demanded, aggressive to hide her anguish.
"No," he said gently, "there's nothing wrong with you at all."
She glared suspiciously. "You're not gay, are you?"
He grinned and shook his head. "Word of honor."
"Then why won't you kiss me, you rotten swine?"
"Because I wouldn't want to stop at kissing, and you-well, you're young and-"
"Are you accusing me of being a virgin?" Pippa demanded hotly.
"It's not an accusation-"
"Oh, no! It's only like telling me that I'm a backward infant. In this day and age-"
"I suppose there are still virgins in this day and age," he observed. He was looking tenderly into her face, and his lips were twitching.
"Not in London," she said idiotically. She knew she was crazy, but she couldn't stop herself.
"It's just that there's something about you-something very sweet and young-that made me think-oh, hell!" Now it was his turn to be embarrassed, and Pippa seized her chance to regain the initiative.
"You know your trouble, Luke? You think too much. What a lot of fuss you make over something that's no big deal. The world is full of ships that pass in the night, and if…if people like each other…"
In later years, reliving that conversation, she'd heard the childish bravado and known that Luke must have heard it, too. He hadn't been fooled-of course not. But whatever defenses he'd rallied against her had collapsed in a heap. Suddenly she was in his arms, his fingers were working urgently on her buttons, and everything was happening as she had dreamed.
When he released her breasts she was almost ashamed of them. They were so proudly peaked, the nipples already firm, the aureoles dark, telling their own tale of the desire she'd been trying to hold back. What had happened to maidenly modesty?
Then he laid his lips gently against one, teasing it with his tongue, and she thought, when she could manage to think at all, to hell with maidenly modesty!
As his tongue nudged the nipple softly back and forth she thought she might go out of her mind. How could anything feel like this, and how had she spent so long not knowing? So much time wasted! It was a conspiracy.
She took a long, trembling breath and dug her fingers into him as his lips and tongue continued their tormenting work. With every rasp the world shivered into glittering fragments, blinded her, faded, began again.
He undressed her slowly, removing garments as though there was plenty of time. Only his quickened breathing and the way his fingers shook as he eased off her je
ans hinted at how frantically he was controlling himself until the right moment. Then her panty hose slid away, and at last she was naked.
He removed his own clothes in a hurry and chucked them on the floor without taking his eyes from Pippa.
"Hello," he said, smiling.
"Hello." She sounded breathless.
She'd never shown her body off to a man before, but she knew she could be proud of its slim, youthful lines, tiny waist and long flanks. Her breasts were small, firm and cheekily uptilted. She longed to ask him if he thought she was beautiful, but perhaps he was already letting her know in the loving way he stroked her smooth skin and traced the outline of her curves, murmuring appreciatively as he did so and sometimes stopping to bestow a light kiss before moving on.
She was almost shocked by the fierceness of her own sensations, as if her body was possessed by another being, one that had never heard of restraint. For a wild moment all the old precepts of childhood-don't grab-be patient-learn to wait-flashed through her head, and she knew they belonged to another world, not the world of thrilling, sensational delight Luke was offering her now. She was alive for the first time in her existence.
She reached for him, and it felt so good to be able to touch him all over at last. She'd tried so often to picture him without clothes, but nothing could match the reality of his lean, smooth body. She was at fever pitch. She wanted him so badly.
"Luke," she whispered, "you do want me, don't you?"
His answer came without words. Grinning, he drew back so that she could see the truth for herself, and there he was, proud and hard with the splendid, arrogant power of youth. And he was all hers.
"Luke," she cried in an agony of impatience.
"Yes, darling."
At last he parted her legs and settled between them. Then he was sliding easily into her, and it was beautiful, and she wanted him more and more. She wanted it never to stop. She wanted the whole world, and he was giving it to her. He thrust deeply and slowly, sending pleasure through every part of her body, starting with her loins and radiating out to her fingertips.
Then it happened. Something in the universe went click and everything fell into place. Instinct took over, guiding her perfectly. It was as though Luke had tossed her a dream and she'd caught it and run with it. Nobody had told her how, but her hips moved of their own accord, driving against him. The feeling of being able to heighten her own pleasure and his was thrilling, and when Luke responded by thrusting back more fiercely, she went into orbit.