Sweet Compulsion

by Woolf, Victoria

  `Totally,' he agreed cheerfully.

  `What if I said I would have preferred to go abroad ?'

  He looked at her in dismay. 'Would you ?'

  Her green eyes teased him. 'No,' she admitted demurely.

  He gave her a narrow-eyed look. 'Torment,' he said huskily, and for a while they were silent.

  The farmhouse was set in a wide acreage of grazing land on which the mild white shapes of sheep could be seen slowly moving through intermediate hedges. They drove up a narrow hedged lane and parked in the cobbled yard at the side of the house. While Marcy was putting on the kettle, Randal moved their cases into the house and garaged the car out of sight. They drank a cup of tea then went up to inspect the rest of the house. It was a cosy, old-fashioned farmhouse with spacious rooms and a large grandfather clock ticking somnolently in the wide hall.

  `I love it,' said Marcy, staring out of the bedroom window.

  Randal lay down on the bed, his arms under his head, watching her. She turned and caught the look on his face and her breath caught.

  `Come here,' he said huskily.

  `I've got to get the supper,' she protested. 'You'll be hungry.'

  `I couldn't eat a damned thing,' he said, holding out his hand. 'Come here, Marcy. I'm not waiting for another second. I want you now.'

  She sat down on the bed beside him, her hand in his, watching as he carried it to his lips and kissed the blue vein inside her wrist.

  `I love you more than I've ever loved anyone or anything in the world,' he said softly.

  She looked through her gold-tipped lashes at him.

  `I love you the same way,' she said, faintly surprised. `I didn't want to—I didn't want life to hand . me a present so soon. I was looking forward to finding out at leisure about life and people . . . then wham! You just put me in your pocket and here I am . .

  `Sorry, Marcy?' he asked wryly, a look of faint anxiety on his hard face.

  She leaned slowly towards him, her eyes holding his, and let her mouth brush against his, feeling his lips tremble under her touch. 'No,' she whispered. `Oh, no, Randal darling...'

  He held his breath for a second, then pulled her down on to the bed, his hands hungrily possessive. She surrendered softly to his eager mouth, and they lay, kissing, their hands touching each other with increasingly restless passion.

  Randal buried his face in the side of her slender neck. She could hear his heart beating jerkily against her. 'I'm almost afraid to touch you,' he whispered thickly. 'Marcy, you're so young, and I couldn't bear to hurt or frighten you.'

  `Frightened of the last fence, Randal ?' she asked gently. She sat up while he rolled over on to his back, staring at her anxiously. Slowly she lifted her arms and unzipped her dress, and Randal's breath caught audibly. A little flushed, shaking slightly, Marcy shed the rest of her clothes. Randal had not moved. His blue eyes moved over her flickeringly, and she wondered why he was lying there so still. A faint worry came into her mind Didn't he want her, after all ?

  Even as she thought it, he pulled her down into his

  arms and answered her question with the fire of his hunger unleashed at last, his arms and mouth desperately out of control, as though the chain on which he had held himself had snapped.

  A slight fear entered Marcy's mind as she submitted to his passionate caresses. She was so untutored in the ways of love. Would she disappoint him now? Could a girl of her age satisfy a man like Randal?

  Moments later, softly moaning her own pleasure in his hard arms, all fear and question had been forgotten as Randal possessed her. Randal kissed her white throat, shaking, as the slender body in his arms became a flame and sent his own desire soaring beyond any heights he had ever reached before. He pushed back her wild, bright hair, his blue eyes feverish as he looked at her, and saw the glaze of answering passion in her glance.

  Beyond the window the summer sky drew down to evening, and the white sheep safely grazed on the open pastures.

  A year later Marcy, in T-shirt and yellow jeans, sat on the lawn of Lady Anne's house, her wild bright hair in disorder, watching as Perry crawled across the grass, growling like a bear.

  `He isn't old enough to play with you yet, Perry,' Marcy said, grinning. In the small wicker crib by her side lay something which had tiny starfish hands and a bubble-blowing mouth. Perry peered over the crib and said it wasn't fair.

  `What isn't ?' Marcy asked, weaving a yellow buttercup into her own hair.

  `Ever since you got married Julia's been hounding me to death. Marcy, angel, do get Randal to move me.'

  Marcy wove another buttercup into her mop. `I'll ask him again!' she promised. She suspected Randal had been deliberately leaving Perry in the legal department to annoy Julia.

  `Anthea will be down at six,' she said. 'Go and fetch her from the station, there's a darling, Perry. And do try to drive more carefully. We want Anthea to get here in a condition to eat dinner.'

  `Funny!' said Perry, moving off reluctantly.

  He passed Randal on the way to the house and got a quick, wry look which made him grimace. Randal joined his wife and son and stared from one to the other with amusement.

  `I don't know which of you is the older,' he said, sinking down on to the grass beside her. 'Who's been putting flowers in your hair? Not Perry, I hope ?'

  She gave him her provocative, teasing smile. 'Why don't you move poor Perry out of Julia's slave camp? She's driving him mad.'

  `He's driving her mad,' said Randal pleasurably. `Who cares about her? Think of poor Perry. Can't

  you give him a job in the New York office?'

  Randal looked at her through his dark lashes. 'Why

  New York ? Is he bothering you, Marcy ?'

  She knelt up and threaded a buttercup through his dark hair, her hands intimate and tormenting. 'Don't

  get jealous at the slightest thing! No, I'm just thinking that it might be best if he was out of the country for the next year while Anthea has her fling.'

  He looked aghast. 'You're not still harping on Anthea and Perry? I'd strangle her before I let her marry Perry!'

  `Darling, she and Perry are soulmates,' Marcy said gently. 'Just get Perry off to New York while Anthea has time to take a last look around before she decides on him '

  A dark frown came into Randal's face. 'Do you regret having had no fling before you married me, Marcy ?' His voice was quiet and heavy.

  She suddenly pushed him backwards on to the soft warm grass and lay on top of him, kissing him until his arms came up possessively to hold her tightly.

  `The question is: do you regret having married a ragamuffin in yellow jeans ?' she asked, tickling his nose with a buttercup.

  `I'm crazy about you, and you know it,' he said, laughing.

  `Right answer,' she said, her mouth impudent. `Any other, and you'd be forced to peel the potatoes for dinner, which is what I've got to go and do now before Chumble comes out to scold me. I love staying here, though. It's so much more like home than our house. Anatole won't let me help with the dinner and Walters looks scandalised if I open the front door or answer the phone.'

  `They both dote on you openly,' said Randal, grinning. 'You run that house with a smile and a

  word.' He glanced into the crib. 'Should James be making those funny noises ?'

  `Yes, he likes it,' she said, unconcerned.

  `He sounds as if he's being sick,' said Randal, watching the tiny fingers wriggle.

  `He's singing,' she said indignantly.

  Randal looked at her, his blue eyes passionate. `Darling Marcy, you're so young to have a child .. . I'd no right to pick you up and carry you off as I did before you'd hid a chance to live.'

  `Pirates do that sort of thing,' said Marcy cheerfully. `Me, I'm all for being abducted by a pirate. It makes life so interesting.' Her gold-tipped lashes fluttered at him. 'Especially now I'm no longer walking about with a pillow up my smock.'

  He grinned. 'You wanton!' He pulled her back on to the grass and they rolled over, k
issing, their arms around each other.

  `Mr Randal,' said Chumble disapprovingly, 'you're alarming baby!'

  'Oh, God!' groaned Randal, lying on his back with a grin.

  Chumble gave him a glare. 'Carry the crib into the house at once. Baby needs his bath.'

  `Yes, Chumble,' said Randal, obeying.

  Chumble turned her grim attention to Marcy. `You're wearing those nasty jeans again, miss. When you've changed you can come down and help me with the dinner.'

  Yes, Chumble,' Marcy said submissively.

  `And you've got buttercups in your hair,' said Chumble, shaking her head. 'Don't bring them into

  the house. I don't want a mess on my carpets.'

  Randal laughed as Marcy obediently pulled out the offending flowers and strewed them on the lawn, then catching Chumble's eye, he walked towards the house with the crib. Marcy caught up with him and leaned her slender shoulder against him as they walked. Randal turned loving blue eyes on her.

  `I love you with buttercups in your hair and yellow jeans on,' he whispered.

  `Ssh! Chumble will hear you,' she replied.

  `Damn Chumble,' he said. 'Damn the whole world. I love you, Marcy, buttercups, yellow jeans and all, and I don't care who knows it.'