by Penny Jordan
‘Leave it, for God’s sake,’ Yorke ordered when she tried dabbing ineffectually at it with a tiny scrap of lace. ‘Beth did a good job with your clothes. I suppose you’re going all sulky on me because I’m not taking you away?’
‘I’m not sulking,’ Autumn protested miserably, wishing she could explain to him all her fears and doubts. If only he would just take her in his arms and tell her that he loved her, soothing away all her misery—but he was frowning with quick impatience, his fingers drumming a tattoo on the coffee table. The phone rang and he picked it up, a few brief staccato instructions and another frown informing Autumn that he had already forgotten her presence. Beth had warned her about his addiction to work, but until now she had not realised how completely Yorke could shut everything else out.
What was she doing here? she asked herself miserably as she stared out of the huge plate glass window on to the night-dark city. Yorke didn’t really want her, he had married her on some quixotic impulse and was already regretting it. The phone call ended and Yorke came to stand next to her.
‘Why did you marry me?’
The words seemed to tremble between them and Autumn instantly wished them unsaid. How gauche he must think her!
In the half light it was hard to reach his expression.
‘Regretting it already?’ he mocked. ‘It’s too late for that, my dear—for either of us.’
His arms closed round her as he spoke, his eyes gleaming in the darkness, and Autumn shivered, unable to prevent her instinctive withdrawal.
Yorke’s lips feathered across her cheek and she tried to force herself to relax, but it was impossible. She felt as though her heart was clamped in some giant vice preventing her from feeling anything, but this frightening panic.
That Yorke was aware of her withdrawal she did not doubt. He cursed suddenly, releasing her.
‘We’re two fools caught in the same trap,’ he mocked her, his fingers biting into her shoulders. ‘But it’s too late for second thoughts now.’
Autumn gasped as he swung her up into his arms and carried her through into the bedroom. Her cases were on the floor, but Yorke ignored them and lowered her on to the bed, his face that of a stranger’s as it tightened and hardened.
‘Such a timid little innocent,’ he said sardonically. ‘What are trying to do? Shame me into giving up my rights?’
For some reason she had angered him. Autumn could feel it in the harsh enunciation of the words, and fear feathered along her spine.
‘It’s not too late,’ she protested, thinking that he was regretting their impulsive marriage. ‘I could go home…’
‘Home? This is your home now,’ Yorke told her harshly. ‘And as for it “not being too late"—! Perhaps I’d better ensure that it is—and now.’
He was so grimly implacable that fresh fear welled up inside her, and she trembled helplessly as he bent over her. His breath smelled faintly of whisky, its taste on his lips as they moved over hers with hard determination. She had thought that once he made love to her she would forget all her fears, but the hard knot of uncertainties which had grown steadily all week refused to be dissolved even when his hands slid under her blouse to caress the warmth of her skin, and she knew that her lack of response had angered him.
‘It’s too late for regrets, Autumn,’ he told her grimly. ‘You’re my wife, and I didn’t marry you so that I could sleep alone. I want you and I mean to have you, so you’d better just make up your mind to accept the fact.’
He made it sound so emotionless that she trembled violently, hearing his harsh curse, and trying to force herself to go limp as his arms tightened around her and his mouth parted hers in angry demand.
Gradually under the expert caress of his hands she felt her nervous strain leave her, her hands reaching uncertainly for him through the darkness and encountering the smooth warmth of his skin beneath his silk shirt.
Yorke muttered something and when she hesitated turned aside with an impatient imprecation, unfastening his shirt and throwing it on to the floor, to be followed by her thin suit, fierce colour coming into her face as he studied the soft curves of her body.
His skin shone like polished silk in the half light, and Autumn gasped anew as he reached behind her to unclip her bra, his hands moulding her breasts, his breathing uneven and ragged.
‘Undress me, Autumn,’ he demanded thickly. ‘I want to feel every inch of you against me…’
Anxiously she tried to comply, but his trousers clung firmly to his hips and eventually he thrust her away, removing them himself, and as he turned back to her Autumn was overwhelmed by a feeling of inadequacy that brought her close to tears. No doubt the women he was used to did not need to be told what to do; nor would they fumble it when they did, and she longed desperately for the expertise that was so obvious in him.
His body was hard and warm, and the beginnings of excitement made her tremble against him, her lips parting hesitantly as he kissed her.
As his hands brought her body to life she felt as though she were riding the crest of a wave and gave in blindly to the urgings of her senses, pressing soft kisses against his skin, and moaning faintly at the sensations he was arousing.
Her body felt fluid and boneless and a great longing for his complete possession surged through her.
She could feel his own desire and the knowledge that he wanted her made her feel weak with heady excitement. His thigh parted hers, her faint protest being unheeded.
‘Don’t fight me, Autumn,’ he muttered in a voice hoarse with passion. ‘I’ll try not to hurt you.’
She could feel the sweat springing out on his skin and knew with sudden tense excitement that there was no going back.
Her body melted under his, inviting his domination; the short, sharp pain was over and forgotten almost before it began, desire carrying her far beyond it to a plane where all that mattered was this new pulsing need for release from the hunger that consumed her.
Someone was sobbing frantically, crying Yorke’s name, the sound mingling with his own harsh breathing, and with a shock she realised it was herself.
She heard Yorke cry triumphantly as the world exploded around her in exquisite sensation and then she was falling through space, floating on a cloud of pure pleasure, Yorke’s body a precious, heavy weight on hers.
As his breathing eased he cupped her face, staring down into her eyes.
‘At least I wasn’t wrong about this,’ he said grimly. ‘It was good, wasn’t it?’
There was so much she wanted to say, but she could not find the words. She was still trying to come to terms with what had happened, marvelling that she had ever felt afraid and uncertain.
She turned to talk to Yorke, but he was already asleep, his dark head pillowed against her shoulder, and a feeling of sweet contentment flooded through her. Everything was going to be all right. It was only as sleep claimed her that she remembered something. Never once had Yorke said that he loved her. Of course he did. He must do. And yet it would have been good to hear him say it, and echo the words back to him.
* * *
It was late when Autumn awoke. She turned, aware of a strange lethargy, and memories came flooding back. There was no sign of Yorke. She showered and dressed, hurrying into the kitchen. A note propped up against the coffee percolator informed her that he had gone to his office.
Trying not to feel too dismayed, she made fresh coffee. She had known that he was busy, and it was only logical and thoughtful that he should leave her to sleep instead of waking her, and yet she couldn’t help wishing that he had done so, if only to reassure her that last night had not merely been part of a dream.
The day stretched emptily ahead of her.
A small, plump woman came to clean the flat, and clucked over Autumn’s youth.
‘Mr Laing married, eh?’ she marvelled. ‘I never thought I’d see that. A right one for the ladies, he was, and who can blame him, with them running after him the way they did. Where did he take you for your honeymoo
n then?’ she asked curiously, and Autumn was thankful for the sudden ringing of the phone to interrupt the questions.
Until she heard Beth’s familiar voice she hadn’t realised how much she had been hoping it would be Yorke.
‘Yorke asked me to ring you,’ Beth told her. ‘He’s in a meeting right now. This American merger blew up suddenly and Richard got in touch with him first thing this morning. It could be quite late before Yorke gets home tonight. Would you like to have lunch with me?’
Autumn’s pride revolted against the faint pity in Beth’s voice, and she refused the invitation, inventing some shopping, deciding on impulse once she put the phone down that she would go out.
Three hours later when she had walked through the Park and spent half an hour watching the ducks she headed reluctantly for the apartment, a miasma of misery enveloping her, her footsteps dragging. It wasn’t until she turned her key in the lock that she acknowledged how reluctant she had been to come back. How lonely she felt.
She had no appetite for any dinner, although the cupboards were well stocked and had she been expecting Yorke home she could have spent the afternoon preparing something tempting for him to eat.
She was fast asleep when he returned and never even heard him entering the bedroom. He watched her for a while, his eyes grim in a face that was grey with fatigue. Only that afternoon he had been forced to listen to the scathing comments of Julia’s father, who had made no secret of his views on Yorke’s marriage.
Some sixth sense alerted Autumn to his presence and she opened her eyes, her heart pounding frantically as she remembered the resentful mood in which she had gone to bed.
Yorke disappeared and she heard the sounds of water running in the bathroom, that opened directly off their bedroom. Her exploration of the apartment during the day had revealed another double bedroom with an en suite bathroom, and a small dining room in addition to the huge lounge and a modern kitchen.
When Yorke returned his hair was damp, his legs bare beneath the hem of a short towelling robe.
When he pulled back the covers, Autumn stiffened instinctively, her eyes rebellious as they observed the warning tightening of his mouth.
‘I’m not in the mood for games, Autumn,’ he told her harshly, as his arms imprisoned her. ‘Comfort—isn’t that what a man has a right to expect from his wife, even if she is a child barely out of the schoolroom?’
His mouth silenced her protests that she had rights too, and as Yorke threw off the towelling robe and slid her thin silk nightdress from her shoulders, his lips teasing the swelling fullness of her breast, all coherent thought vanished.
This time her passion rose quickly to meet his, her hoarse pleas for fulfilment driving him to an urgent demand that left her satiated and half shocked by the total abandonment of her response. And yet, long after Yorke had fallen asleep, she lay awake and restless, full of an intangible yearning for something, and feeling that despite the undeniable satisfaction Yorke had given her body, there was still something missing.
Even though she had been determined to wake up in time to have breakfast with him, he had gone when Autumn eventually opened her eyes. The apartment had a sterile repressive atmosphere that depressed her, and with the days stretching emptily ahead of her she began to wonder how on earth she was going to fill her time.
The early days of their marriage set the tone for their whole relationship. Yorke left early and came home late, and the only moments they truly shared were those when he woke her from sleep to take in his arms and impose his ruthless dominance on her body.
As the weeks slid into months her resentment of the way in which he shut her out of what she termed his ‘real’ life spread, until she feigned sleep when she heard him come into their bedroom, refusing to give him the response he demanded. Yorke was too acute not to sense her moods and although nothing was said Autumn began to sense a certain implacable hardness about the way he broke through the barriers she tried to erect—not with soft, murmured words of love, but with unmerciful hands and ice-cold passion that always in the end elicited her total and passionate abandonment to his lovemaking, despite her mental revulsion of her physical weakness.
The crunch came one night ten months after they had been married. Not once in all that time had Yorke suggested that they entertain any of his colleagues, despite Beth’s warning, nor had he taken her anywhere neither out for a meal or to the theatre. He came home from work, ate the food she had prepared for him without comment, and then usually shut himself up in his study working until the early hours of the morning.
When Autumn questioned him about his business he was terse, flinging aside his papers with such comments as, ‘Forget it, Autumn, you wouldn’t begin to understand.’ But why wouldn’t she? Autumn thought resentfully. He might call her a child, but she wasn’t that. She was a woman and she was his wife and she had a right to share his life. All of it. Instead he treated her like an emotionless automaton, making love to her with a savagery which seemed to grow with each passing week, leaving no room for tenderness or anything else but their mutual consuming need.
Sometimes Autumn didn’t know whom she hated the most, Yorke for treating her the way he did, or herself for allowing him to, her body always so treacherously yielding.
Even at weekends he worked. Once she had suggested that they go for a walk and he stared at her as though she had gone mad, saying curtly, ‘This isn’t Yorkshire.’
The night he told her that he was going to America they had eaten their dinner in a cold hostile silence. Beth had phoned her during the day and had let slip Yorke’s plans, making it plain that she had been privy to them well before Autumn.
‘Why didn’t you tell me before?’ she insisted bitterly, watching Yorke swirl the wine in his glass.
‘Precisely because I knew you would react the way you have done,’ Yorke responded in clipped accents. ‘For God’s sake, Autumn, grow up. I’ve got a business to run, in case you haven’t noticed. We’re in the middle of a very delicate merger…’
‘But I could have come with you,’ Autumn protested, thinking that if she did know anything about the merger, it was only through reading the papers. Her husband did not consider her of high enough intelligence to discuss it with her.
‘Good God,’ Yorke swore, ‘don’t you think I’ll have enough to do without nursemaiding you? Or is it that that sexy body of yours can’t last a week without me?’
Autumn paled.
‘That’s a hateful thing to say!’
‘But true,’ Yorke said curtly. ‘Don’t try to deny it. I’m a man, Autumn,’ he added cruelly, ‘and I know when a woman’s responding to me.’
That was the trouble, Autumn reflected later, writhing in self-contempt. She could not stop herself from responding to him. He only had to look at her and her body started to tremble with desire. If he walked past her, her bones melted, and his merest touch was like tinder to the dry brushwood of her desire.
He had made love to her that night with an intensity that surpassed anything that had gone before, his skin burningly hot as he demanded not just her submission but her total submersion in their mutual passion. He held her as though he would imprint his bones against her flesh, withholding from her the fulfilment her hoarse, pleading cries begged for until she was in the grip of a mindless frenzy, her response injecting into their lovemaking a primal force that seemed to rip the skin deep civilisation from them both.
When it was over and they had both finally achieved peace Yorke kept her in his arms, the heavy thud of his heart easing slightly as they both relaxed.
‘Take me with you, Yorke,’ Autumn begged him, shivering as he withdraw from her.
‘There’s no point,’ he told her brutally. ‘This merger will take all my time and attention. Be content with what you’ve got, Autumn. There are a lot who don’t have anything like as much.’
And there were a lot who had a great deal more, like tenderness, sharing and love, Autumn thought resentfully, forcing herself t
o face the truth and acknowledge how much she craved these things from Yorke.
In the morning he was gone. Faint bruises shadowed her skin, betraying the intensity of their passion. She showered quickly, not wanting to look at her traitorous body. During the months of their marriage her skin had taken on the sleek contented suppleness of a jungle cat.
She went to the library to change her books. The park was full of the scents of the dying season, reminding her of Yorkshire and the first time she had seen Yorke. She felt a hundred years older than the girl she had been then, and it came to her as a shock to realise that in three days she would be twenty.
She chose her books without any real interest. When was Yorke leaving for America? She could ring Beth, but pride prevented her from asking his secretary what Yorke did not tell her himself. Was he ashamed of her? Ashamed of how people would react to their marriage? She paused, catching sight of herself in a shop window. From Beth she had learned to choose her clothes well, and the slim tweed skirt she was wearing emphasised the long length of her legs. A man inside the shop caught sight of her and smiled appreciatively, but she turned away. Crisp fallen leaves filled the gutter and she longed to walk through them, listening to their dry rustle as she dragged her feet as she had done as a child. Pulling a face at herself, she headed for Bond Street. Christmas was not very far away. Beth had told her that Yorke normally hosted a party for his senior staff at one of the large London hotels and she would need something to wear—always supposing she was invited.
She was hesitating outside the shop where they had bought her wedding dress when she was suddenly hailed by a sharp female voice, and turning abruptly she saw Julia Harding walking towards her. The brunette was wearing a fox fur jacket, her glossy dark hair a well-shaped cap hugging her head.
‘Well, if it isn’t the little bride,’ she said bitchily with a cool smile. ‘And looking down in the dumps too! No wonder, poor pet, with Yorke flying off to the States and leaving you behind.’
‘It’s a business trip,’ Autumn responded coolly, trying not to let the other woman’s venom affect her.