by Mary Mackie
‘Where are we?’ I asked.
‘This is where I live,’ Oliver said. ‘Merchant’s Court. I’d have taken you to Hawthorn House, but I’d rather not disturb your aunt Saffron at this hour…’ He glanced at a black marble clock on his mantel, which said it was past midnight. ‘I told my housekeeper to go to bed,’ he added, ‘but if you would prefer her to be here—’
I stopped him, a hand on his arm. ‘No, don’t disturb her. I’m sorry, I’m not thinking. I feel… unclean! That horrible cell they put me in.’
‘That’s easily remedied, if you’d care to use the facilities here…’
A short while later I found myself soaking in a hot bath, steam rising in clouds to a high ceiling. Black and white tiles chequered walls and floor and, above a dado rail, condensation dewed large mirrors. Oliver liked mirrors, I thought. Was he vain? Perhaps he had a right to be: he was a good-looking man. And he and I were alone together, but for his sleeping housekeeper. The thought made me climb out of the bath and wrap myself in thick white towels.
He had said I might use his guest room for the night, to which end he had lent me a pair of white silk pyjamas, monogrammed ‘O.G.W.’ in navy blue on the breast pocket, and a navy silk dressing gown. They were large on me, but covered me securely enough with the waist cords tightly tied. I was itchingly aware that they had been next to Oliver’s skin, as they were now next to mine.
I discovered him in his drawing room, wearing a loose quilted jacket over his evening shirt, now collarless and open at the neck. He poured me a large measure of brandy, which I sipped perhaps too eagerly, hoping to calm my nerves, perched on the edge of a low armchair while he relaxed on the chesterfield. One would have thought he drank brandy in his apartment with unsettled, half-clad young ladies in the small hours of every night.
We talked about my arrest and questioning; we discussed the war, and my becoming George Chorley’s secretary – everything but our personal lives. The brandy loosened my tongue and relaxed me. When I started yawning, Oliver showed me to his guest room and wished me good night.
‘Oliver…’ I ventured as he turned from the door. ‘Are you angry with me? I’m sorry to have been a trouble to you.’
‘Not at all. As your grandmother’s solicitor, it was my duty to help.’ He gave me a slight smile that left his eyes sad. ‘Sleep well, Kate.’
He was keeping his vow, I realized guiltily as he walked away: any new overture must come from me. What a cruel creature I was to hurt him so!
Nineteen
I found Oliver’s guest bed hard, the bedding redolent of mothballs. Noises came from the riverside, clattering, clangings and bangings, and then a dog began to bark. When at last I slept I dreamed of being incarcerated in a stinking cell, menaced by huge soldiers with fixed bayonets, while in the distance Philip and his girl laughed at me, and Oliver was smoking a cigar in the summerhouse, and an invasion fleet sailed into the Wash, landing on Eveningham beach, where I paddled with Uncle John, who was dragged away and held under the water by a huge soldier wearing the helmet of the élite Death’s Head hussars. Someone was screaming. Maybe it was me.
Shocked awake in pulsing darkness, I wondered where I was. The covers had slipped away, leaving me cold. As I sat up, shivering, reaching for the sheet, hands came on me. I shrieked, and Oliver said anxiously, ‘It’s me, Kate! Only me. You called out for me.’
Probably I had – he had certainly been in my nightmare somewhere. Its remnants still clung about me as I reached for him. ‘Oh… Oliver!’
‘I’m here.’ He sat beside me, folding me in his arms, where I huddled shivering, my tears drying on his pyjamas while he stroked and soothed me. How blessedly warm he was. How strong and sure. I leaned against him, burrowing to his warmth like a child, muttering, ‘I’m sorry. I was dreaming. Nightmares. I’ve always had them, ever since I was a child.’
‘I know,’ he murmured, his breath scented with cigar and brandy as he held me more closely, curling his arms and body round me. ‘My dear, you’re so cold! Even your little nose…’ He warmed it with his lips, and from there ventured to brush tentative kisses over my eyes and down my face, until he found my willing mouth.
After that I stopped thinking. Thinking brought pain, but sensation gave sweet oblivion, blotting out the hurt.
He wooed me with tender stealth, rousing me inch by inch, infinitely patient. His mouth and hands coaxed music from my nerves, singing across my flesh in chords of swelling desire. The night air no longer felt cold: it tingled sensually along my skin as the loose pyjamas fell from me under the caressing of warm, strong hands. And, where his fingers led, his lips followed, tempting and cajoling, making me quiver and shiver, unfurling me like a flower to sunlight as he dared deeper and deeper intimacies. I felt myself reaching, straining, for a goal I had only dimly glimpsed before. It drenched me suddenly, forcing a strangled cry from me as terrible pleasure flooded my being.
As the world resumed its normal shape around me I shook uncontrollably, weeping, but Oliver held me close, kissing me, murmuring reassurance. His voice came soft in my ears like the shush of the ocean. ‘Hush, my love. Hush, all’s well. I’m here. Rest now. Sleep…’
And, incredibly, I did sleep.
His moving disturbed me. I thought he was leaving but, as I sleepily opened my eyes to early morning light through heavy curtains, he slid back beneath the sheet and leaned over me, stroking my hair and face, murmuring, ‘Good morning.’ As he kissed me, I felt his body brush mine. He was naked – when I woke, rather than leaving the bed, he had been undressing.
Feeling the strange, male shape of him against me, I stiffened in apprehension, making him lift his head to search my face. What he saw made him smile. ‘It’s all right, Kate. Everything’s all right now.’
Whatever he had in mind, it was far too late for me to object. Last night we had crossed a threshold from which no retreat was possible.
‘Last night was for you,’ he said. ‘This morning will be for us both. I love you, Kate.’ He bent his head to kiss me tenderly, breathing, ‘And you will love me, too. I’m going to make sure of that.’
My mind may have protested, briefly. I may have thought of Philip, for an unguarded second. But Oliver’s kisses claimed me and my errant flesh was ready, even eager, for further lessons in love from a masterly tutor. My skin quivered to his touch, my breasts came alive, my belly quaked, my mouth answered his and my loins ran molten for him. And yet he delayed the consummation, held back, until I thought I would go mad for wanting…
‘Oliver!’ It was a prayer, a plea, a demand.
‘You want me?’ Fierce with satisfaction, hoarse with need. ‘Say it!’
I almost hated him for making me plead. ‘Yes! Oh, yes. Yes, yes…’
The conjoining thrust of his body made me cry out with both fear and delight, but he swallowed the sound in a kiss as his control snapped and he plunged headlong towards his own climax. The drowning, erotic tide swept over me only seconds before he stiffened and moaned and I knew he, too, had found fulfilment. He collapsed beside me, his head on my breast, muttering, ‘Thank you. Thank you, my love.’
I stared at the shadowy ceiling, my heart thudding with his, the sweat of our bodies mingling between us. But my thoughts ran cold as I felt his body fluid trickling out of me. So. It was done. I had committed myself irrevocably to Oliver Wells.
Oh, Philip… forgive me!
* * *
Half an hour later, dressed again in my clothes from the previous night, I opened the bedroom door and heard Oliver’s voice from the drawing room. Thinking that he was speaking to his housekeeper, I paused, wondering how he would explain my presence. Then I realized he was using the telephone, talking to Billing, Grandmother’s butler, at Denes Hill. Softly, not to interrupt, I crept down the hall.
‘I was late coming in and my housekeeper had retired,’ he was saying. ‘She had left me a note, but unfortunately I didn’t see it until this morning, when I went straight to the Town Hall and s
ecured Miss Brand’s release. There is no reason for her ladyship to be concerned. Miss Brand is a little tired and distressed, but bearing up bravely. I shall see her to the train as soon as she’s rested and refreshed.’
Disconcerted to hear lies flow from him so smoothly, I reached the drawing-room doorway. Oliver was putting the phone back into a side cupboard and as he straightened he saw me. ‘Ah – there you are, my dear. I’ve left a message for your grandmother. I, er…’ A long forefinger smoothed his moustache as his umber eyes gleamed. ‘I didn’t tell the exact truth, as you may have heard. I felt it politic – for your reputation – that she should believe you were in a police cell all night.’
‘Better a criminal than a fallen woman?’ said I wryly.
Taking that as a joke, he came to squeeze my shoulders, kiss my brow and look down at me appraisingly. ‘You look tired. Pleasantly so, I trust?’ When I blushed, his smile deepened and he pulled me closer, adding in an undertone, ‘I knew I should enjoy widening your education. You enjoyed it, too. Didn’t you?’
‘Oliver…’ I protested, squirming away.
‘Mustn’t we speak, by daylight, of what we do together by darkness?’ he teased. ‘Well… I’ll allow you your maidenly modesty, for now.’
‘Your housekeeper might come in.’
‘I told her not to disturb us before ten. She’ll be up shortly.’
‘Up?’
‘She has rooms on the ground floor. She takes care of all four apartments in this section of the house.’
What? But surely he had said… ‘You let me believe your housekeeper was here in the flat! If I had known we were alone…’
While silence stretched between us, he concealed his thoughts behind a still face and cool dark eyes. ‘Are you accusing me of ravishment?’
‘No, of course not, but—’
‘Do you deny calling out for me? Do you deny welcoming me into your bed? Do you deny your own willing response to my attentions – both last night and this morning?’
‘You know I can’t deny it! But—’
He cut me off with a gesture. ‘Please! Don’t insult my intelligence by playing the virgin defiled. It’s a trifle late for that. I know I am not the first to have trodden that particular path.’
His face seemed to come and go through clouds of disbelief. What was he implying? Not the first…?
‘Perhaps you’ve forgotten,’ he said, ‘that it was I who escorted you out of Berlin, at your parents’ request, to part you from your young lover, what was his name – the soldier-boy – Carl-Heinz? And wasn’t there a young man in London? Not to mention the farmer’s lad, Farcroft. You haven’t been very discriminating in your choice, my dear. Indeed, I could be forgiven for wondering if those three were all.’ But as I stared at him in growing horror his expression softened and he came to touch my cheek. ‘Don’t look so stricken, Kate. I’m a realist. I love you as you are – warts and all, as Cromwell said.’
Appalled, I slapped his hand away, choking, ‘You don’t love me! If you did, you wouldn’t believe those terrible things. Carl-Heinz lied about me, Oliver! And there was no young man in London. There was only Philip, and he didn’t… we didn’t… I thought a man could tell such things!’
‘He can!’ he answered passionately, and threw his arms around me to fold me close, wrapping my head to his breast despite my resistance – he was immensely strong. ‘But not clearly enough, not when he’s sick with jealousy. Forgive me, Kate. I’ve been so troubled. I needed to hear you deny it. I needed to see your face when I put the question. Now I know for sure. Now I know you’re mine. Mine alone.’
I was glad he couldn’t see my face at that moment, for I didn’t believe him. ‘Maybe I should have fought you off last night,’ I muttered.
‘No!’ Laughing fiercely, he drew back to gaze down at me. ‘I couldn’t have borne that. I had waited too long as it was. I’m glad you enjoy your womanhood, my love – I should hate to be tied to a coy, cold Vestal.’ Holding me so that I couldn’t escape, he rubbed his body suggestively against mine, his smile turning sensual. ‘I confess I haven’t been entirely celibate – few men of my age could make such a claim. But I want to make you my wife. From now on we shall cleave only to each other. Ours will be a happy marriage, Kate. A marriage of both mind and body. I promise you that.’
‘I think…’ I said through a thickness in my throat, managing to pull free from his disturbing embrace. ‘I think we should not be too hasty.’
‘You’re not going back on your promise, I hope?’
Why did that sound like a threat? I hadn’t made any promises – not in words, anyway. ‘I just… Everything’s unsettled at the moment. I shall be working at Chef Foods, and staying with Aunt Saffron. We can see each other. Get to know each other.’ Unnerved by his stillness, I rushed on, ‘I’m only asking that we be discreet. For a little while, Oliver. If we suddenly announce our engagement, Grandmother may suspect…’
‘She will be delighted.’ He sounded very sure of that. ‘However,’ he added indulgently, ‘let it not be said that I rushed you into a decision before you were ready. The secret shall be ours alone, for the time being. A delicious secret. I shall enjoy courting you openly, Kate. You may be right, at that. Perhaps we should wait until this wretched war is over. Next spring, perhaps. By then you may be able to invite your mother and stepfather to come for the wedding. You would like that.’
He might like it, too, I thought – having Mother as a witness, reminded of her own lost youth, her own lost chances. Repaying her for rejecting him, perhaps? In these last few hours I had seen glimpses of a deeper, darker man than the one I had known before. What were his motives for wanting to marry me? He desired me, yes, and last night he had enjoyed his consummation. A younger wife always boosted a man’s self-esteem. And I was a member of the Rhys-Thomas clan – another feather for his cap. But, love? He might call it so, but it was not – not the way I understood love, not the way it had been for Philip and me. And yet it blended better with my conscience: my own motives were equivocal. Since I should never love any man as I had loved Philip, I might do worse than settle for security and sexual compatibility.
* * *
Oliver saw me to the train and stood waving as it drew away, blowing me a kiss in final salute. As we slid through the suburbs into the countryside, I stared at the passing scene, avoiding the eyes of my fellow passengers, feeling as if my new awareness were emblazoned on my forehead: fallen woman. My own body had betrayed me. Like mother, like daughter. Oh, Philip, if only it could have been you!
Though Denes Hill had been informed of the time of my train, no one met me at the station. So I set out to walk, the long way, via village and main coast road, avoiding both the short cut across Far Drove and the track through the woods, which held too many memories of Philip. Soldiers patrolled the beach road beyond the railway; others performed arms drill in the field where their camp was set up. Around them, harvest had begun: men with scythes cut a swathe in a cornfield beside the lane, opening up for the sail reaper which came trundling behind me, drawn by two glossy shires. Its blades gleamed wickedly sharp, filling the narrow lane.
‘Mind yourself, girl!’ a rough voice shouted and Mad Jack Farcroft glowered at me from a gateway, clad in cord suit and bowler, his face unshaven for days. Meeting my eyes, he deliberately spat into the road, and stepped aside to let the horses and their burden move between us. I hurried on, but the image of three scars, livid red beside his left eye, lingered accusingly in my mind – only luck had saved Tom from blinding the farmer. Was it any wonder he hated me and mine?
By the time I reached the big house I was tired and depressed – the effects of a sleepless night, and traumas with Oliver, on top of ghastly memories of the police cell and the questioning that had made me feel like a criminal. Still, the treatment of ‘undesirable aliens’ would give me something to write about. I would go and see Mrs Ehrenfried, the butcher’s wife, and add her story to mine. How would she and her children c
ope, with their breadwinner locked in an internment camp?
Under a sky brushed with high, wind-stretched cloud, Denes Hill looked proud in the sunlight, a beckoning haven of security. The tower reached for heaven, soaring over great bays and gleaming windows. From the long, raised terrace, where Philip had hidden to watch me dance with Oliver, sweeping steps led down to a gravel apron where visitors’ carriages and cars could draw up. Today, two horses waited there, one of them a fine chestnut – like Philip’s Troy. Oh, why did everything remind me of him?
‘Miss Kate!’ the cry reached me. To my surprise, the unflappable Billing came racing across the terrace and down the steps to meet me, his morning coat flying open over a stained apron – one he wore when polishing silver. Evidently he had been caught at his chores and had flung on his coat in a hurry.
Grandmother? I thought with a quirk of panic.
‘Oh, miss, thank goodness you’ve come!’ the butler gasped, more agitated than I had ever seen him. He had a smear of black on his brow. ‘I couldn’t stop them. Wanted to see the house, they said. Billeting, they said. For soldiers! They can’t do that, can they, miss?’
As we climbed the curving steps, he explained that two army officers had arrived with orders to check all possible accommodation in the area and allocate billet space. Billing had told them there was no one at home: Grandmother and Vicky had gone out, to Mrs Lacey’s at Lenhoe – that was why the dogcart hadn’t been there for me. ‘Now they’ve taken the horses, we just can’t manage!’ he fretted. ‘But her ladyship said she’d be home for lunch. She’s anxious about you, miss.’ The officers had insisted that he himself should show them round the house. ‘I tried to stop them, Miss Kate, but they wouldn’t take no for an answer. Had to do it now, they said. Didn’t I know there was a war on? Then one of them went off through the saloon – he had the effrontery to say he was going to look upstairs. I couldn’t split myself in two! And then I saw you coming, miss, and what a relief it was to see someone of the family…’