Clay Country

by Clay Country (retail) (epub)

  ‘Nurse Stevens will soon hoist the visitor out of the room if she thinks that, my love,’ Morwen said lightly. ‘I’ll go and tidy myself. I look forward to meeting this old friend of yours, Ben.’

  She hoped to remind him delicately that a guest in the house deserved hospitality, however uninvited. He had expected Morwen to welcome Jane Askhew. The least he could do was show a welcome to this unexpected visitor. It puzzled her that he seemed so reluctant to do so.

  * * *

  Ben took the stairs two at a time, knowing he couldn’t put off the moment any longer. Before he reached his father’s bedroom, he heard the old man’s gurgling laughter, and remembered that Neville Peterson had always been able to tell a fine story to amuse his listeners.

  The thought mollified him a little. It would have been a long day for Charles, with his family away at the beach for most of the day. Ben put a determined smile on his face as he walked into the room, and the tall figure seated beside the bed rose at once and turned to greet him.

  Ben’s instant thought was that at least Captain Peterson looked more manly than the boy he remembered. The chin was firmer, the mouth less full, the eyes keener and not so damnably alluring in a way that would have looked better on a woman…

  The uniform helped, of course. The man was as dashing a figure as ever graced a society ballroom, Ben had to admit, as Neville came towards him, arms outstretched. In those first moments, Ben barely registered the way one of the officer’s legs dragged behind the other in the elegantly-fitting trousers.

  ‘Ben, my dear old chap, it’s good to see you again. Bit of a surprise, my turning up here out of the blue, I daresay, what?’ The voice was the same, deep and charming and persuasive.

  He forced an answering smile as his hand was pumped up and down exuberantly.

  ‘More of a shock, I’d say!’ Ben tried not to sound too rattled. The other laughed.

  ‘So your father said – or tried to. I say, old chap,’ he lowered his voice as if Charles was merely hard of hearing and couldn’t understand plain English any longer. ‘This is a rum do. Wasn’t the old boy head of some tin-mining concern?’

  ‘Not tin mining. Killigrew Clay produces much of the Cornish china clay that goes into the manufacture of pottery and medicines and newspaper chemicals,’ Ben said shortly. ‘The business belongs to me now.’

  ‘Is that so? Well, well.’ Captain Peterson nodded thoughtfully, as if such manufacture was of immense interest to him. Ben remembered that studied look of old. It meant nothing. Peterson’s only interest was in Neville Peterson. At college, his self-indulgence had been legendary.

  ‘What about you?’ Ben said. ‘I don’t need a crystal ball to tell me what you’ve been doing, but what brings you to this part of the world?’

  And more importantly, for how long…?

  Captain Peterson swayed sideways a little, and hobbled back to the bedside chair, where Charles was already waving at him to rejoin him, clearly enjoying the interruption to his dull day, and gibbering something completely unintelligible.

  ‘You’ll forgive me, Killigrew,’ Neville apologised to Ben. ‘The old leg gives me hell at times. Got shot up a bit at Sevastopol, d’you see, and got shipped home from the Crimea as a bit of a bloody wounded hero. I arrived in Falmouth on a troop ship a week ago, and suddenly remembered it was your part of the country. I thought you might remember an old school chum and be willing to offer me a bed for a night or two. The parents are doing the grand tour in Europe at present. War or no war, the old pater enjoys his summer visits, so I’m at a loose end for a month, d’you see?’

  Ben listened in a kind of horrified stupor as the mesmeric voice rumbled on, and Charles continued to wave his stick arms as though demented, while Ben deliberately ignored the garbled insistence on giving the officer a room and bed for as long as he wished… it was the very last thing Ben wished…

  ‘I say, old boy! You may be buried in the depths of the old backwoods, but you don’t run short when it comes to beauty, do you? Won’t you introduce me to this lovely lady?’

  Ben started as Neville rose to his feet again, a smile widening the handsome face. A face to charm any woman off her feet, Ben thought ironically.

  Right now, the woman taking the full brunt of those admiring eyes was Morwen, framed by the doorway, and looking a picture of loveliness in a freshly laundered gown, the sand brushed out of her hair, a welcoming smile on her lips.

  She didn’t wait for Ben to introduce her, but walked straight to his side, linking her arm in his.

  ‘I’m Morwen – I’m Ben’s wife – and I know that we’d be very honoured to have you stay with us for as long as you wish, Captain. It’s such a pleasure for me to meet one of my husband’s old college friends.’

  She was as gracious as any well-bred lady. Not even Jane Carrick Askhew could have done better, Morwen thought serenely. She was proud of the way she was handling this first visit from a stranger. Ben would be proud of her too.

  Captain Peterson limped forward to take her hand in his for a moment, and murmured how enchanted he was to make her acquaintance.

  And Morwen was completely unaware that Ben had once considered him the most treacherous of young men, and least of all a friend.

  Chapter Eleven

  ‘But why don’t you want Captain Peterson here?’ Morwen said in exasperation, as she slid between the sheets and hunched up in the bed watching Ben strip off his clothes for the night.

  Her dark hair fell over her arms and knees like a silk curtain, and she tossed its tickling tresses away impatiently. For the life of her, she couldn’t see what Ben’s objections to his friend’s presence could be.

  The evening had been perfectly fascinating, and listening to the tales of an officer’s life in the midst of the Crimean war had brought it all more vividly to life than any dull old newspaper account ever could.

  It amazed her that Ben didn’t see it in the same light, considering,the hours he pored over his stuffy London papers, and exclaimed harshly at the waste of so many lives, especially when one and then another that were familiar to him from his college days appeared in the deceased columns.

  Captain Peterson was bright and charming, and was already insisting that she must call him Neville, since he and Ben were such old friends.

  Morwen could still hear her husband’s undignified snort at the remark, and simply couldn’t understand it. She would have expected him to be intent on Captain Peterson’s every word, instead of cutting him short at every opportunity.

  Morwen wondered suddenly if after all, Ben regretted the fact that he had never been at liberty to seek an army commission himself, instead of being stuck with the ownership of Killigrew Clay, and therefore couldn’t bear to hear such first-hand accounts. There were few enough clayworkers who would agree with such sentiments, but Ben’s ideas were far removed from theirs.

  Wars in distant shores seemed part of another world to humble clayworkers who worked hard enough to earn a crust to fill hungry bellies, and considered their duty began at home and not fighting overseas. They would leave that to those who had fighting in their blood, or ambitions to fill officers’ uniforms.

  Was Ben wishing he had been able to do just that after all? The very thought made Morwen uneasy. The Captain was gallant and charming, but she would hate to be the wife of such a man. Morwen wanted her husband at home, by her side, in her bed at night. The knowledge was too natural to make her blush.

  ‘I don’t wish to discuss Neville Peterson,’ Ben said as he joined her in the bed. ‘It’s enough that he’s here, and thanks to you he’s going to stay until God knows when! I’ll thank you in future to leave me to issue my own invitations.’

  Morwen swallowed. The harsh words hardly echoed her own romantic sentiments of moments before. This day had begun so beautifully, and she thought she had done what Ben would want. Somehow it was all turning sour. As if to add to her dismay, she heard the soft patter of rain on the windows and shivered. She tried to summon u
p an angry retort and failed.

  ‘I’m sorry. I only meant to act graciously,’ she muttered. ‘I thought it was what you’d want of me—’

  He suddenly turned to her, pulling her into his arms and holding her so tightly she could hardly breathe. His heart beat so loudly it was like a drumbeat against her own.

  His mouth was very close to hers, his breath warm on her skin. He spoke oddly, with a rough arrogance that had sent many a clayworker scurrying to do his bidding.

  ‘What I want you to do is forget everyone else in this house but you and me. Especially do I want you to forget Neville Peterson. I don’t want even his mental presence in this room that belongs to no-one but we two. Here and now, no-one else exists in the world but you and me. Do I need to make it any plainer?’

  ‘No – oh, no—’

  She opened her mouth to speak, and Ben’s mouth covered it, his tongue moving sensuously against her soft inner skin and rousing her to a flame of answering desire in an instant. Such was the passion that had always existed between them that it took no more than that, a whisper of sweet seduction, a tingling touch of flesh on flesh, a slow intimate caress…

  Morwen soon realised that Ben had no wish for slow intimate caresses that night. She had no experience of how a whore behaved, those dubious ladies of the night who frequented every waterfront, yet somehow her responsive mind knew that what Ben wanted from her was the response of a wanton, an abandonment that was even wilder than the frenzied performance their love-making frequently took.

  Tonight it seemed as if he needed to explore every part of her as if it was new to him, touching, kissing, caressing, yet with that strange urgency that was beginning to set Morwen’s senses on fire.

  She gave him everything he wanted, and felt the pulsing core of her respond to it all. He thrust into her as though possessed by demons, and she gloried in the pleasurable sensations rippling through her. His mumbled words were a mixture of love and blasphemy, and neither shocked her. When the moments of his release came, he clung to her, his fingers kneading the tender skin of her breasts and hardly noticing what he did.

  Gradually the exertions stopped, and he rolled over on to his side, still holding her close, still part of her, as if he couldn’t bear to let her go. And Morwen’s eyes were damp, not understanding why he had felt this fierce, almost brutal need of her, and unable to question him.

  There was something deep in Ben’s soul that had tortured him tonight, and she felt instinctively that she would learn of it when the time was right. But now was not the time… he was releasing his hold on her at last, as exhausted as she.

  Morwen touched her breasts tenderly. They felt bruised.

  Once, she had almost cried out at his treatment. Yet some instinct told her it was almost as though Ben desperately needed her womanliness to reassure him. For an odd moment she had felt like a mother with a child, and the weird thought had stopped her crying out.

  Morwen smiled crookedly into the darkness. A mother with a child… no, that was not the sum total of her feelings! Not when her man was filling her with so much love… or was it lust? It didn’t matter. In their passionate marriage the one was too bound up with the other to make the distinction. One complemented the other, the love and the lust, and the love…

  Morwen drifted into sleep, but he lay wide awake long after her breathing had slowed and deepened. He listened to her breathing, his beautiful Morwen, dearer to him than life, the other half of him…

  His hands tightened unconsciously at his sides as unwanted images, long forgotten, swirled into his mind.

  * * *

  In his restless waking dream he was no longer the powerful owner of Killigrew Clay, but a frightened boy, newly arrived at the huge London college, where everyone spoke with strange quick accents, and a good many of the older boys whispered behind their hands at this newcomer from faraway Cornwall.

  ‘What’s this?’ One of the thick-set youths chortled when a group of them saw Ben trying to become as inconspicuous as possible. He tweaked him out into the open by his ear, and the group closed in on him.

  ‘By all that’s holy, it’s a new boy,’ another exclaimed in mock astonishment. ‘A fresh-faced callow lad from the country, don’t y’ know, chaps? And what shall we do with this tasty morsel still wet behind the ears?’

  ‘This one’s for Neville,’ sniggered the first one. ‘He’s partial to country boys.’

  Ben had looked suspiciously from one to the other, hating their leering mouths, and inferences he didn’t fully understand.

  His father had made a few halting references to the dangers of a dosed society where the college boys made their own rules, but Charles had been reluctant to speak frankly on a subject that had never bothered him. Ben was handy enough with his fists, and could take care of himself.

  Charles had consoled himself with the thought that it would strengthen the boy’s character to learn the seamier side of life for himself. Not that there could be much of it, in a college that catered for the sons of gentle-folk, Charles had thought with innocent complacency.

  ‘Very partial, old boy,’ the one called Neville had breathed. ‘My room tonight for the old initiation ceremony, country boy. You’ll be shown the way. Someone will come to fetch you after lights out.’

  Ben found his voice. ‘What initiation ceremony?’ He growled hoarsely with sheer terror, which made the group scream with laughter. Their snide glances sickened him, and when one of them put an arm around his shoulders and squeezed it hard, his urge was to twist away and run, and run and run…

  ‘You’ll find out,’ the other said softly. ‘I promise you it’ll be a night to remember!’

  The group had dispersed as quickly as it had surrounded him, and he had been suddenly alone. He’d heard a low whistle from the side of the building, and had a lucky warning from an earlier sufferer on just what form the initiation ceremony took.

  Ben’s face had turned a furious scarlet.

  ‘I just wanted to warn you, Killigrew. If they’ve set their sights on you, you stand no chance, and I could see by their faces that you’re next on their list.’

  ‘Does nobody fight them?’

  ‘There are six of them, and they always pick on scared new boys. Who would report to a master that he’s been assaulted? The six would defend each other as always. It would be their word against one. Better to go through with it until the next pretty boy arrives.’

  Ben’s eyes flashed furiously. ‘No chinless wonders are sticking me up against a wall without a fight!’

  ‘Oh, it won’t be against a wall, Killigrew,’ the boy said quite seriously. ‘They feather-bed the ones they like. You’ll be treated like a queen bee—’

  ‘Like hell I will!’ Ben raged. ‘Get out of my way, you slimy bastard—’

  He pushed the boy, who staggered against the wall, affronted at this reaction. To Ben’s horror, he began to cry.

  ‘Don’t say I didn’t warn you. They rule here. You stand no chance—’

  Ben strode off. His heart thumped sickeningly. He looked at the clock-face on the college tower. It was a free afternoon, and tonight he was to undergo an ordeal more degrading than anything he had ever imagined.

  He swore savagely under his breath. He shut out any kind of imagining. Nor would he spend the rest of the day cowering in terror like the thin boy who had glided away in the shadows just now. He had a tongue in his head, and there was time to prepare himself.

  He left the college grounds and called a hansom cab. The driver’s eyes widened at the strange request. Cabbies were used to taking college boys to the theatres, to the Ritz and other high-class hotels, and conversely to the shady places where the buckos cavorted with prostitutes, spending their rich Daddies’ money as if it was water… but this cabby had never had such a request as this before. He peered back at the good-looking boy with the lazy accent he didn’t readily identify.

  ‘You sure that’s what you want, young sir?’

  ‘I’m quite sur
e. You know of such a place, don’t you? I thought London cabbies knew everything—’

  ‘’Course I do, mate. I was just wond’ring what a fine young gent like yerself would be wanting with an establishment that teaches the Japanese Martial Arts!’

  He mimicked Ben’s determined request.

  ‘Just get me there, will you? And hurry up, please.’

  The cabby shrugged and clicked the horse into action. Ben sat back. He had no idea what it would cost to learn the rudiments of the craft, but by God, it would be worth a king’s ransom to surprise Peterson tonight. He smiled grimly at the thought.

  Three hours later he almost staggered out of the side street and into another cab. The inscrutable instructors had looked shocked when Ben had stated he needed to learn everything in one afternoon.

  How could this be done, when it had taken centuries to perfect the finer points of the martial arts? The young sir was presumptuous. Perhaps this initial lesson would open the way to further study…

  ‘I don’t have centuries,’ Ben had snapped. ‘I have a couple of hours. Teach me all you can to deal with six opponents. Don’t be soft with me, and don’t give me basics. I want to hit where it hurts most. I can pay whatever fee you ask. If I’m wasting my time here I’ll go elsewhere.’

  * * *

  He had heard his door open some time after lights out. One of the six who had accosted him earlier told him to follow him quietly. Ben slid out of bed. He was fully dressed. Around his wrist he had wound a leather belt, concealing the heavy buckle in his palm. The feel of it gave him comfort.

  Earlier, he had grabbed the thin boy to ask how the group operated. He learned that there were only three inside the room at any one time. The others kept watch outside the door and in corridors, should any untoward noise alert the staff. There would be plenty of noise tonight, Ben thought tensely.

  ‘Inside, country boy.’ The youth pushed Ben inside the room and took up his station outside it.