The dress was dark red and made of pure silk. Like a second skin, it slid down over her body and fell to her ankles. Perhaps, she thought, as she regarded the rear effect in the mirror, it was too narrow to be fashionable, her figure too exposed to be considered haute couture. But it suited her, she knew it suited her.
Phoebe came knocking at the door, but Katie did not open it.
‘Go on down. I will be down shortly.’
Phoebe did not protest. She was gone quickly. Phoebe was no different to any other woman when it came to Carew. She’d give her soul for a few minutes alone with him.
Not that Katie was concerned about that. Again, she looked at herself in the mirror, this time at her dress as well as her body.
She looked stunning and, in order to make the most of her appearance, she had decided that a lone entrance would elicit the most favourable response from the man she wished to impress.
Katie knew herself and the public well. As she walked into the hotel restaurant, the sound of conversation, tinkling glass and clattering cutlery calmed down a decibel or two.
She knew eyes were on her as she floated by, the silk lightly caressing her naked limbs as she made her way to where Phoebe sat talking with Carew.
Phoebe spotted her before Carew, whose back was towards her.
On seeing that Phoebe’s eyes were looking in another direction, he too turned to see what she was staring at.
He saw her immediately. His hands trembled as he pulled out her chair. His eyes were wide and he had trouble greeting her.
She introduced herself. He returned the greeting.
It was as odd a moment for him, she guessed, as it was her. The nerve in his cheek began to twitch.
All the same, she had to admire his self-control, his determination to treat her no more favourably than he was treating Phoebe.
They talked about general things, and yet she could see he did not - could not - take his eyes off her.
What was he feeling inside? Had he made the connection that she was both Oliver Tempest and Katie Fisher? Or was he willing himself to accept that this woman was the answer to his dreams. She had a face that had become an obsession to him and, yet, she also had the body he could so readily desire.
As they talked, she found herself caring more about him and sensed she heard a new softness in his voice. Could she be right, or was she only hearing what she wanted to hear?
Carew had given Imran instructions as to the women he wished to invite to his table, but had not stipulated any particular preference as to colouring, or temperament.
This evening, he had got from his bath, rubbed down his body, then pulled on his member and released his passion before putting his trousers on.
In the restaurant a waiter had brought a pretty, but rather plump little blonde to his table. She had thanked him for his invitation and told him that she and her friend would be pleased to join him for dinner.
Things had seemed pleasant enough and his male part had risen with renewed interest as he had imagined what would happen later.
He had drunk two glasses of wine, and was feeling much more like his old self, when he had seen his companion’s eyes look to where the same waiter who had brought her to this table now brought her friend.
On seeing her, he had been stunned.
Had she felt his hand tremble as he had taken hers? Had she seen the wonder in his eyes, or heard the; rasping in his throat? If she had chanced to glance down his trouser front, she would have seen the size to which his manhood had swollen. Perhaps she had seen it and been impressed. She certainly hadn’t taken fright at the sight of it and run away.
Half way through the meal, and after two more glasses of wine, he found the courage to speak what was in his mind.
‘I think I know you. You remind me of someone I know, or rather knew.’
He liked the way she smiled back at him, the, darkness of her eyes, the glossiness of her hair and her skin.
‘Perhaps you are thinking of a cousin of mine. I have many of them.’ She smiled and he felt he was drowning.
The fact that the boy Oliver might be one of her cousins did not seem to matter. It should have done, he told himself, it would have done - if I hadn’t met her, if I hadn’t looked into her eyes and heard her speak to me.
‘Are your cousins all as beautiful as you?’
The way she laughed was as likeable as the way she smiled. ‘I suppose you could say that the women are as beautiful, and the men are as handsome. We have similar temperaments, looks and habits.’
‘Do you tell stories?’
He saw her lashes flicker as she looked at him over the rim of her wine glass.
‘Yes,’ she said at last. ‘As a matter of fact, I do tell stories. Do you want to hear one?’
As she started her story and Carew sat listening, neither heard Phoebe mentioning Adele and Fred Astaire at the Empire, and nor did they notice her getting up and slipping away.
Phoebe had become an outsider, and only an outsider could truly see that the man and the woman were becoming fused one to the other, the outlines of their faces softening as the emotions behind their conversations intensified and they lost themselves in each other’s eyes.
It was only to be expected that he would invite her up to his room.
As they entered, Imran was there waiting for him. On such occasions as these, he always waited, mindful that his master might request his presence. The Thompson family were a lustful breed, more lustful, in fact, than even Carew’s mother had known.
Back in India, his colonel and friend, Carew’s father, had procured his help in seeking out the most erotically sculpted of Hindu temples, the most seductive of nautch girls to warm his bed and excite every nerve of his body.
Now, as then, he awaited his master’s pleasure, and his own. If his master wished to watch rather than service a woman, then so be it.
But tonight, his suspicions that he would not be required proved to be true. He was dismissed.
As he bowed and backed out of the room, he saw her eyes upon him; she who had infiltrated against all the odds and cast her magic spell.
Her eyes said thank you. But what for? he asked himself. For not giving her away? But why should he give her away when he could see in her the mirror image of his master? Whatever god they worshipped had made them for each other, so he closed the door and left them to it.
Their eyes held each other as they cast their clothes aside.
Only when they were completely naked did they study each other’s bodies. Neither touched the other.
Her breasts rose and fell gently as his eyes ran over them. Her legs opened slightly as his gaze descended to her pubic triangle.
As he studied her, she studied him. With her eyes, she followed each curve of his chest muscles, each contour of his ribs and stomach before lingering on that organ that makes a man so different from a woman.
There was a strange look in his eyes as he reached for her. Just for a moment, his fingers curled into his hand as though she had suddenly become something he should not touch.
‘Speak,’ he said. ‘Speak to me.’
‘What do you want me to say? Do you want me to tell you a story?’
A light of recognition came into his eyes. Was she Katie, or was she Oliver?
What did it matter? He was drowning in her beauty, his loins were aching with need and he had to have her.
He drew her close, and her lips met his, and her belly was warm against his.
The night air disturbed the curtain as, in a half-lit room, they went to the bed.
She lay on her side, one knee bent, the inside of her thigh rubbing gently against the silky softness of her sex.
At first he knelt beside her, studying her face with a look of wonder in his eyes, then letting his gaze follow the slen
derness of her arm, the curve of her hip and the soft fall of her thigh.
That night, they melted into each other, his rod, so firm, so stiff, entering her body. She held her legs high and wound them around his waist so that his belly was clamped tightly to hers.
Was it her imagination, or did she sense a sweet innocence in the way he made love to her? As if he was exploring a woman for the very first time, his hands were gentle on her breasts, and his fingers trembled as they tapped and tantalised the smallest nerve ends in her nipples.
For his part, he could not remember having a woman who made him want to prolong his erection and her pleasure; a woman whose body seemed to so perfectly fit his.
There seemed no need between them to suggest trying it this way, or that way. Obligingly, Katie drew up her legs and rested her heels on his shoulders so that her body was bent into a tight ball.
Such an action was unexpected and, because it was unexpected, it inflamed Carew’s passion so that the movements of his pelvis quickened, and his eyes stared into hers. For in that position it seemed that this woman had no body only the face he saw before his eyes, and the plump furrow into which his ploughshare delved so deeply.
When they came, they came together; not jerkily, one partner forcing an orgasm in the fear of being behind, but simultaneously and very, very smoothly.
When they had disentangled their limbs, they lay in each other’s arms and spoke of what they were and what they hoped to be.
He told her of Thompson Towers and of the boy must have been her cousin because he looked so much like her.
She told him she did not recollect having a cousin called Oliver, but there was most definitely a skill for telling stories in her family.
‘Will you tell me another one?’ he asked her, and felt his heart skip a beat when she replied that she would.
Hearing a story told by a woman, he thought, would finally lay to rest any lingering affection he might still have for the boy.
‘I had an aunt who fell in love and married young, but sadly her husband got called up and had to go war.’
‘To France?’
‘No. Not that war,’ she answered with a knowing smile. ‘To Russia. To the Crimean War. My aunt fretted in his absence and her weight dropped to that more befitting a boy than a woman. She became so distraught that eventually she resolved to do something about it, and one day, almost as if she were waiting for it, a song came into her head. You may remember it. It was called “Sweet Polly Oliver”.’
Carew gaped before he spoke. ‘I do. Wasn’t it about a girl who “listed for a soldier”?’
He caressed her hair and she moved her body more closely to him.
‘Yes,’ she answered softly. ‘It was. So my aunt cut her hair, put on her husband’s clothes, and joined the army. She fought her way with the other soldiers, until eventually she found her love. He was injured and dying and she wept over him, asked him if there was one last service she could do him. There was, so in a shell-pocked clearing, she unfastened his trousers and dropped her own. They made love for the last time while all around them men were killing each other. In the midst of death, they were creating life - though neither knew it at the time. Strange they should turn the normal saying on its head and produce a son nine months later, but that is what happened.’
‘Did your aunt get home?’ He spoke softly - almost reverently. Even in the light of a single table lamp, she could see the interest in his face and he could see the faraway look in hers.
New adventures were being planned for her aunt, but only in her head though, of course, he would not know that.
‘Yes, she got home. But not without a burly Turk taking her to be a man and sliding his member between her buttocks, and not before some Cossack lord had discovered her true identity and used her body until her belly was big and his interest waned.’
She smiled up at him, then kissed his lips. ‘But that is another story.’
Chapter 18
Imran found his master in a worse mood than he had expected in the morning.
Without appearing to, he glanced briefly at the unmade bed and assessed that his master had passed as good a night in the arms of Katie Fisher as he himself had done in the arms of her friend, Phoebe.
The pretty and well-padded blonde had looked sullen when she’d come out of the restaurant and he had taken the opportunity to ask if she required a car for the theatre as his own master would have no need of it that evening.
She’d accepted his offer, and in the back of the sedan she had accepted his ever-virile male appendage which she had insisted on inspecting more closely on account of its rich colour and generous dimensions.
Yes, he thought to himself with eminent satisfaction, Miss Phoebe had a most generous body and an even more generous mouth.
Carew was staring out of the window and took the proffered coffee cup from Imran without looking at him.
Imran did not make a habit of enquiring about any of his master’s lady friends, but on this occasion he felt strangely moved to do so.
‘Was the young lady to your satisfaction, sir?’
‘Yes. Too much so.’ Carew said it slowly, sipped from his coffee cup, then resumed his staring out of the window.
Imran merely nodded and left Carew to his thoughts. Carew’s frown mirrored his thoughts. He was troubled. No woman had made him feel this way before. Never had he treated one with such gentleness, and never had he felt such passion. It wasn’t so much a bad thing, as an alien one. What would his friends think?
Slipped at last, old sport. She’s got her claws into you now. Hen-pecked. Lover. Sweetheart.
He wasn’t sure he wanted to be those things. Up until now, such options had never occurred to him.
He had to do something to regain his old self, and he thought he knew exactly what.
Firstly, he would not go to meet her for lunch as arranged.
Secondly, on the occasion of his party to which he had invited her, she would be his cabaret, the woman tricked into thinking it would be him making love to her, when in fact it would be some designated stranger.
Although he smiled at the thought, it didn’t sit as well with him as it used to.
He ordered Imran to pack immediately. They would be leaving before twelve. Somehow he did not trust himself not to change his mind about the luncheon appointment.
Katie had waited for him but, when the minute hand of her watch was only five notches past the time he had promised to meet her, she knew he was not coming.
And yet, she was not as downhearted as she might have been. With the intuitive self-assurance that only a beautiful woman can possess, she knew she would be seeing him again, and she knew that the next time he would not let her down.
Katie was to stay at Phoebe’s parents’ house on the night of Carew’s party. As she had guessed, Phoebe had chosen some diaphanous outfit of pink and gold to wear that evening. It vaguely resembled a sari and was worn with a waistcoat of black and gold lace.
‘How do I look?’ Phoebe asked, her face pink and overly excited. She was ready at least half an hour before she needed to be. Katie noticed a glint in her eyes and suspected her friend had some man lined up for later in the evening.
‘You haven’t shown me your outfit yet, Katie darling.’
No. Katie had not shown her the outfit she had decided to wear. In fact, Katie did not want to show it to her - not yet. Not just yet.
‘I’ll show you when we get there.’
She put her outfit on in the bathroom and wrapped herself in a blue velvet cloak so that no one - including Phoebe - could see her costume.
It was not until they were in the main ballroom at Thompson Towers that Katie finally removed her evening wrap.
What she wore underneath made Phoebe gasp. Carew had been talking, a glass clutched in one h
and. It shattered as it hit the floor.
‘Katie!’ Phoebe gasped.
‘Oliver!’ mouthed Carew, but not a sound came out.
Other guests merely laughed and wondered what all the fuss was about. No one was obliged to stick strictly to the theme of the evening by wearing Indian costume. Indeed, quite a few gentlemen had raided their grandfather’s attics and dusted off their old Indian army uniforms. Some women had invaded their grandmother’s chests from which they’d retrieved heavy tea gowns complete with bustles.
Only Phoebe and Carew knew the significance of the dark, rough trousers, jacket and shirt that Katie was wearing.
Her face was made up just like any other women in the room, but when she put that battered cap on her head, Carew was in no doubt as to who she was.
He looked confused and he acted confused.
What do I do? he asked himself. Is she Katie, or is she Oliver? Why did she hoodwink me and why is she here now?
As if she were some dangerous animal, he slunk away from her.
It hurt, but she told herself it was all for the best. Slowly, she would ingratiate herself with him, tell him who it was that he pressed against the stone walls of the abbey ruins. Perhaps that would go some way to soothing any slight he had suffered as a result of her deception.
All evening he avoided coming too close to her, but could not resist looking her way.
Imran, following his instincts, took him a drink and spoke quietly near his ear.
‘She is all yours, master. And you are hers. You are two parts of the same.’
But his master spoke angrily. ‘She fooled me. She made me doubt myself.’
‘No. She opened your eyes. She made you see that no matter whether she had been man or woman, she is your soul mate, your other half. No matter how many others come and go there will always be her, and there will always be you.’
Carew stared as he listened. If he had not known Imran since he was a child, he would have said it was all bullshit. But he had known Imran a long time, and he did value his wisdom. He reached for another drink. Only when he had drunk enough to add bravery to his voice did he approach her.
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