'Over my head, usually.' She heard herself sounding rather breathless. 'I'm afraid what's underneath it isn't all that glamorous either.' Her small laugh had an almost hysterical quality. 'Unlike your previous girl-friends, I have a little less, not more,' and as his fingers slipped buttons and he pushed the garment from her shoulders to drop at her feet, 'I told you I was f-flat-chested!'
She would have said more, but his mouth was on hers and this didn't seem to be the moment for talking. She wished she could plead with him to be gentle, but his mouth was a hot, demanding pressure and her own hunger broke loose under it. She struggled her arms up about his neck, clinging tightly to him while her fingers threaded through his thick hair, and as her lips trembled and parted under his, she felt herself picked up and carried to the bed, to sheets which were a cool linen against her feverish body.
Between kisses that grew steadily more hungry, she heard Owen murmuring, but the words were just words that didn't matter any more. They were sounds, comforting noises, and she struggled closer to him, trembling violently as his hands caressed her. She had a feeling of exhilarating freedom which seemed to come from them being so close together, and her slender body arched to meet his with a breathless uncertainty that vanished in an explosion of joy so wild and primitive she thought she would die of it.
Lallie opened her eyes to a grey half-light, her hand moving to seek the warmth of Owen's, to feel again the silk of his skin against hers, but she was alone. In all the width of the bed, there was nothing of him, not even the warmth where he'd been. She dragged herself upright, clutching the covers about her bare shoulders to keep out the chill of the early morning. He'd gone—he'd been disappointed—she'd been clumsy—untutored… and then the bedroom door opened and he was with her, sitting on the side of the bed and proffering tea.
He watched in silence as she drank it, his face a hard, angry mask.
'So you didn't!' He took the empty cup from her fingers and put it on the floor. She was grateful for the few seconds' respite, it gave her time to pull herself together. The wild sweetness of the night was gone and this was another day when life, cold and practical, was attacking her, and she fought back.
'I told you I didn't, but you wouldn't believe me,' she scolded. 'You were raging with temper then, and now you know I didn't, you're still raging. What's with you, Owen—some hang-up about despoiling virgins?'
'You didn't act like one,' he pointed out.
'There's a way to act?' She raised a derisive eyebrow.
'Stop it, Lallie—don't you understand? I would have been more gentle—I could have hurt you. Did I?'
Her shrug was eloquent. 'Does it matter? But that's not what's making you savage,'
'No.' His face grew harder, his brows a frowning line above his masterful nose. 'It's the thought of that damned old man and what he did to you, putting you through hell…'
'Forget it.' She was brief and as cold and hard as he. 'I never blamed him. He had his reasons and to him they were good—a theatre, a play in which he'd sunk about every penny he possessed and a cast which was depending on him for their wages. Compared to all that, what's the reputation of an unknown little typist? I told you, it was a publicity stunt. We'd been working late at rehearsals and he wanted the rewritten script for the next morning—he'd even hired a copier. He took me back to his house, we finished off the work well after midnight and he offered me a bed, that was all. I think he was rather ashamed of himself, knowing what was going to happen. No, the people I blamed were those who believed the filth that was published, not so much the ordinary men and women, they didn't know me from Adam. That's when you hurt me, Owen. Not last night, but then! When, knowing me since I was four years old, you believed it of me even when I denied it over and over again. Maybe I think you wanted to believe it.'
'Don't be a little fool, Lallie.' Unconcernedly he stripped off the towelling robe and slid into bed beside her, one heavy arm and a muscular leg pinning her wriggling body down firmly. 'For ten years I've been after you, my girl, and while I admit that, like any other man, I'd prefer to be first with my wife, I could live with it if I wasn't.'
'T-ten years!' she squeaked. 'Are you having me on, Owen? You've always disapproved of me…'
'Stupid!' His free hand tangled with her rope of hair, grasped it firmly and held her head still while, leisurely and with evident enjoyment, he kissed her trembling mouth. 'I love you, my silly little darling, I always have.'
'You love me? That's something you say, and I don't believe it. Nobody who loved me could treat me as you've done.'
'Ever since you were a kid,' he assured her, 'and I wanted you when you were sixteen, even before that, but you were too young. Dwynwen knew about it and she warned me off. You had to be given time, she said—no good would come of rushing things—so I backed off and cracked down on you hard. You needed it, you tempestuous little witch—you were becoming the next best thing to a delinquent.'
'I was not!' She tried to work herself up into a rage, but he interrupted.
'… Be quiet while I have my say. Things started to go wrong almost as soon as I'd decided to give you a bit of growing room. Jonty said he wanted to marry you, he was all set to ask you, so I fobbed him off with Dwynwen's story and schemed a bit to get you out of his way. The scheming paid off and you went to London. Neat, wasn't it?'
'Oh, very.' Lallie wriggled and then lay still. 'Operation performed successfully and the scar hardly shows now. You're a dab hand with a surgeon's knife, Owen—you cut me adrift…'
'And then, before Jonty had time to get over it properly, you landed yourself in trouble in London. He was all set to come down, galloping to your rescue like a modern Galahad. He'd marry you, he said, and bring you back here. I couldn't let that happen, cariad . . .'
'I wasn't good enough for Jonty, is that what you mean?'
'You haven't been listening.' Owen pulled her more closely against him. 'It wasn't that and you know it. I couldn't have you here, not married to Jonty—you might have accepted him as a way out, and I couldn't take a chance on that happening. You and he together here, married—I wouldn't have slept until I'd taken you away from him, and a nice scandal that would have been! Me and my brother's wife…'
'You're very sure of yourself!' she tried to sneer, but it didn't come out that way. Her chin wobbled and her eyes filled with tears. 'As if I would ever have let you do a thing like that to Jonty! Never, not in a million years!'
'Of course you wouldn't,' he murmured into her neck. 'You'd have taken off for parts unknown and we'd both have lost you. I had to think of another way, so I came down to London myself.'
'And you wouldn't believe me…'
'Whether I believed you or not was immaterial, but I couldn't bring you back here. Jonty was too vulnerable,' Owen's smile was wry. 'So was I, anwylyd! You'd have had us at each other's throats in no time flat. You had to stay away until he got over you. That's why I forbade you to come here.'
'How nice!' She refused to be mollified. 'I had to sweat it out in London while you, you bastard, held Jonty's hand, bolstered his ego and told him to write me off like a bad debt. How like you, Owen!'
'But you were always a strong character, Lallie, and you know Jonty isn't. He needs a prop, he did then, and he still needs one. Vi may not realise, but that's what she will be—somebody for him to rely on, to cling to, somebody who'll take care of him, organise his life and his work—put him back on the rails every time he falls off.' His lips trailed from her throat to her cheek and then across to each eyelid in turn. 'But you, my darling, I knew you'd manage. It would take more than a bit of bad publicity to get you down.'
'It nearly did,' she muttered.
'Nonsense,' he chuckled. 'You're a fighter, my . girl, you'd not give up while you had breath left in you. I'm only sorry it took so long.'
'Six years!' she accused. 'That's a hell of a long time to leave a girl to get on by herself!'
'Well, I had to wait for the right opportunity, didn't I?' Ow
en was seriously reasonable. 'If I'd come for you without a good reason, you'd have scratched my eyes out. You were hating me, my love, I was the wicked fairy. In any case, you left the place where I'd left you in safety and you'd left the job I found for you. You disappeared, and it wasn't until old Tommy Griffiths wrote for a character reference that I knew where you were working. It took a long time and a lot of guile to find out where you lived. Dwynwen wouldn't give me your address.'
'I could have married somebody else, somebody in London.' Lallie was still defiant. 'I've had offers.'
'And I've said, I'd have taken you away from Jonty, and that goes for any other man you married…'
'You wouldn't,' she flared. 'You couldn't!'
'I would and I could.' Owen's arm tightened about her. 'I'm being honest, cariad. We're two of a kind, we belong together. You tried your road and it wasn't any good, was it? You'll like mine much better, that's why I've dragged you down it with me.'
'Your road?' She raised brimming eyes to his face and gulped at a sob. 'It doesn't look all that wonderful to me, not what I've seen of it so far. All I have to do is say "Please", "Thank you" and "May I?" It's not a road, it's penal servitude!'
'Precisely, my little love, and it goes on to Forever—but tell me, which one of us, do you think, is in chains?'
'I am… I'm bogged down with them!'
'Liar!' His hand slid from her waist to her hips in a caressing movement and pulled her closer to him. 'We both are, wench. You to me and me to you. If you run out on me, I'll follow. I'll bring you back and you'll come, because neither of us has any option. We're part of each other, this is where we belong, and we belong together.'
'And you call that love! It doesn't sound very comfortable to me.' She screwed up her nose. 'When do we get to the rack and thumbscrew thing?'
'Stop it, cariad,' and she felt the rumble of laughter in his chest. 'You don't have to be clever with me any longer. The war's over, we made peace last night— and don't try to tell me that wasn't satisfactory.'
'I'm not quite convinced yet,' she murmured. 'I've this feeling I've been pressured into it. You seem to have had it all worked out while I was in the dark and playing it by ear. Why didn't you tell me about loving me before?'
'And have you spit in my eye?' There was a long pause, and after he had reluctantly raised his mouth from hers, 'You'd have been so bloody triumphant, you'd have kept me on my knees for months!'
'That'll be the day,' she said darkly. 'When you go down on your knees, I'd like to see it. One thing, though, there aren't going to be any more weekend "conferences", so you can put them out of your mind straight away!'
Owen chuckled. 'Conferences are always at weekends, my pet, and attendance is nearly compulsory. How else do you think vets keep up with modern methods?'
'Huh!' she snorted disbelievingly. 'You forget, I know you, Owen. We used to have bets on which girl you were taking when I was at school. We all used to put tenpence in the kitty and the one who guessed right scooped the pool. I only won it once, and then they wouldn't let me take my winnings, they said I had access to private information.'
'Well,' he admitted grudgingly, 'there were one or two, but never as many as you all thought, and they didn't mean anything. It was just something to keep my mind off a black-haired little terror who ripped up my peace and had me walking the floor at night wondering if she'd scream blue murder if I went into her room and made love to her. Lallie,' he groaned, 'sometimes it was hell, and this last couple of months hasn't been easy either. I've been hurting with wanting you.'
'How stupid can you get?' she chuckled, holding his face between her hands and looking into his eyes where the little yellow flames were dancing. 'Oh dear,' the expression on her face was comical—half dismay, half hidden happiness. 'I hope you don't expect me to reform, because I don't think I could— my damn tongue…'
'But you've got such nice party manners.' His eyes slitted with laughter. 'You put them on like Sunday best clothes whenever anybody's about. Look at the way you've handled Dwynwen and how you coped with Stella. You should have tried for the Diplomatic Service and thrown your typewriter on the scrap heap. It's only with me that the cross-grained little madam shows through.'
'I had to keep my end up,' Lallie protested. 'Otherwise you'd have walked all over me. Besides,' she grinned, 'I like a good fight.'
'It depends on who you're fighting.' Owen's hands were gentle at her breasts as though he was telling her that this was no time for war. 'You didn't have to fight me, Lallie.'
She became serious. 'I don't think I was fighting you—I mean, more doing battle with myself for being such a weak-kneed idiot.'
'Weak?' He obviously didn't agree with her character reading of herself. 'Weak about what?'
'Loving you, Owen.' She looked into his face with wide, candid eyes. 'I didn't know about it, not at first. When I was little, I used to think you were wonderful, but then I started hating…'
'A defence mechanism,' he said tersely. 'But there's no need for it now. The battle's over, and we both win.'
'Mmm, but we've wasted a lot of time, haven't we?'
'There you go again,' he objected. 'Making sweeping statements. We haven't wasted time, you did that!'
Lallie sighed and pulled his head closer. 'Don't let's waste any more,' she breathed softly against his mouth. 'Oh, my darling… !'
The Road to Forever Page 15
