‘Ah, yes, thought you might like to take a trip to town. Big do coming up this weekend, what? New frocks might be called for. What do you say?’
‘Oh.’ Lady Deverell brightened somewhat, granting her Lord a coquettish smile. ‘That would be lovely. It seems such an age since I was up in town. We must dine at the Ritz again.’
‘Absolutely. Such fond memories of the place. Well, then. Have your maid pack you an overnight bag and I’ll have Kempe bring the car to the front in an hour or so. Does that suit?’
‘Perfectly. I say, Hugh, might we bring Mary? The poor girl’s positively in the dumps.’
‘After the bally show we had this season …’ Lord Deverell frowned.
‘It’s one night. She’ll be with us. And she needs new gowns too.’
‘Well, I suppose so, if it’s your wish, old thing.’
‘It is. Go and tell her – she’s in the Blue Drawing Room.’
With a smile of ineffable sweetness, Lady Deverell glided on her way, Edie trotting at her heels.
‘Am I to come too?’ she asked.
‘Oh, no, I don’t think so. It’s just for one night and you aren’t exactly expert in matters of toilette yet, are you? I shall have one of the girls at Belgrave Square dress me.’
‘I am trying to learn, my lady.’
‘I know. Don’t take offence, for heaven’s sake. I’m merely stating a fact.’
While Edie packed a valise under her mistress’s direction, she tried not to think too hard about the fact that she would be alone in the house with Charles. No, not alone – that was absurd. The entire staff, plus his brother, would still be resident. If she wished, she could spend the day and night in the housekeeper’s office.
If she wished …
‘Do you miss London, my lady?’ she asked, folding a silk slip.
‘Every bloody day,’ said Lady Deverell, and Edie flinched at the unexpected language. ‘I didn’t expect to. Thought I’d had my fill of it and wouldn’t look back. But it’s in my blood, Edie, in my soul. Oh, I suppose you were hoping you might get a chance to see your father?’
‘No, no, it’s all right, honestly.’
‘Next time I’ll take you with me. In the meantime, practise dressing hair. On the kitchen girls, if need be.’
‘I think I might, my lady.’
‘Good.’
***
Sir Thomas was on the steps with Lord Deverell and Lady Mary, waiting for Kempe to bring the car around. Edie wondered if he had joined the party too, but it seemed he had not. Instead he was anxious to hand his father a list of items he needed from town.
‘Can’t promise all this, my boy,’ said Lord Deverell, eyeing the list from beneath heavy brows.
‘Perhaps Edkins will be able to get them?’
‘I’ll see.’
The crunch of gravel signalled the arrival of the car, and Giles the footman took Lady Deverell’s valise from Edie’s hand and went to stow it in the boot.
By the time the vehicle had disappeared with its pleasure party amongst the enclosing green at the far end of the drive, Edie, Sir Thomas and Giles had been joined by another – Charles.
‘Giles, I, er, need your assistance with something,’ said Sir Thomas hastily, disappearing inside with the handsome footman.
I think I know what, thought Edie, looking after them.
‘We’re rid of them,’ said Charles, speaking over her shoulder.
He was standing too close to her. She tried to step out of his orbit, but he took her elbow.
‘Come for a walk. Soon all the flowers will be dead. Let’s gather rosebuds while we may, eh?’
‘“To the Virgins, to make much of time”,’ murmured Edie, allowing him to draw her down the steps and around the corner of the house.
‘Precisely so,’ he said. ‘Who educated you?’
‘My father.’
‘An educated man and Ruby Redford. Seems an odd match.’
‘Perhaps that’s why they didn’t stay together.’
‘Perhaps. You don’t know? Your father hasn’t told you?’
‘He never speaks of it. I didn’t know she was my mother until … somebody else told me.’
Charles stopped and looked down at her, his face a picture of consternation.
‘Your father knows you’re here, I take it?’
‘No.’
He raised his eyebrows and exhaled a long whistle.
‘You’re a cool customer, Edie Not-Prior. So you’re all alone in this?’
‘Not quite. I have friends with whom I discussed and developed the idea. It was a bad idea. I see it now. I think that, when she comes back, I will tell her who I am and –’
‘Whoa, whoa, whoa,’ said Charles, holding her by both elbows now, shaking his head. ‘Don’t be hasty.’
‘It’s not your business.’
‘It is my business. I don’t want you thrown out of here. I want to keep you here.’
‘Why? After everything I’ve said?’
‘Because you’re a maddening little witch and I can’t stop thinking about you. Come on. Somewhere we can’t be overlooked. By the lake, perhaps.’
But Edie thought that the combination of Charles and sun and water was not to be trusted, after the way it had affected her in Maidenhead. She chose instead a little summerhouse in one of the less tended parts of the garden, overlooked today by the men in green baize aprons with their wheelbarrows.
‘So, then,’ said Charles, lighting a cigarette as soon as they were seated on moth-eaten cushions softening an old stone bench. ‘Let’s get this straight. You’re Ruby Redford’s daughter. Your father never told you about her. You found out yourself and came up with this hare-brained scheme to work for her. Didn’t you think of writing her a letter?’
‘Of course I did. I was afraid she would never reply. And, in her position, one doesn’t know who might happen upon her correspondence. I didn’t want to be responsible for jeopardising her marriage.’
‘Don’t you feel bitterness, resentment, hatred? Or do you reserve such feelings solely for me?’
‘Hush.’ She flushed deeply, wishing she could make up her mind whether to hate this man or … not. ‘It is hard to explain how I feel. I do feel cheated of something most people have – a mother’s love. I do feel disappointed in her and angry with her for abandoning me. But if, after all’s said and done, I still have a chance of having a mother – that is what means the most to me. That is the course I feel I must pursue. You do not understand.’
She saw Charles, his face impassive, eyes narrowed, expel a column of cigarette smoke.
‘No, I think I do,’ he said. ‘We all want what we feel we missed. If I could go back and have my youth again … but it would mean changing history. World history.’
‘The war?’
He nodded and took another drag of his cigarette.
‘But we aren’t talking about me. What if she rejects your advance, Edie? What if she breaks your heart?’
‘My heart is strong enough.’
‘Is it? Are you as tough as you like to think?’
‘I have thought about this. I am prepared to lose. I have a life to which I can return – a good life, where I am loved and valued.’
‘Then you are luckier than most.’
‘I suppose so.’
‘All the same, you might need a friend.’
He put out his cigarette on the floor.
‘A friend, yes.’
‘Don’t hate me, Edie,’ he said quietly, holding out a hand to her. ‘Let me be your friend.’
‘If I have a friend, I need to trust them.’
‘Didn’t you see what I did for you this morning? I severed my tie with your mother. I did that for you.’
‘You said you would tell your father.’
‘I won’t say anything. Not unless you want me to.’
‘You have conditions.’
‘No conditions.’
‘What, none?’
‘
You are important to me. I care about you. I’m not making deals with you any more. I’m not trying to trap you or get you into my clutches.’
Edie looked away, out into the gardens where hollyhocks and lupins waved cheerfully in the breeze, a little foreteller of the coming autumn.
Could he possibly mean what he was saying? Or was it all part of his game? A new tactic – Mr Nice. Mr I-might-possibly-want-to-have-an-affair-with-you. He could have tried this tack with a dozen maidservants.
Something deep within her made her want to believe him so much that she couldn’t bear to question him aloud.
‘If you mean it,’ she whispered.
‘I mean it.’
‘What I said last night – about hating you. I didn’t mean that.’ She folded her hands in her lap, tense as a tiny animal in the shadow of a predator, expectant of its spring.
‘I know.’
‘Oh, you don’t know.’ She turned to him, indignant. ‘You always pretend you do, but you don’t.’
‘If you really hated me, you wouldn’t have …’ He smiled broadly.
She caught a breath and looked away, shame crimsoning the very tips of her ears. No, he was right about that. Damn him.
‘I want to hate you,’ she faltered. ‘But I can never quite muster it. I’m sure, if I got to know you better, I could do it.’
‘Well, there you are, then. Get to know me better and you can hate me properly. Or …’
‘I won’t fall in love with you.’
‘That’s all right then.’
He was closer to her now, close enough for their faces to meet and touch. He turned his head and spoke softly into her ear.
‘Prove it. Let me try to make you fall in love with me and see how long you resist. There is nobody here to see us. We have the house and garden at our disposal for a full twenty-four hours.’
‘There is your brother. And Mrs Munn. And all the servants.’
‘Never mind the servants. And my brother has his own little scandal to attend to.’
‘Oh, you know about that!’
Charles’s eyes widened.
‘You do?’
‘Sort of stumbled upon them, by the lake. Oh, they didn’t see me, don’t worry.’
Charles smiled sadly. ‘Poor Tom,’ he said. ‘But you see; he will be in no hurry to blow any whistles on me.’
‘I suppose not.’
‘Can you whistle?’
Edie giggled at the tangential turn the conversation had taken.
‘No, or at least I have never tried.’
‘Never? Try it now. Go on.’
‘No!’
But she rounded her lips and blew through them, laughing again when only air escaped.
‘Lick them first. Make them moist.’
Edie felt horribly shy.
‘Or I shall do it for you.’
She passed her tongue hurriedly over her lips then repeated the experiment.
‘Blow more gently.’
A third attempt succeeded in producing a low bird-like note.
‘You see, you can do it. And now you will always possess the ability.’
‘Why on earth do you care if I can whistle?’
‘I don’t. But watching your delicious pouting lips like that is quite enchanting. It makes me want to …’
He put a finger to them, letting it glide along her wetted lower lip before pushing it ever so slightly further, meeting the tip of her tongue. Before she knew what she was doing, she sucked upon it.
‘That’s where my tongue should be,’ he whispered, and she had no way of fighting the purposeful kiss he bestowed upon her after that.
The kiss spoke to her. You want this, said his tongue, his teeth, his lips. You cannot pretend otherwise. You want this always, morning, noon and night. Don’t blame me for giving it to you.
The fight was over. She wanted him and he knew it.
‘Come to my room,’ he murmured into her ear.
‘I shouldn’t …’
‘What’s the worst thing that could happen?’
‘Lots of things.’
‘You might fall for me.’
Exactly.
But she was weary of thinking, of resisting, of reasoning, of trying to work out the best and least dangerous move. She wanted only to shut it all out and give herself up to a pleasure that now seemed inevitable.
And at least she would know, then. She would not be one of those women, single for life, always wondering what the secrets of their married sisters might be. She would have the best of both worlds – the experience of pleasure and the freedom to choose her own path in life.
But might such experience be a Pandora’s box, raising unwanted evils to the surface of her life? It was a risk, like everything she did in this place.
It was a risk she would take, along with Charles’s hand as he stood to lead her back to the house.
They entered through a little-used door in the West Wing. The beds were all made now and the maids busy in other parts of the house, so they were able to hurry through the corridors and up the staircases unobserved.
Energetic grunts issued from one part of the passageway. Charles turned to her and grimaced. ‘Thomas is much more vocal in bed than in life,’ he said. He took her hand again and tickled her palm. ‘I wonder if you will be.’
The idle speculation brought home the enormity of her actions. She was about to enter his room a virgin and leave it a woman of experience. She wondered if it would show on her face, in her demeanour. Did it change a person?
They arrived at his room and, despite the wide open windows airing the place, the aroma of Charles hung in the air, larger than him, pervading the atmosphere like a great seductive Deverell cloud.
He shut the door with his foot and held her against him, looking seriously down at her.
‘No silly tantrums this time, hmm?’ he said. ‘You must promise me that you want this, and it isn’t some game or deal.’
‘You didn’t seem to mind it being a game or a deal before.’
‘No, but I’ve thought a lot about you since then. Didn’t get a wink last night, in fact. And I’ve decided that we do this as independent adults who want each other, or not at all.’
‘You’ve decided?’
‘Haven’t you?’
She tried to look away but his searching gaze compelled her to respond.
‘Yes,’ she muttered. ‘All right.’
‘So are you going to kiss me?’
She banged her knee mutinously against his, but she did not reject his suggestion, and stood on tiptoes to reach his lips. The minute they touched, he had his hand at the back of her head, keeping her fused with him until she was kissed into a state of knee-trembling sensuality.
‘I like that little black-and-white outfit of yours,’ he said, breaking off. ‘But it has to go.’ He reached behind and untied her apron; then his fingers plucked at the dress buttons above. It was so stiffly starched that its removal was a bit of a struggle, but she turned around obediently enough to let him finish.
Her bare shoulders were treated to the featheriest of kisses up to her neck and she shivered, looking at the bed through half-closed eyes. His hands strayed from her upper arms and reached around to rub against her breasts in their light summer camisole. She shut her eyes tight when he discovered her nipples, undisguisably hard and swollen.
‘Mmm, how’s that?’ he whispered, and her answer came by way of her bottom, which she pushed back against him, flexing her hips in a shameless come-hither. Although, she thought half-coherently, he already was hither. Could she beg him to come more hither?
He kept up this electrifying pressure, stroking her nipples while he kissed the tender skin of her neck ever more ardently, patiently waiting for her desires to soak through her until she was heavy and dripping with them.
When he slid one hand inside the elastic of her drawers, she moaned but made no attempt to squirm away.
‘Just like before,’ he said, his tongue poking a
round the soft flesh behind her ear. ‘Just as wet and ready for it.’
His palm flat against her tendrilled down, he curled his fingers and slipped them between her nether lips. She abetted him in this, tilting her pelvis forward to bring her eager clit to his attention. He was not slow to act upon her message and he caressed it with firm slow strokes, his other hand still cupping and rubbing her nipples, his mouth now suctioned to hers.
If it weren’t for the tight pressure of his arm against her stomach, she thought she would stagger and lose her footing, so unreliable was the strength of her legs now. Nothing existed or mattered but his touch upon her, and her body flowering into wantonness beneath it. If this was ruin, she understood now how some women rushed headlong towards it. To wait for a husband who might never come … oh, why would one, when this could be had so easily, so sweetly?
She remembered the feeling from last night and knew when the first stirrings of that release flickered in her belly.
She whimpered and gyrated her hips, parting her legs wider to urge him on.
But instead, he took his fingers away, laughed and slapped her bottom.
‘Get on to the bed,’ he said.
‘Oh!’ she exclaimed, disappointed beyond measure.
‘Don’t pout at me. You’ve already had one set of jollies. I want to keep you on the edge now, make sure you’re properly hungry for it.’
‘You’re a …’
‘I know, I know. Go on then.’
She sat herself beside a bedpost at the bottom of the bed and watched from heavily lowered brows as Charles undressed.
‘Keeping her on edge’, indeed. But she was, she couldn’t deny. Her clitoris felt like a lead weight between her legs, as if every drop of blood in her body had concentrated there. There was a tingliness, a weakness almost reminiscent of influenza. That thought made her smirk – oh, Edie, you are such a romantic.
‘What’s funny?’ She couldn’t so much as twitch an eyelid without Charles noticing, it seemed.
She shook her head and swallowed, watching him unlink his cuffs, his hawk-eyes upon her.
‘No, tell me.’ He came closer, looming a little in only his shirt and suspendered argyle-pattern socks.
‘Just that my head’s a little light,’ she said. ‘It reminded me of the ’flu.’
‘I don’t think the ’flu’s any laughing matter,’ he said, raising an eyebrow before removing the shirt entirely.
Justine Elyot Page 14
