“Ladies! Ladies!” Meriel Stephanides interposed pacifically. “David— where are you staying tonight? And afterwards?”
Duty recalled Roche to the colours. “Well… not anywhere exactly, at the moment. I’ve got a tent in the car, with my things—I was going to look around, sort of…”
Lexy perked up. “Well—you can pitch your tent in our garden—“
No he can’t!” snapped Jilly. “Don’t be an idiot, Lexy—Madame would kill us if she discovered another man walking around the premises at dawn, and well you know it—you of all people.” She turned back to Roche apologetically. “Sorry, David, but much as we’d like you to … there’s this Madame Peyrony who rents us this cottage, and she lives right next door.”
“And she conceives it her duty to keep her eye on her jeunes demoiselles anglaises—Jilly’s quite right. She’s a bit of a dragon, is Madame Peyrony,” agreed Meriel.
“She’s an old bag!” growled Lexy.
“Old bag she may be. Nevertheless, she’s got my boss’s address—he’s the only one who got us the place, David,” explained Jilly. “And he believes that emancipation has already gone too far … and she’s already threatened to write to him, after having chanced upon Lexy’s inamorato— one of the many—swanning around in his underpants—“
That’s a slander!” said Lexy.
“Sue me any time you like, Lexy dear.”
It wasn’t fair, anyway.”
“It certainly wasn’t fair! He was one of yours—and it’s my address she’s got! So I had to beg for mercy.”
“I gave her Father’s address too, darn it!”
“ ‘House of Lords, Palace of Westminster, London Wl’,” murmured Meriel. “And he’d probably be overjoyed to hear that you were courting a fate worse than death, getting yourself into trouble, with those little sisters of yours still on his hands.”
“I haven’t got myself into trouble!” protested Lexy.
“No—only Jilly, very nearly,” said Meriel.
“Mind you …” began Jilly thoughtfully, her eye flicking for a fraction of a second at Roche before settling on Lexy again “… mind you—you could do a lot worse than get yourself into trouble with David Audley, you know.”
“I wouldn’t have David if he was the last man on earth!” exclaimed Lexy hotly. “And he wouldn’t have me, either.”
“Oh, he’d do the decent thing if he had to. And you shouldn’t judge him by the bachelor squalor he lives in with those friends of his, Lexy dear. There’s no shortage of the ready there—he could certainly support you at the standard of living God and your father have accustomed you,” Jilly nodded wisely.
“That’s it!” burst out Meriel. “Why didn’t we think of it before?”
“Think of what, Steffy?” inquired Jilly.
“The Tower—David Audley!” Meriel pointed at Roche. “If Lexy asks him nicely, he’ll put up this David for as long as he likes. There’s room in the Tower, because they don’t sleep there—they sleep in the cottage alongside, and only use that for their orgies.”
“Good thinking, Steffy!” Jilly beamed at her friend.
“Of course I’ll ask him,” said Lexy. “He’s bound to say yes, David.” She grinned at Roche. “David is, I mean—the other David.”
“Of course he’s bound to,” said Meriel. “It’s one historian doing a good turn for another.”
Roche decided that it was again time for him to show some interest in his fate. “David who?”
“David Audley. He lives just up the road from us,” said Jilly. “He’s a historian, like you. Only he’s more or less a full-time one, sort of. He’s got money, we think.”
So did other people. Roche wondered how Major Stocker was progressing on the track of it.
“He’s also Lexy’s boyfriend—“
“—sort of, also,” cut in Meriel-Steffy. “David the Dragoon—ex-dragoon, actually. He was in the tanks during the war, with Lexy’s father. That’s how we got to know him—it wasn’t a casual pick-up.”
“He wasn’t actually with Daddy. I mean … he’s not old,” said Lexy loyally. “But he was sort of with Daddy, just after D-Day, you know …” she trailed off vaguely again.
“What she means, David, is that her daddy was a sort-of general in command of a brigade or something, and David Audley was a sort-of second lieutenant inside a tank,” said Steffy. “But he was in her daddy’s old regiment, so he counts as family.”
“Anyway, he’s frightfully nice, and you’ll like him,” said Lexy defiantly.
“ ‘Nice’ is absolutely the last word that would come into my mind to describe David Audley,” said Steffy. “’Frightfully’ might be applicable— like ‘frightfully clever’, or even ‘frightfully drunk’ on occasion.”
“He was frightfully brave, Daddy said,” Lexy regarded Steffy with disapproval. “They could never get him to shut the lid of his tank, he was always poking his head out of it, Daddy said.”
“ ‘Frightfully inquisitive’, that sounds like,” said Steffy.
It sounded more like frightfully stupid, thought Roche. But in the meantime, Steffy either didn’t approve of Audley—or envied Lexy’s inamorata role?
“Anyway—we were thinking of introducing you to him before—it was your idea, Steffy,” said Jilly. “Remember?”
Steffy frowned. “I thought it was yours?”
“No—yours. But now we’ve got a proper reason … And we’re already invited up to the Tower for an orgy tonight, so we can combine business and pleasure.”
“And it’s David’s turn to buy the drinks and hold the floor, too,” said Steffy. “That’ll put him in a good mood for a start.”
Roche looked from one to the other, and to Lexy, trying not to goggle at them. In spite of the tough talk, they were still only three grown-up English schoolgirls; indeed, because of the tough talk, which was at least partially designed to impress him that they were women of the world, they couldn’t really mean orgy when they said it. So he was a bystander to some sort of in-joke of theirs.
“Well, as long as I don’t have to hold the floor,” said Lexy fretfully. “I don’t mind buying the booze, but I draw the line at having to spout.”
“Your turn will come, Lexy. You’re bound to draw the short straw sooner or later,” said Steffy.
“It’s all right for you—and Jilly. You’re both too bloody clever for words, with your scholarships and your degrees. But all I’ve got is five School Cert passes and a bit of shorthand-and-typing—I’m no blue-stocking!” Lexy protested. “What am I going to talk about, for God’s sake?”
The dress had begun to gape again: Lexy was certainly no blue-stocking. Steffy spread her hands. “Sex, darling—what else?”
Lexy opened her mouth, searching for words but not finding any. So this was the moment, thought Roche, when David of the Secret Service must sing for his orgy, if not his supper.
“If you draw the short straw, Lady Alexandra, then I’ll take it,” he said gallantly. “It’s the least I can do, whatever it is, in return for your speaking up for me, to find me a place to lay my head.”
They all looked at him in silence for a moment. Then, before he could think of retreating, Lady Alexandra threw her arms round his neck and kissed his cheek.
“Put the man down, Lexy!” said Jilly. “At once!”
Mmm …” Steffy pursed her lips. “I don’t whether that’s permissible under the rules.”
“What rules?” said Lexy. “There aren’t any rules! Let’s go to the Tower at once and find a bed for this super chap, Jilly!”
“No!” said Jilly, in command as always. “David’s not there yet. He’s in Cahors, talking with his French rugger boozers—you don’t play rugger, by any chance, do you, David?”
It was like not being a hussar. “No, I’m afraid not. Hockey is my game.”
“Thank God! Don’t be sorry—I couldn’t bear to go through the Lions’ match against the Springboks at Ellis Park again, blow by blow! And we
’ve been through it twice in French too … Anyway, he won’t be back until nightfall—always supposing he doesn’t drive into a ditch somewhere on the way back, that is.” She gave Roche a grin, wrinkling her snub-nose. “Besides which, we came here to bathe, and I need cooling down.”
Cooling down had its attractions, not least after that collision with Lady Alexandra’s unrestrained curves.
“Me too!” He grinned back at her. It wasn’t really a snub-nose, it was delightfully retroussé, and the grin beneath it was infectious.
“I shouldn’t wonder, with what you’ve just been through!” And there was no maliciousness in that knowing look, either. In the catalogue of their very different virtues, Jilly Baker’s might strike a higher total than either Lady Alexandra’s and Meriel-Steffy’s, when they were all added up.
“Right then!” Jilly’s command never slipped for a moment. “David and I will bathe forthwith. Steffy will hold up a towel so that Lexy can attire herself in those inadequate red bandages of hers without causing offence to the local voyeurs, and then both join us in the Dordogne.”
They didn’t seem to mind being pushed around as peremptorily as Lexy’s sort-of general father had once pushed his Audley subalterns to their deaths, they seemed happily accustomed to it.
Roche, less accustomed, found himself looking to the river to see if the Marathon-swimming, long distance-no distance Frenchman was still breasting the current—if this was their accustomed swimming place, to which Raymond Galles had so accurately directed him, was he one of the local voyeurs? Was all that effort in aid of them?
But there was no one there, the river was empty now. Had the sight of Lady Alexandra’s charms, briefly glimpsed, been too much for him, spoiling his concentration for one fatal moment, so that the river had swept him away?
At any rate, he wasn’t there, and they were alone.
“Right!” Jilly’s voice turned him back towards her just in time to see her strip off her dress over her head with one continuous serpentine movement, to reveal a slender body in a white bathing dress.
He kicked off his sandals at the water’s edge, and then the discomfort of the slippery stones under his feet brought him down to earth painfully.
“Come on—you have to do this bit as quickly as you can!” Jilly Baker took his hand, pulling him forward. “Once the current starts to lift you off your feet it’s not so bad—“
The water swirled about his knees, and then frothed about his thighs, surprising him with its solid force even though he had watched the Frenchman battle against it. He had never stepped into a river like this, which dragged at him as though it was alive.
“There’s a flat piece there—see?” Jilly pulled at him, pointing to a rippling white shape beneath the surface just ahead of them. “There now! That’s right—just hold me—make them jealous!”
Roche anchored his feet, one on bearable gravel, one on the smoothness of bed-rock stone which had been sandpapered by ten thousand years of shifting pebbles.
He looked back at the charade on the dry strand from which they had come. The rush of the river was loud all around him.
“Don’t worry! They can’t hear us. And Lexy’ll take hours stuffing herself into her bikini,” Jilly said conversationally, her cheek against his shoulder. She was wet and slippery as an eel, and he didn’t know quite where to put his hands, although he knew where he wanted to put them.
“I’m sorry about that, Captain Roche—David—can I call you ‘David’? I shall have to, anyway—so … David?”
Jilly.” Her waist was the only safe place.
“I don’t know what you’re doing… and I don’t think I want to know… But they said it had to be natural, after I picked you up, so it had to be Steffy who thought of it, if not Lexy—inviting you to Audley’s… Only she was so slow to catch on.”
“I thought you did it beautifully.” He couldn’t help kneading her stomach under water. “What’s this chap Audley like?”
“He’s okay—big, tough man … likes his own way too much for my taste. But he also likes it if you stand up to him. And he doesn’t suffer fools gladly … So don’t let him push you around just for good manners’ sake … In fact, the best thing you can do is make a straight play for Lexy—it shouldn’t be too difficult now.”
“Not for you? I’d prefer that, if there’s a choice.”
She moved against him. “Thanks for the compliment.”
“It wasn’t a compliment, Jilly.”
“Well… thanks for the insult. But, the way it was put to me, there isn’t any choice. Play for Lexy, and put the rest down to might-have-been, David.”
All the world was might-have-been. Julie was might-have-been. “Won’t Audley take exception to that?”
“Audley doesn’t give a damn for anything, least of all competition. I think he really fancies Steffy more than anyone, only he’s afraid she’s up to something … Lexy isn’t up to anything—but she’s not nearly as stupid as she pretends, she just doesn’t want a tough guy like Audley for a husband. She wants someone she can mother. Audley’s just for kicks—and vice-versa … The point is, Steffy also fancies Audley. So you go for Lexy, and Steffy’ll be on your side, and so will Audley.”
Roche glanced quickly towards the riverbank, and had to tear his eyes away from Lexy, magnificently bikinied. Steffy was still undressing.
“Audley has two friends staying with him?” That was what Raymond Galles had said, he remembered belatedly.
“Yes, two of them. David Stein’s ex-Cambridge—ex-RAF too. Photographic reconnaissance … I’m not sure whether he’s an archaeologist, or an art historian—he’s here for the cave paintings, the prehistoric stuff, anyway. But he’s an Israeli now—“
“An Israeli?”
“Dyed-in-the-wool. Got three wars under his belt now—one world war and two Arab-Israeli wars. He was back flying with them last year, at Suez, though he won’t talk about it. A bit hush-hush, as Lexy would put it.”
“And the second one?”
“American. Mike Bradford. Also ex-Cambridge—no, Oxford—Rhodes Scholar … I don’t know where Audley picked him up, or he picked Audley up, as the case may be—“
“They’re coming, Jilly. Rhodes Scholar?”
“I think. Now he writes novels. Got a modest hit in the States last year—war novel. Another very bright fellow—like Davey Stein … In fact, they’re all bloody clever, as Lexy would say—she’s nice, is Lexy. The man who gets Lexy won’t have time to live to regret it.” She twisted to smile up at him. “He’ll be too busy supporting a litter of huge, voracious children.”
Roche watched Lady Alexandra and Meriel Stephanides pick their way across the stones of the dry margin of the river bed to the water’s edge just upstream of them. Alongside the Anglo-Greek girl, and inadequately covered by what looked like two medium-sized scarlet pocket handkerchiefs, Lexy looked even bigger and pinker and blonder than before.
“She’s got three brothers as well as three sisters,” murmured Jilly. “And positively hordes of cousins. The Perownes come up like mushrooms, it’s quite hard to keep track of them all. We’ve got one of them with us in Fontainebleau—one of the cousins. And I think it was through a cousin of some sort that David Audley got to know the family actually, rather than the General… Dragoons and Cambridge, and all that…”
That figured better than Lexy’s account, thought Roche: second-lieutenants didn’t usually strike up battlefield social acquaintances with generals. And, come to that, maybe the Fontainebleau cousin had been used to link up Jilly with Lexy.
“She’s all yours now, anyway,” said Jilly.
Go where glory waits, Roche, as Kipling would say, recalled Roche from his recent reading.
Well—a little cover was better than none at all… in this job anyway, if not in the case of Lady Alexandra’s bikini: with Lexy introducing him to Audley, apparently at Steffy’s suggestion, his own Jilly-link might pass as a mere accident, at least for the time being.
> Having waded gingerly into the water until it reached to the lower handkerchief, Lexy hurled herself into the current with a mighty splash.
And the bonus she offered, apart from the cover she could give him, was that if he could get her to talk about Audley, who better than she to—
“Time to unhand me,” whispered Jilly.
Roche started to obey, searching for another foothold beneath him, when Lexy surfaced alongside them, blowing water like a whale. The river had carried her down with astonishing speed.
“Put—“ she spluttered more of the river”—ouch!— put the poor man down, Jilly—ouch! damn and blast these bloody stones! At once!” Steffy surfaced on the other side of him, sleek as an otter. “Jilly is our dark horse.” She gave Roche a shrewd look.
“Jilly is not to be trusted,” echoed Lexy. “What sweet nothings has she been feeding you about us, David?”
“Or what devious plans has she been hatching?” said Steffy. The thought came to Roche that both Clinton and Genghis Khan might have put watchers on him. For once, since leaving England, he hadn’t bothered to look over his shoulder, so there could be half-a-dozen of them by now, falling over each other. He looked around, scanning the banks on each side. There was enough cover to hide two rival regiments among the trees and tall reeds. If there were, then at least neither regiment would be hostile to him—not yet—but after this little play they’d be dipping their pens in envy for the composition of their reports.
“You’re not married by any chance, are you, David?” said Steffy sweetly. “He’s not married, is he, Jilly?”
“Not as far as I know,” said Jilly.
“And not as far as I know, either,” said Roche. “Why do you ask?”
Oh … just, I’ve seen that worried look before—the one you’ve been casting about.” Her smile was undiluted mischief. “Just shy? Well, don’t worry about the Frog with the binoculars down by the bridge—he’s always there. He’s got a pash on Lexy.”
Roche kicked himself mentally, once for missing the observer and again for betraying his thoughts.
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