Reform of the Rake

by Catherine George

  With Adam it was different. She was going into this with her eyes wide open, willing to share his final fling and prepared to cut her losses when responsibility finally overtook him. Or even sooner if he got tired of her first— or she of him. Lowri gave a mirthless little laugh in the darkness. Who are you kidding? She asked herself. You’ll never tire of Adam if you live to a hundred.

  All next day, through the flurry of welcome when the Clares returned, and the time she spent typing the notes she’d made about life in the fourteenth-century reign of Edward III, Lowri waited, strung tight as a violin string, for Adam to ring. When he did it was so late she’d given up all hope of hearing from him, and gave him a cool response.

  ‘I’ve only just got back to the flat—sorry it’s late, Lowri. Hope you aren’t in bed.’

  ‘No. I’ve been over at the house, chatting to Sarah.’

  ‘I detect a hint of frost.’

  ‘Certainly not.’

  ‘Good. I would have rung earlier, but I spent most of the day with Dad and the rest of the board. Things are hotting up now his retirement’s looming closer.’

  ‘And at your age you must get tired so easily!’ she said, mock solicitous.

  ‘You little devil,’ he hissed. ‘If I had you right here in my arms this minute I’d show you exactly how old and tired I am!’

  The laughing intimacy in the deep, caressing voice tightened muscles Lowri wasn’t usually much aware of.

  ‘No response?’ he asked, amused.

  ‘Yes. But I’m not telling you what it is,’ she said demurely, and heard a sharp intake of breath.

  ‘Witch! When can I see you again? Tonight?’

  Summoning all her willpower, Lowri tried to postpone seeing him for a couple of days just to convince herself she was in control, but Adam wouldn’t hear of it, telling her bluntly he intended to spend as much of his free time with her as he possibly could.

  ‘You’re seeing quite a bit of Adam these days,’ said Sarah a couple of days later. ‘He’s staying the course with you far longer than he usually does with the Carolines of this world.’

  ‘Probably because we’re just friends,’ said Lowri, not altogether truthfully.

  ‘Or maybe because you’re the only one who’s ever held out against the famous Hawkridge charm.’ Sarah eyed her young cousin challengingly. ‘I take it you are holding out?’

  Lowri grinned. ‘Since you ask, yes. I am.’

  ‘I’m amazed. Rupert says—’

  ‘You and Rupert discuss me?’

  ‘Of course we do! We’re not just fond of you—we feel responsible, too.’

  ‘Oh, Sarah!’ Lowri blinked hard.

  ‘Now don’t go all mushy and sentimental on me, but it’s the truth just the same,’ Sarah pulled a face. ‘I wouldn’t put it past Rupert to corner Adam and demand his intentions!’

  ‘He’d better not!’ said Lowri in alarm, then shrugged. ‘Besides, I know exactly what Adam’s intentions are— a good time, no strings and no recriminations when we go our separate ways.’

  Sarah snorted. ‘He doesn’t want much, does he? Are you happy with that?’

  ‘Yes,’ fibbed Lowri firmly. ‘Adam’s great fun, and I enjoy his company, but he’s the last man I’d think of settling down with. When I get to that stage—which won’t be for years yet—I’ll find me a man who doesn’t run a mile at the thought of commitment and babies.’

  It was a thought which sustained her through dinner at an Italian restaurant in Putney the following Friday, an outing to seventeenth-century Ham House near the Thames below Richmond Hill the day after, right through an evening at the theatre watching the new Tom Stoppard play and up to the moment when Adam saw her through the Clares’ side gate late on the Saturday night. At the foot of her stair Lowri stood firm, baulking any attempt on Adam’s part to see her inside the flat.

  ‘You’re not letting me come up tonight,’ he stated wryly. ‘Is that because the family’s in residence over at the house this weekend?’

  Lowri thought about it, and nodded. ‘I rather think it is.’ It was the truth. Inviting Adam to share a bed which actually belonged to the Clares didn’t seem the right thing to do. She reached up a hand to his face. ‘You probably think I’m silly.’

  ‘No—just very, very sweet.’ Adam kissed the hand and held it tight. ‘How about tomorrow? The weekend isn’t over yet.’

  ‘Right. Where do you want to go?’

  ‘I thought a swim and a picnic—my turn to provide the eats.’

  Lowri nodded happily. ‘Sounds lovely. Where?’

  Adam grinned. ‘Wait and see.’ He bent swiftly and kissed her gently. Then kissed her again, less gently, and suddenly they were locked in each others’ arms careless of the fact that they were in full view of anyone who cared to stroll in the garden in the scented, summer darkness.

  Adam put her from him at last, breathing hard. ‘I’d better go,’ he said unevenly.

  She nodded wordlessly, reached up for one last kiss, then went inside her little flat and shut the door before she could change her mind.

  Adam had been gone for half an hour before it suddenly dawned on Lowri that the only decent swimsuit she possessed was at home in Cwmderwen. Swimming hadn’t featured in her life since her arrival in London.

  ‘No problem,’ said Sarah cheerfully next day over the lazy, once-weekly ritual of breakfast Lowri usually shared with the Clares. ‘You can borrow one of mine.’

  ‘It wouldn’t fit,’ said Lowri, depressed.

  ‘Rubbish. I’m not the sylph I was since Emily’s advent, and you’ve lost a few pounds lately, I fancy.’

  ‘Am I working you too hard, Lowri?’ demanded Rupert, emerging from a screen of Sunday papers suddenly.

  ‘No, of course not.’

  ‘I don’t want Geraint on the rampage because I’m wearing his daughter to a shadow!’

  ‘If anyone’s wearing her to a shadow, darling, it’s Adam, not you,’ said his wife.

  ‘Geraint might not be too pleased about that, either,’ he said darkly, and eyed Lowri in suspicion. ‘Everything all right?’

  ‘Of course it is. Adam’s just a friend, Rupert.’

  ‘Hmm.’ Rupert retreated behind his paper, unconvinced, and Sarah took Lowri upstairs to choose something for the swimming expedition.

  Firmly rejecting brief two-piece trifles Sarah offered her, Lowri seized on a plain, beautifully cut black one-piece maillot which flattered her shape very satisfactorily and showed off the tan she’d acquired during lunchbreaks spent lying in the recent sunshine they’d been blessed with.

  When Adam arrived to collect her it was an hour before they got away, due to offers of coffee from Sarah, and pleas to stay from Emily and Dominic. When they heard he was taking Lowri swimming, the longing on both young faces prompted a promise from Adam that he’d include them both in the next swimming expedition.

  ‘But not today,’ said Adam, as he drove Lowri away later. ‘Today I want you all to myself.’

  Smiling happily in agreement, Lowri asked where they were headed.

  ‘You’ll see soon enough,’ he said mysteriously. ‘I hope you’ve brought something to swim in.’

  Lowri assured him she had and sat back, letting her hair blow in the wind, her face to the sun as Adam’s roadster took her through London on the way to the mysterious destination. When they eventually arrived she stared in surprise as he drove into the underground car park of a large block of flats.

  ‘Why are we stopping here?’

  ‘Because this is where we’re going swimming, my pet.’ Adam grinned at her as he switched off the ignition. ‘Wapping, home of rising young electronics wizard Adam Hawkridge.’

  Lowri stared at him, then began to laugh. ‘I’d rather expected Brighton.’

  ‘Too unoriginal. You’ll like it much better here in Wapping.’

  He was right. The indoor swimming-pool attached to the building was a surprisingly luxurious affair, with pillars and concealed lighting, gr
eenery in tubs, and not another soul in sight.

  ‘Where is everyone?’ asked Lowri later, when she emerged in her borrowed bathing suit.

  ‘In bed—or in Brighton, probably,’ said Adam with a grin, and gave her a swift, all-encompassing scrutiny from head to foot. ‘Very nice indeed, Miss Morgan.’

  ‘Likewise, Mr Hawkridge,’ she returned serenely, her colour a little high. But impressive was more the word, she thought secretly, one swift look enough for an indelible impression of broad shoulders and slim hips, long, muscular legs. And without any fuss she dived neatly into the water and set out for the far end with the efficient crawl she’d learned at school. Adam dived in after her and passed her without effort, treading water until she joined him, then turned with her to swim effortlessly at her pace for several lengths before suddenly disappearing beneath the water. She looked about her nonplussed for a moment, then suddenly Adam shot up out of the water, imprisoning her in his arms, laughing. Just as abruptly he let her go again, and for a few minutes they ducked and dived and splashed like children, before Lowri took off at the fastest speed she could manage, only to be caught long before she reached the far end of the pool.

  ‘All right, all right,’ she gasped. ‘You win.’

  Adam heaved himself out of the water and leant down to pull her up out the water in one easy movement, not even short of breath as he wrapped her in her pink towelling robe.

  ‘That was fun,’ she said breathlessly, rubbing her hair with a sleeve. ‘So where do we go for the picnic?’

  ‘Not far. You don’t even have to change first. Just bring your bag with you and we can go up in the service lift as we are.’

  Lowri eyed him narrowly. ‘You mean you’re taking me to your flat?’

  He nodded, grinning from ear to ear. ‘Bullseye. If you’re very good I may even show you my etchings.’

  Adam’s home was high up in the modern, pyramidshaped building, with a bird’s eye view of the Thames from the terrace outside his living room. It was a whitewalled, sparsely furnished place, a very masculine air about its stripped wood floors, and furniture covered in glove-soft Italian leather the colour of vintage port. The windows had louvred blinds instead of curtains, and the only wall free of bookshelves was hung with a variety of artwork ranging from a pair of small oils to a series of pen and ink sketches. Adam’s kitchen was clinically white and businesslike, but his bathroom had a touch of the sybarite about the coral-red walls and black and white chequered floor, the claw-footed Victorian bathtub and huge gold-framed mirror sporting cherubs at each corner.

  ‘Gosh,’ said Lowri, awed. ‘So this is how the manabout-town lives.’

  ‘Only very recently,’ he assured her. ‘I still have my bedroom at home with my parents. And after that and before this—when I came home from the States—I had a rather scruffy place not far from here in a less upwardly mobile part of the community.’ He indicated a pile of striped black and white towels on a wooden stand the same vintage as the bath. ‘Help yourself—plenty of shampoo and so on. I’ll get lunch ready.’

  ‘Don’t you need a hand?’

  ‘Not for my type of catering!’

  Lowri had a swift bath, washed her hair free of chlorine and dried it vigorously on one of the huge towels. Afterwards she added a touch of colour to her lips, flicked on some mascara and resumed the yellow cotton dress she’d worn earlier. When she emerged, damp hair caught back from her face with a yellow towelling bandeau, Adam was in the kitchen, wearing a fresh white cotton shirt and jeans, his bare feet in espadrilles and his hair still damp.

  He looked up with a smile. ‘I hope you’re not allergic to lobster.’

  ‘Only to the cost,’ she assured him.

  Adam led her to a glass-topped table on the small terrace, seated her in a red leather chair and served her half a lobster with lemon mayonnaise, crisp green salad and hot Italian bread. They drank dry white wine with the meal, then took a rest for a while before Adam produced a Sachertorte frosted in smooth dark chocolate too alluring for Lowri to resist.

  ‘Catering’s easy if one patronises a certain well-known chain-store foodhall,’ said Adam, grinning. ‘A half-hour shopping session yesterday morning before I came for you and hey presto, lunch for two.’

  ‘It was wonderful,’ said Lowri with a sigh, gazing out at the Thames.

  ‘Would you like some coffee?’

  ‘Not at the moment.’ Lowri slid lower in the chair. ‘I just want to sit in the sunshine and gaze at the view for a while. I’ll help you wash up later.’

  ‘No need. I’ve got a machine for that.’

  Lowri chuckled. ‘Have you got a machine for everything?’

  ‘No,’ said Adam softly. ‘Some things a machine can’t do for a man.’

  She shot him a look, but his bright eyes were bland beneath the thick straight brows.

  ‘Adam,’ she said bluntly. ‘Is this the one day soon you were talking about? Have you brought me here to seduce me?’

  He threw back his head and laughed. ‘When it comes to a bush you don’t beat around it much yourself, Lowri Morgan.’

  She took off the bandeau and shook out her hair to dry in the sunshine. ‘You must admit this has all the hallmarks—the surprise trip to your flat, the exquisite meal, the wine. The works, in fact.’

  Adam got up to collect plates. ‘You’ve forgotten something I once told you, Lowri. I only take what’s freely given. Does that answer your question?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ She yawned, suddenly sleepy after the swim and the wine and the sunshine. ‘I’ll think about it.’

  ‘You just sit there while I see to this lot. When I come back you can tell me exactly how you’d like to spend the rest of the day.’

  She nodded drowsily. ‘Right.’ When she was alone Lowri relaxed completely, only dimly aware of the drone of traffic somewhere in the distance below. Her eyelids felt weighted, and soon all her thought processes ground to a halt and she fell asleep.

  Lowri woke with a start, disorientated, to find herself on a wide bed in cool twilight in what was obviously Adam’s bedroom. A swift look at her watch told her it wasn’t late evening, as it might well have been from the light. It was a mere three hours since lunch. She shot upright in dismay. Taking a long nap—or any nap at all—was hardly good manners for a guest invited to lunch. She slid off the bed rapidly, opened the blinds and went into Adam’s bathroom to spend a few necessary minutes there. Her bag, she saw, touched, had been left by the side of the bed where she would find it easily. After a touch of lipstick and a vigorous session with her hairbrush she went in search of Adam to apologise.

  He was out on the terrace, deep in the Sunday papers. As she stepped out from the living-room he jumped to his feet, smiling.

  ‘Better?’ He ran his eyes over her. ‘You look all flushed and rested—good enough to eat.’

  ‘I’ve slept for ages. I’m very sorry,’ she said penitently.

  ‘Why?’ He held out a chair for her. ‘I’m flattered you felt at home enough here to relax.’

  ‘I don’t imagine women usually fall asleep on you,’ she said drily.

  He grinned. ‘Not over lunch, anyway.’

  Lowri flushed. ‘I’d quite like that coffee now.’

  ‘Coming up,’ he said promptly. ‘Or you can have tea, if you like.’

  ‘Oh, yes, please! Shall I—?’

  ‘No. You just sit there and read the paper.’

  When Adam brought a tea tray he’d added a plate of cookies. ‘I thought you’d like something to nibble with the tea—all from the same reliable source.’

  ‘I know. They’re my favourites.’

  They drank tea together, ate a few cookies, talked about some of the news items Adam picked out from the paper. Then Lowri flipped through the pages of the magazine, showing him several pages of the latest beachwear.

  ‘None of them comes within streets of that black affair you were wearing,’ said Adam.

  ‘Borrowed plumes from Sarah. Mine�
�s at home.’

  ‘Wherever it came from, you looked good in it. Very good,’ he added with emphasis.

  ‘It must be the cut.’

  ‘No, sweetheart, it was the shape inside it.’

  Adam’s eyes met hers, and held, and at last she looked away, seizing on the book review section from the pile of papers in front of her. She studied it furiously, suddenly so intensely aware of the man beside her the paper shook in her hands.

  Adam cleared his throat. ‘We’d better go out,’ he said gruffly and got up, holding out his hand to her. ‘Come on, we’ll go for a drive, walk in a park somewhere.’

  Lowri nodded blindly and dropped the paper, then bent to pick it up just as Adam did the same. Their heads cracked together and she gave a little shriek and Adam caught her in his arms and held her close.

  ‘Darling, did I hurt you?’

  Lowri shook her head.

  ‘Look at me,’ he ordered. ‘Look at me, Lowri!’

  Slowly, reluctantly, her lids lifted until she met the question in his intent, brilliant eyes. She answered it without words, melting against him, rubbing her cheek against his chest, and Adam picked her up and carried her through his living-room and along the hall, with a slow, measured tread like a sleepwalker, giving her every opportunity to change her mind right up to the moment when he lowered her to his bed and stretched himself out beside her.

  They lay face to face, as still as their mutual, thundering heartbeat allowed, then Adam bent his head and Lowri met his kiss with a fire which dispensed with questions. The spell abruptly broken, they surged together, hands and lips seeking and urgent, and at last, breathing laboured, Adam took off her clothes with unsteady hands rendered clumsy by need. As before, Lowri’s response to such lack of skill was so heated that Adam tore off his own clothes and pulled her naked body close, his breath leaving his lungs with a rush at the contact. Hard, muscular angles and soft, buoyant curves fitted together with such exquisite exactitude that Lowri’s hips moved involuntarily and Adam gave a smothered sound, his kisses suddenly famished and desperate as he caressed her to a fever-pitch of longing. And at last, vanquished by the need overwhelming them both, he buried his face against her throat and their bodies flowed together in such harmony that there on a sunny Sunday afternoon, high above the Thames, they achieved a miracle that for Adam with all his experience, and for Lowri with virtually none, was as near perfection as two humans could ever hope to achieve.