Nicola Cornick Collection

by Nicola Cornick

  She yawned, stretched and reached out a hand. The bed was empty. Somehow she had known that it would be. Jack had gone whilst she was asleep.

  He had made love to her twice more through the long, hot darkness of the night, teaching her things she could never have imagined, taking her to places she had never even thought could exist, showing her things about herself and her responses that had dazzled and overwhelmed her. He had held her in his arms and shown her tenderness, but despite her inexperience she had not confused that with love. She knew he did not love her. There was something within Jack she was already all too aware that she could not reach, something dark that he had locked away.

  He had left a note. On the table beside the bed was a crisp white piece of paper.

  ‘Dinner tonight at eight.’ The arrogant black scrawl suggested that he had not for a moment considered that she might refuse him. Despite herself, Sally smiled a little. So it was not over yet. Her body suffused with heat at the thought.

  With a sigh she sat up, reached for a robe and thrust her feet into the little swansdown slippers that were one of her few concessions to frivolity. She frowned a little to see the pink dress crumpled on the floor, but the pieces of the corset made her blush. She would never, ever be able to view Matty’s needlework scissors in the same light again.

  She opened the door of her room and walked along the landing to the stairs. Her body ached a little. It felt unfamiliar, heavy, lush in its satiation. Sally examined her feelings. There was no guilt. She felt more astonished at herself than anything else. Astonished and pleased … But beneath the pleasure she was a little afraid. She was afraid that she might have fallen in love with Jack Kestrel last night. Everything had happened so fast, like a whirlwind. If she opened the door a crack and acknowledged her feelings, she was afraid that the love would swamp her. Her parched soul, which had welcomed Jack’s desire for her, would give freely of its love as well. And he would not want that.

  She had not mistaken lust for love the previous night. She might be inexperienced—less so now, admittedly—but she was no impressionable girl. She knew that Jack had wanted her desperately, violently, in the same way that she had wanted him, but equally she knew that it was just an affair to him. Yet she could not help herself. She could feel all the danger signs: the swooping sensation in the region of her heart at the thought of seeing Jack again, the breathlessness that was not merely from anticipation of his lovemaking, the pleasure she took in his company.

  She would have to be careful and sensible, for Jack would surely not want her love and she did not wish her heart to be broken …

  Yawning, she went down the staircase and into the hall. She loved the early morning when the building was quiet and felt as though it belonged to her alone. This morning all her senses seemed to be more acute; she could smell the rich beeswax and lavender furniture polish, see the way in which the early sunlight gleamed on the wood and hear the sounds of the carts outside in the street. The Strand never slept. Even this early there was the rumble of wheels and the sounds of raised voices. But here in the club there was no noise but the splash of the little waterfall in the atrium as it played amidst the spiky palm fronds and cool marble statuary.

  There was a letter on the mat by the door. It had been hand delivered and must have arrived at some point in the night. Sally recognised her sister Petronella’s scribble on the envelope. She picked it up and sat down on the stairs to read it.

  Please, dear Sal, please, please help me! Clarrie and Anne are in Holloway Prison because they refused to pay their fines and their families are without support and have nowhere to turn. I need money for food and lodging and medicines. My own little ones are sick with the fever. If you could but loan me two hundred pounds …

  The feeling of well being drained abruptly from Sally’s body and she read the letter again carefully. Two hundred pounds … A cold, cold shiver touched her spine. She let the letter drift from her fingers. Two hundred pounds was a fortune, enough to buy a house, more than enough comfortably to keep a family for a whole year. But she knew medicine was prohibitively expensive and fever could sweep through crowded tenements like a fire, destroying all in its path. She also knew that Nell would not ask for money unless she was absolutely desperate. Like Sally herself, Nell was too proud for charity and was determined to earn her own money.

  Sally leaned her head against the banister and closed her eyes. She did not have two hundred pounds to spare. She had overreached herself with the refurbishment of the Blue Parrot and was already in debt. Yet she had always looked after Nell and Connie, trying to help them if she possibly could. It was part of the pact she had made with herself because of her guilt about their father’s death. She thought of Nell struggling to look after her own and other women’s children when their men folk were dead or had deserted them and they were in prison. Her throat locked with pity and distress.

  I do not know how I may manage if you cannot help me, Nell had written. I have my own fines to pay for breach of the peace and sometimes I feel it is not worth the struggle, and yet I cannot abandon the principle of universal suffrage. But if the choice is between that and Lucy and George starving, then I do not know what I can do. Please help me, Sally. You are my only hope.

  Sally sighed. She did not support the suffrage movement through militant action as Nell did and felt a terrible guilt that she professed the politics and yet did so little to help her sister. And now there were children suffering and dying of the fever for want of the money to buy medicines. Sally could not bear for anything to happen to them.

  She picked up the letter and went back upstairs, her mind running over ways in which she might raise the money to help. She could not borrow further from the bank unless she mortgaged the house, a course of action she was loath to take. There were perhaps a few people whom she could approach for a loan—Gregory Holt, an investor in the club and an old friend of her family, had always offered himself as a shoulder to cry on, but Sally knew he wanted more than friendship from her and did not wish to take advantage of him and put herself in his debt. She could not ask Jack. She barely knew him and that would put their relationship on quite a different footing. She was determined to maintain her independence.

  She knocked on Connie’s door as she passed along the landing, but there was no answer; peeping around the door, she saw that the bed had not been slept in. With another sigh she went back to her room and rang the bell for the maid to bring her morning tea. The day did not seem quite so bright with promise now. She knew she had to find a solution to Nell’s problems and find it fast. She had no idea what to do.

  ‘What do you think?’ Jack said. He was watching Sally’s face as he waited for her reaction. They had dined at White City, in the Grand Restaurant at the Franco-British Exhibition, and now they were poised two hundred feet above the ground in the fairground amusement called the Flip Flap. Beneath them the white-stuccoed buildings of the exhibition were spread out like a magical world that gleamed in the moonlight. The cascade was lit by a thousand coloured lanterns that were reflected in rainbow colours in the waters of the lagoon. Sally gave a sigh of pure enjoyment and Jack felt a surprising rush of pleasure to see her happiness.

  ‘It is quite, quite beautiful.’ She turned to him, smiling. ‘And quite absurd of you to pay for us to have the entire carriage to ourselves.’

  Jack shrugged. ‘I didn’t want to have to share the experience with anyone but you,’ he said.

  Sally turned away, resting her elbows on the side of the carriage and looking out across the lights of the capital.

  ‘They say you can see as far as Windsor on a fine day,’ she said. ‘We came when the exhibition first opened. It was a terrible crush. I brought my sister Nell and her children.’ She laughed. ‘Connie refused to come because she said that, although it was fashionable to be seen here, there were too many ordinary people. Her loss, I suppose. We had a splendid time.’

  Jack was not surprised at this insight into Connie Bowes. The
more he got to know her sister, the more different they appeared. He’d had someone out looking for both Connie and his cousin Bertie Basset all day, ever since he had received a message from Sally that morning informing him that Connie had not returned home the previous night. He was not sure which of them irritated him the more, Bertie for causing his family so much distress at a time when his father was dangerously ill, or Connie for undoubtedly having an eye to the main chance.

  It had been an unsatisfactory day. Jack was not accustomed to finding his attention wandering in business meetings, a fact directly attributable to the woman now standing beside him enraptured by the view. His concentration had been severely affected all day. He had a pile of work requiring his consideration, several urgent decisions to be made and a diary full of appointments to keep, yet he had chosen to take Sally Bowes to the exhibition rather than using the evening for the business dinner he had originally planned. His sanity must be in question.

  He had been shaken when he had awoken that morning to realise that he did not want to leave Sally’s bed. He had wanted to stay with her so strongly that the impulse had completely perplexed him. He had never wanted to stay with a woman any longer than it took to say goodbye. But Sally had been warm and soft curled up beside him in the big bed, her body satiated from the passion of their lovemaking. He had found himself holding her as though he never wanted to let her go.

  Somehow he had found the strength to leave, but then he had lost the advantage by spending the entire day thinking about her anyway. He smiled ruefully to himself. He had thought that to take her to bed would drive this need for her from body and his mind, only to find that his desire was more acute than ever.

  Just as disturbing as his unquenched lust was the guilt he felt on seducing an innocent. Jack played the game by the rules and ravishing virgins was not his style. He knew that Sally would say she was as much seducer as seduced, that his scruples were unnecessary, and that she could take care of herself, but he still felt that what he had done was wrong. Perhaps he was more old fashioned and conventional than he had imagined, for despite the fact that he had known her three days, and despite his deep-rooted rejection of marriage, he wanted to do the right thing. His instinct to propose to Sally was very strong and he assured himself it was nothing to do with the pleasure he took in her company, but simply because he had been brought up a gentleman.

  ‘Jack?’ Sally was standing looking at him, her face tilted up towards him, eyes bright with excitement. Tonight she was wearing a gown of deep green silk that seemed to flow fluidly over her body. It was embroidered with flowers and decorated with lace at the neck, a concealment that only served to emphasise the lush curve of her breasts. The night was warm and so she had only a diaphanous shawl about her shoulders. Beneath it her skin gleamed pale and tempting.

  ‘I wondered,’ she said, as the Flip Flap started to descend to the ground again, ‘if you would care to take a swan boat on the lagoon with me before we go back?’

  Jack’s preference would have been to go directly back to the club and take up where they had left off the previous night, but Sally looked so excited and happy, and she caught his hand and pulled him towards the lake. They paused on the white ornamental bridge that crossed the water.

  ‘Such a beautiful night!’ Sally said. She glanced sideways at him. ‘With anyone else I would say that it is a night made for romance, but I remember you telling me yesterday that you do not believe in such fanciful stuff.’

  ‘I do not believe in love,’ Jack said. ‘It is a convenient fiction invented to dress up physical desire.’

  Sally sighed, her gaze on the rippling water. ‘And yet you must have been in love once?’

  ‘It is true that I thought I loved Merle.’ Jack spoke harshly. Her words echoed too closely the painful memories he had been thinking of only moments before. ‘I did love her. It was the single most destructive experience of my life.’

  Sally’s eyes were wide and dark on his face. ‘Why?’

  ‘Because I lost all control and all judgement.’ Jack shrugged. ‘I don’t want to talk about it.’ Suddenly he made a sharp gesture. ‘You thought you were in love with your husband when you married, didn’t you? And that could hardly be said to have turned out happily.’

  Sally was silent for a moment. ‘I was young,’ she said. ‘I thought I was doing the right thing. I expect you did too when you eloped. Everyone makes mistakes.’

  Jack laughed harshly. ‘Not everyone makes mistakes that were as unforgivable as mine.’

  Even though he was turned away from her, he could feel Sally’s gaze on him. She put a gentle hand on his arm.

  ‘Do you ever talk about Merle?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘It was a long time ago. Do you still love her?’

  Jack did not answer, did not know the answer. He had loved Merle passionately and then he had wanted to forget her equally as passionately, but had never been able to escape her memory and her legacy. He was haunted by his guilt over her death and his self-loathing at his own weakness. But he did not want to think about that now. He wanted to wipe out the memory in the passion of Sally’s embrace.

  Sally shivered and drew her shawl more closely about her shoulders as though she could sense his disquiet. ‘Never mind the boat ride,’ she said. ‘Let’s go back,’ and although she did not utter a word of reproach, Jack knew that his abruptness had broken the spell between them.

  He caught her wrist, pulling her into his arms. He kissed her hard, the thrust of his tongue invading her mouth mercilessly, feeling her yield. He felt angry, but was not sure why. All he knew was that he wanted to slake all that anger and pain in Sally’s warmth. His hands held her tightly against him, and he slid one of them from her waist to her breast, feeling the nipple harden against his palm. He eased the pressure of the kiss and heard her catch her breath.

  ‘We cannot do this here …’ Her whisper was shocked and with a rush of awareness Jack realised they were still standing on a bridge in the middle of the lagoon, illuminated on all sides by the brightly coloured lights of the cascade. Anyone could see them.

  He took her hand and pulled her towards the archway that led out into Wood Lane. For the first time he was glad that they had driven there rather than taking the underground. At least the car would afford them some privacy, although it would probably feel like hours until they got back.

  He held the car door for her, started the engine, then slid in beside her into the intimate darkness. He could hear her breathing and feel the powerful awareness that shimmered between them. The complicated anger was still in him, but overlaid with desire. He gripped the wheel of the Lanchester tightly, concentrating solely on getting back to the Strand. If he started to think about making love to Sally he would probably stop and do precisely that in the middle of a London street.

  ‘I don’t understand,’ Sally said. Her voice was soft. ‘I don’t understand how I can feel like this when I barely know you and I don’t understand the devils that drive you.’

  Jack took one hand briefly from the wheel and covered her clasped ones. ‘Don’t think about it,’ he said. There was a rough undertone to his voice. He could sense her gaze on him in the darkness, but he did not dare look at her. If he did so, he would kiss her and then …

  They said nothing more as the car drew up outside the Blue Parrot, but the silence between them was electric. The tension had spun tighter and tighter as the journey progressed and now that they had finally got to their destination the anticipation was almost choking him. This time Jack picked Sally up and carried her through the main doorway and up the stairs, under the astounded gaze of Alfred the doorman and various assorted and scandalised guests who were milling around in the entrance hall. Sally struggled, one of her pretty little sequin-encrusted evening slippers coming off and bouncing down the steps.

  ‘Put me down!’ she hissed. Her face was pink with indignation. ‘Everyone can see!’

  Jack smiled down into her face. ‘So?’
>
  ‘You are doing this to the benefit of your own reputation and think nothing of mine,’ Sally said.

  Jack put her on her feet gently on the soft carpet at the top of the stairs. ‘Too late, my sweet,’ he said. ‘Everyone already believes you to be a racy and outrageous nightclub owner—so why not live up to the role?’

  He dropped a kiss on her parted lips, smiling again as he took in the startled, upturned faces of their audience down in the hall. Loosening his tie, he said, ‘Come along. I am taking you to bed.’

  ‘Jack!’ Sally blushed a vivid scarlet.

  ‘It’s no more than I have wanted to do all day,’ Jack said. He could barely wait to get her as far as the bedroom as it was. With one arm about her, he hustled her down the corridor, past the appalled, upright figure of Mrs Matson, thrust open the bedroom door and pulled her inside.

  ‘I can’t afford to lose another corset,’ Sally said.

  Jack laughed. ‘You won’t even notice it’s gone,’ he promised, lowering his mouth to hers again. The shimmering, devastating pleasure took him again as soon as their lips touched and he allowed his mind to go dark until he was aware of nothing but their spiralling need and the urgent demand to claim her again as his and his only.

  This time when Sally awoke it was still dark outside and there was only one candle burning low in the room. The building was quiet. Jack was lying beside her, one arm lying across her bare stomach in a casual gesture of possession. She moved slightly and his arms tightened about her, drawing her closer to him. He felt warm and a lock of his hair tickled her cheek.

  Sally lay still for a moment. Her mind felt sleepy and heavy, but her body was starting to stir, aroused by the proximity of Jack’s nakedness. For a second the sensation troubled her. She had always thought that a woman’s physical needs were supposed to be less powerful than those of a man and yet she had matched Jack’s need for her every step of the way. And surely she should feel guilt over her behaviour. She had not known him long, did not know him well, but felt so powerful a desire for him that it was completely immodest.