Relief. It was OK. A little gift from one friend to another, nothing to make a big deal over.
Pink satisfaction, relieved smile, eyes unguarded in pleasure. Ratty couldn’t help feeling that she’d made it easy for him. Catriona had bored him, on Sunday evening, with her self-self conversation, not particularly interesting. Tess had more to say in five minutes than Catriona had in an hour and he’d spent the evening wishing he’d explored the situation with Tess.
He lifted his eyebrows as though struck by an idea. ‘It isn’t much of a thank you, but I’ve a pair of tickets to the Spring Ball at Port Manor this weekend. Can you make it?’ Just the right amount of casual spontaneity.
And it nearly worked. A rush of something lit her eyes and her smile was shyly pleased. ‘Angel told me about the ball ... It would be lovely.’
But Jos was frowning. ‘Um, Ratty,’ he dropped in anxiously, ‘you’ve already invited Catriona.’
Ratty stared at Jos, swinging his new picture gently. ‘Christ, how stupid of me. I’ll ring Catriona ...’
‘Oh no!’ Tess thrust the idea away. ‘Really. It doesn’t matter!’ A glance at her watch, a quick farewell, and she was gone.
Ratty studied the caricature, Pete studied Ratty. The garage was silent and familiar. Ramp, fitted cabinets, lifted bonnets. A wheel against the wall where Pete struggled with a seized brake drum. The acrid smell of old oil.
Jos was gazing after Tess, trouble clouding his brow. Suddenly, it cleared. ‘I can take Tess, can’t I, Ratty?’ His pleasure at conjuring up a solution was written all over his face.
Ratty sighed. ‘I suppose you can, Jos, yes.’
And off Jos ran, ‘Tess, Tess!’ Out of sight towards Little Lane.
Pete had to clutch the front of an MG, he laughed so hard. ‘That didn’t quite go to plan, did it?’
Ratty had never been so disgusted with himself. ‘I was amateurish.’
‘Your face! Good old Jos. What next?’
He closed the folder over Nigel and tucked it high up on a shelf. ‘Don’t know. Yet.’ Turned back to a Mark II Jag. Thought about the Jag’s timing, tried to keep his mind on the fact that if it rattled at the top of the engine when revved to 1500rpm, the chain could be adjusted there. If it was the bottom chain, it meant the engine had to come out and he’d need to ring the customer for clearance before he went on.
He took the tagged ignition key down from the row of hooks. How could he have let it go wrong? Why hadn’t he lied that he and Catriona were over? He could easily have made it true. He turned the Jag’s engine over and listened carefully to the rattle.
Tess. There was something graceful about her. As if she ought to walk with out-turned toes, like a dancer. Instead she strode along as if impatient to move through the countryside and see all the pretty colours, hair streaming.
Angel said Tess’s hair was strawberry blonde.
Chapter Six
Tess’s hair was strawberry blonde. Her eyes were greener or bluer according to what she wore, but tonight as turquoise as her silk dress, a skimming fabric sheath which bared a shoulder, hem flaring just above her ankles.
Angel had feathered the bottom few inches of her hair, whirled it into a pleat with a thick strand at the front snaking long over her bare left shoulder. Terrific.
‘You shall go to the ball, Tesserella! Even if it’s only with Jos.’
It had been quite funny, retreating from the embarrassment of Ratty being so overwhelmed with options that he’d almost invited two partners and Jos so thrilled he could relieve matters.
It would have taken a harder heart than Tess’s to wipe the smile off that bearded face with a refusal. Jos was so sweet. But what on earth did a biker-mechanic wear to a ball?
Black suit, apparently, black embroidered black shirt, black shoelace tie, black tooled cowboy boots, hair smoothed into a shining pigtail and beard newly trimmed close, revealing that he did actually have a jawline. ‘Jos!’ She stared at a Jos bashful under scrutiny on her doorstep. ‘You look ... amazing!’
The ballroom was spectacular with ruby damask curtains and snowy table linen beneath golden chandeliers. Vivid gowns, floating, swirling, set off by the marvellous, uncompromising sobriety of dinner jackets. Ages since Tess had dressed up for a good bash.
And it would have all been so lovely, so bright and friendly, if not for Catriona.
Pete and Angel, Tess and Jos were already at the table when an unusually quiet Ratty escorted in slinking, blonde-streaked Catriona, gorgeous in gunmetal satin. Expression blank, she was introduced to Tess.
‘Pimm’s, I think,’ she husked in Ratty’s direction, folding elegantly into the red plush chair. Her hair hung in a shining fall and she shook it constantly down her back.
‘I hate sitting with my back to the room.’ Catriona gazed at each of those who weren’t.
Pete immediately took Angel, startling in fire engine red, to dance, probably knowing generous Angel would offer to switch. Catriona moved casually to Angel’s seat, swapping drinks and evening purses.
‘Comfortable now?’ Jos looked stupefied by this little selfishness.
‘Fine.’ Catriona gazed past him.
Jos and Tess joined the dancing, abandoning Ratty to deal with the unlovely Catriona. Ratty looked grim and glared after them.
Apart from that, the evening was superb. Dancing with Jos – who, surprisingly, could – with Pete, all kinds of nameless men from other parties, even once with Ratty, although Catriona soon stopped that, declaring the dance a ladies’ excuse me. Dinner was excellent, the speeches funny, although Tess got only half the local references.
Champagne stood on the table in a glass bucket and, returning to the dance floor under the chandeliers dimmed now in favour of a blaze of candles, Tess floated on bubbles. The band, the laughter, the pretty lights. Wonderful.
Pete collared Ratty at the bar. ‘You’re a bastard.’
‘Well, you knew that.’ Ratty finished emptying vodka into Catriona’s Pimm’s. ‘I’m just helping her sleep.’
‘Have you nobbled Jos, too? He’s almost off his face!’
‘Total coincidence.’ Ratty looked Pete in the eye.
By midnight, he was pouring Catriona and Jos, helpless and liquid from spiked drinks, into a taxi, the driver demanding a fifty-pound bonus to deliver them home. He paid and brushed off his hands, grinning for the first time all night at an amused-disgusted Pete. ‘Now I feel like dancing.’
The great thing, Tess was assured, was to make it through until five in the morning when the Survivors’ Bus would take home everyone still standing.
She couldn’t remember having such a great time since she was a student. So many warm hands leading her onto the dance floor, black dinner-jacketed arms escorting her back. The chatter, the music, the DJ.
Simeon Carlysle kept staring. She blanked him.
He smiled and raised his glass to her. She blanked him again.
He made his way over. When he asked her to dance she snapped, ‘No thanks!’
‘Oh, come on!’ he cajoled. His eyes weren’t on her face.
Ratty’s voice from behind Tess was calm. ‘You’ve forgotten your manners, Simeon.’
Simeon reddened. Shuffled closer to Tess and lowered his voice. ‘Look, if I was a bit out of order that time, y’know, at the bonfire, I apologise. Blame it on the beer, shall we?’
And he laid his hand, heavy and strong and well remembered, on her bare arm.
Tess leapt to her feet. ‘Don’t touch me!’ People looked around and she didn’t care. ‘Go away, stay away, don’t touch me, and be grateful I haven’t reported you to the police!’
His flurried retreat had been fun.
The ball was all whirling, happy, mindless, laughing fun. For ages she’d been so concerned with getting over everything, she’d hardly thought about fun. But this was Tess Riddell, dancing, dancing, having fun.
Dawn edged the damask curtains, dinner jackets on chair backs and shoes with impossible heels
discarded under tables among fallen napkins. And finally, the music slowed.
Hair long since tumbled down, cheek pressed against the latest in a succession of white shirts, enjoying the feel of warm flesh through fabric, dreamily she watched Pete and Angel smooching, Pete’s face against Angel’s hair, hands cupping her buttocks through the scarlet dress. Angel opened her eyes to look directly at Tess, grinned, raised her brow in a little gesture of surprise.
Tess couldn’t be bothered to wonder what Angel was trying to convey. She let her own eyes close, swayed within encircling arms. Nice. Light-headed. Tired. Tipsy. Nice.
‘Izzat you, Ratty? How come you’re not drunk?’ Was it really Ratty supervising his party’s retrieval of their possessions after the smoked salmon and scrambled egg breakfast with Buck’s Fizz, leading them through a sunny, misty morning onto the Survivors’ Bus? Identifying their stop, waving goodbye to Pete and Angel as they wove homeward across the Cross, steering Tess down Main Road and into Little Lane, arms linked. Was Ratty being so responsible? Amazing.
His voice seemed surprisingly loud. ‘Key?’
She proffered her open evening purse, swaying, eyelids drooping. She accepted his supporting arm around her.
Through the green door, trying to walk with her head resting on his shoulder, eyes shut, hair streaming across his dinner jacket.
‘Upstairs?’
She nodded, yes.
Breathing the warm, boozy, perfumed scent of her closeness, he took her long, turned-up fingers decorated by chased-gold rings, towing her up the turn of the stairs. Across the landing to the bedroom.
Slit-eyed, she accepted the support of his body, smiled dreamily when he dotted her face with tiny kisses, sighed when he stroked the twin wings of her collar bones with his thumbs. Shuddered when he kissed first the ear lobe with two hoops, then the one with two studs. The most carnal, promising, desirous kiss he’d ever experienced, soft lips, sexy tongue welcoming his, sending a thrill right up his body and down again.
Breaking away to shut the curtains, he left her wavering with champagne and lack of sleep by the bedside.
Spinning at the unmistakable long sound of an unfastening zip, he froze as he watched her fumble with her bra, stumble out of the pool of turquoise silk that had sunk to the carpet and kick off her shoes, sucking in his breath at the movement of lovely bare breasts. Allowing his eyes to speculate on deliciously simple, satin, stark white French knickers.
Arousal gripped in a moment. Jacket off in a shrug, bow tie unknotted, he stepped her into his arms, groaning at the exuberant buffet of her breasts. Glorious hair streamed over his hands that barely-stroked her spine and glided up her sides to her breasts as he nuzzled his lips against her neck. Her fingers dug into his shoulders as she sighed her approval and he swooped almost savagely on her mouth, hot and tasting of sexy woman. Endless, deep, tingling kisses, her nipples firm against his chest, tongue tip running mad inside his mouth. Heart racing, breath catching, sinking to the edge of the bed with her somehow on his lap. Sinking into the white softness of her breasts. Hearing her inhalation as she paused from her dizzy grapple with the dress studs of his shirt to lift trembling hands to cup his head, hearing her whimper ‘Yes!’ when his mouth closed feverishly on her. Struggling his shirt open, hoarse groan as her hot flesh met his. Wonderful, marvellous, lithe downiness beneath his hands, stroking, suggesting, up and down her body. The body that she arched and offered.
His delicate fingers discovering the advanced state of her arousal through the sliding fabric of her French knickers, willingly entering into the rhythm she immediately rocked against his hand. God, she was exciting! Hot as hell, unpretending, undisguised, needing – God what a need.
Spine arching, curving, hands clamped on his biceps, breasts bobbing against him, silky-skinned, her hair slithered over her breasts and his arms, spangling his senses.
Her head fell forward.
And she slumped, boneless, on his shoulder.
Lowering her gently to the coolness of the sheets, he cradled her. Then her breathing slowed. And. Every. Inch. Of. Her. Relaxed …
Swearing horribly, he watched as her face slackened, eyes shut and she slithered into unmistakable sleep.
She’d crashed.
Sweeping back her hair from her unconscious face, he tried his lips and tongue up the xylophone of her now unresponsive rib cage. Out cold.
He gave an angry snort of laughter. ‘That’ll teach me!’ A wave of frustration broke over him. What if he flung off his clothes and climbed in beside her anyway? Simply slept beside her, woke with her? Maybe they could take up where they left off ...?
He blew a sigh. It could be better than that.
Chapter Seven
‘Lovely summer!’ Angel pushed back her hair, turned her kitten face up to a sun which had, untypically, been giving England its best for weeks, and held up her arms to admire a milk-coffee tan. Tess glanced at her own arms, spangled with a million tiny freckles, envying Angel her Rich Tea biscuit complexion.
This summer was continental; long days lasting into warm evenings. Everyone spent all their spare time outdoors, the pub gardens filled with kids running between geranium tubs and people going home to barbecues. ‘Are you staying this evening?’ Angel’s hair brushed Tess’s arm as she rolled nearer to watch her trying to come up with new Nigels. Tess had spoken to the card company and they’d agreed to give her the Nigel range.
To sell cards for boyfriends, dads, husbands, brothers, nephews or sons, Nigel now played golf, football or squash. He drove a sports car, he drank pints. For Valentine’s Day he clutched a pulsing heart and wore a soppy look. She tapped her pencil and thought about Christmas. Nigel began to emerge in the bottom half of a Santa suit, braces a-dangle, sharing a beer with a reindeer.
‘Ever run out of ideas?’
Tess shrugged, absorbed. ‘I just go on to something else.’ She avoided committing herself to staying this evening. Would Ratty be joining them?
Ratty.
How the hell was she going to face him? The ball had been bad enough – when Ratty had, apparently, walked her home. In the morning she’d surfaced alone, a wake-up-in-her-make-up number. And half naked.
What had happened?
Back of her mind, there was the niggling memory of dancing in the arms of someone. Then nothing. Blank. What next? Maybe she muddled her way upstairs alone, drew the curtains, undressed and rolled beneath the duvet?
Maybe she hadn’t needed hauling to bed. Perhaps the edge-of-the-mind memories of groans and furious curses were some head-trick, some earlier experience her dreaming mind had dredged up.
Maybe. Perhaps Simeon had cursed like that when Tess’s knee found its mark ...? But she thought not.
Anyway, it paled into insignificance beside the latest humiliation. She shuddered and began to sketch Nigel balancing an entire chicken over a barbecue. A week ago, suffering – really suffering – from a flooding, debilitating period, she’d rung Angel with an SOS to ransack Crowther’s shop for sanitary pads, knowing not to trust her own watery legs to walk that far. When she felt so appallingly drained she knew how easily she passed out. Some months were like this, when all she could do was slump in bed and wait for it to be over.
But, in a dire development, instead of Angel, he’d run up the stairs and swung into her bedroom like an intimate girlfriend. ‘Angel has a problem with a pukey Jenna so I’m ... Christ, you look like crap.’
Oh, God-God, he’d gone into the shop and bought them for her! And, by his frown, hadn’t particularly enjoyed the experience. Eyes down, what blood she had left staining her cheeks, muttering, ‘Oh God, oh God,’ she snatched the mortifying carrier bag ungratefully, paused on the bedside, plait dangling, to let her ears stop ringing, shuffled off to the bathroom in her Wee Willie Winkie nightshirt. Felt faint. Sick.
Would’ve have stayed closeted forever if she’d realised; realised that when she returned Ratty would’ve stripped the bed of, to her horror, bloodstained sheets.
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‘You need a clean nightie,’ he suggested, without looking at her.
Oh no-o-o! She hid her eyes with both hands. ‘Oh, please! Don’t! Just leave me to die! I’ll cope; you can’t do this, I can’t bear it!’
As he ignored her outburst and went to search the landing cupboard for fresh bedclothes, she’d no choice but to shuffle back to the bathroom to change. He glanced up when she returned. ‘How do you bleed like this without dying?’ Bed remade, efficient and matter-of-fact, he gathered up the soiled linen. Reached for the nightclothes from Tess, who sat with her head in her hands, in the chair.
This was the worst day of her life, worse than when Olly sent his e-mail. She was going to melt away from mortification. ‘Go away!’ she begged, voice muffled. ‘You can’t do my gory washing.’
‘Shut up,’ he suggested, fairly kindly. Following her very reluctant instructions he ran cold water in the bath, added a heap of salt and dumped everything in to soak. She slid under the fresh bedclothes, face averted. He fetched her a cup of tea.
‘Thanks,’ she managed, eyes determinedly closed. Never again, this would never happen again. Never. In future she’d stockpile sanitary towels in towers. Honeybun Cottage would become the official European tampon mountain. Oh, the indignity!
He perched familiarly on the bed, tugging her plait. ‘Do I call a doctor?’
She shook her head. ‘Another day or so and I’ll get over it.’
‘Sure?’
‘Go away!’
‘Stop it! What else can I get you? C’mon, sit up, drink.’
Grudgingly, she dragged herself up against the headboard aware of wearing nothing underneath her nightshirt, her frayed rope of hair and a pallor to rival the sheet. ‘Paracetamol would be good, and a jug of water and a glass. Please.’
‘I’ll come back later and load the washing machine.’ He snipped off her protest with, ‘Just leave it, OK?’ And he’d continued to look after her for a further two days. Abrupt, embarrassingly forthright about her needs, her mess and her condition.
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