The Proprietor's Daughter

by Lewis Orde

  “Would you” — she pulled her mouth away from Saxon’s — “like to make love to me on an Aubusson rug?” She dropped to her knees on the rug, pulling Saxon down with her. Sighing contentedly, she lay back, feeling his fingers solve the fastening of her skirt.

  “How comfortable is the rug?” Saxon asked, as he flipped Katherine’s skirt toward one of the sofas.

  “It itches.” She moved her shoulders in a circular motion. “But I like it.” She watched as he removed his own clothes, revealing a thin, wiry body that shimmered with energy. She kissed his lips, his chin, his neck, and then his chest. His hands ran through her hair, pressing hard against her skull as she continued. He groaned softly as her lips brushed against him with dozens of tiny kisses. “Oh, God,” he whispered. “Don’t stop, not now.” He felt her envelop him, lips and tongue and warmth and wetness arousing all the passion that had been building steadily.

  He moved his hands from Katherine’s scalp to her face, pulling her upward. Her mouth retraced its journey along his body, towards his lips. As she felt him slide into her, sensations combined into an exquisite blend. The roughness of the rug on her back and buttocks, the warm weight of Saxon on top of her, and the fullness of him inside her. She gasped in pleasure at finding again feelings she had not known for more than a year.

  They lay together on the rug, Saxon cradling Katherine’s head on his chest. After half an hour, he said, “I think I’d better take you wherever you have to go. Do you feel up to driving yourself home from Chalk Farm?”

  “It’s not far.”

  They dressed quickly, eyes averted from each other, like two strangers sharing a changing room. In the Rolls Royce, they barely spoke a word. Only as the car crept up the street where Katherine had left her Triumph, did Saxon ask, “When can I see you again?”

  “Give me a few days. I have to come to terms with what just happened.”

  “Katherine, when I met you at the hotel today and offered you a ride, it was never my intention that we’d sleep together. But you sounded so miserable —”

  “Sounded?” She laughed dryly. “I was miserable.”

  “Please let me finish. When we made love, I didn’t mean it to be a one-night fling. I want to see you again, Katherine. And again and again.”

  “I’ll telephone you at St. James’s Square.” She kissed him quickly on the cheek and climbed out of the car. He waited until she started the Stag’s engine before driving away.

  Katherine drove slowly. A white sports car this late at night was a homing beacon to any cruising police car. Reaching the house, she let herself in. As she passed the door to Franz’s bedroom, she felt a twinge of guilt. It lasted for a moment, until she found a way to rationalize the evening’s events. If Franz were whole; if he were healthy, both physically and mentally; if she still loved him . . . then what she had done could be construed as cheating. But none of those conditions applied, so she had not cheated on anyone. She had just quenched a fiery need within herself for the affection she’d been deprived of for more than a year.

  Before she went to bed, she took a long shower. Her back itched, and when she looked in the mirror she saw what looked like a rash. Saxon, with his ultranationalistic outlook, might like an antique French rug beneath his feet, but it would be the last time that Katherine made love on an Aubusson.

  Her final act before leaving the bathroom was to brush her teeth. When she settled into the brass bed, the flavor of the toothpaste remained strong in her mouth. But above the minty tang, she could still taste John Saxon.

  *

  Katherine waited a week before telephoning Saxon at his office in St. James’s Square. When he asked why she had allowed so long to pass before making the call, she answered, “It’s taken me all this time to be sure that I wanted a relationship with you. It’s very easy for you to involve yourself in an affair with me, because you only have yourself to consider. I have far more.”

  “I understand perfectly,” Saxon said. “Whatever you want to do, and however long you want to take, it’s fine by me.”

  “Are you always this obliging?”

  “Only where something I want very badly is concerned.”

  It was the answer Katherine had hoped to hear. In the week between seeing Saxon and telephoning him, she had dissected and analyzed her feelings a hundred times or more. Each time she had reached the same conclusion. She was drawn both mentally and physically toward him. She had been, from that first proper meeting, after the publication of the Cadmus Court story. Only she had fought against it, because she had been frightened that her home life, the happiness she had already found with Franz, might be at risk. Although the circumstances were vastly different now, she needed to be sure that any involvement would be based on mutual feelings. She was sailing into uncharted waters; she was nervous, and needed assurance.

  Under the pretext of another late assignment, Katherine met that evening with Saxon. They ate at a small restaurant in Chelsea. Katherine had little fear of being recognized; the most recent published photograph of her — the one that had adorned “Satisfaction Guaranteed!” — was almost eighteen months old, and she was reasonably certain that the likeness was no longer very accurate. She knew she had aged in those eighteen months. There were lines around her mouth and eyes that had not been there before, and her long blond hair no longer seemed so lustrous.

  Following dinner, they returned to Saxon’s house at Marble Arch to spend an hour making love, after which Katherine returned home. When she came downstairs the following morning, after a complete and restful night’s sleep, there were no questions about the late assignment; no one had reason to disbelieve her.

  Soon, Katherine’s relationship with Saxon was down to a smooth routine. She would meet with him once or twice during the week. Sometimes for dinner, followed by an hour or two at his Marble Arch home; at other times just for a drink, a ride in the maroon Rolls Royce, and a talk. He was a wonderful listener. She could talk to him about Franz, about something that was troubling her at work, even about the children. When Joanne came down with a bad cold, Saxon listened so sympathetically over dinner to the story that Katherine was utterly amazed.

  “I think you’d make some child a wonderful father.” For the first time, the idea of having Henry and Joanne meet Saxon flitted through her mind. And just what, she wondered, had prompted that? Was she looking for her children’s blessing of her affair with Saxon? God, next she’d be thinking of some way to arrange an accidental meeting between Franz and Saxon, to see if her husband approved of her lover.

  At the end of February, after three weeks of secretive trysts, Saxon invited Katherine to his country home in Oxfordshire. “I’m giving a dinner party on Sunday night, and I would very much like you to act as hostess.”

  Sadly, she shook her head. “I’d love to, John, but I can’t possibly go away for the weekend.”

  “Reporters travel, they have assignments that take them —”

  She stopped him. “The weekend’s the only chance I get to be with my children, and that’s a treat I don’t relinquish easily.” That did not stop her curiosity, though, for she knew little about Saxon’s personal life. “Do you do much entertaining?”

  “Quite a bit. I use my London home for business entertaining, and my country home for entertaining my friends.”

  “Tell me about the friends who’ll be there on Sunday.”

  “There’ll be a merchant banker, some lawyers, a couple of politicians — all people to whom I owe invitations. You might, quite possibly, even know some of them. They’re all quite boring, really. I was hoping you’d brighten up the proceedings.”

  Katherine doubted if any of Saxon’s friends could be boring. “If you’re right, and I do know some of your guests, it wouldn’t look very good for them to see me with you.”

  Saxon chuckled. “It certainly wouldn’t harm my reputation.”

  “Perhaps not, but it wouldn’t help mine.” Still, her interest was piqued. Despite the pleasure she
found with her children on the weekends, she did miss Saxon. “I could arrange to be away on Saturday night.”

  “And spend it with me? All of it?”

  “At Marble Arch.”

  “Wonderful. I’ll stay in town Saturday, and drive out to the country on Sunday. My guests will undoubtedly think their company is the reason for the twinkle in my eyes, but only you and I will know the truth.”

  “And I won’t tell if you won’t!” Katherine laughed and clapped her hands. She could not remember being this happy in ages. Saturday was three days in the future, and she could barely wait for its arrival.

  *

  Katherine used the annual meeting of a trade union as an excuse for going away. The meeting was at the Grand Hotel in Brighton, and she would be covering the speeches given at the wind-up dinner on Saturday evening. Edna Griffiths was the only member of the household to show interest in the Brighton assignment. Remembering how difficult it was to run a house when power strikes caused two four-hour blackouts a day, she told Katherine, “Kick as many union officials up the backside as you can.” Katherine promised that she would.

  She left the house at four-thirty on Saturday afternoon, wearing the kind of comfortable outfit she’d choose to travel in: wool trousers, boots, cashmere sweater, and suede jacket. Fresh clothes were in the small suitcase that she placed in the Stag’s trunk. Instead of driving to Brighton, though, she drove to Marble Arch, parking behind the maroon Rolls Royce. Carrying the suitcase, she rang the doorbell. Musical chimes sounded from within the house. Saxon opened the door, kissed her very hastily, and grabbed the suitcase from her hand.

  “Come inside, quickly. I’m watching something very important on the news.” Motioning for her to follow, he strode to the drawing room at the rear of the house.

  “What is it, John?” She entered the room, furnished on an entirely different note from the front room, where they had first made love. This was like a room in her father’s home: huge, comfortable floral chintz-covered chairs and sofas; tables that were meant for use, not for admiration. A large color television filled one corner. It was on, and Saxon’s attention was riveted to the screen. Katherine looked at what he found so important. On the screen, she witnessed absolute chaos. Hundreds of young men fighting. Some, she swore, were no older than fourteen; many wore scarves in the colors of soccer teams. In the middle of the fracas, police tried to restore order. Even as she watched, one constable had his helmet knocked from his head. A shaven-headed youth — wearing the odd combination of heavy boots, jeans, and a double-breasted navy blue topcoat with a red silk handkerchief showing in the breast pocket — picked up the helmet and kicked it high into the air.

  “World War Three?” Katherine asked sarcastically. “Or just another Saturday afternoon football game?”

  “The game’s over. This is the aftermath.” He turned up the volume. Katherine listened. The scene was Highbury, in North London, where Arsenal played. The visiting team was from Liverpool. Fan trouble had erupted before the game, but police had quelled it then by separating rival supporters. Once the game was over, though, the fans had mixed, and the earlier hostilities had resumed with a vengeance.

  “Turn it off, John. I see enough violence in my work every day. I don’t need to see more when I’m with you.” Saxon flicked the switch, and Katherine watched the mayhem fade. “It’s like some barbaric lunacy has taken over the country. If you support a different team from the other chap . . . well, that’s the perfect reason to beat the living daylights out of him. Now where’s the sense in that?”

  “There isn’t any, Katherine, but you try telling that to a rampaging gang of football fans. Now let’s talk about something else. What reason did you give for staying away overnight?”

  She told him, and he laughed. “Can you imagine what those upright union officials would say if they knew I’d used them as an excuse for a date with a capitalist like you?” Katherine said. “What do you have planned?”

  “First, I’d like to make love to you.”

  “And then?”

  “Do it again, in case we missed anything the first time.”

  “Be serious.”

  “An early dinner, followed by a play at the Theatre Royal.”

  “Sounds wonderful. Let me have my case. I’ll change into something more fitting.” She went upstairs to the front bedroom, where Saxon slept when he was in town. The room was a mixture of antique and modern, put together so well that not a single item appeared out of place. She sat on the Georgian loveseat situated at the foot of the heavily carved four-poster, and pulled off her boots. The suede jacket, jeans, and cashmere sweater followed. When she stood in just bra and panties, she set the suitcase on the bed and opened it. Inside were high-heeled shoes, an off-the-shoulder black evening dress, and a mink jacket. As she dressed, she tried to forget that the jacket had been a present from Franz. Just like the jewelry she wore, the rings on her fingers, the three-rope pearl choker around her throat, and the gold Patek Philippe on her wrist.

  “I’ve never seen you look so beautiful,” Saxon greeted her when she returned downstairs. He stepped forward, touching a fingertip to her right cheek. “What’s that? A tear? Something get in your eye?”

  “Just a momentary pang of guilt, that’s all.”

  “You have nothing to feel guilty about, Katherine.”

  “That’s what I try to tell myself. But when I wear these” — she touched a hand to the choker, showed the rings — “I get a strange feeling. Like Franz is somehow watching over me.”

  “Then wear this instead.” Saxon removed the pearl choker from Katherine’s neck. He replaced it with a platinum chain from which dropped a single pear-shaped diamond.

  Katherine’s hand touched the unfamiliar piece of jewelry, fingers taking the place of eyes until she could view the treasure in a mirror. “I can’t possibly wear this. Franz, my entire household . . . they know what jewelry I have. They’d know it was new.”

  “Wear it just when you’re with me.”

  “I will. I’ll wear it tonight.” She took his face and brought his lips down to hers.

  Saxon parked the Rolls just off the Haymarket, close to the Theatre Royal. They ate at a nearby restaurant and got to the theater moments before the curtain rose. At the end of the first act, Saxon turned to Katherine. “Are you enjoying the play?”

  “Not really. Are you?”

  “No. Let’s leave.”

  “And return to your house?”

  “I didn’t say that.”

  “I did.” She leaned closer to him. “John, we’ve got an entire night together. Let’s not waste it sitting here.”

  He stood up. Hand in hand, they walked out of the theater, up the Haymarket, and back to the Rolls. Saxon drove around Leicester Square, then north along Charing Cross Road, intending to cut west toward Marble Arch. Traffic was Saturday-night heavy, moving forward in fits and starts. Halfway up Charing Cross Road, traffic flow became even slower. A hundred yards ahead, blue lights flickered. Katherine rolled down her window, and the two-tone sound of klaxons drilled into her ears.

  “Look at that!” Saxon pointed across the street. Running along the sidewalk, scattering pedestrians before them, came a crowd of two dozen young men. Some had long, unkempt hair; others had their hair cropped so short they could have been army recruits. A few wore the colored scarves — tied around their necks, or wound around their waists like sashes — that Katherine had seen on the news that afternoon, during the fan violence at Highbury. All of them were obviously drunk. Some had cans of beer in their hands, swilling as they ran from the dozen police officers who were giving chase.

  “There’s a few lads who’ll miss the last train home,” Saxon said. He looked on the scene as a little diversion, presented to take his mind off the traffic jam. Even when the soccer fans started to run across Charing Cross Road, weaving their way through the stationary traffic, he did not seem concerned.

  Katherine could not take it so lightly. She flinched
as she saw one of the youths fling his empty beer can at a traffic light. Katherine turned sideways to follow the can’s flight. It missed the traffic light, and caromed off the roof of a car. It could just as easily, she thought, have hit some pedestrian in the head.

  Suddenly, Saxon’s voice took on a sharp note. “Watch out!” Katherine’s head snapped forward. The front runners were heading straight for the Rolls. The first group of youths ran past, making for Leicester Square underground station, where they hoped to lose their police pursuers.

  “Get your window up!” Saxon yelled out. Katherine fumbled with the control. The window began to rise just as another group raced past. One young man, long blond hair blowing in the night breeze, swung around to face her. Their eyes met. Katherine tried to look away to avoid antagonizing him. She was too late. The youth’s arm snaked through the open window.

  “Stuck-up rich bitch in your bloody Rolls!” he shouted.

  Instinctively, Katherine closed her eyes. She felt a hand at her neck, ice-cold, grasping. The chain ripped free, and the diamond pendant Saxon had given her hours earlier was gone.

  She opened her eyes to see a group of policemen chasing the youths. One man, with an inspector’s rank insignia on his uniform, stopped by the car. “Are you all right, miss?”

  “Yes.”

  “Did he hit you?”

  “No. He took something. A diamond pendant.” Reaction set in, and Katherine started to shake. She clenched her teeth, balled her hands into tight fists, but the shaking did not stop.

  The inspector looked past Katherine to Saxon. “We’ll need a statement, sir. Could you pull over there? I’ll be back with you in a minute or two.”

  As traffic began to move, Saxon signaled to pull over. “What do you think you’re doing?” Katherine asked him.

  “What that inspector told me to.”

  “Keep going.”

  “Are you crazy? That pendant cost five thousand pounds.”

  “And if we stop and make a statement, a complaint, or whatever, it will mean giving our names — which will cost me even more. If you want to, John, you can go back later on. You can refer to me as Madame X. Or Lucretia Borgia, if you like. But I want nothing to do with it.”