Читать книгу Cathy Kelly 3-Book Collection 1: Lessons in Heartbreak, Once in a Lifetime, Homecoming - Cathy Kelly - Страница 25

Sybil had pulled out all the stops for her wedding party, part two, but even so, it fell short of the grand celebration she’d hoped for.

Instead of a formal dance, she had to put up with nothing more than a small dinner party in Philip’s grandmother’s house in South Audley Street, a rather grand mansion that had been closed up since 1942, with every stick of furniture shrouded in Holland covers. After dinner, the party was moving on to The 400, a glamorous nightclub which Diana often frequented and where Lily had never been.

Lily was quite sure Sybil had only agreed to invite her to the party because they’d need an extra pair of hands to help with the cooking and the tidying up. She could imagine Sybil balking at the idea of Lily being a guest, and almost hear Diana, shocked, insisting that she wouldn’t dream of asking her friend to help if she wasn’t invited.

‘It’s going to be super,’ Sybil said blithely the day of the party, as she, Diana and Lily surveyed Philip’s grandmother’s house and tried to work out what to do first. Sybil had been there since the day before and appeared to have done not one iota of tidying up, Lily decided, looking at the layers of dust everywhere.

‘We’re going to be exhausted by the time we’ve made this house presentable,’ snapped Diana, who, along with her mother, was furious with Sybil for going ahead with the party in the first place.

‘It’s not safe in London any more, Sibs,’ she said. ‘Even Philip says it’s not safe because of the V-2s. I don’t know why you wouldn’t listen to Mummy and settle for a small party at home at Christmas.’

Since D-Day, even Londoners hardened to the sound of air raids had learned to fear the scream of approaching doodlebugs. And now there was a new, even deadlier threat in the shape of V-2 flying bombs which came with no warning and left entire streets devastated.

For the first time during the war, Lily was in a state of constant fear.

‘It’s bad enough I had to miss out on a honeymoon, I’m not going to let this silly Baby Blitz ruin my party,’ she sniffed.

Lily stopped what she was doing. ‘Listen, Sybil,’ she said, between gritted teeth, ‘I’m here on my day off because of Diana, not you. So please keep quiet about the “Baby Blitz” because you wouldn’t call it that if you’d seen its after-effects in the hospital every day.’

For once, Sybil shut up.

‘Sorry,’ Diana muttered to Lily when Sybil had gone off to another room, ostensibly to find a vase for the late roses from the garden. ‘She doesn’t understand.’

‘I don’t know why,’ Lily said angrily. ‘I know she’s insulated at Beltonward, but honestly, Diana, she must see what people are living through. You tell her what you see every day, how can that not touch her?’

Diana shrugged elegantly. ‘Sibs is like Daddy: she only understands something if it affects her directly. Don’t let this ruin tonight, we all need some fun. Please, Lily? You’re going to love The 400.’

Lily allowed herself to smile. She longed to ask if Lieutenant Jamie Hamilton was among the guests, but didn’t dare. She hadn’t so much as mentioned his name since that night. She didn’t want anyone, even Diana, to find out how she’d felt about him.

Anyway, if he was there, she thought, she’d ignore him. If he was that keen to see her again, why hadn’t he made an attempt to get in touch? The D-Day push that had put paid to Sybil’s honeymoon was long over; he’d had three months to get in touch and he hadn’t.

No, if he was there, she wouldn’t even speak to him, that was for sure.

‘Hello, Lily,’ he said that evening at eight, his voice just as she remembered. He was more tanned, and he looked wonderful standing in front of her in his uniform.

He was one of the last of the party of twelve to arrive: everyone else was standing around the dining-room table finishing their drinks. Thanks to Sybil’s flowers and Lily’s skill in laying a table, it all looked perfect. Diana had toiled away stewing the chicken – ‘think it’s rabbit, actually,’ she’d told Lily – that Sybil had brought with her from the country.

‘Hello, Jamie,’ she said.

‘I hoped you’d be here tonight,’ he said.

‘And I am,’ Lily replied. She wasn’t going to make it too easy for him. Once she’d realised he was coming, from reading Sybil’s careful table plan, she’d felt her excitement grow.

‘I wanted to get in touch with you,’ he began.

‘Did you?’ asked Lily lightly.

He nodded.

Lily watched him scan the place names and then reach down the table to swap names so that he would be sitting beside her.

‘We can take our seats now,’ he murmured.

‘Sybil will be very cross with you,’ she murmured back.

‘I can take it,’ he said. ‘I’m only here for one reason and it’s nothing to do with Sybil.’

The quiver she remembered from before rippled through her body again and Lily had to sit before she fell.

She knew the protocol for elegant dinner parties well enough to know that for one course she was expected to talk to Jamie and for the next, she was to turn politely and talk with the man on her other side. But Jamie was having none of it.

‘Let’s not bother with that,’ he pleaded with her when they’d finished the lukewarm minestrone soup served up by one of Philip’s grandmother’s old retainers, Mr Timms, a frail white-haired man with shaky hands. Lily hated watching him serve them. He’s too old, she wanted to shout.

During the first course, they’d talked about the past three months of war and the chances of it being over soon. Now, her tongue and her heart loosened thanks to a glass of wine and a pre-dinner cocktail, Lily wanted to ask Jamie why he hadn’t written to her. But something held her back.

Instead, they talked about their childhoods and, for once, Lily wasn’t economical with the truth. The other guests faded away as they talked and talked. She told him quietly about Tamarin and Rathnaree.

‘You’re an admirable woman, Lily Kennedy,’ he said gravely at the end.

‘Why does admirable not sound like a compliment?’ Lily demanded.

In response, Jamie took her hand under the table and stared into her eyes.

‘All right, you’re a beautiful woman and I haven’t been able to think of anything else since I met you,’ he said so softly that nobody else could hear.

Lily’s heart skipped a beat.

There was an almighty clatter of dishes from outside the dining room. Lily leapt to her feet. It had to be poor Mr Timms. Nobody else moved a muscle. The wine had been flowing freely, the gramophone was playing loudly in the background and the rest of the party were enjoying this respite from war far too much to care what calamity had befallen the hired help.

Outside the dining room, she found Mr Timms nursing a sore knee and the whole of the lemon syllabub lying in creamy globules on the parquet.

‘Mr Timms, let me see that knee,’ she said in her professional voice.

‘Sit here,’ said Jamie. He’d followed her out and now led the elderly man to a chair in the hallway.

While she checked Mr Timms’ knee, Jamie managed to scoop most of the syllabub from the floor.

‘I should strap it up, and then you’ll need to rest that leg,’ Lily explained.

‘I could lie down in the butler’s pantry. There’s an old pull-out bed from when the butler before last was here. He had a bad back and needed to be able to lie down,’ Mr Timms said, and then collected himself. ‘But what about the next course?’

‘They can do quite well without another course,’ Lily said briskly.

Jamie took coffee upstairs to the laughing, chattering horde in the dining room and told them they’d have to sing for their syllabub.

‘The plan is to go to The 400 in a few minutes,’ he said, coming back downstairs to the kitchen where Lily was washing her hands in the old Belfast sink.

‘Did our hostess even ask after that poor man?’ Lily demanded. Mr Timms was now installed down the corridor in the butler’s pantry.

Jamie took her hand lightly as if to lead her back upstairs: ‘I’m afraid dear Sybil isn’t too worried about the welfare of others.’

‘Don’t I know it,’ Lily replied grimly.

Suddenly, they were inches away from each other, holding hands. Jamie shut the kitchen door, leaned against it and reached out for her. Lily pressed herself against him and reached up with both hands to touch his face, while he wrapped his long arms around her body, tightening her to him.

Without a word, their bodies melded against one another, Lily felt her breasts hard against his uniform buttons and she wanted nothing more than to strip her clothes off and lie naked against him. His hair was silky and spikily short. Her fingers gloried in it, twisting, touching, then sliding down the strong column of his neck to find his uniform buttons.

He found the tender skin behind her ear and nuzzled there, making her moan with pure pleasure, and then his strong fingers were cupping the curve of her breasts, finding the buttons on the collar of her dress, sliding in urgently to find naked skin. They moved slightly and Jamie’s hand reached beneath the satin of her brassiere to touch the hard peak of her nipple, on fire from his caresses. She gasped and leaned into his touch.

No man had ever touched her so intimately.

He opened her dress fully at the front, unbuttoning so that he could see one heavy breast and take the rose peak into his mouth.

‘Oh, Jamie,’ she groaned and let herself fall against him.

Suddenly, he’d pulled her over to the kitchen table, a huge wooden thing with a scrubbed surface. He sat her on it and moved between her legs, so that he was imprisoned between her thighs. She could feel the scratchy wool of his trousers against the soft flesh above her stockings. His body was urging hers closer, so that her legs were almost wrapped around him.

Jamie was strong, vibrant and fiercely male: she could feel him hard against her, his body responding to hers in a primeval way. And she wanted him.

‘You are so beautiful,’ he moaned, finding her mouth again and kissing her.

‘Do you want me to stop?’ He was serious.

‘No, no,’ she said. ‘I don’t. I never want this to stop.’

For a brief second, they stared at each other, the spell momentarily broken.

‘I don’t want it to be like this,’ he said gently, ‘on the kitchen table in someone else’s house. But oh, I want you, Lily.’

‘Where then?’ she asked, her fingers instinctively caressing him, letting her hair brush against his face as her mouth traced the hard edge of his jaw. He moaned softly.

‘I don’t know. I won’t be able to stop,’ he said, ‘if you don’t stop what you’re doing right now.’

‘We don’t need to stop,’ she said, unable to believe herself. She, the girl who’d never been with any man, never let any man do more than kiss her, was writhing against this man, panting for him.

‘We do.’ He pulled her closer and held her, enfolding her, as if, by stopping her moving, he’d stop his body’s animal response to her. ‘Not here. Trust me.’

‘I do,’ she said, and she did. ‘I’ve never done this before.’ It was important he knew that because the war had loosened many people’s morals, not to mention their knicker elastic.

‘I know.’

‘How do you know?’

He grinned. ‘I just do. Philip told me about Sybil’s sister’s friends long before I ever met you. The wild Irish girl with ice and fire running in her veins. And I can tell. There isn’t a false bone in your body. I can feel it.’

She laughed loudly, exploding with the humour of the situation. ‘You can certainly feel every bit of me,’ she said affectionately, wriggling her hips and feeling his body react instantly.

‘Jamie, Lily – I hope you’re not eating all the chocolates. Leave some for the rest of us, you greedy pigs!’ It was Sybil.

‘Jesus!’ Lily struggled away from him at the sound of Sybil’s high heels marching towards the kitchen.

‘Nobody else wants liqueurs: they want to dance,’ Sybil went on, ‘but I’ve got to have something sweet after dinner.’

She was getting nearer. How awful if she found them semidressed.

Quickly, Lily did up her buttons and smoothed down her hair. Reaching up, she rubbed a smudge of red lipstick from Jamie’s mouth.

‘Coming, Sybil,’ Lily said loudly. ‘Can’t find the chocolates.’ She put her hand on the doorknob to open it. They were both respectable again, if a little flushed.

‘Lily –’ Jamie sounded urgent.

Lily turned the knob and opened the door. Four years of fear of Matron made her anxious about even being seen to do anything wrong. Whatever Jamie had to say to her, he could do it later.

‘There’s something I must tell you,’ he said.

Sybil was outside the door. ‘There you are,’ she said, smiling.

‘Sorry, Sybil,’ Lily said, doing her best to sound breezily unconcerned. ‘I had to bandage poor Mr Timms’ knee.’

‘Really,’ said Sybil, and Lily could instantly tell from her voice that the other woman knew exactly what had been going on. It was so subtle, but it was there, and Lily felt the stain of embarrassment on her face.

Now, Sybil linked one arm with Lily, and held the other out for Jamie to take.

‘I’m longing to dance,’ she said in a confiding voice. ‘You’ll love The 400, Lily, it’s such fun. She’s never been before, Jamie. Imagine that? Jamie and Philip almost lived there once upon a time, didn’t you, darling?’

They were at the back stairs now, and Sybil briskly let go of Lily’s arm in order to walk up with Jamie because there wasn’t room for three of them together.

Lily felt a sense of unease at Sybil’s bright, acid tone.

‘Some people prefer the Florida or the dear old Café de Paris, but I just adore The 400,’ Sybil went on, in a falsely wistful voice. ‘What about Miranda?’ Sybil enquired. ‘Which club is her favourite?’

Lily’s unease grew. Jamie wasn’t saying anything; he was walking beside Sybil as stiffly as if he was at a funeral.

‘Miranda is Jamie’s wife, Lily. She’s such a darling, we all love her. Such a pity she’s stuck in Scotland, isn’t it?’

Lily felt herself falter on the steps and Jamie looked back at her, reaching out an arm, but she drew back from him sharply.

Jamie was married. He wasn’t free to make love to her, he was betraying his wife and he’d just betrayed her.

Bile rose in Lily’s throat. Irrespective of how it looked or how Sybil would gloat, she had to get away from him.

‘Excuse me,’ she said, ‘back in a moment –’

She turned and fled downstairs to the cloakroom, slammed the door behind her and sank on to dusty parquet flooring beside an old, cracked lavatory. There was no relief when she’d been sick: the nausea was still there. She felt so confused and empty. A lightning bolt had hit her. It was like nothing she’d ever felt before, and now, it had been whipped away just as quickly. Except now she knew what it was like to feel that volcano of emotion, and once she’d felt that way, she couldn’t un-feel it.

Her body still tingled with the rasp of his mouth on it, and yet here she was, crouched on the cloakroom floor, alone and feeling used. She wanted to die. No; she wanted him to die. She wanted him to suffer the way she was suffering.

He was there when she came out a few minutes later. She’d been sure he’d be too much of a coward to wait for her, yet there he was: tall and concerned, not looking like the cheater he was.

‘Lily, please let me explain –’

‘Don’t touch me!’ she hissed at him, spitting fire.

‘I wanted to tell you –’

‘Keep away. I never want to see you again as long as I live.’

She ran up the back stairs and into the dining room where Diana, darling Diana, was waiting for her. There was no sign of Sybil. The rest of the party must have gone down the main stairs to the front door.

‘I’m so sorry, Diana, I don’t feel well. I’m going back to the nurses’ home.’

‘What?’ Diana was stunned. They had arranged with the Home Sister to stay in South Audley Street for the night: a special dispensation that had required a week of wheedling. And now Lily wanted to go back to their tiny little room in Cubitt Street.

‘Please,’ begged Lily, looking anguished. ‘I’m sorry.’ She grabbed her small handbag and fled through another door, thanking her lucky stars that this house was so enormous, like a palatial warren. She made it upstairs to the bedroom she’d planned to share with Diana, then shut and locked the door. She didn’t turn on the light but sat on the bed in the darkness, waiting in case Jamie came looking for her. Hopefully, if he asked Diana, she’d make him think Lily had gone back to the nurses’ home. So she’d be safe here. Safe to lie on the bed, feeling the twin fires of shame and pain, and let the tears flood down her cheeks. She heard the huge front door slam shut. That was it, then: he was gone from her life for ever and she could try to forget the white-hot heat of passion and how it had felt. She never had to think of Lieutenant Jamie Hamilton ever again.