Читать книгу The Hidden Years - Пенни Джордан, Penny Jordan - Страница 7

‘GOT a date, have you?’

Lizzie flushed, even though the question was asked in a friendly enough way. The moment she had left Edward and Kit, she had collected her bike and ridden back to the hostel.

Mindful of Kit’s commands, she had rifled frantically through her meagre wardrobe, looking in vain for anything that might be described as ‘pretty’. There wasn’t anything, of course, but she could unpin her hair from its braids, brush it until it shined and leave it hanging loose.

That it felt odd and slightly uncomfortable didn’t matter. Kit had demanded it of her, and for him she was prepared to make any sacrifice…do anything that might please him.

Now though, confronted by the amused scrutiny of the other girls who also had the time off from working at the hospital, she felt acutely self-conscious, her face burning as she stammered an assent.

‘Not going to go out wearing that, are you?’ another girl commented, grimacing.

Lizzie blushed harder. She wasn’t used to confiding in others, to encouraging intimacy with them. Aunt Vi always kept her at a distance and had taught her to do the same to others.

‘I…I don’t have anything else.’

It shamed her to admit it. She bent her head forwards, so that her curtain of hair swung across her face.

‘I could lend you something,’ one of the girls offered. ‘We’re about the same size.’

‘Give over, Rosie, you might be the same height, but she’s much thinner than you.’

‘Not that much,’ Rosie protested. ‘She could wear that dress I got from Meg the other week. With a belt round the waist.’

‘Well, I suppose she could try it, only she’s going to need a bit of make-up as well, isn’t she? And some decent shoes. What size do you take, Lizzie?’

Thoroughly bemused, Lizzie stood there while they argued good-naturedly and loudly all around her.

‘It’s a pity you didn’t think to put your hair in rags last night,’ one of them told her. ‘Then it would have a bit of a curl to it. You’re lucky to be so blonde. Men really go for that. What is he? Yank?’

‘No, no, he’s—’

‘Here’s the dress,’ Rosie interrupted. ‘Come on, Lizzie, try it on.’

Suddenly she was one of them, an outsider no longer, but she flinched when they laughed at her sturdy utilitarian underwear.

‘Heavens, just look at it,’ one of them derided as she slipped off her cardigan and blouse to reveal the heavy cotton brassière which, like the rest of her clothes, had been inherited from someone else.

Normally she tried to undress and dress in privacy. Aunt Vi had always made her feel somehow that her body was something she ought to be ashamed of and, even when she had had the luxury of her own bedroom, she had always studiously avoided looking at herself.

Now she blushed deeply as one of the older girls announced cynically, ‘My God, whoever he is, he’s going to get a shock when he sees that. Let’s hope he’s in the artillery. They’re used to dealing with armour plating.’

The other girls laughed, but it was good-natured laughter, Lizzie recognised.

‘You’ll have to take it off,’ Rosie told her decisively, and before she could protest the other girl had stepped behind her and unsnapped the fastener.

She had never stood in front of anyone before clad in only her knickers and she felt a sharp stab of shock ricochet through her system as she realised how easily she was shedding Aunt Vi’s rules.

‘Look at her,’ someone said mockingly. ‘She doesn’t need to wear anything. There’s hardly anything of her.’

‘No, but at least what she’s got is in the right place,’ another girl responded.

Rosie turned to her and said kindly, ‘Don’t pay any attention to Mavis, she’s jealous because her boyfriend says her chest is too big… Poor Mavis. She’s used to them thinking it’s wonderful. She needed taking down a peg or two. The rest of us were sick of hearing about how wonderful her forty inches were… Here you are, get this on,’ she instructed, handing her a flimsy cotton garment.

Lizzie hesitated as she stared at the fabric, its white background rather dingy from too many washings of a poor-quality cloth. The fabric was overprinted with a too-busy design of bright red and yellow flowers that made her feel slightly dizzy, but everyone was waiting and if she refused she would offend Rosie and probably everyone else as well. They were, after all, trying to be helpful.

As she put the dress on and fastened the buttons down the front she realised how much plumper Rosie must be. The dress, which on Rosie hugged the waist, hung loosely on her, and the V-neckline was surely much more revealing on her than it was when it strained across Rosie’s plump breasts.

She tried not to feel relieved as she reached for the buttons. ‘It’s kind of you, Rosie, but it doesn’t look anywhere near as good on me as it does on you,’ she said tactfully.

Although she was loath to admit it she was actually longing to get back to Lady Jeveson’s cast-offs. At least in them she felt she was decently dressed. She had been horror stricken to realise that through the thin fabric of Rosie’s dress it was actually possible to see not only the outline of her nipples, but also the dark shadowing of their surrounding areola.

‘No, keep it on,’ Rosie protested, ‘all it needs is a belt. You’ve got a red one, haven’t you, Jean…? Bring it here and let’s see how it looks…’

Jean Adams was a tall thin girl, with dark hair and dense brown eyes. The belt in question was made of bright red shiny plastic and had been a present from an admiring GI.

Lizzie felt her fingers recoil from contact with the sharp shiny stuff in distaste. The only belts she was familiar with were soft leather, often worn, with the stitching gone in places, and always in dull browns and greys.

‘Give it ’ere, Jean,’ Rosie instructed, obviously enjoying her role as transformer-in-chief. ‘Now breathe in, Lizzie, while I get it fastened… My goodness, you are thin, aren’t you? Even Jean can’t get it fastened on that first notch, can you, Jean? No, you can’t look at yourself yet,’ Rosie told her firmly as she tried to step to one side so that she could see her reflection in the dormitory’s one spotted mirror.

‘What you need now is a bit of colour in your face. Some nice bright red lipstick and a bit of rouge…’

‘And some blacking on her lashes,’ someone suggested. ‘What size shoes does she take?’

‘Threes,’ Lizzie said weakly.

‘So small…well, it will have to be Mary’s white courts, then… You take a four, don’t you, Mary? We’ll have to stuff the toes. Where’s he meeting you, love, outside?’

Lizzie shook her head. ‘On the back lane to the hospital.’

‘She’s not walking all down there, not in my white courts,’ Mary objected indignantly.

‘No, well, she’ll have to wear her own shoes and then change just before she meets him. Leave her own hidden—she can pick them up in the morning.’

Lizzie wanted to object that it wasn’t necessary for Mary to make such a sacrifice. Aunt Vi had always told her that a lady never wore white shoes, but it was difficult to speak with Rosie determinedly outlining her mouth with what felt like sticky paste, and someone else spitting on a cake of mascara ready to attend to her eyelashes.

It was a good half-hour before they were satisfied with their efforts and ready to let her look in the mirror.

When she did, the image confronting her was so totally unfamiliar that she could only stare at it in confused disbelief. She looked so much older, so much more worldly, so…so common, a sharp inner voice derided, but with the circle of expectant faces watching her she could only swallow down her dismay and weakly thank them.

‘Just you remember,’ Rosie warned her, all motherly concern, ‘if he tries it on, you make him wait. Show him that you expect to be treated with a bit of respect. They’re all the same… All after one thing…and they’ll tell you anything to get it…’

She wanted to protest that they were wrong, that Kit was different…but her feelings were too new…too precious to be shared with anyone else.

Someone, she rather thought it was Mary, provided her with a white cardigan to wear over the dress, which mercifully buttoned up to the throat, and then she was being escorted downstairs and outside, so that it was impossible for her to plead that she couldn’t accept their generosity and change back into her own things.

Lizzie couldn’t cycle to meet Kit, not wearing her borrowed finery, and at first she found it disconcerting to feel the freer movements of her breasts as she walked.

That the sensation of her flesh pressing against this cotton was not entirely unpleasant shocked her, as did the sudden illuminating knowledge that when Kit took her in his arms she would be able to feel his body against her own separated only by such a flimsy barrier.

Such thoughts were forbidden, disgusting, Aunt Vi would have said, but it wasn’t disgust that welled up inside her. Far from it. It was the same fizzing, exciting sensation she had experienced when Kit had pressed his lips against hers, the same curling tautness deep down inside her, which made her stop walking and instinctively press the palm of her hand low down against her body, until she realised what she was doing and went scarlet with shock and guilt.

She knew all about what happened between men and women—it would have been hard not to, when the other girls gave such graphic and detailed descriptions of their boyfriends’ prowess or lack of it—but she had never realised until now that the physical intimacies they had described, and which she had found rather nauseating, could be responsible for the kind of delicious ache that was tormenting her body and making her hurry eagerly to meet Kit.

She had set off in plenty of time and, when she reached the arranged rendezvous, she was able to slip out of her own brogues and replace them with Mary’s white shoes, which looked very large and ungainly on her own slender feet.

The only thing she had not been provided with was a pair of the much prized stockings, and she had firmly refused to allow her helpers to draw lines down the backs of her legs in imitation of stocking seams. Her ankles looked very fragile and pale, she decided, eyeing them uncertainly, but her woollen stockings would have looked ridiculous with Rosie’s dress.

Time passed. She seemed to have been waiting for hours. Her stomach tensed and she began to wonder if Kit wasn’t coming after all. She had no watch and no way of telling what time it was. She couldn’t stay standing here for ever, she told herself, thankful that the lane was seldom used so that there was no one about to witness her humiliation.

She could just imagine the other girls’ reactions when she went back and told them that Kit hadn’t turned up. Her eyes stung with tears. It had never occurred to her that this might happen. She had been so certain, so sure that Kit felt as she did…

She was just about to retrieve her shoes when she heard the sound of a car engine. Her heart bounded, her pulses thudding frantically as she froze and waited.

When she saw the familiar bonnet of Kit’s car coming round the corner she almost cried with relief, unaware of how very easily he was interpreting her reaction as he brought the car to a standstill beside her and smiled warmly at her.

Old Edward wouldn’t think her such an innocent now, Kit reflected cynically as he studied her. Quite a transformation.

He looked at her dark red mouth and felt a kick of sensation burst inside him. Sex was like a drug to Kit—the more he had, the more he wanted—and since he had been grounded five days ago for disobeying orders and breaking formation to chase off an enemy plane in a dogfight over the Channel, sex had been the only outlet he had had for the compulsive energy that drove him.

‘Sorry I’m late,’ he apologised, jumping out of the car and coming towards her.

Relief shone in her eyes, making them glitter with the tears which had been about to fall.

‘You look wonderful,’ he lied, making her wonder if perhaps after all the other girls had been right and that it was she who had been wrong to have had doubts about her appearance.

‘So wonderful, in fact, that I’ve simply got to do this…’

Kit was no fool. No matter how willing the woman, they still liked all the trappings. And this one was more nervous than willing. He felt her tremble as he took her in his arms and felt his body tense with elation. It gave him an extra thrill to know that he would be the first, that no one else had ever touched her or kissed her. Her mouth beneath his betrayed her inexperience. ‘No one’s ever kissed you before, have they?’ he said, crushing her body against his own, revelling in his power over her, her innocence, her gullibility. He placed his hand on her heart and felt its frantic beat. His fingertips were just brushing the underside of her breast, causing her both to tense and to tremble. His tongue snaked over her glossy red lips, making Lizzie shiver frantically again as his touch caressed her already sensitised flesh. She was so responsive to him, so dizzyingly aware of him. They had looked at one another and immediately she had known without words…without explanation—she had known.

Kit was biting at her mouth now, almost too roughly, but she guessed that it was because he, like her, had been overwhelmed by their love. She felt his tongue press against the closed line of her mouth and obediently parted her lips. She had heard the other girls talking about this kind of kissing, but had never thought that she herself could experience it without intense revulsion. Instead she discovered, as Kit’s tongue penetrated the moist intimacy of her mouth, that the slow caressing thrusts he was making were sending her dizzy with the waves of pleasure which seemed to be rolling over her in ever increasing ferocity.

‘I can’t make love to you here,’ Kit told her thickly. ‘My God, you’re dynamite, do you know that…? You and I are going to be so good together…so very good.’

To Lizzie it was a statement of commitment for their future, an avowal of love. Cynically Kit watched the effect his words were having on her, loving her vulnerability to him, his power over her. Fleetingly he wished he had more time to spend with her. There were things he could show her—teach her. His body grew hot and hard, the intensity of his desire for her catching him by surprise.

‘Come on…let’s go somewhere more private,’ he commanded, picking her up and carrying her over to the car.

As he held her against his body, Lizzie felt the hardness of his physical arousal, and her senses thrilled to the knowledge that she had done this to him. She knew from the other girls’ conversation what that hardness meant; what she hadn’t known before was how exciting it would be to know that she could have that effect on the man she loved, nor how much she would want to press her body against his, to take that hardness deep within her own flesh so that she could prolong and intensify the fierce, aching pleasure being close to it brought.

As he lifted her into the car, either by accident or design, his hands slid up over her body, fleetingly caressing her breasts.

‘Where can we go?’ he demanded. ‘You know this area better than I do… I’d take you back to where I’m staying but the landlady…’

Take her back to his room, he meant… She wasn’t ready for that yet, Lizzie acknowledged. It smacked too much of what she had always considered to be the rather sordid intimacies of the other girls. She wanted this to be different… It was different, of course. She and Kit were in love with one another, and after the war… She took a deep breath, her heart pounding with the heady excitement of anticipating the future…their future, and then hard on its heels came the sharp new fear experienced by every woman whose man risked his life in the defence of his country. What if Kit should die—what if all they had was here and now? What if there was no future, only these few precious hours? It was a thought she could not bear to contemplate—not now—not ever.

‘There is a place,’ she told him huskily. ‘It’s just inside the hospital grounds, but no one ever goes there. We’ll have to walk, though.’

The place she had in mind was a small, neglected summer-house in an overgrown glade, hidden deep in the tangled undergrowth of the neglected grounds. Even the path to it was overgrown with saplings and brambles. She had discovered it by accident and often went there when she wanted privacy. She had half contemplated taking Edward there, knowing he would enjoy it as she had… She had seen the first primroses flower there on the banks of its quiet pool, followed by wild bluebells, but the difficulties of pushing Edward’s chair down the overgrown and soft earth path had made her decide against suggesting such an outing. Now she was fiercely glad, because now it would be their secret place, known to them alone…a sacred temple to their love.

Kit parked his car at the end of the lane. When he lifted her out of her seat Lizzie clung shyly to him, blushing as he looked down at her mouth. The red lipstick was gone now, but her lips glowed with their own colour, softened and swollen from his earlier kiss.

‘Mm…innocent little thing, aren’t you…? Not that I mind.’ His hands slid down her back, past her waist and over her buttocks, squeezing them as he lifted her into his own body and moved urgently against her.

Dizzy with the tumult of sensations inside her, Lizzie could only cling to him, innocently offering herself to him, wanting only to please him.

When he released her, she felt disorientated and bereft.

‘Which way is it…this place?’ Kit was demanding, hoarsely.

As she pointed in the direction of the glade, Lizzy realised guiltily that Mary’s shoes were going to be ruined. They had to cross two fields and then fight their way down the overgrown pathway to get to the glade and Mary’s courts were not designed for such stuff.

Neither, it seemed, were Kit’s flannels and blazer. He frowned impatiently when the brambles caught in the fabric, and complained that she might have warned him what to expect. His irritation jarred a little but Lizzie dismissed those feelings.

The path seemed more overgrown than it had been the last time she had visited the glade a few weeks ago, but at last she could see the glint of sunlight on water through the tangled undergrowth and branches and when at last they broke through into the silence of the sun-dappled clearing she asked breathlessly, ‘Will this be all right?’

‘Well, we certainly won’t be disturbed,’ Kit told her, examining their surroundings, and walking towards the dilapidated summer-house. Personally he would have preferred the comfort of a double bed, but beggars couldn’t be choosers and the woman running the boarding-house where he was staying had made it plain that she did not allow her guests to bring in ‘friends’.

‘Pity you didn’t think to bring a rug,’ Kit added as he studied their surroundings.

‘But it is private, isn’t it?’ Lizzie asked him anxiously, suddenly desperate to placate him and win some word of approval, knowing that she was somehow responsible for that frown of displeasure which had banished the warmth of his smile and hating herself for it.

‘Oh, it is private,’ Kit agreed, and suddenly he was smiling at her again so that her heart and body were flooded with warmth and love. She went eagerly towards him, feeling as though she had stepped into heaven itself when he took hold of her arm and led her inside the summer-house, and then turned her more fully into his arms.

Even with familiarity the sensation of his tongue moving erotically within her mouth didn’t lose its power to make her body ache and melt, Lizzie recognised, thrilled by the way Kit was moving against her, silently telling her how much he loved and wanted her.

‘You know how much I want you, don’t you?’ he told her thickly. She trembled, too full of emotion to speak, tremulously eager to show him how much she loved him…how much she needed him. She was still so bemused by it all, still caught up in the miracle of it all, totally blinded to reality by her innocence and her love.

In the past, a lifetime ago, had she really been a girl who had believed idiotically that the physical aspects of love were its least important, that the physical consummation of love was something unimportant and even faintly sordid, something to be endured rather than enjoyed? If so, she was discovering how ignorant she had been, how blind and unfit to be the recipient of the love of a man like Kit.

That he needed her and that he was so open and urgent in that need touched her with tenderness that bordered on the maternal. When they were apart he would have these memories of her to bring him safely back to her, and as he kissed her and held her against his body she recognised that what she was experiencing now was a world away from her girlish dreams of what love might be.

How could it be wrong to experience such pleasure…such joy…to feel her pulses leap as Kit kissed her face and her throat, as his hands caressed her sun-warmed body through her borrowed clothes?

‘You don’t need this on, do you?’

He was already unfastening the cardigan, exposing the V-neckline of her dress and the softness of her skin. She tensed a little suddenly, made nervous by the way he was looking at her and Kit, who had thought himself long beyond ever allowing his reactions to escape his own control, was almost angered by the sensation that coiled through him as the sunlight slanted across her body and he saw quite clearly through the thin cotton the shape and shadowing of her nipples. He had already known that she was naked beneath her dress, but the unexpected glimpse of her body through it was somehow more erotic, more arousing than if he had been looking at her naked body, and, as he removed the bulky cardigan from her stiff body, he was suddenly possessed by a frenzy of need so sharply intense that almost before he had finished his hands were gripping her waist, his head descending so that his mouth could find the dark-fleshed peak and punish it for its temerity in so arousing him.

Lizzie had never felt a man’s hands on her body so intimately, never mind his mouth, and the sensation of Kit’s teeth savaging her flesh froze her into immobility, and alarm. It was far too much, far too soon.

As he felt her tension, her resistance, Kit cursed silently. For a moment he had forgotten her lack of experience, but now her body was forcibly reminding him of it, causing his own flesh to ache with resentment. He was almost tempted to take hold of her and make her body accept his, but she was so small, so delicately made that he could hurt her easily if he did. There had been an innocent young girl once before; a pretty little thing from the village. That had been before he had learned not to play in his own backyard. Her father had complained to his parents. His father had been furious with him. He had been forced to buy her family off. It was a pity that this one happened to know his cousin.

If she chose to go running to Edward… Not that there was a damn thing that Edward could do about it… Except tell Lillian…

His mouth had grown still on her body. Relief unlocked her muscles into shaky weakness. She felt sick and tremulous. She had known that men enjoyed touching a woman’s breasts, but she had not known…never dreamed…

Despite the sunshine, and the musty scented warmth of the summer-house, she suddenly felt so cold that her teeth had started to chatter.

He still wanted her, Kit recognised, and it wasn’t too late to retrieve the situation. ‘I’m sorry, sweetheart,’ he told her, murmuring the words in her ear, so that she wouldn’t see the lie for what it was. ‘But you know it really was your own fault.’

When she tensed again, and turned towards him, her eyes dark with confusion, he smiled ruefully at her. ‘Coming out dressed like that…tempting me like that…’

Subtly, cleverly, he shifted the responsibility, the blame, so that Lizzie, who had felt uncomfortable enough about her appearance to start with, now flushed dark red and bit nervously at her bottom lip.

‘I’m sorry if I frightened you,’ Kit told her, smiling at her as he saw her reaction. He could perhaps turn the situation to his advantage.

‘I didn’t know…I didn’t realise,’ Lizzie was apologising abjectly. ‘I—’

‘I know… I know…’ Kit took her back in his arms, stroking her hair. ‘The trouble is I want you so very much, and you don’t have the experience…’

Immediately Lizzie tensed again, hearing the reproach in his voice, wincing beneath the implied criticism.

‘Let’s try again, shall we?’ Kit suggested, and her heart bounded with the relief of knowing that despite her deficiencies he still wanted her.

Shyly she nodded her head, blushing harder when he added, ‘Let’s take this off, then, shall we?’

His fingers were already deftly unfastening the buttons on her dress, freeing her breasts to his eyes and his hands.

He wasn’t going to make the same mistake this time, Kit told himself, and besides, a little holding back now, a little coaxing and persuading, would pay him handsome dividends later. What he had already seen of her body was making him urgently eager to possess her. She felt so small and soft beneath his hands, so vulnerable, her bones so fragile that he could almost believe he could break them. Would she be as small inside as her body seemed to suggest, would she…?

‘Perfect…you’re so perfect,’ he told her thickly as he caressed her bare breasts with his hands, silencing the hesitant protest he sensed she was about to make by kissing her.

As he kissed her the memory of her earlier fear faded; there was, Lizzie recognised tremulously, something sharply pleasurable about the way he was touching her, something which, if she allowed it to grow, she sensed would lead her into a whole new world of experiences and feelings. But what she was doing was wrong, she reminded herself…this kind of intimacy…

As Kit stopped kissing her mouth and started instead to kiss the soft flesh of her throat, her thoughts became muddled and confused, impossible to hold on to in the flood of sensation that swept through her body. This time Kit held his desire in check, caressing her slowly and lingeringly until at last his mouth was once again on her breasts.

Immediately she froze, but he refused to let her push him away, whispering against her skin, ‘Did I hurt you, my sweet? I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to. Here, let me kiss it better.’

She was still too tense, too shocked really to enjoy what he was doing to her, her mind too full of Aunt Vi’s teachings and warnings for them to be totally ignored. And yet…and yet, dimly, distantly, she sensed that there was a pleasure to be found in this shockingly intimate exploration of her body, if only her darling Kit had the patience to lead her to it gently and tenderly.

But tenderness and gentleness, never mind patience, were virtues that were unknown to Kit Danvers—already he was growing impatient, bored with such juvenile caresses. He pushed up her skirt, and put his hand on her thigh, sliding it upwards until he reached her knickers.

Immediately fresh tension gripped her—her upbringing, Aunt Vi’s strictures, warning against the instincts struggling for life inside her.

Kit was kissing her again, and, untutored though it was, somehow her body recognised the selfishness in his touch, the determination and the greed, and her tension increased.

‘If you loved me you’d let me,’ Kit was telling her angrily. ‘I thought you and I had something special.’

If it weren’t that the very innocence that was irritating him so much now was also exciting him, arousing him in a way he had not experienced in a very long time, he would already have lost interest in her and abandoned her, but for all her reluctance, her fear, indeed almost because of them, he felt his desire sharpen.

‘I want you, Lizzie…let me show you how much. Let me show you how good it can be,’ he coaxed her, kissing her again, ignoring her tension, ignoring the tremors that made her thigh muscles quiver.

‘I’m not going to hurt you,’ he told her, ‘I only want to show you how good it’s going to be between us… You do love me, don’t you…?’

What could she say? Of course she loved him.

‘Yes,’ she whispered helplessly.

‘Then let me touch you…let me love you. You’re not one of those women who can’t please a man, are you?’ Kit asked her, abruptly changing tack and making a fresh shiver of fear ice along her spine. Of course she wasn’t what he was suggesting…was she? Confused thoughts jumbled in her brain. She did love him, she knew that; so why did she feel this hesitation…this fear? Why, when she had enjoyed his kisses so much, did she feel this apprehension at his more intimate touch?

She heard the hospital village clock tolling the hour. Four o’clock already, and she was due back on the ward at five.

Mingling with her panic was a sense of relief…of escape almost, as she pushed desperately against Kit’s imprisoning arms and told him huskily, ‘I must go… I’m due back at work at five.’

Cursing beneath his breath, Kit released her. She was proving more of a challenge than he had expected and like green unripe fruit she was beginning to leave a sour taste in his mouth, but he still wanted her; not just because he desired her. Now anger and male pride were also spurring him on. There was something about her. Something about her vulnerability, her naïveté, that made him almost want to reach out and punish her for them.

Not a man given to introspection of any kind, he withdrew from her abruptly, uncomfortable with his own thoughts. It wasn’t in his nature to give in, to back down from a challenge of any kind.

‘I’d better drive you back, then,’ he told her curtly, watching the effect his coldness was having on her, and smiling inwardly as he recognised her pain. Well, it wouldn’t hurt her to suffer a little… It might even teach her a much-needed lesson, and it would certainly make her all the more eager to give him what he wanted the next time he saw her.

He walked her back to the car in a coldly remote silence that made Lizzie ache with misery and regret. Why on earth had she behaved so stupidly? Of course she loved him, and of course he had expected her to allow him to make love to her. He wasn’t a boy; he was a man…a man who was fighting for his country, a man who could walk out of her life today…

She felt the tears clogging her throat and pain and the panic churning inside her stomach. Why had she panicked like that…? Why had she felt that tension, that apprehension? Was there something wrong with her…was she perhaps incapable of pleasing a man as he had suggested, of sharing physical desire?

It was a devastating thought and one that made her face go white with anguish as they finally reached Kit’s car.

When he turned to look at her Kit was pleased to see the effect his silence had had on her. It made him relent a little towards her and cup her face with one careless hand while he demanded softly, ‘When can I see you again, sweetheart?’

Lizzie’s heart leaped with gratitude and relief. He still wanted her, after all. He was actually giving her a second chance—he did love her.

‘I—’

‘Tonight,’ Kit pressed. ‘What time do you finish work? I could pick you up…’

Lizzie shook her head.

‘Not until late.’

‘Then when?’ Kit pressed her. ‘Tomorrow…’

Tomorrow was her day off. Her heart started to pound, as, almost incapable of speech, she nodded her head.

‘Good,’ Kit told her, and then added carelessly, ‘Look, I’ll tell you what. Instead of picking you up, why don’t I meet you at the summer-house? That way…that way we’ll keep it our secret…something special just for the two of us…’

Silently Lizzie nodded her head. She had no idea how she was going to get through the interminably long hours before she could see him again, but one thing she had already promised herself, and that was that when she did see him, when he held her and kissed her, when he touched her and told her how much he wanted her, she was going to behave like a woman and not a child, she was going to remind herself of how lucky she was to have met him, and how precious this time together with him was…how vulnerable their future together when the war could sweep them apart again at any time, maybe only for a short space of time, or maybe for eternity.

She shuddered from head to foot, suddenly so cold that her teeth were chattering.

‘Tomorrow, then…eleven o’clock,’ Kit reminded her before they parted.

‘Tomorrow,’ Lizzie echoed in a whisper, her sight suddenly blinded by weak tears.

She loved him so much. She wanted to reach out to him and to say the words, to be held in his arms. To be kissed by him…to be loved by him, she recognised shakily. So why was it that when he touched her the way he had she had acted like that, tensing against him, rejecting him?

As she watched him drive away from her she shivered again, feeling more alone, more sharply aware of the precariousness of life, more confused by her feelings than at any other time in her life…

Back at the hostel there was her borrowed finery to be returned. When questioned, she kept quiet about her date with Kit in the morning. She still felt too bruised by her own stupidity, by the way she had angered him and jeopardised their love to want to discuss what had happened with anyone, so that when Rosie asked eagerly, ‘Seeing him again, are you?’ she made a non-committal reply, glad that the fact that she had to hurry to get to work on time made it impossible for them to question her too closely.

The evening shift was always a busy one, with the men to be settled for the night, their medication to be given to them, the wards to be cleaned and made ready for the morning.

Lizzie only saw Edward Danvers briefly as she passed through his ward.

As she helped another aide with the blackout cloths, she noticed how grey Edward’s skin looked and guessed sympathetically that he was in great pain. She wanted to go across to him and ask him if he would like some extra medication, but already she knew how touchy his pride was, how he hated any reference being made to the physical agony he often had to endure.

She glanced uncertainly across the ward. The sister on duty was a woman in her late fifties who had little time for the young aides, and Lizzie knew there would be no point in her trying to have a discreet word with her to solicit her help for Edward. She was the kind of woman who genuinely believed that to endure pain was good for the soul. All the junior nurses, and even some of the doctors, were in awe of her. The aides detested her, mercilessly mimicking her and making fun of her behind her back.

‘A sexless old bag,’ was how Lizzie had heard them describe her. Sexless… She grimaced over the word, exploring it apprehensively, her heartbeat quickening with anxiety. Surely she wasn’t like that…surely she wasn’t that kind of woman? No, of course she wasn’t…

Then why hadn’t she been able to respond to Kit’s lovemaking…? Why had she felt so afraid, so tense?

Too young and far too inexperienced to know that the answer lay both in her aunt’s grim upbringing and Kit’s lack of true care for her, she was unaware of the danger of the destructive seeds which Kit had so cruelly sown for her.

Eleven o’clock. Lizzie tensed as she heard the chimes from the church clock. She had arrived at the summer-house over fifteen minutes ago and now, as she waited for Kit to join her, her nervous tension made her stomach ache and her thoughts fly helplessly in a hundred different directions at once.

Before coming out she had scrupulously washed every inch of her skin, wincing at the coldness of the water, and wishing that she had something other than carbolic soap with which to scent it.

The weather had changed, clouds covering the sky, the wind cold, promising rain for later, and today she was once more dressed in her own clothes, or rather Lady Jeveson’s. Perhaps they weren’t as flattering as Rosie’s borrowed dress, but somehow she felt more comfortable in them.

One thing she had done, though, and that was to discard her bulky, unfeminine bra.

At first she had flushed with guilt, half glancing over her shoulder almost as though she had expected Aunt Vi to materialise behind her to chastise her for what she was doing, for her wanton dress, her lack of morals.

There was a small bruise mark on her left breast where Kit had bitten her, and her nipples still felt uncomfortably tender, and yet last night, lying alone in her narrow, cold bed, when she had closed her eyes and daringly allowed herself to remember the later, more gentle touch of Kit’s hands and mouth against her breasts, the tiny thrill of sensation in her stomach had made her tremble with mixed excitement and relief.

Everything was going to be all right, she was sure of it. Today she would be able to show Kit how much she loved him. Today…she took a deep breath…today she would do whatever he asked of her, if only to prove to him that she had not been lying when she had claimed to love him.

And yet she still felt nervous, ill at ease…vulnerable. She tensed as she heard someone coming down towards the pool. What if it wasn’t Kit? What if it was someone else, a stranger, coming unwittingly to destroy their precious time together? But when she looked through the broken window it was Kit’s tall, lithe body she saw striding towards her. Today he was dressed in his uniform and her heart was caught up in a jolt of sharply piercing sensation, a mingling of pride and dread as the reality of their situation swept in on her on an unwanted tide, reinforcing her awareness of how precious their time together was. Kit—who knew quite well how good he looked in his uniform, how very male it made him seem, how very much the epitome of all that an airman ought to be.

He paused as he walked towards her, recognising in her expression her adoration and her fear. A feeling of power, of triumph filled him.

‘Come here,’ he commanded softly as he walked towards the summer-house and then paused on its threshold.

Uncertainly, tremulously, Lizzie did as he instructed, and, as she felt his arms go round her, she lifted her face towards his in blind supplication of his kiss and his forgiveness for her errors of the previous day.

‘That’s better,’ Kit told her approvingly, savouring the soft tremble of her mouth. ‘Much better.’

As he slid his tongue between her lips, he pulled her closer to his body, reinforcing her awareness of his arousal, his hands moving rapidly over her back and buttocks, his own body moving urgently against hers as he sought to impress its sexual message, its need on her still innocent flesh.

When his hand slid up to cover her breast and discovered that beneath her dull sensible jumper she was naked, he told her approvingly, ‘Good girl,’ and then whispered thickly in her ear, ‘I ought to reward you for being so thoughtful, oughtn’t I? What would you like, sweetheart—what would you like me to do?’

Her mind registered the thickening of his voice and sent sharp warning signals darting through her body, so that when she squirmed in his arms it was more with apprehension than excitement, but Kit was in no mood to be patient with her. He had lain awake far too long last night with his body aching and his temper on edge to waste time this morning. He wanted her and he intended to have her.

Fighting against her apprehension, Lizzie reminded herself that this was what she wanted; that only last night she had lain in bed and thrilled to the memory of Kit caressing her breasts as he was doing now, first with his hands, and then with his mouth, and yet she still cried out with pain when he savaged their tender crests with his teeth, wanting to beg him to stop, to protest that he was hurting her, but afraid of doing so in case she angered him, in case it proved that there was something wrong with her, that she was somehow lacking as a woman. There was nothing wrong with her, she told herself despairingly, but the doubt persisted and grew, locking her muscles, and making her feel tense and uncomfortable.

Kit undressed her quickly, roughly almost, she thought, trying not to flinch when his hands almost bruised her sensitive skin, closing her mind to the hesitant but instinctive knowledge that told her that this was not the way it should be, that in some way she was being cheated.

Dark, shadowy thoughts, doubts and fears chased one another across her mind. By Aunt Vi’s standards what she was doing was totally unforgivable…wrong… Her own emotions, so at war with her physical inhibitions, confused her. She shivered, and Kit, sensing her withdrawal from him, cursed under his breath and demanded abruptly, ‘What is it, what’s wrong?’

Lizzie looked nervously at him. He was frowning at her and she shivered again, but her doubts, her fears couldn’t be suppressed.

‘I shouldn’t be doing this,’ she told him huskily, ‘it isn’t right. I…’

Not bothering to hide his irritation, Kit took hold of her. He was not having her back out on him now. He wanted her too much, ached for her too much.

‘It isn’t wrong, sweetheart,’ he insisted, kissing her. ‘How can it be wrong when we love one another…when we have so little time together? You do love me, don’t you?’ he demanded caressingly.

‘Yes…yes…I love you.’ At least she was sure about that.

‘Then let me love you, sweetheart. Let me have these memories of you to take with me when I’m up there fighting for this country… for us…’

He had used the words so many times before that even to his own ears they sounded like a meaningless repetition of emotions he did not feel, but they were new to Lizzie, new and a frightening reminder of the reality of the war…and as Kit saw the thoughts and feelings reflected so clearly in her eyes he kissed her again and whispered against her ear, ‘Let me love you…let me show you…’ His voice thickened with excitement as he felt the tremor of emotion go through her body, and, taking advantage of her fear for him, he quickly removed the rest of her clothes.

No other human being had seen her completely naked since she had been sent to live with Aunt Vi, and she blushed hotly as Kit looked at her. Did he find her beautiful, desirable, or had she disappointed him? She wasn’t voluptuous with an hour-glass figure, but small with a narrow waist and hips and slender legs. Would he, who was so much bigger, so much heavier, so very different from her, find her too thin, too unfeminine? She blushed again and made a small embarrassed sound of protest in her throat as she tried to conceal herself from him, but he wouldn’t let her, laughing at her as he took hold of her hands and held them behind her back.

She wasn’t sure she liked being held like that; as though…as though she were his prisoner and as though he enjoyed holding her captive.

‘There’s nothing to be afraid of, old girl,’ he told her thickly as he watched her, and she couldn’t find the words to tell him that his careless scrutiny of her, his whole attitude towards her somehow cheapened their love, cheapened her! She had better not try to back out on him now, Kit thought resentfully. He watched her narrowly as he touched her.

Lizzie tried not to tremble. Without yesterday’s sun it was cold in the summer-house, and she tried to tell herself that it was for this reason that she felt so chilled, so nervous. She couldn’t possibly be nervous of Kit, could she? After all, she loved him and he loved her. So why was she finding the movement of his hands against her skin unnerving rather than arousing; why was her strongest emotion of fear…fear of angering and irritating him?

She tensed a little as Kit pushed her down on to the floor, her eyes wide with apprehension as he covered her body with the heavy weight of his own.

As she watched him he leavered himself away from her, fumbling with the waistband of his uniform trousers, but, instead of removing them and along with them the rest of his clothes, he simply unbuttoned them and then lowered his whole weight against her, pinning her down on the dusty floor, pushing apart her legs.

She did her best to accommodate him as he positioned himself between her thighs, confused by her own inability to communicate to him her tension and afraid of revealing to him her lack of desire.

The floor beneath her was hard and uncomfortable and she flinched as he pushed fiercely into her body and then repeated the jarring movement, cursing under his breath as he met with resistance.

‘Relax, can’t you?’ he muttered as he held her down beneath him.

Her body’s resistance both excited and irritated him, making him both want to drive hard against it, and impatient to be rid of the barrier of her virginity. She was far too tense, far too on edge.

He told her as much, angry with her for spoiling his pleasure, and when he thrust hard into her again Lizzie bit down on her bottom lip, terrified of letting him see how uncomfortable she was. She had heard, of course, that sometimes the first time it could hurt, but she had never imagined it would be like this…never imagined that her body would feel so tense and dry.

‘You should have been a bloody nun,’ Kit growled at her as he finally forced his way past her tense muscles.

He wasn’t even looking at her any more, Lizzie realised as she winced beneath the cruelty of his words and the burden of knowing that she had failed him, that she had failed herself… that as a woman she was in some way lacking.

Although she knew that what was happening should be giving her pleasure, instead she was filled with pain and confusion, both physically and emotionally, so that the harsh sound of Kit’s breathing, the fierce movement of his body within her own, seemed distant and apart from her. She was acutely conscious of them being not, as she had imagined, one perfect whole brought together by the intimacy of their lovemaking, but two very separate individuals.

The physical pain of his possession might have gone, but she was left with a deeper and far more hurtful emotional pain, so that when he finally collapsed on top of her, breathing erratically, she felt no relief, no pleasure, nothing other than a deep welling coldness and a searing sense of panic. She had disappointed him, failed him…she was not somehow a real woman, a sexual woman.

She could see the condemnation in his eyes, feel it in the way he refused to look at her as he moved away from her and kept his back to her as he fastened his trousers.

She was shivering now, her body stiff with cold.

‘Come on, sweetheart, you’d better get dressed. I’ve got to go and see old Edward again before I leave…’

Her hands shook as she dressed herself. She felt numb inside, her throat thick with tears.

‘You’re leaving so soon,’ she stammered, forcing back her tears.

‘Have to, I’m afraid, old girl. Duty calls and all that…’

‘But… I thought…’ She had thought they would have longer together. She had thought there would be more time…

‘Don’t worry… Shouldn’t be too long before I can get a twenty-four-hour pass,’ Kit lied to her. The last thing he wanted right now was a tearful scene.

Already, now that his desire for her was sated, he was beginning to forget how sharply he had wanted her. Soon she would be no more than another memory… another girl to join all the others there had been. It was wartime, and a man like him who lived constantly on the edge of danger was entitled to take what pleasure he could from life.

They made their way back to where Kit had parked his car in silence. Whatever she did, she must not give way to her misery…she must not break down in tears. Men hated seeing women cry, Lizzie knew. And, besides, she must be strong now, she must send him away from her with a smile so that his last memory of her would be a good one.

She ached to plead with him not to go and see Edward but to spend what leave he had left with her, but acknowledged the selfishness of her thoughts. Poor Edward had such an unhappy life. Kit was the first visitor he had had since she had come to the hospital. She must not be demanding…greedy. After all, he had promised her that he would see her again just as soon as he could get a pass…unless of course he was sent into action.

Action. The very word made her shudder with fear. Where before it had simply been another word, a word to terrify other women, now she knew its full horror and bone-chilling danger for herself.

Now she had been admitted to the ranks of those of her sex whose loved ones were at risk and she knew the full anguish and despair of what that meant: the inescapable weight of dread and hope for the life of another human being.

From now on there would be no nights of peaceful sleep for her; never again would she hear planes overhead without her stomach churning with fear. Never again would she know a moment’s peace other than for those few precious hours that Kit could spend with her. Only with him held in her arms would she know he was truly safe. Not until this war was finally over would she know true peace of mind again…the war over and Kit safely with her, the rest of their lives ahead of them for them to share and enjoy, for them to cherish their love, for her to show him emotionally and physically how much he meant to her. Her physical coldness, her inability to respond to him as she had wanted to respond—these were things she must not dwell on now. She bit her lip, wishing for the first time in her life that she had a female confidante, someone she could turn to for advice and reassurance. To listen to the other girls in the dormitory one would assume that sex was a source of huge amusement to them, a careless sharing of their bodies, in return for their lovers’ gifts; from her reading she had learned that it was one of the highest pleasures two human beings could attain together, and yet for her…

She started to tremble. What was wrong with her? Why hadn’t she enjoyed it? Why…?

They were standing beside the car now, as Kit moved towards her and told her lightly, ‘Better not give you a lift, sweetheart. Don’t want to set people gossiping, do we…? Don’t want to get you in trouble with that matron of yours.’

‘No. No, I suppose not,’ Lizzie agreed, and then, abandoning her pride, abandoning her restraint, she threw herself into his arms and sobbed, ‘You will write to me, won’t you, Kit…? I’m so sorry I was a…a disappointment to you…’

She held her breath, waiting for him to deny it, to offer her some soothing panacea…but instead he simply shrugged and released himself from her, telling her casually, ‘I expect you’re just one of those women who isn’t any good at sex… Give me your address…it will be better if I write to you first. If I’m sent into action it might be a while before your letters catch up with me. There’s talk of us being posted abroad…’

‘Abroad… but…’

Quickly he shook his head. ‘’Fraid I can’t say any more, sweetheart…shouldn’t have told you that much. All very hush-hush at the moment…’

Lizzie had a small notebook in her handbag and she tore a leaf out of it, her hand trembling as she wrote down her address for him. As he pocketed it, and before he climbed into his car, he told her carelessly, ‘Chin up, old thing, and don’t worry—just as soon as I can get a pass I’ll be back to see you.’

He was a man who never gave much thought to the consequences of his actions. A conscience wasn’t something that bothered him unduly, but now, looking into her face, seeing the love reflected so innocently there, an odd, unfamiliar sensation flickered inside him.

It made him feel uncomfortable and irritated at the same time. Stupid girl, didn’t she realise…? He glanced at her and saw the purity of her profile, the soft naturalness of her blonde hair, the clearness of her skin, and something approaching regret stirred inside him.

She was lovely, her body lissom and tender; his body began to ache and he realised with increasing resentment that he still wanted her. Characteristically he blamed her for it, reminding himself that it was her lack of expertise that had cut short his lovemaking. Even while he was resenting her, wanting to leave her, an impulse he couldn’t control made him lean across to cup her face with his hand so that he could kiss her.

Lizzie’s heart swelled with frantic joy. Just for a moment she had begun to doubt…to wonder…but no, she had simply been foolish. Of course he loved her just as she loved him.

‘I’ll write as soon as I can,’ he told her thickly, knowing that he was lying and that once he was away from her he would soon forget this unfamiliar, unwanted ache she made him feel. Suddenly another thought struck him. ‘Not a word about this…us to cousin Edward,’ he warned her, and then, seeing her face, amended, ‘at least, not yet…’

He was right, Lizzie recognised. Their feelings for one another were too new, too precious to be shared with a third party…

As he drove away she watched until the last of the dust raised by his wheels had finally settled.

Less than a mile down the road Kit suddenly frowned, an unpleasant possibility occurring to him.

It was all very well for Lizzie to have agreed now not to say a word to Edward about what had happened, but, when a few weeks had gone by without her hearing from him, would she still keep that promise?

It wasn’t that he cared one way or the other what Edward thought about him, but what if Edward should attempt to get in touch with his CO on the stupid girl’s behalf? It was just the kind of thing he would do, damn him!

Still frowning, he thought quickly. He had her address—a brief note sent when he got back to camp, telling her that he was being posted abroad and wouldn’t be able either to give her his address or get in touch for some time…yes…yes, that should do it.

The odd letter, two or even three perhaps. He scowled to himself, cursing under his breath, already regretting his involvement.

Damn Edward for the interfering old woman he could be, but he dared not take the chance, however slight, of Edward making trouble for him. He had already received a couple of warnings and the threat that if his CO had to discipline him a third time he would be grounded permanently, and he wasn’t having that.

If Kit loved anything it was flying, flying and the mixture of exhilaration and fear that came with going into action, better by far than any thrill he got from having sex.

Yes, little as he relished the idea, once he was back at camp he would have to drop the damned girl a line, carefully omitting his address, of course…

In Lizzie’s heart was a mixture of joy and desolation. Joy in their finding of one another, in their coming together in a physical celebration of their love—trying to forget her own pain and shock, selflessly thinking only of Kit, of his pleasures, his needs, his satisfaction. And desolation because they had had so little time together.

Her body ached in an unfamiliar way, a faint tenderness between her legs. She placed her hand over her body, wondering uncertainly what it was that drove men so incessantly and violently to perform such an act, and why she had found that all the wonderful, singing pleasure she had been enjoying at the touch of his hands and mouth against her body had disappeared at that moment of physical joining, which should have been so wonderful—the physical completion of their love for one another.

Was there something wrong with her? She started to walk down the lane and retrieved the shoes she had left there the day before, her pace quickening as anxiety tensed her body.

Aunt Vi had always refused to discuss sexual matters; the information Lizzie had gleaned from the other girls’ conversation had been varied and sometimes unappealingly frank, but she had naïvely assumed that, when two people loved, their physical union was blessed with a spiritual leavening which lifted it above the mere physical coupling she had heard described graphically and sometimes very coarsely by her companions.

Now she wondered unhappily why she had not experienced the wonderful magical pleasure of which she had read; why Kit’s possession of her had not transported her to that special plane which belonged only to lovers.

She ached for Kit to be with her, so that she could talk to him, unburden herself of her doubts.

All of a sudden she felt very tired, very alone…very unhappy, her feelings in stark contrast to her earlier elation.

When she returned to the hostel, subdued, with dark shadows under her eyes, she was relieved to discover that she had the place to herself. She was glad to be alone. She didn’t want to discuss Kit with the other girls; their relationship was special, sacred almost.

She had done something which Aunt Vi had always impressed on her that no decent girl did outside marriage, but she felt no guilt or remorse for having done so. These were different times from those Aunt Vi had known. Sometimes a few fleeting precious hours were all one might have. There was a recklessness in the air, a fierce determination to take everything that life offered while life still existed, because no one knew when that precious gift of life might be snatched away.

No, she felt no anguish at having loved Kit, only a terrible aching need to have him with her…close to her…holding her. He was a pilot and he hadn’t needed to tell her the dangers he lived with daily.

She listened to the news bulletins…read the papers…she was an intelligent girl, and, even if she hadn’t already witnessed the devastation and destruction that could be wrought on human flesh by the weapons of destruction created by mankind in her work at the hospital, and experienced in the loss of her parents, she had too vivid an imagination not to be aware that Kit could be killed or maimed every single time he went out on a mission.

That night when she came off duty, and before she went to bed, she prayed as she had never prayed in her life before, ‘Please God, keep Kit safe.’

And even as she whispered the words she knew that she was only repeating what millions of other women over the country were also saying, and that for every man whose life was spared there were others whose lives were not…women whose pain she could already imagine, recoiling from it as though it were her own, frantically trying to push her knowledge of it out of her mind. She must be strong…for Kit’s sake and her own. She must be strong and brave and when she saw him again she must smile and laugh and not allow him to see her fear. Must somehow find a way of ensuring that she did not disappoint him, of hiding from him her growing dread that sexually there was something wrong with her, something that prevented her from enjoying his lovemaking as she wanted to enjoy it.

Just over a week after she had said goodbye to him, Lizzie received Kit’s letter. She touched the envelope with trembling fingers, turning it over and over before opening it, her heart bursting with joy.

If the few scant lines on the single sheet of paper disappointed her, she forced herself to accept that a man on the verge of leaving with his squadron to fight for his country was not in a position to sit down and write a long love-letter.

Avidly reading and then rereading every single word, she soon had them committed to memory.

Just a few lines to tell you that I shan’t be able to be in touch for some time, old thing. As I warned you, it looks as though I shall be taking a ‘holiday’ in foreign parts.

Will write again as soon as I can. In the meantime, sweetheart, think about me as I shall be thinking of you.

With love, your Kit.

Lizzie pressed the final words to her lips, torn between tears and elation; elation because she had at least heard from him and because his letter held no hint of the distance and irritation with which he had left her, and fear because he was going into danger.

She frowned a little when she realised there was no address on the letter, no way she could get in touch with him, and then realised that she would probably have to wait for his next letter, since he himself probably did not as yet know just where he was to be posted.

She refolded the letter and put it back in its envelope, and then put it in her handbag. From now on she intended to carry it everywhere with her. She closed her eyes, trembling a little as she tried to visualise Kit actually writing it…his hand inscribing the words…his dark head bent over the paper.

Oh, dear God, please keep him safe, she whispered. Please keep him safe.

Lizzie and Edward paid two more visits to view the rhododendrons but Edward could tell that her heart wasn’t in it. He wanted to ask her if something was wrong, but shrank from doing so.

Since he had been wounded, he had become acutely sensitive about his physical appearance, about the destruction of his manhood. He recognised Lizzie’s compassion for him and sometimes at night when he couldn’t sleep he ached bitterly to be a whole man again and not an empty shell of one, incapable of arousing a woman to any emotion other than pity.

Most of the women who worked at the hospital only reinforced his awareness of his physical disabilities—only with Lizzie did he feel anything approaching ease. Her patent innocence meant that she did not look at him with the same mixture of pity and contempt with which he felt the others viewed him.

Now he sensed that she was different, abstracted…lost in some private world of her own, but it didn’t occur to him to associate this sudden change in her with the visit of his cousin.

Edward and Kit had never got on, even as boys. As the elder, Edward had nevertheless grown up knowing that he was the less favoured. Kit was the one who would eventually inherit Cottingdean and not him. Edward was the one who loved it…who ached for it when he was away from it, who begged his parents to be allowed to spend his holidays there…but ultimately Cottingdean would belong to Kit. He had tried not to feel resentful, but perhaps this would have been less hard if Kit had shared his love for the house and its land.

Cottingdean had been in their family since the time of Charles II. Their ancestor—penniless, landless, titleless—had supported Charles throughout his exile, fought and played at his side, and when Charles had been finally placed on the throne he had offered to reward him with a title and the exalted position of a Gentleman of the Bedchambers. Knowing how much it would cost him to maintain such an exalted position, instead of accepting the King’s generous offer, he had asked that instead Charles allow him to marry the widow of a Cromwellian supporter.

The King, suspecting a love-match, had given his consent and had then been astonished to discover that the woman in question was plain and well into her thirties.

Plain she might have been, but she had provided her first husband with five healthy daughters, and the rich and well-tended flocks of sheep that grazed on the lands that had been her dowry from her parents.

Philip Danvers had reasoned that a woman so evidently and bountifully fertile could well provide him with the sons he wanted, and the rich pastures her first husband had carefully nurtured during the years of the Protectorate would yield far more profit than an empty title.

The widow had no option but to accept this second husband with as good a will as she could muster. It was the King’s command that she marry his friend. She was under no illusions; Cottingdean was a rich property to a man who owned nothing but the clothes on his back and the sword at his side. Oh, no, she knew quite well why she was being married, and it was not to provide her lusty new husband with a bedmate.

Thus it came as something of a surprise to discover how attentive her new husband was in bed, and continued to be even after the birth of their first and then their second son.

Philip Danvers had quickly realised that his plain, dull wife, whom he had married for her wealth and for sons, had a sensual gift that many a courtesan would have welcomed and flaunted, and because he was a man with a sense of humour, he laughed to himself sometimes in the privacy of their bedchamber while they rested in one another’s arms, sated and relaxed, and when she asked him why he would tell her that it was because, in giving her to him, the King had given away one of the rarest treasures in his Kingdom.

It was not of his ancestors, however, that Edward was thinking as he sat motionless in his wheelchair, staring into space, but of those generations as yet to come…as yet unborn. Kit would marry and one day produce sons who would inherit Cottingdean, and he hoped they would love and cherish it as he had always longed to have the right to do.

Now, though, he was forced to admit that even if his father had been the elder…even if he had inherited, he would never be able to father sons for the house. Almost violently he clenched his hands and wished as he had wished so often that he might find the courage to end this dull misery that was his life.

Kit had made it plain to him that there would be no sanctuary for him at Cottingdean. He had even talked of selling up, damn him…of living permanently in London, as though Cottingdean was nothing more than a burden he wished to be rid of. How he resented him for that. How he almost hated him for it!