Second Best Wife (20 page)

'Until Jennifer comes —'

'If you feel like that, why didn't you write and tell her she couldn't come?' She shrugged her shoulders. 'She'd have come anyway. She wants you back!'

'And are you going to give me back?'

She shrugged again. 'Why not? You were never mine anyway.'

'But you are mine, Georgie Porgie. What are you going to do about that?'

Tears pricked at the back of her eyes. 'What would you have me do? Bully the life out of her until she turns round and goes away? Jennifer never goes away. She's always there. She always has been!'

'I see. I hadn't you realised you felt like that about her —'

'You've always told me I was jealous of her and, you see you're quite right! She even has Duncan paying for her car!'

William's lips curved into a mocking smile. 'Do you want him to pay for one for you too?'

Her indignation knew no bounds.
'Duncan?
That creep? I wouldn't give him the time of day!'

'Then why the jealousy?' he pressed her. 'Aren't you satisfied yet that I want you quite as much as you want me? Has our life together lacked anything for you these last few days?'

She refused to answer directly. 'That isn't everything,' she said darkly. 'With Jennifer it wouldn't count at all!'

A distinct twinkle stirred the depths of William's golden eyes. 'We're talking about you, little Georgie. I got the impression it counted with you quite a lot.'

Incensed, she made a move to get past him, but he had her trapped. 'You didn't
ask
me, if you remember. I didn't have any choice in the matter. With you, I never do.'

'Exactly!' he encouraged her, just as if he were talking to a recalcitrant child. 'Between us, I'll always call the tune — in or out of bed! If you want me to turn my back on Jennifer, you'll have to be specially nice to me, my love.' He took her hands in his, unclenching her fists with fingers of steel. 'You wouldn't really try and black my eye again, would you?'

'Yes, I would!'

'No wonder Jennifer always gets there before you. She would scorn to use such tactics! I doubt she's ever made a boy cry in her life!'

Georgina's temper was stretched beyond endurance. 'What about Duncan?' she demanded crossly. 'Haven't you any sympathy for him?'

'Should I have?'

She sniffed. 'I'd have said you had a great deal in common! He's behaving better than you did, though. Next time Jennifer spurns you, William Ayres, don't expect me to mop your blood off the floor! I'll be busy elsewhere!'

'Not you, Georgie Porgie — '

'And don't call me that! When I'm free of you, I'll change my name to something different and forget all about your horrid nursery rhymes!'

He pulled her up into the circle of his arms, amused. 'You won't forget. It used to be Rowley-Powley before it was Georgie Porgie, and that could apply to any name. Besides, I like your brand of kisses and I like your name, my dear, and I like having you by my side. You'll never be free of me, Mrs. Ayres!'

He had some reason to be confident, she reflected dully, for she, too, doubted she would ever leave him until he decided to send her away. And Jennifer would see to that! She would never share any man she thought of as hers, not even with his wife!

His arms closed round her in a most satisfactory way! 'Be as tough as you like with anyone else, Georgie, but I know you better than that! You were never reluctant for me to have my way with you, and you're not reluctant to have me make love to you now.'

'You can't be sure of that!' she protested. She sounded breathless and pathetically eager. It was
his
fault! His hand searched out her curves and her heart turned over in anticipation of what would come next.

'Can't I?
Can't I,
Georgina?'

'It isn't love!' she burst out.

'Isn't it?' He laughed out loud. 'What do you call it? I won't believe you're still pretending to hate me. Are you, my sweet?'

'No.' She choked over the word, her hands covering his in a mute protest against their probing. 'William, we can't! Not here!'

His lips met hers, exploring her mouth with a thoroughness that deprived her of all further speech. She uttered a sob of pleasure and abandoned the attempt of trying to reason him into being more sensible. She felt herself lifted high up against his chest and wondered at his strength of arm. How dreadful that she should like being coerced by him! She ought to be made of sterner stuff, but she wasn't. She felt very feminine and deliciously weak, and it was the most marvellous sensation in the world.

He deposited her on the bed and stood back from her. 'What, no more arguments, Mrs. Ayres?'

She spluttered with laughter, making no effort to move, not even when he knelt on the bed beside her and began to undress her. Only her eyes darkened with the strength of her emotions. 'I wish I were more beautiful for you,' she murmured against his hand, trying to impede its progress against her naked flesh. She shivered with pleasure as he defeated her ruse. 'Oh, William!' she breathed.

'Oh, Georgina!' he mocked her, his lips returning to her mouth. 'Confess now, my sweet, that you like it when I have my way with you. You do, don't you?'

'Yes!'

He paused in what he was doing, his eyes narrowing as he surveyed her. Then his lips met hers again in a kiss as soft as a butterfly's wings and she could feel his laughter against her breasts.

'How are the mighty fallen!' he taunted her. 'But it's not enough. Before I'm through with you, my darling, you'll weep with love for me, and then I'll have you just where I want you!'

William went to work the next day, and time hung heavy on Georgina's hands. She had wanted to go with him, to see how he went about the gigantic task of harnessing a whole river and deflecting its course away from the sea so that not a single drop of its precious fluid was lost-to the land.

'Your job is to stay with Celine,' William had told her with a touch of severity. 'You can come to the site some other time.'

'I've got used to having you about,' Georgina had tried to persuade him. 'What are Celine and I to do all day?'

'You could get Stuart to show you over the tea factory,' he had suggested.

'There'll still be tomorrow!'

He had given her an odd look then. 'I'm flattered,' he had said. 'I never thought you'd admit you could miss my company for a few hours.'

She had blushed scarlet, cross with herself for being so foolish as to betray her feelings to him. 'It's my pugnacious nature,' she had defended herself. 'I can't fight with Celine —it wouldn't do!'

The glint in his tawny eyes had discomfited her still further. 'I'll be back tonight,' he had said, and he had kissed her hard on the mouth, scattering her wits to the four winds. 'I'll see you then,' he had added, and she had been sure that it hadn't been entirely her imagination that he had been as much moved by the embrace as she, and she had been fiercely glad that he found as much pleasure in her body as she did in his.

Celine was in a bad mood too. She claimed she had a headache and retired to her bedroom, refusing to come out. At lunchtime, she looked tired and drawn, and Georgina began to worry in earnest about her.

'What's the matter?' she asked her bluntly. 'Is it Stuart?'

'I don't want to talk about it!' Celine retorted. For the first time since Miss Campbell's departure the blank look was back in her eyes and she made no effort to converse or eat, but sat in a withdrawn world of her own, refusing all Georgina's blandishments to make her pull out of it.

'I wish you'd tell me about it,' Georgina pleaded with her. 'I'm not feeling on the top of the world myself.'

A fleeting smile crossed Celine's face. 'Missing William already?'

Georgina nodded. 'I only fight with him when he's here, but I can't settle to anything with him gone. Silly, isn't it?'

'You're in love with him,' Celine sighed. 'You're lucky!'

'Lucky!' Georgina stared at her. The tears came rushing into her eyes. 'He doesn't love me. He never will. He married me because he thought my sister Jennifer preferred someone else. He wanted to protect her from me!'

'Why?'

'He thinks I bully her into doing things she doesn't want to—that I broke up her romance with him. She wrote him a letter, you see, saying she'd changed her mind and wanted him after all. She gave it to me to give him on the plane, only inside it was written as if she'd wanted him to receive it before the wedding., If he'd had it then he wouldn't have married me.'

Celine shrugged. 'He doesn't seem to hold it against you. Anyway, why should you care? I wouldn't if I were married to Stuart. I wouldn't care about anything else.'

'Not with Jennifer on her way here?' Georgina said dryly.

Celine looked muddled and frowned. Georgina, looking up at that moment, caught her breath afresh at the younger girl's shining beauty, a beauty which was enhanced rather than otherwise by her supreme indifference to the effect it had on those about her.

'I always thought,' Celine began in puzzled tones, 'that everyone loved the people who are close to them. Everyone else, that is. I didn't love my mother, I hardly ever saw her. She was always out with some man or other.

I loved Miss Campbell even less. I'm not sure about my father. I think I did love him— I liked him a lot when he had time for me. I've always felt guilty that I didn't love my mother and she died. But you don't love Jennifer, do you?'

Georgina had always pretended to herself that she did. 'I'm sure I do! I don't like her, but I'm sure I must love her!'

'Because she's your sister?'

'Well, yes,' Georgina admitted. 'I've never thought of doing anything else.'

Celine struggled within herself to find the words to explain something else she didn't understand. 'Stuart says I don't know how I feel about him either!' she blurted out. 'He's going to give me time to find my feet. Oh, Georgie, how can I all by myself? I've been alone so long!'

Georgina felt as helpless as her charge. 'Perhaps he's worried that you need someone, but not him in particular,' she suggested hopefully. 'You don't know many other men, after all.'

'I don't have to!' Celine maintained stubbornly. 'I want Stuart now. He says we both have to be free in case we find we prefer someone else, just as if his saying that makes any difference to how I feel about him. I'll never be free — even if I wanted to be! But he doesn't need me in the same way. He might find someone else and I think I'd die if he did!'

'Have you told him that?'

Celine shook her head. 'He may be afraid because I'm not —not
normal.
He wouldn't tell me so, though, would he? He wouldn't want to hurt my feelings. There must be hundreds of ordinary girls he could marry. I'm frightened he doesn't want me. That's why you're lucky to be married to William. You'll always be a part of him even if he does prefer your sister. I'd rather share Stuart than not have him at all.'

Georgina wondered if she could ever be as self-sacrificing, but she already knew that she couldn't. She wanted the whole loaf! For others half a loaf might be better than no bread at all, but it wasn't for her, not if Jennifer had the other half. Not if Jennifer had a single slice, come to that!

'I think you're completely normal,' she said aloud. 'And you have a much nicer nature than I have. I want what I want, much more than I want what William wants! '

For once Celine looked the older of the two. 'Because they're the same thing, Georgie. Otherwise you wouldn't. He can't want Jennifer very badly or he wouldn't have married you. I daresay he doesn't really love either of you, but he's married to you. I'd give anything to be married to Stuart!'

And she began to look so miserable again that Georgina felt quite cheerful about her own chances with William by comparison. William would be coming home to her that evening and she could hardly wait. All would be well, she thought, just as long as William went on coming home. While he did that, they were a team, and the longer a team stayed in harness the more difficult it was to destroy the partnership.

The two girls decided to make Georgina a new dress after lunch. Celine had supplied the material, a beautiful
batik
cotton which she had bought for herself in Nuwara Eliya, but which she had afterwards had thought was too definite a colour for her fair beauty.

'I like it,' she said indifferently when Georgina said she should keep it for herself, .'but I'll never wear it. Not that shade of green with my hair!'

'Perhaps not,' Georgina decided. She couldn't help fingering the thick cotton to examine the pattern more closely. The amount of work that had gone into dyeing the pattern was frightening. She could imagine how long it had taken waxing the area that was not to be dyed any particular colour, and then waxing it again for the next colour, and so on until the whole design was complete. 'I'll get you another dress length when I go with William to the site. We learned to do this sort of thing in college, but I can't say my efforts were as fine as this.'

'You should see some of the wall-hangings!' Celine enthused. 'They're real works of art! I wanted to buy one, but Miss Campbell wouldn't let me. She doesn't like beautiful things.'