Conveniently His Omnibus (10 page)

‘So you are Jon’s wife? You’re a lucky man, Jon, she’s lovely.’

‘Hey enough of that,’ Andrea threatened lightly, punching him on the arm. ‘Just remember you are married to me...’

‘Ah, you’re jealous.’ They were simply playing a game...but Jon could have said the same words to her and they would have been all too true.

‘I think you’ll find you know most of the people here,’ Roy was saying to Jon. ‘What can I get you to drink?’

‘Get him a drink later, love,’ Andrea interrupted. ‘Jon, there’s a very special friend of yours here tonight. An old flame,’ she added, winking at Sophy, as though to show it was still a game, but Sophy could feel herself tense. Jon had tensed too, his jaw hardening fractionally, his eyes closing slightly, such minor changes, that she suspected only she was aware of what they portended.

‘Oh...?’ He wasn’t giving anything away in his voice either, Sophy recognised, watching him frown in the hesitant mild manner she had once thought typified the man himself and which she was now coming to know was simply a form of camouflage. What was Jon protecting himself from? Her mouth felt dry, her body tensing almost to the point of pain.

‘Yes... Lorraine. You must remember her, Jon. Heavens, you and she were an item for a couple of terms at least. She used to be absolutely crazy about you.’

‘But Jon managed to resist all her wiles, didn’t you, my friend?’ Roy was chuckling, ignoring his wife’s frown. ‘Just as well too, otherwise Lorraine would have had you neatly trapped in matrimony and then I would never have been able to meet this lovely lady.’ He kissed Sophy’s fingers gallantly as he spoke.

‘We were all a little in love with Jon when he was at university,’ Andrea told Sophy with a small smile. ‘He was so different from the other under-grads, far more sophisticated and just that little bit withdrawn. It made him seem very exciting and out of reach...challengingly so, I’m afraid. We used to chase after him quite unfairly. All you wanted to do was to be left alone to get on with your work, didn’t you, darling?’ she added to Jon.

Roy laughed. ‘Says you,’ he teased his wife. ‘How do you think he got that jaded, world-weary air you found so tantalising in the first place? It certainly wasn’t by sitting up burning the midnight oil over his books!’

Jon looked distinctly uncomfortable. He tugged at his bow tie as though it were strangling him, but this time Sophy was not deceived. He was not really embarrassed. He was simply pretending he was. If she looked at his eyes, they were cool and faintly aloof, not embarrassed at all.

‘Well you must come and say hello to Lorraine or she’ll never forgive me,’ Andrea insisted, drawing Jon away from Roy and Sophy.

Silently, Sophy watched them go.

‘You mustn’t mind my wife.’ Roy sounded kind and faintly uncomfortable. ‘She’s right when she said that most of the girls in our crowd had a thing about Jon. Poor guy, he was forced to live like a hermit in the end, just to get rid of them. In those days girls had just discovered sex,’ he told Sophy with a grin. ‘It was a difficult time for us men, being the pursued instead of the pursuers.’

‘I’m sure,’ Sophy agreed copying his bantering mood. ‘It must have been hell.’

Roy was easy to talk to but that didn’t stop her glance following Jon’s dark head, watching it bend towards the blonde woman he had stopped beside. Andrea drifted off and left them, Roy was still talking and she must have been making the right responses but inside she was tormented by jealousy. What were they saying? Was this perhaps the one love of Jon’s life? She ached to be with them; to hear what was being said, and was given her chance when someone else came up to talk to Roy. She walked unsteadily away, moving towards Jon. He turned as she reached him, surprise and something else—anger perhaps—flickering across his face.

‘Lorraine, this is my wife, Sophy.’

There was no mistaking the expression in the other woman’s eyes, it was vitriolic. So much so that Sophy found herself taking a step backwards.

‘I think I see Peter Lewis over there. I’d like to introduce you to him, Sophy.’ Skilfully Jon drew her away from Lorraine, leaving Sophy wondering if what they had been saying before she arrived was something for their own ears alone.

At eleven she began to feel tired. Jon was locked in conversation with Roy in the latter’s study, so Andrea had told her. Although everyone seemed friendly, Sophy was disinclined to talk. She wanted to go home. She wanted to be alone with Jon.

‘Deserted you already, has he?’

She recognised Lorraine’s metallic voice instantly, turning to face the older woman.

‘So Jon has finally married! My dear, how on earth did you manage it?’ She laughed when she saw Sophy’s face tighten. ‘Oh come on. I know him, Jon may look like an extraordinarily attractive member of the male species but looks are all there is. Sexually he’s a disaster area—I should know, I spent months trying to get him into bed with me when we were at university together and when I did...God, what a non-event!’

Why was Lorraine telling her all this? Sophy wondered, listening to her.

The glossy red lips curled in open mockery. ‘Oh, come on...you must know it’s true. I know quite well that Jon’s been living like a monk since he left Cambridge. He always did have a hang-up about sex, and you
must
be aware of it, unless, of course, you haven’t actually been lovers.’

Sophy felt acutely sick. She knew what Lorraine was doing now. The woman hated Jon, Sophy could see that hatred shining in her eyes but she couldn’t know the truth, Sophy told herself, she was simply probing, looking for a weak spot in Jon’s armour, trying to find a way to humiliate him, as perhaps, Jon had once humiliated her. Illuminatingly she wondered if she had possibly hit on the truth. Could Lorraine, like Louise, have been one of those women who had thought to seduce Jon and found the task impossible? She looked at the blonde, noting the hard eyes and arrogant pose. Lorraine was attractive, there was no denying that. At twenty-one or two she would have been beautiful...and probably even more arrogant, certainly arrogant enough to swear vengeance against any man foolish enough to reject her.

She managed a slight frown. ‘I’m sorry,’ she began apologetically, ‘but—’

‘Oh, come on, my dear,’ Lorraine interrupted her impatiently. ‘Don’t give me that, I know Jon hasn’t changed. He was sexless at twenty-two and he’s sexless now.’

‘I’m afraid you’re quite wrong.’ Suddenly, soaringly she felt gloriously strong, glad to do something for Jon...to protect him from this woman’s malice. She even managed to smile freely for the first time that evening. ‘I can’t speak for Jon’s past, of course,’ she shrugged delicately, ‘but I can certainly tell you that as his wife I have no complaints.’

‘But then maybe, darling, you aren’t his wife...at least not in the way that really counts.’

Heavens, Lorraine was persistent—and thick skinned—Sophy thought wryly, but she was not going to let her get the better of their exchange.

‘You mean you don’t think we’ve made love?’ Sophy raised her eyebrows and laughed openly. ‘Oh, but we have.’ She allowed her voice to become soft and dreamy, watching Lorraine’s mouth harden and the colour leave her skin.

‘I don’t believe you.’ Her voice was harsh, and for a moment Sophy felt sorry for her but then she remembered what Lorraine was trying to do to Jon.

‘Then I shall have to make you,’ she said quietly. ‘What is it you want to hear, Lorraine? How Jon makes me feel when he touches me? How I feel when I touch him? Those are very intimate details to discuss with a stranger but what I can tell you is that in his arms I feel more of a woman than I’ve ever felt before in my life. Under his touch my body burns and aches for his possession. I would have gone willingly to his bed, marriage or no marriage. When his body possesses mine...’ She caught the faintly strangled gasp the other woman made as she stepped back, raising her hands as though Sophy’s words were blows, retreating to the other side of the patio to glare at her with patent venom.

‘Sophy...’

She swung round, going pale as she found Jon standing behind her. How long had he been there? Had he heard? She swallowed tensely and looked at him but he was looking the other way.

‘If you don’t mind I’d like to leave. This headache...’

Relief flooded through her. Of course he hadn’t overheard! Hot colour scorched her skin as she remembered what she’d said. Now that it was over she felt weak and trembly. There was nothing she wanted more than to leave, and she went mutely with Jon as he sought out their host and hostess.

They drove back in silence, Sophy leaving Jon to go upstairs whilst she took Susan home.

Once she got back she didn’t linger downstairs herself. She too was tired, drained of all emotion. She paused outside Jon’s room, without knowing why, listening to the floorboard creak beneath her foot.

The door was open and she heard him call her name. She went to the door and stood just inside it. He was sitting on the bed, his head in his hands.

‘Why did you do it?’

His voice was a faint thread but she still heard it, the blood freezing down her spine as apprehension gripped her.

‘Do what?’

She heard him sigh. ‘Come on, Sophy, you know quite well what I mean...that little scene with Lorraine. I heard it all, but both of you were too engrossed in each other to realise I was there. It certainly was a very talented performance on your part,’ he added tiredly. ‘
How
did you do it? By calling up memories of how it was with Benson?’

Sophy could feel the blood draining out of her skin.

‘No.’ She practically choked on the denial. ‘No...’ she added more quietly, ‘I simply used my imagination.’

He wasn’t looking at her, but she could feel the tension gripping him. ‘What exactly do you mean?’

Suddenly she was tired of fencing...of pretending. ‘You’re the logician, Jon,’ she told him wryly, ‘Surely you can analyse what I’ve said and draw your own conclusions. I didn’t enjoy Chris’s lovemaking, as a matter of fact. In fact I found it a total turn-off. It was painful...and empty. I can assure you that he found me less than satisfactory as well.’

‘Really? So why is he still pursuing you?’

‘Because he resents the fact that I appear to be enjoying with another man what I did not enjoy with him,’ she told him bluntly, ‘and he likes causing trouble.’

‘You can say that again.’ He looked directly at her for the first time, reaching one hand behind his neck to rub away the tension.

‘Headache still bad?’

‘Mmm...’

‘I’ll massage your neck for you if you’d like.’

Now why on earth had she said that? Tensely waiting for his repudiation she was stunned when he turned and stretched out on the bed, muttering, ‘Thanks, that would be great.’

He had already removed his jacket, but his shirt was still on. Even so, Sophy dared not suggest that he remove it. Instead she leaned down towards him, flexing her fingers. She had learned the basics of massage after a bad fall in her teens when she had injured her leg and had found relief from the pain of it by massaging the tense muscles and it seemed it was a skill that once learned was never lost, although there was a world of difference in having Jon’s hot flesh beneath her hands rather than her own.

Almost by instinct she found the hard lumps of acidic matter that denoted tension and started massaging them. She felt Jon tense slightly and then relax, although he said nothing. Time ceased to exist as she concentrated on her task. Jon was breathing slowly now...so slowly that she felt sure he must be asleep. She eased gently away, flexing her own body.

‘Don’t stop.’ The slurred words stopped her in mid-movement, her eyes widening as Jon sat up, his fingers tearing impatiently at his shirt buttons until he had them all free. Shrugging out of his shirt he threw it on the floor, flopping back down on the bed. ‘That feels good, Sophy,’ he told her thickly. ‘Do it some more.’

She obeyed him mindlessly, smoothing the sleek skin beneath her fingertips, enveloped in the musky male scent of his body as she bent closer to him, trying to tell herself that what she was doing was something she would have done for anyone.

Only he wasn’t anyone. He was Jon...and she loved him...
loved him?
She tensed, staring blindly into space, waiting for her heart to catch up on its missed beat. Of course she didn’t love him. She wanted him, desired him, yes...but love? She fought hard but it was no use, she
did
love him.

The knowledge was appalling. How long had she hidden it from herself? How long had she loved him? Days, weeks, months...before they were married, even? She shook her head, trying to clear her thoughts, and knowing it was impossible. The shock was too great.

‘What’s wrong?’

She withdrew as Jon sat up, backing away from him. He wasn’t wearing his glasses but he was looking at her as though he could read every expression on her face.

‘I want you.’ He said it softly, reaching for her before she could move, fastening his fingers round her wrists and tugging her towards him until her progress was impeded by the edge of the bed. ‘Was it true what you told me about Benson?’

‘That he was the first man to discover that I was frigid, do you mean?’ She was glad that he had reminded her of reality because it gave her something to fight with.

‘Is that what you are?’ He tugged on her wrists again, not very gently this time, laughing at her as she overbalanced and fell on the bed in an ungainly heap. She tried to roll away from him, her angry protest smothered by the heat of his mouth as it imprisoned her own.

Heat, searing and intense, beat through her in fierce waves, a heat that had nothing to do with the hot summer night outside. This heat was generated within herself, a blazing conflagration that threatened to totally destroy her. She had never, ever felt like this before. It frightened her that she should now.

Every instinct she had told her she must escape before Jon discovered for himself the humiliating truth, but although his grip on her was now only light, somehow it was impossible to drag her mouth from his, to give up the aching pleasure of the way his mouth moved on hers aroused. His tongue touched her lips and they parted, admitting him to the moist sweetness beyond, the breath catching in her throat as the intimacy of his kiss engulfed her and she clung helplessly to his shoulders, aware of the hot sleekness of his skin beneath her fingers; aware of the frantic thudding of her heart against her ribs...of the slow ache coiling through her lower body, the moist heat between her thighs.