Justine Elyot (10 page)

‘She’s a gold-digger and a whore,’ said Charles.

Edie’s hands flew out of her lap and she aimed a slap that found its mark and cracked ferociously through the muggy air.

In a split second she was pinioned at the wrists with Charles’s nose right against hers while he bore down on her, breathing heavily.

‘You
will
tell me,’ he said with barely controlled venom, ‘why you are so intent on defending this woman. You know her, don’t you? Are you some relation of hers, crawling out of the woodwork for a slice of the family pie?
My
family pie?’

‘We have never met before, never,’ said Edie. ‘Let me up. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have hit you. I hate to hear women called whores. It makes me angry and then I can’t control myself.’

He sat up and released one of her wrists, but brought the other to his face, laying her palm flat on the hot red mark she had made.

‘What would you call her then?’ he asked. ‘A woman who has given herself to a man she doesn’t love, for money?’

‘Unlucky,’ said Edie. ‘Unhappy.’

Charles’s face contorted with scorn. ‘Unlucky? Unlucky to marry my father? Unlucky to live in one of the finest houses in England.’

‘And unlucky to get herself mixed up with you.’

He drew back from her at that, calculating his next move. Edie thought he looked like a serpent poised to strike. But he did not strike.

‘Your offer still stands?’ he asked, almost offhandedly, as if enquiring after her comfort.

She wasn’t sure it still did. She thought she ought to withdraw it. Clearly she had had no idea what depths she might be flinging herself into with this man.

‘Because I’ve decided I’d like to take you up on it,’ he said softly, putting two fingers beneath her chin so that she couldn’t look away.

‘Have you? You’ll stay away from Lady Deverell?’

Every pore of her skin burned. How did he know the perfect way to touch her?

He has practice. Lots of it.

He nodded a brief assent.

‘No, say it. Swear it.’

‘What a puzzle you are. Yes, all right, I swear it.’

You’ve done it now, Edie Crossland. You’ve signed yourself, body and soul, over to this man. But must the body and the soul be indivisibly related? Can I get away with just giving him my body? I must work to keep my soul intact, whatever else he takes from me.

Having adopted this dualistic philosophy, Edie felt safe to proceed.

‘Very well,’ she said with awkward bravery. ‘You may take me as your mistress. But I have conditions.’

He laughed. ‘Of course you have. I’ll hear them, but first …’

His hand slid around the back of her neck and he held her there for the duration of the kiss he planted, tenderly at first, upon her lips. It felt like the summer air around them, a zephyr, a whisper of a thing, but it soon grew. Edie found sensations in it she had never expected. It stirred up a storm in her head and her belly and then even lower, even to her knees, which turned to water while the kiss showed her more and more of her unspoken desires. How could she feel so protected and yet so endangered? She saw herself on the brink of throwing herself open to this man, of giving him anything and everything he might want. Yet she must retain some measure of control, or he would ride roughshod over her; and that was not the plan.

All the same, she could live in that embrace, live with those lips upon hers and his hands, at her nape and waist. At first, she did not think of doing anything with her own hands, but as their sighs deepened and the whirl of delight spun more wildly, she clutched at him, seeking his hair, his face, his shoulders.

Then he did two things that alarmed her into breaking the kiss. First, he pushed the tip of his tongue between her lips as if he meant to feed it to her. Secondly, he grazed his knuckles against the side of her breast, tending towards her stiffened nipple. A sense of how terribly unseemly this all was, taking place in a motor car of all places, sent a cold shiver of shame and regret through her and she pushed him off.

‘Oh, Edie,’ he moaned, leaning his head against the green leather and giving her a look of inflammatory sorrow. He stroked her cheek and she came fractionally closer to him again, their faces almost touching. ‘I think you must like me, just a little.’

‘I don’t intend to like you,’ she whispered. ‘If I care for you, it will make things far too difficult.’

‘I’ll make you care for me,’ he said. ‘I’ll make you fall in love with me.’

‘You won’t.’

‘I will.’

She could not prevent herself allowing him another kiss, but this time he did not go too far. Indeed, he did not go far enough, for she thought that, after all, she wanted him to touch her in places that had never before been disturbed. Her curiosity had been aroused – amongst other things.

‘We are in broad daylight in a public place,’ she said, as much to convince herself as caution him. ‘If anyone should chance by …’

‘I want to take you under a haystack,’ he drawled. His face was pressed to hers, cheek to cheek, lips to ear. ‘I want to do all the most unspeakable things imaginable to you.’

‘About those conditions,’ said Edie.

‘Oh, damn those conditions. Tell me later. Sit up and do something about your hair. I’m taking you out to lunch.’

* * *

A few towns along the river, out of the range of local gossip, Charles took her to a place with tables at the very banks of the water, where the waiters served one with pink lemonade in very tall glasses, and fresh fish caught that morning.

‘Fish knives,’ said Charles, picking his up and surveying its glint in the afternoon sun. ‘Pa won’t have them, thinks they’re terribly infra dig, but I find them quite useful, don’t you?’

‘We’ve always used them,’ she said, sipping at her lemonade.

‘I daresay you have,’ he said, and his Cheshire-cat grin made her kick herself for giving away another example of her middle-class background.

She stared down at the latticed ironwork of the table, unsure how to make polite conversation with a man who fully intended to take her virginity before much more time had passed.

‘I want to hear your conditions,’ he said.

Some ducks sailed by, quacking happily. It seemed entirely the wrong place and time for such a conversation, but Edie tried to gather her thoughts.

‘You know the first one. About leaving Lady Deverell alone.’

‘Yes, yes. She was just a diversion anyway. I’d rather have you. Much rather. What else?’

‘You’re not to get me … I don’t want a baby.’

At this moment the fish arrived, trout with scalloped potatoes and a salad.

Edie watched Charles’s face as he acknowledged the food and asked for condiments. He looked perfectly unruffled, as if they had been talking about the weather.

‘That’s easily taken care of,’ he said, once the waiter had retired. ‘You needn’t worry about it.’

‘Susie Leonard –’

‘Susie Leonard wanted a baby. She wanted my baby. She thought I’d marry her if she had one.’

‘You should have told her you had no intention of doing so. What will her life be now? What about your child’s life?’

‘The child is well provided for,’ he said abruptly, attacking the fish’s soft flesh. ‘Susie will never go without food or lodging.’

Edie exhaled gratefully. ‘That was another of my conditions,’ she said.

‘Well, I’ve met it. I’ll take you to visit her if you like. You can judge for yourself.’

‘So you see the child?’

‘I pop down there when I can.’

‘Is it a boy or a girl?’

‘A girl. Charlotte. Not my choice, but she insisted.’

‘She named her after you.’

‘So it seems. Look, I know it reflects badly on me. It all happened very soon after I came back from the war. I was blindsided, I wanted to forget … she helped me …’

‘You’re asking for my sympathy? You seduced an innocent girl.’

‘She wasn’t a virgin.’ Charles tore at some bread from the basket, seeming to enjoy Edie’s consternation. ‘Somebody else had had her cherry, and do you know who it was?’

‘Of course not.’

‘Your friend the chauffeur.’

‘Ted? Oh no.’ Edie couldn’t believe this. Ted was a good man, a gentleman in his way. Surely he would not have … ‘You’re saying this because you want me to stay away from him.’

‘Yes, I do want you to stay away from him. In fact, that might be a little condition of mine, while we’re playing this game.’

‘How do you know it was Ted?’

‘She told me. I’d say the child had a look of him, but she really doesn’t. She’s the living image of my sister at that age. All the same, I could very easily have denied paternity and walked away. I didn’t. I think you should like me for it.’

‘I suppose you could have been worse.’

The fish was too fresh and the accompaniments seemed slimy. Edie had no appetite for the food, imagining her stomach round and balloon-like, like Susie’s must have been. Imagine if he did get her pregnant. What on earth would she do then?

‘Well,’ she said decisively. ‘Susie Leonard might have wanted your baby but I categorically and absolutely do not. So please see to it.’

‘If you were a real parlourmaid you’d jump at the chance to get your own cottage and a steady income instead of living that life. You’re here for a holiday of sorts, I think. Or perhaps you’re running away from something? Oh, yes, that’s it, isn’t it? You’re escaping. Unlucky Edie, to run straight into my arms. Poor unfortunate damsel.’

He was enjoying his speculations, nibbling at the last crust of bread after mopping up the remaining sauce.

‘Nothing of the sort,’ she said. She was aware of sweat gathering at the back of her neck. The day was too hot and the table lacked a parasol. ‘I think I should like some shade. Could we go and sit over there, underneath that tree?’

‘Of course. Have you finished?’ He looked doubtfully at her plate. ‘I always thought you maids ate like horses. You’re going to need to do better than that, my girl, once I’ve got you in my clutches. I want you in peak condition.’

‘Oh, stop it,’ she muttered, hotter still at the thought of what he had in mind for her.

He called for ices to be brought to the little bench beneath the weeping willow and sat down beside Edie, taking her hand in his as they gazed at the water. Just watching it flow onwards had a refreshing effect, and the ices fought off the worst of the discomfort, cooling Edie down to a bearable level.

‘Any more conditions?’ he asked lightly.

A swan glided past. How incongruous this was.

‘I don’t think so,’ she said. ‘Just … if you could try and be … nice … about it.’

He seemed to melt at that, his face almost sad.

‘What you must think of me,’ he said. ‘I am a terrible man. I know it. I can’t help it. But I won’t be terrible to you, Edie Prior. I couldn’t be terrible to you.’

It would be all lies, of course, and she should not feel reassured, but she did. He might be a rake and a wastrel and all sorts of other awful things, but at his core she felt he was a man of his word.

‘I hope so,’ she said.

‘And now, here are my conditions for you,’ he said, brightening. ‘You will eat three square meals a day. You will not work so hard that you fall asleep the minute you come off duty. You will avoid Ted Whatsisname. And you will enjoy yourself when you’re with me. Do you think you can do that?’

‘I don’t know,’ she said truthfully. How could she avoid Ted? And what if sex turned out to be dreadful?

‘Promise me you’ll try.’

‘I promise.’

‘Right. Good. Have you finished that ice? Come on then. I’m taking you out on the river.’

Edie always remembered that afternoon as if it were accompanied by music, perhaps Delius’s
Summer Night on the River
, which she had heard conducted by Thomas Beecham. Its idyllic, impressionistic quality suited that lazy, warm afternoon, floating with this man, soon to be her lover. Her thoughts, all bunched up and tense, dissolved under the sun’s power and she became a creature of sensation. Her clothes clung to her and she felt heavy and hot between her legs and wonderfully light-headed. When the skiff found a bend of the river that was deserted, Charles would let the boat drift while they kissed, endlessly and with a languor that protected them from extremes of passion. Besides, they would capsize the boat.

Love and sex might be wonderful after all. If it felt this way, she could scarcely blame the maids for losing their heads and hearts.

But how would she keep from losing hers?

‘I’d better drop you off here,’ said Charles, slowing down as the car approached the entrance to Deverell Hall. He drove a little way past the gatehouse, although the estate manager must surely still be at the shoot, before stopping around the first bend of the driveway.

Edie wondered how one ended an afternoon like this. Should she just get out of the car and go? Or …?

Charles stubbed his cigarette out in the dashboard ashtray and reached for her.

‘Desperate to get away from me, eh?’

‘No, just … you know. Nervous.’

She looked up the road as if expecting company.

‘It’s all right. Everyone’s busy. But you’re sensible to think about it. We have to make sure nobody suspects, or you’ll be out on your ear.’

‘Perhaps, after all, it’s too risky.’

‘It’s risky, but worth the risk. I think it is, anyway. As for you, that’s between your strange desire to protect Ruby Redford and your own conscience.’

There’s more to it than that.

‘I don’t see when we’ll get the chance.’

‘Oh, we will. I can’t say when. But I’ll let you know when the time comes.’

‘Will you?’

‘Yes. Wait for me. You will wait for me, won’t you?’

His fingers were on her cheek, and he looked so serious, or as close as he came to it, that her heart contracted.

‘You sound as if you’re going off to war,’ she said.

He shut his eyes at that, then, when he opened them, leant in to kiss her.

‘Go, before I have to take you here in this car,’ he said, with a rasp.

Edie opened the car door abruptly and began to march along the path, not waving at Charles when he drove slowly by, his eye upon her.