A Lesson in Desire: Season of Desire Part 3 (Seasons Quartet) (6 page)

I don’t want anyone to know I’m here.

I told my father and sisters that I was going to stay with my friend Lola for a few nights at her place in St Moritz but my flight actually brought me here. No one, not even Jane-Elizabeth, knows where I really am. It was hard to persuade my father to let me go without a bodyguard but I needed to travel alone so I lied and told him that Lola was supplying both the helicopter flight and the security. He knows that she comes from a family almost as paranoid about security as ours, so that allayed his fears a little. I can only hope now that he doesn’t decide to check up on me. The truth is that I booked a company that I use all the time in the skiing season, when I flit from one resort to another for parties. The owners know me and no one seemed to think it odd that I didn't have anyone with me.

‘I know I suggested a change of scene,’ Dad said when I told him I was leaving. ‘But I was thinking of somewhere hot and very private, where we know you’ll be completely secure. An island. A private resort.’

‘Just a few days,’ I wheedled. ‘Lola and I are going to have a very quiet time, with massages and spa treatments. I need to relax after what happened.’

He considered it, and seemed happy with the idea that we’d be lying on massage tables being treated with face masks and oxygen therapies. ‘Okay, honey. You’re right, you need a good rest and Lola will look after you. But stay in touch, all right? And just a few days.’

‘Okay,’ I said, too happy to have won my freedom to show my irritation at the way my father was being more controlling than ever.

Of course he had no idea that I wasn’t going to be with Lola at all.

The driver has the address that I’m going to. I hope he knows the way because I have no idea where it is. He takes us on the road out of the main part of the village. The chalets we pass are picture perfect, like something from a story book with their carved shutters and balconies. Thick pine forests slope away from the road and as we climb higher, I get a strange frisson of sick fear remembering the last time I was in a car on a mountainside, even though today is nothing like that stormy, snowy morning. A short way out of the village, the driver takes a turning and then another and we are suddenly on level ground, following a curving driveway round until we see before us a beautiful chalet. It’s very traditional, the bottom storey in light stone, the top storeys in dark wood with bright red shutters at the windows and a wooden balcony that faces out towards the village that lies prettily below. The sloping roof is laden with at least a foot of pristine snow, and the place is ringed with pine trees at the sides and back.

The driver gets out and opens the car door for me. I climb out, blinking in the afternoon sun. This is a beautiful place, close to the village and yet completely isolated too. The driver takes out my suitcase.

‘Shall I carry it inside, madam?’ he asks.

‘No. Don’t worry. I’ll take it myself.’ I press a tip into his hand. He murmurs his thanks and gets back into the car. A moment later, he’s driving away and I’m left here alone in front of the chalet.

This is the place. Step one complete.

I pick up my bag and walk up to the front door. I’m jumpy with nerves and the tingling of a pleasant excitement as I ring the bell, but there’s no answer. After a few moments I try the door handle. It turns under my hand and the door opens. I step into a hallway.

I gaze around the room with its tiled floor, white walls and simple wooden benches. It’s completely empty. A staircase leads away in front of me to the next floor. I wonder if this is Miles’s home. ‘Hello?’

There’s no reply. Mystified, I head for the staircase and soon I emerge on the first floor to find myself in a large room with spectacular views over the mountains. The wooden floors are covered in rugs, and cosy armchairs and sofas piled with cushions are grouped around a fireplace where flames flicker over logs. Lamps glow on the side tables. Through an archway I can see a dining room and beyond that a kitchen. Another staircase leads upstairs. It’s beautiful but not the kind of place I’d imagined Miles to own.

‘Hello?’ I call again, but there is still no reply. I put down my case and walk through the room to the dining area where a carved wooden table is surrounded by chairs upholstered in red-and-white cushions. On the table is a note. I pick it up.

Winter

Make yourself at home. Prepare for your tutorial. It will start at four o’clock precisely.

I feel a lazy somersault of exhilaration turn in my stomach and wonder what Miles has in mind to teach me today. Four o’clock. I have less than an hour. I return to my bag, pick it up and go upstairs where I find the four bedrooms, each one with a beamed ceiling and furnished with comfortable-looking beds, antique chests and soft armchairs. The main one has a huge bed covered in a beautifully embroidered counterpane. Vast lamps sit on tables either side of it and it faces a fireplace with a stone surround. Before the hearth is a huge white fur rug. I shiver, unable to help imagining all the delicious things that Miles might do to me in this room.

I’ve been riding high on my excitement ever since yesterday morning when I received his text. It had been agonising saying goodbye to him in the silent corridors of the staff quarters.

‘Don’t worry about the security cameras,’ he’d murmured to me when we reached the elevator. He dropped a kiss on my cheek. ‘I’ll deal with them.’

‘What are you going to do? How will you get away from here?’

‘Don’t worry about that. I’ll sort it. Just wait for my message.’

With a final swift kiss, he’d ushered me into the elevator and I’d watched, racked with longing, as the doors closed on him. I hadn’t expected to sleep that night but I’d reckoned without the accumulated exhaustion of recent events and as soon as I climbed into bed, I fell into a deep sleep that lasted well into the next day. I spent that day and the next resting up, returning calls and messages and waiting fretfully for Miles to get in touch. I had no idea where he was. He might still be on the second floor for all I knew. He had my number, but I didn’t have his.

At breakfast on the third day, I gazed at my phone which was still stubbornly without messages from Miles. Flora had already eaten and there was no sign of Summer. I was wondering if I should take my handset to Jane-Elizabeth and ask her to check that my phone was working okay when Estella wafted in wearing a white silk robe, her hair tousled from bed.

I cast a quick look at her.
Oh, nice. Just to remind us all she’s been sleeping with our father.

‘Morning, Freya,’ she said, going to the sideboard to pour herself some coffee from the pot on the hot plate. ‘How are you?’

‘Fine, thanks,’ I said as briefly as I could without being too rude.

‘Recovered from your…
ordeal
?’ She gave a special emphasis to the last word that made me look up sharply.

‘Yes, thanks,’ I said, trying to sound casual. ‘It wasn’t so bad, you know. I was lucky.’

‘You certainly were,’ drawled Estella, coming to the table with her coffee cup in one hand. She sat down at an empty place and looked around impatiently. ‘Where’s the maid? I want my grapefruit salad.’

I tried to hide my irritation. It wasn’t so long ago that Estella was meek and eager to please, always rushing off to do our bidding. Now she was very much the lady of the house.
Let it go. You can’t do anything about it.
I ignored her last comment and drank my own coffee. Now that Estella was here, I wanted to be off as soon as possible.

She fixed me with a knowing look and said in her languid drawl, much less breathy than the voice she uses with my father: ‘So… tell me, just what was it like, being rescued from death by a hunky bodyguard like Miles Murray?’

A warm flush started to creep up my neck and I did all I could to halt it, breathing regularly and trying to keep calm. ‘He was extremely professional. As you’d expect.’

‘I don’t doubt it.’ She smirked. ‘And it can’t have been all bad, being trapped with him for two days. I mean… I'm sure he was very good company. And you must have found
some
way to occupy your time
.
’

I stared back at her and said nothing, but inside I felt sick. Of course Estella would think that way. It’s how her mind works. As long as she contented herself with making comments to me, and not confiding her suspicions to my father.

‘We managed,’ I said. ‘I was very scared a lot of the time.’

Her expression became sympathetic but it didn’t look all that sincere to me. ‘Yes. So traumatic. Lucky you had someone like Miles to help you through it.’

At that moment, the door opened and the maid came in.

‘My grapefruit salad! At last,’ said Estella but the maid came over to me, a parcel in her hands rather than a bowl of grapefruit.

‘This arrived for you, miss, by special courier.’ The maid put the parcel down beside me, a well-wrapped box hand-addressed in capital letters.

I looked at it with interest, wondering what it could be.

‘Aren’t you going to open it?’ asked Estella, her interest evidently piqued. ‘And bring my grapefruit!’ she called to the maid, who was on her way out.

‘Maybe,’ I said. I put one finger under the flap of gummed-down brown paper and began to lift it. At that moment my phone made the swishing sound that meant a text had arrived. I picked it up. The number was unknown. I pressed to open the message.

A parcel will arrive for you this morning. Don’t open it in public.

I almost gasped but managed to restrain myself. Slowly, hoping that I looked normal, I picked up my coffee cup again and drained it before saying, ‘Actually, I think I’ll open it upstairs.’

Estella shrugged but she looked disappointed.

Good. You can wonder.

I stood up, thankful that the text had arrived just in time, and headed up to my room with the parcel under one arm. It had to be from Miles. Sure enough, when I unwrapped it in the privacy of my bedroom, there was a box inside, wrapped in black crepe paper and tied with a black silk ribbon. Tucked under the ribbon was a note:
To be worn for your lesson.

Now, in the luxurious chalet bedroom, I take the box from my bag and place it on the bed. I texted Miles back when I’d opened it but there was no response for several hours and after that, just a short message giving me the address of this place and a time to be here.

So here I am. What now? Shall I just get ready for him?

I notice that a small table is placed by the hearth where a fire is laid ready to be lit, and on the table a paper scroll wrapped with a red ribbon has been tucked into a glass vase. I go over and take it out, pull the ribbon open and unroll the paper. On it is written in clear black handwriting:

Your lessons will consist of learning the four classical elements of our world:

Fire, water, earth and air.

Be ready for your tuition.

I read it twice, trying to understand. I know what each of these things is, so what can Miles teach me about them? And I was expecting something a little more…physical.

Trust him. I’m sure I’m going to enjoy the lesson.

I look at my watch. Still a little while to go before Miles arrives. I decide to have a shower and prepare for him. After I emerge wrapped in a towel and damp-haired from the shower, I go to the box on the bed and open it.

There is the costume that Miles wants me to wear for the lesson today.

My uniform.

I laugh. It’s nothing like a uniform or anything that plays to ideas of schoolgirl skirts and long socks. It’s more like something a goddess would wear. I lie it out carefully on the bed and look at it. A thrill of excitement turns in my belly and sends out tingling messages all over my skin. Only half an hour until my lesson begins. I’d better get ready.

Twenty minutes later, I’ve dried my hair into a wavy bob and made up my face, curling out my lashes with mascara, adding sparkle to my lids with a golden shimmer that makes my brown eyes look positively velvety, and painting my lips in a dark vampish red that somehow seems suitable for the goddess gown Miles has sent me. Now I’m ready to put on my costume.

I walk over naked to the bed, noticing a large cheval glass mirror facing it. I glimpse my own form as I approach the bed: my long body with its flowing curves, the full breasts and round bottom. My bruise is almost gone but I look at the traces with fondness: it's the proof of what happened to me, and what took place between Miles and me. I hope he'll run his fingers down it, perhaps trail his lips along its fading path and make the skin there burn and tingle under his touch. I’ve prepared for today, getting myself soft and smooth with lotions and scrubs and oils, and I hope that I look my best. Now it’s time to get dressed.

The first thing to put on are the knickers, a flimsy piece of pale gold shimmering mesh on silk ribbons that tie at each side of my hips. A rush of arousal goes through me as I slide them on and tie up the little ribbon at each side; it’s hard to not imagine Miles’s fingers undoing them. Now for the gown. There’s no bra to wear underneath. Instead, the pale gold silk tulle fastens in a halterneck and then falls in soft pleats over each breast, giving more than a hint of the rounded flesh and dark nipples below. It meets again in the middle of my stomach and joins the most interesting part of this dress, the pale gold leather belt with gold buckles at each side. The contrast of leather and metal with the delicate softness of the fragile material is striking. The tulle fastens to the belt at my waist and then drops in a long narrow waterfall of fabric to my feet, a sparkling drapery that just covers my knickers. At the back, a matching flow of material falls over my bottom to the floor. I put on the dress, working out as I go along how everything goes together. As I fasten the belt’s little gold buckles on each hip, I notice each has a golden ring hanging from it. My eyes fly to the box where my accessories await: a pair of high-heeled shoes and two gold leather buckled cuffs to wear on my wrist. They had looked purely decorative but now I see that they have tiny metal fasteners that can link them to each other. Or something else.