I'll Get By (30 page)

‘Enough now.’ He pushed her on to her back, joined her on the bed and looked down at her.

‘I’ve got the jitters, and I keep thinking things I shouldn’t so I want to laugh.’

‘Laugh if you want. Sex should be fun, and you’ll be serious when the time’s right. You have lovely, firm, jutting breasts.’

The admiration made them jut even more and her nipples pushed against the skin. Inclining his head, he licked each tip into a frenzy. She shuddered and he smiled and kissed her, his tongue probing the depths of her mouth, so when he walked his fingers down her body she didn’t really take much notice until he slipped his finger inside her already sensitized cleft.

She tensed for a moment, and then decided she liked what was going on there. Nick seemed to know how to go about pleasuring her. ‘Oh!’ His soft caress made her melt and she opened to him, hot and pulsing. She closed her eyes surrendering to him without restraint. Her hands wandered his body, over his firm and powerful buttocks, and her pelvis lifted to the touch of his hands and his tongue. Little moaning sounds were coming from her own mouth and his breath was harsh against her ear as she lifted against him, entreating him.

He’d been right, and her concentration had slipped to what was happening right now.

He stopped for a moment, finding a moment to slip on the rubber, and then he rolled over her and gazed into her eyes. His were as dark as storm clouds as they looked into hers.

Centred between her thighs, the touch of his hand was seductive in its caress, inciting her body into something eager and demented as it responded to him. She gave a shuddering little groan . . . another . . . several, until she could barely control what she felt. Only then did he invade into her warm wetness, lifting her thigh with an arm under her knee and pushing into her. She gave a small yelp when something gave. He paused for a moment. ‘All right?’

‘Yes . . . don’t stop.’

But it was just the beginning. She abandoned herself to Nick’s touch as he stroked into her, again and again. Aware of the power of him, and that was being restrained, she could barely breathe. When she did take a breath she inhaled a warm, feral musk that acted like an aphrodisiac, so her skin prickled and the sensitive surface of her breasts, and her vagina, previously untouched-by-mankind, were in a hot fermenting turmoil that nearly had her jumping off the bed to be satisfied – as if she could leap up from her supine position and impale herself on her lover upside down.

He prolonged the pleasure for a short time before he lost his control, then he came faster and faster. She clung to him, her pelvis lifting to his assault, her legs around his waist, keeping him anchored to her. She shuddered over the edge a moment before he did, the squeak of the bed making rusty protestations in the background. Wrapped as they were in each other’s arms, Meggie barely heard it and enjoyed every moment of their togetherness.

After Nick got his breath back and they’d disentangled themselves he shifted his weight to one side, and then moved a strand of her hair from her eyes. ‘Well?’

She grinned, out of breath and wondering why he needed reassurance on such a splendid exercise. ‘A wonderfully immoral rampage, my good man.’

He ran a finger along the curve of her mouth. ‘That was the basic model of debauchery. There are variations to explore and we have all day and all night to do it in. Let’s take a bath before lunch.’

‘What a wonderful idea.’ She’d fill the bath to the brim, and there were some scented bath salts that made the water soft and a small amount of bubble bath in a bottle that her aunt had left behind.

A problem raised itself. Lunch! He’d be staying for dinner and breakfast as well. Her mind journeyed into the larder with its almost bare shelves. Apart from bottled rhubarb and apples from home, ‘I have two sausages –’ she grinned, not missing the symbolic nature of the sacrifice – ‘so I can manage a toad-in-the-hole and some tinned peas.’

He shuddered. ‘I’ve got no intention of eating your rations. My man, William, will deliver a hamper at noon that should take us through the weekend. There might even be some chocolate in it. Tell me something.’

‘What?’

‘Anything . . . the first thing that comes into your head on the count of three. One, two, thre—’

She flung out at him, ‘I . . . I love you, and it’s nothing to do with what’s just happened.’

‘Ah, Meggie, I hoped you’d say that, because I adore you.’ When his smile slowly came she knew she’d die if she never saw him again.

The warm glow she was feeling vanished when it hit her. He was going off on one of his operations, and now she knew his job was dangerous she’d worry all the time he was away in case he never came back. Sliding her arms around him she held him tight and bit her tongue, so the words couldn’t escape.

In the back of her mind she wondered if Nick had found something out about Leo. She was dying to ask him. After all, she’d just paid the penalty Nick had demanded of her, even though it had been a pleasure rather than a payment. But no, it was too soon.

She daren’t press him. He’d already said he’d cancel whatever he had in mind, if she did mention it, because his own life would be placed in jeopardy. She believed him.

‘I need to go to the bathroom,’ he said a few minutes, later, and was gone.

A few seconds later came the sound of the bath water running.

Pulling on her dressing gown Meggie gazed at herself in the mirror. Apart from pink cheeks and messy hair and a feeling of smug gratification supplied by the former exercise, she looked exactly the same as she had before.

He came up behind her, and sliding his arms around her, nibbled the junction of her neck. She shivered.

Lunch came in a hamper, driven to the house by a man of nearly middle years on a motorbike and sidecar. Apart from that there were a couple of boxes carried in, containing enough to see them through the weekend, and more beside.

For lunch there was a flask of home-made cream-of-celery soup, salad, and cold chicken breast. The rolls were crispy, the middles still slightly warm and doughy from the oven, so the butter melted into its surroundings.

‘I haven’t tasted real butter for ages.’

‘The dairy staff make it and my father sends me up a pot every so often. He believes in me eating well.’

‘What’s your father like?’

‘To look at the earl is handsome, and he’s well-mannered and quiet. As a person . . . he’s proud of his lineage, manages his estate competently and is a little bit self-satisfied. As a father, he was – and still is – a bit remote. He was a better father to me than I was a son to him. I think. There was a period where I ran a bit wild, and he got me out of a couple of scrapes. Sometimes I wish I’d been a better son to him.’

‘Do you love him?’

Nick appeared to ponder the question, and then he smiled. ‘D’you know, Meggie, I’ve never really thought about it. He isn’t a demonstrative man, but yes I imagine I do. Father and sons don’t usually put on a public display of affection, or a private one either, come to that. He’s always treated me like an equal rather than his son.’

‘And your mother?’

‘She ran off with another man, then my father came to the school one day and told me she’d died. I was in the middle of exams.’

‘Did you miss her?’

He shrugged. ‘All I can really remember of her is that she wore red lipstick and told me she loved me. I was upset, and I turned my back on her.’

‘That must have hurt her.’

‘Yes it would have, but no more than it hurt me. When you’re a child you don’t think of such things. She left me a villa that overlooks the sea in France and my boat,
Petite Cochinelle
. My father kept the yacht in a boatyard where she was maintained; then he taught me how to sail her when I was old enough. We used to go out in her during the school holidays. A German general is living in the villa now.’

She was curious. ‘How do you know about him?’

The smile he gave was wry. ‘I’d forgotten how quick-minded you are. It doesn’t matter how.’

‘I never met my father. Richard Sinclair Sangster died before I was born.’

‘I know everything there is to know about you Meggie.’

‘Including all my names.’

‘I have a good memory. I didn’t think you’d notice my slip over your nickname and hunt me down though. It’s best to let sleeping dogs lie.’

‘There’s something you probably don’t know. I suspect that my grandfather was my real father. That’s what he told me. My mother said he assaulted her, and Major Sangster told me the same thing just before he died.’

‘I know that too. Does it worry you?’

‘To be honest, I’d rather have not known. It used to bother me, but not any longer. Richard Sinclair Sangster is on my birth certificate as my father. Denton Elliot adopted me and brought me up though. He was the best of fathers. He and Richard had been friends since childhood, and he gave him an identity for me. I just wanted you to know about the major. You’re good at keeping secrets.’

He smiled a little at that, seeing right through her. ‘Let’s not talk shop. Have you had enough to eat?’

‘I’m bulging at the seams.’

‘So am I. Another glass of wine?’

‘I’ve had two already, and it’s made me feel sleepy.’

‘Then we’ll go and have a rest so you can relax.’

‘How very transparent of you.’ He grinned when she laughed.

She got very little sleep in the next twelve hours. The siren went off during that time. The planes thundered overhead, the bombs came down like rain and they ignored the noise and the danger.

Meggie woke in the pale promise of dawn, the all clear sounding in her head. Nick was nowhere to be seen, though she’d felt his kiss warm against her mouth a little earlier. She called out to him, but with no result, and went looking. The remains of their dinner littered the kitchen table . . . the crystal wine glasses and linen napkins with his family crest.

‘Oh, Nick,’ she whispered. ‘You forgot to say goodbye.’ But she remembered the kiss and knew he’d forgotten on purpose. She could still smell the spicy odour of his body on her and could almost taste his delicious flesh on her tongue. Her skin was still in a glorious tingle from his kisses, and although she ached in odd places, had a small bruise on her breast and was a little bit sore, she wasn’t even a tiny bit sorry.

She quickly washed and dressed and headed out towards the river, to where
Petite Cochinelle
was usually moored.

A patchy fog was reinforced by stinking smoke; gathered from burning buildings that had once sheltered the families who lived, loved and worked there. The moist particles roughened her throat and made her cough, so she was forced to press a handkerchief against her nose.

Poor London, she thought, skirting the night’s smoking cinders of dwellings as much as she could. Her heart went out to the newly homeless.

There was a defiant stoicism about people now, a sense of endurance that brought them together. They stood in small groups, holding treasures they’d dug from the ruins of their castles to take with them – a child with a doll, a woman with a picture of her wedding day and a man with his best suit. In case he needed to be buried, perhaps. A canary in a cage whistled in the dawn from on top of a pile of rubble.

Those without someone to own them waited like lost dogs to be told where to go, some making jokes about their predicament, because not to do so would make them feel like cowards.

The wardens busily herded them like a flock of sheep, joking, ‘Off you go to the church, you lot . . . you can get a cup of tea there and it will only cost you a prayer,’ and to Meggie as she tried to slip past. ‘Oiy . . . you can’t go down that road, miss. There’s a UXB. We’re waiting for bomb disposal to come along and disarm it.’

She reached the river only to find the nothing she’d expected. Even so the sight of the empty berth was disappointing. A thin mist writhed from the surface of the Thames and barges butted busily through the chilly grey water, appearing out of the mist to scuttle across her available landscape and disappear back into the mist again. There was a scrap of white paper impaled on a grey splinter. It was attached to a weathered post supporting a faded red and white life preserver.

I’ll always love you. Remember that
, it said.

Fear stabbed at her. ‘Sail in safety
Little Ladybug,
’ she whispered, folding the precious little scrap into her purse.

When she arrived back home she cleared away the dishes and unpacked the two boxes. It was a veritable feast, and she felt guilty as she packed it neatly in the larder. There was a bar of chocolate, and a small velvet box tied together with a green velvet ribbon.’

‘
Diamonds and emeralds,’
he’d said.

Her answer to that? ‘No, not good enough, Nick. Chocolate . . . perhaps?’

He’d given her both. There was a piece of paper inside the box, folded up small.
Would you consent to becoming The Right Dishonourable, The Viscountess Cowan?

‘The dishonourable Lady Cowan,’ she said, and laughed, because it sounded like the title of a rather lurid novel. She rarely remembered that Nick was a Lord now, even in the office. Her brothers would tease her unmercifully when they found out.

It was a beautiful ring; a clear white diamond flanked by two emeralds, and in a setting set of white gold.

She thought of the career she’d wanted so desperately to pursue. Her values had shifted. It took years to become a lawyer. It didn’t seem so important to her since her thoughts had turned to having her own business, which was much more appealing. At least she wouldn’t have to take orders from anyone else. If she married Nick her career path would be as his wife – if they both survived the war.

She’d probably be called on to open village fêtes and judge baby shows or measure the circumference of pumpkins on the biggest vegetable stall.

Lord . . . she’d probably have to wear a hat. Placing a table napkin on her head she smiled graciously at her reflection in the mirror and then closed her eyes and whispered, ‘Good morning, Lady Cowan.’

The ring was pure and honest, a promise from Nick to her. The rest didn’t matter. All her plans were swept aside in the face of this overwhelming declaration of love from the most complicated of men.