The Hidden Years (11 page)

As she watched him drive away from her she shivered again,
feeling more alone, more sharply aware of the precariousness of life,
more confused by her feelings than at any other time in her
life…

Back at the hostel there was her borrowed finery to be
returned. When questioned, she kept quiet about her date with Kit in
the morning. She still felt too bruised by her own stupidity, by the
way she had angered him and jeopardised their love to want to discuss
what had happened with anyone, so that when Rosie asked eagerly,
'Seeing him again, are you?' she made a non-committal reply, glad that
the fact that she had to hurry to get to work on time made it
impossible for them to question her too closely.

The evening shift was always a busy one, with the men to
be settled for the night, their medication to be given to them, the
wards to be cleaned and made ready for the morning.

Lizzie only saw Edward Danvers briefly as she passed
through his ward.

As she helped another aide with the blackout cloths, she
noticed how grey Edward's skin looked and guessed sympathetically that
he was in great pain. She wanted to go across to him and ask him if he
would like some extra medication, but already she knew how touchy his
pride was, how he hated any reference being made to the physical agony
he often had to endure.

She glanced uncertainly across the ward. The sister on
duty was a woman in her late fifties who had little time for the young
aides, and Lizzie knew there would be no point in her trying to have a
discreet word with her to solicit her help for Edward. She was the kind
of woman who genuinely believed that to endure pain was good for the
soul. All the junior nurses, and even some of the doctors, were in awe
of her. The aides detested her, mercilessly mimicking her and making
fun of her behind her back.

'A sexless old bag,' was how Lizzie had heard them
describe her. Sexless… She grimaced over the word, exploring
it apprehensively, her heartbeat quickening with anxiety. Surely
she
wasn't like that… surely
she
wasn't
that kind of woman? No, of course she wasn't…

Then why hadn't she been able to respond to Kit's
lovemaking…? Why had she felt so afraid, so tense?

Too young and far too inexperienced to know that the
answer lay both in her aunt's grim upbringing and Kit's lack of true
care for her, she was unaware of the danger of the destructive seeds
which Kit had so cruelly sown for her.

Eleven o'clock. Lizzie tensed as she heard the chimes from
the church clock. She had arrived at the summer-house over fifteen
minutes ago and now, as she waited for Kit to join her, her nervous
tension made her stomach ache and her thoughts fly helplessly in a
hundred different directions at once.

Before coming out she had scrupulously washed every inch
of her skin, wincing at the coldness of the water, and wishing that she
had something other than carbolic soap with which to scent it.

The weather had changed, clouds covering the sky, the wind
cold, promising rain for later, and today she was once more dressed in
her own clothes, or rather Lady Jeveson's. Perhaps they weren't as
flattering as Rosie's borrowed dress, but somehow she felt more
comfortable in them.

One thing she had done, though, and that was to discard
her bulky, unfeminine bra.

At first she had flushed with guilt, half glancing over
her shoulder almost as though she had expected Aunt Vi to materialise
behind her to chastise her for what she was doing, for her wanton
dress, her lack of morals.

There was a small bruise mark on her left breast where Kit
had bitten her, and her nipples still felt uncomfortably tender, and
yet last night, lying alone in her narrow, cold bed, when she had
closed her eyes and daringly allowed herself to remember the later,
more gentle touch of Kit's hands and mouth against her breasts, the
tiny thrill of sensation in her stomach had made her tremble with mixed
excitement and relief.

Everything was going to be all right, she was sure of it.
Today she would be able to show Kit how much she loved him.
Today…she took a deep breath…today she would do
whatever he asked of her, if only to prove to him that she had not been
lying when she had claimed to love him.

And yet she still felt nervous, ill at ease…
vulnerable. She tensed as she heard someone coming down towards the
pool. What if it wasn't Kit? What if it was someone else, a stranger,
coming unwittingly to destroy their precious time together? But when
she looked through the broken window it was Kit's tall, lithe body she
saw striding towards her. Today he was dressed in his uniform and her
heart was caught up in a jolt of sharply piercing sensation, a mingling
of pride and dread as the reality of their situation swept in on her on
an unwanted tide, reinforcing her awareness of how precious their time
together was. Kit—who knew quite well how good he looked in
his uniform, how very male it made him seem, how very much the epitome
of all that an airman ought to be.

He paused as he walked towards her, recognising in her
expression her adoration and her fear. A feeling of power, of triumph
filled him.

'Come here,' he commanded softly as he walked towards the
summer-house and then paused on its threshold.

Uncertainly, tremulously, Lizzie did as he instructed,
and, as she felt his arms go round her, she lifted her face towards his
in blind supplication of his kiss and his forgiveness for her errors of
the previous day.

'That's better,' Kit told her approvingly, savouring the
soft tremble of her mouth. 'Much better.'

As he slid his tongue between her lips, he pulled her
closer to his body, reinforcing her awareness of his arousal, his hands
moving rapidly over her back and buttocks, his own body moving urgently
against hers as he sought to impress its sexual message, its need on
her still innocent flesh.

When his hand slid up to cover her breast and discovered
that beneath her dull sensible jumper she was naked, he told her
approvingly, 'Good girl,' and then whispered thickly in her ear, 'I
ought to reward you for being so thoughtful, oughtn't I? What would you
like, sweetheart—what would you like me to do?'

Her mind registered the thickening of his voice and sent
sharp warning signals darting through her body, so that when she
squirmed in his arms it was more with apprehension than excitement, but
Kit was in no mood to be patient with her. He had lain awake far too
long last night with his body aching and his temper on edge to waste
time this morning. He wanted her and he intended to have her.

Fighting against her apprehension, Lizzie reminded herself
that this was what she wanted; that only last night she had lain in bed
and thrilled to the memory of Kit caressing her breasts as he was doing
now, first with his hands, and then with his mouth, and yet she still
cried out with pain when he savaged their tender crests with his teeth,
wanting to beg him to stop, to protest that he was hurting her, but
afraid of doing so in case she angered him, in case it proved that
there
was
something wrong with her, that she
was
somehow lacking as a woman. There was nothing wrong with her, she told
herself despairingly, but the doubt persisted and grew, locking her
muscles, and making her feel tense and uncomfortable.

Kit undressed her quickly, roughly almost, she thought,
trying not to flinch when his hands almost bruised her sensitive skin,
closing her mind to the hesitant but instinctive knowledge that told
her that this was not the way it should be, that in some way she was
being cheated.

Dark, shadowy thoughts, doubts and fears chased one
another across her mind. By Aunt Vi's standards what she was doing was
totally unforgivable… wrong… Her own emotions, so
at war with her physical inhibitions, confused her. She shivered, and
Kit, sensing her withdrawal from him, cursed under his breath and
demanded abruptly, 'What is it, what's wrong?'

Lizzie looked nervously at him. He was frowning at her and
she shivered again, but her doubts, her fears couldn't be suppressed.

'I shouldn't be doing this,' she told him huskily, 'it
isn't right. I…'

Not bothering to hide his irritation, Kit took hold of
her. He was not having her back out on him now. He wanted her too much,
ached for her too much.

'It isn't wrong, sweetheart,' he insisted, kissing her.
'How can it be wrong when we love one another…when we have
so little time together? You do love me, don't you?' he demanded
caressingly.

'Yes… yes… I love you.' At least she
was sure about that.

'Then let
me
love
you
,
sweetheart. Let me have these memories of you to take with me when I'm
up there fighting for this country… for us…'

He had used the words so many times before that even to
his own ears they sounded like a meaningless repetition of emotions he
did not feel, but they were new to Lizzie, new and a frightening
reminder of the reality of the war… and as Kit saw the
thoughts and feelings reflected so clearly in her eyes he kissed her
again and whispered against her ear, 'Let me love you…let me
show you…' His voice thickened with excitement as he felt
the tremor of emotion go through her body, and, taking advantage of her
fear for him, he quickly removed the rest of her clothes.

No other human being had seen her completely naked since
she had been sent to live with Aunt Vi, and she blushed hotly as Kit
looked at her. Did he find her beautiful, desirable, or had she
disappointed him? She wasn't voluptuous with an hour-glass figure, but
small with a narrow waist and hips and slender legs. Would he, who was
so much bigger, so much heavier, so very different from her, find her
too thin, too unfeminine? She blushed again and made a small
embarrassed sound of protest in her throat as she tried to conceal
herself from him, but he wouldn't let her, laughing at her as he took
hold of her hands and held them behind her back.

She wasn't sure she liked being held like that; as
though… as though she were his prisoner and as though he
enjoyed holding her captive.

'There's nothing to be afraid of, old girl,' he told her
thickly as he watched her, and she couldn't find the words to tell him
that his careless scrutiny of her, his whole attitude towards her
somehow cheapened their love, cheapened her! She had better not try to
back out on him now, Kit thought resentfully. He watched her narrowly
as he touched her.

Lizzie tried not to tremble. Without yesterday's sun it
was cold in the summer-house, and she tried to tell herself that it was
for this reason that she felt so chilled, so nervous. She couldn't
possibly be nervous of Kit, could she? After all, she loved him and he
loved her. So why was she finding the movement of his hands against her
skin unnerving rather than arousing; why was her strongest emotion of
fear…fear of angering and irritating him?

She tensed a little as Kit pushed her down on to the
floor, her eyes wide with apprehension as he covered her body with the
heavy weight of his own.

As she watched him he leavered himself away from her,
fumbling with the waistband of his uniform trousers, but, instead of
removing them and along with them the rest of his clothes, he simply
unbuttoned them and then lowered his whole weight against her, pinning
her down on the dusty floor, pushing apart her legs.

She did her best to accommodate him as he positioned
himself between her thighs, confused by her own inability to
communicate to him her tension and afraid of revealing to him her lack
of desire.

The floor beneath her was hard and uncomfortable and she
flinched as he pushed fiercely into her body and then repeated the
jarring movement, cursing under his breath as he met with resistance.

'Relax, can't you?' he muttered as he held her down
beneath him.

Her body's resistance both excited and irritated him,
making him both want to drive hard against it, and impatient to be rid
of the barrier of her virginity. She was far too tense, far too on edge.

He told her as much, angry with her for spoiling his
pleasure, and when he thrust hard into her again Lizzie bit down on
her bottom lip, terrified of letting him see how uncomfortable she
was. She had heard, of course, that sometimes the first time it could
hurt, but she had never imagined it would be like this…
never imagined that her body would feel so tense and dry.

'You should have been a bloody nun,' Kit growled at her as
he finally forced his way past her tense muscles.

He wasn't even looking at her any more, Lizzie realised as
she winced beneath the cruelty of his words and the burden of knowing
that she
had
failed him, that she had failed
herself…that as a woman she was in some way lacking.

Although she knew that what was happening should be giving
her pleasure, instead she was filled with pain and confusion, both
physically and emotionally, so that the harsh sound of Kit's breathing,
the fierce movement of his body within her own, seemed distant and
apart from her. She was acutely conscious of them being not, as she had
imagined, one perfect whole brought together by the intimacy of their
lovemaking, but two very separate individuals.

The physical pain of his possession might have gone, but
she was left with a deeper and far more hurtful emotional pain, so that
when he finally collapsed on top of her, breathing erratically, she
felt no relief, no pleasure, nothing other than a deep welling coldness
and a searing sense of panic. She
had
disappointed him, failed him… she was not somehow a real
woman, a sexual woman.

She could see the condemnation in his eyes, feel it in the
way he refused to look at her as he moved away from her and kept his
back to her as he fastened his trousers.