When the Siren Calls (29 page)

They wandered around the field and then set course for the embankment as Roy struggled to contain his delight. “Things are never going to be the same for me again at this school, Lucy,” he told her, his voice low and excited. “I don’t think I will have any more trouble getting an appointment with the headmaster, not if he thinks you might be joining me.”

“You are such a sweetie,” said Lucy, putting her arm around his waist and pulling him closer as they ascended the slope towards Jay, who had just come into view. He was hovering near Rusty, looking right and left, his fingers tearing at his scalp.

Lucy and Roy strolled along with all the care of lovers on a riverbank and came to a halt half a dozen paces in front of the area that Rusty had meticulously staked out as the private space for her party. The two were standing directly in front of the semi-circle of chairs ostentatiously occupied by Rusty and her friends and blocking their view of the track. It could surely only be moments before the uppity Texan rose to assert her territorial rights.

Lucy bent forwards to whisper into Roy’s ear, her skirt rising to reveal the curved lines of her derriere. “If you feel the need to touch my arse, babe, that is perfectly ok,” she said, her breath hot and inviting in his ear. “I think you will find it a lot more solid than Helen’s. And we don’t want to disappoint the audience behind us, do we?”

Roy’s hand tentatively brushed the curve of Lucy’s back as she willed it lower; to her delight he continued downward, seeming to want to savour every inch of the journey until it came to rest on a cheek as round and firm as an oversized snooker ball. “Now squeeze!” she mouthed, as Jay, his armpits drenched with the cold sweat of fear and sounding considerably more high-pitched than normal, broke the stunned silence behind them with a frantic announcement.

“I’m going for ice creams. Anyone want ice creams? Rusty, can I get you anything from the ice cream van?”

“We have chocolate ices in the cool box, honey,” came the reply in a lazy Dixieland drawl. Lucy was desperate to turn around and at long last match a face to the voice that left such formal and unemotional answer phone messages but she resisted — she was causing just enough trouble already.

“Well, I fancy an ice cream,” said Jay’s voice again, “and I think the boys do too. You coming, Rusty?”

“You go ahead, honey, the next race is about to start.”

While Jay was distracting Rusty, Lucy turned and glanced towards him. She felt that she saw a plea for mercy in his eyes and held his look for the briefest of moments before gently pulling at Roy’s arm and starting to move away. Rusty’s two boys were making a dash for the ice cream van and she very deliberately walked between them and Jay, daring him to follow her with the hypnotising sway of her hips. She thought she heard the word “slut” being exclaimed with a harsh Texan twang and turned round to return the compliment. But Jay’s face was pale as a shroud, so full of panic and despair that compassion dissuaded her, and she returned to her previous path — faster and more purposefully than before. She promenaded along the top of the embankment, the slight breeze pushing her blouse into her flesh and revealing the outline of her breasts, turning every head that she walked past. She joined the queue for the ice cream van and gently tapped the shoulders of the twin boys in front of her. As they gazed up at her she turned her head slightly, just enough to see Rusty rise angrily from her seat and Jay start forward in alarm, his phone to his ear. She surprised herself with her own composure, and playfully patted one of the boys on the head before proceeding to pay for their ice creams, bending over to bestow them to willing hands as she created an almost pornographic silhouette against the deep blue sky, her phone vibrating in her hand.

Lucy was at the school gate working her tongue around the last of an ice cream cone when the Range Rover with the personal number plate and blacked out windows screeched to a halt beside her. The passenger door opened and she climbed up onto the running board and pulled herself in as the powerful machine accelerated away, forcing the door to slam shut dangerously close to her ankle. She glanced across at Jay and saw a man fighting a battle with himself, breathing deeply, his mouth a hard, thin line that clamped the air like a vice. He pulled into the first side road and slammed on the brakes.

“Lucy, great as it is to see you,” he said, measuring his words, “why the hell are you here?”

“To see you, of course,” she replied with a wide smile, reciting her lines like an actress.

“Well, here I am,” he said, his eyes boring into her until she had no choice but to close her cupid’s lips over her dazzling white teeth.

“I haven’t heard from you for over a week,” she said, her tone now sharp and unforgiving, her fingers lightly on the door handle in silent threat.

“And you haven’t called me for over a week,” he replied by way of apology, lowering his gaze in submission.

“I called you a few hours after you last stuck your cock in my mouth,” she said, ignoring his humility, “you were going to call me back, about the wedding, remember? It’s only a week away now. So I’ve come here to make sure that you are still coming.” It was a wellrehearsed summing up of the situation, an ultimatum that threatened all-out war should it be spurned.

“For Christ’s sake, Lucy, of course I am still coming. What do you take me for? I said I was coming and I am coming. I’ve already bought the flight tickets.”

She widened her eyes in shock and lowered her voice yet further. “So why haven’t I heard anything from you?”

“Because I am dealing with a major crisis over in Tuscany right now,” he said in exasperation, “and you know I never want to bother you with my business problems. But I have hardly had a minute to draw breath this last week. That’s all.”

She faltered and played with her fingers, everything she’d imagined assaulted and cowed by the truth. “So, so, you weren’t just ignoring me, hoping that I would get someone else to take me to the wedding?”

He reached out for her hands. “Lucy, that is the last thing in the world I would want. I’m looking forward to the wedding. It will be a great weekend. I’ve even bought a new suit for the occasion.”

“And you’ve already bought the flight tickets?” she asked, it all seeming too good to be true.

“Yes, I have, we are flying from Gatwick on Friday. I thought maybe we could meet up in London Thursday night. You always said you wanted to stay at the Savoy, so I have booked us a nice room there. It’s a suite overlooking the Thames.” He lowered his head and looked down at his lap, saying quietly, “But it was all meant to be a surprise.”

The anger and fight was seeping out of Lucy and she glanced upwards, her heavily made up eyes brimming with tears. This all seemed so unlikely but she could not argue with cold, hard facts. He was telling the truth and she had done a terrible thing in doubting him, perhaps ruining everything forever.

He glanced at her tears and gave her thigh a squeeze. “Lucy,” he said, his eyes full of compassion, “I need to get back. Rusty thinks I just popped out to get more bubbly. Can I drop you somewhere? The railway station?”

“Roy is expecting me back. I said I was just going to powder my nose.”

He gave a hollow laugh. “You can’t go back to the school. You’ve damn near caused a riot already. You came here to see me and sort things out and you’ve done that now.”

“And you won’t change your mind about Tuscany?”

“It’s all arranged, Lucy. I promise you.”

“And when we are in Tuscany, I want to talk about you and me, and our future together. I want us to talk about everything. I’m not going to put up with things going back to the way they were before. I am not getting any younger, and I do want to have children.” She looked Jay directly in the eye. “Our children.”

His facial expression stayed fixed and unreadable. “I understand all that, I absolutely do. And just because of Rusty and the boys doesn’t mean I don’t have similar thoughts. About you and me and everything.” He took her hand. “I only want what’s best for you. Up to now the time hasn’t seemed right to talk about the future. But I was thinking that next weekend could be the right time. But right now I need to get back, or there might not be any next weekend.”

Lucy smiled with a mixture of relief and guilt, leaning across and putting her arms around his neck and holding him tightly, like a lost child reunited with its mother.

“I’m sorry, Jay, I didn’t mean to doubt you. It’s just that I haven’t known what to think these last few weeks. I was feeling almost like you didn’t want me around. And then this last week, with you not calling or anything. I couldn’t bear the thought of not seeing you anymore. Please don’t think badly of me. I didn’t want to cause you any trouble. I would never have spoken to Rusty today, you know that. It was just that I had these horrible feelings and I so needed to see you.” Her voice was pleading, her head buried into his neck in supplication, her hand grabbing at his crotch in a desperate reminder of her value to him.

“Let me drop you at the station,” he suggested again. “I will call you when you are on the train.”

Lucy took a deep intake of breath in an effort to compose herself. “Not straight away. I have come all this way. Please. Can we go somewhere quiet for a while?”

She embraced him again, her hand now playing with the waistband of his trousers.

“I do need to get back,” he repeated, but this time with less certainty.

“Only for a little while,” she said, squeezing him gently and pressing her breasts into his solid chest whilst fumbling with his zipper. Her hand found its quarry. “I’m not letting you go back to Rusty with that.”Thirty-four

Isobel’s thoughts went back to the previous day, how she and Jay ran through the great broad streets and winding alleys of Siena, skipping over the cobblestones like the wind itself, squealing and laughing, going so fast it seemed as if they would never fall, would never stop. They had arrived for dinner panting and wheezing as they fell against the vine-clad wall, rapidly breathing in each other with the air.

Her stomach squirmed with pleasure at the memory, at Jay’s wonderful abandon, at his free-spirit that contrasted so terribly with Peter’s slow and upright life, so bound by rules and convention.

It was nearly seven and impatience ate away at Isobel like a monster, as she lay luxuriating in the middle of the vast white bed. Jay should have finished at six but was still at the office; he had been there since nine and she could not understand, nor bear, the length of his absence, which seemed so unnecessary if Castello di Capadelli was the smooth running engine he assured her it was.

She pushed her naked limbs into the folds of the sheets, feeling clean and new in the whiteness. She flipped over in restlessness and pressed her face in the pillow and imagined herself blindfolded, his hands running up her smooth, lean thighs. She cast her eyes to the ceiling, quivering in excitement, and buried her face deeper into the fabric, brilliantly and awfully aware of an aching within her, a deep, physical yearning, as she imagined it was Jay’s hands and not her own that were exploring her.

Isobel leapt from the bed. She could not bear to wait for him a second longer and the urges that coursed through her veins were suddenly stronger than the need for discretion. She resolved to go to his office; ignoring all their plans and ruses of secrecy, she threw away safety for pleasure.

It was all she could do to stop her hands from shaking as she slid open the lowest drawer of the dresser, revealing a kaleidoscope selection of lingerie, almost entirely purchased in the last month; mesh, lace and silk piled like glimmering fish scales in the darkness of the mahogany.

She held a pair of sheer white stockings to the light and they hung like icicles in its glow. It was ten years since she had worn suspenders, an ill-fated fancy dress choice that had brought a gently disappointed reprimand from Peter, and months of teasing. She pulled them on now with pleasure, imagining Jay’s thumbs dragging them to her ankles, his teeth pulling at her, his body crushing her to the wall. A matching pair of skimpy briefs and transparent bra completed her ensemble. She could have been a bride in all her snowiness, and, as she pulled on a short white mackintosh that barely covered the top of her thighs, she imagined them married, Peter banished forever as a ghost of the insignificant past.

Even in Isobel’s fantasies, the outfit was not suitable for the street and she dropped the coat to the floor and pulled on a pencil skirt, throwing off the bra and pulling on a pale, silky blouse in its place. She turned and admired her own derriere, running her hands over it as Jay so often did, firm and full and round, and she smiled as she thought about how he was fascinated with it, always touching it and complimenting her on it. More than satisfied, she donned the Mac once more and headed for the courtyard, her head going lower as she reached open air, in sudden realisation of her foolishness.

She was forced to hide behind a barrel as Gina passed with a trio of guests, her heart beating against her chest in terrified excitement at the very idea of being seen. She almost sprinted up the stone stairs to Jay’s office as adrenaline propelled her forwards, each step revealing a strip of silk-clad flesh beneath her coat. The air electrified her skin and she threw open his door without knocking, streaming in like some pale, voluptuous demon.

A few seconds of silence followed as the two stood within touching distance in front of Jay’s desk. “I couldn’t wait,” Isobel said, by way of brazen invitation.