LITMIR.BIZ

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don’t think it’s the kind of book you would describe to your sister,’ Tony said, inaudibly.

      ‘Shall we go and join him?’

      ‘You found each other,’ Richard greeted them. ‘Nobody has found me, as you can see. I have consoled myself with champagne, and with imagining edifices of elaborate insults to every dowager who has strutted past the table. Sit down and keep me company.’

      ‘Are you drunk?’

      ‘A little. Just a very little.’

      Tony brought them plates of cold lobster and quivering aspic, and the first tender asparagus tips from Chance.

      ‘Tony is going to take me to a political meeting in a couple of weeks, and to the party afterwards,’ Amy remarked conversationally as they ate.

      Richard glanced sharply from one to the other, and then his eyelids drooped again.

      ‘Is he? How nice. And how nice that you have suddenly developed a political awareness, Amy. I’m sure you’ll fit in amongst the comrades with glove-like ease.’ There was a small, awkward silence. Richard smiled innocently. ‘What have I said? Well now, have we enjoyed the wedding? The tyrants have put on a creditable show, I must say. Look at it all.’ He waved at the long table with chefs in tall white toques behind it, the supper tables crowded with guests, and the endless procession of couples between supper and the ballroom where the music was growing steadily more insistent. ‘Your turn next, Amy, as they say. Have you danced with a dozen officers?’

      ‘Not one, this evening,’ she answered, determined not to let Richard prickle her in front of Tony. She had seen him in this mood once or twice before. ‘I was hoping Tony might ask me.’

      Richard snorted over his glass. ‘Tony doesn’t dance. At least, only in louche clubs where you would be very unlikely to encounter him. There’s a much more likely candidate on his way over here. I’m sure he’ll foxtrot you off your feet.’

      Amy looked. Johnny Guild was bustling across the room. He was a captain in a very smart regiment, the same one that Peter Jaspert had once belonged to. Johnny Guild had been part of the guard of honour at St Margaret’s. He was in dress uniform tonight, very tight black trousers with a broad cherry-red stripe down the sides, and a cherry-coloured coat frogged with gold.

      ‘He looks,’ Richard murmured, ‘as if he’s just walked out of an operetta. D’you think he’s going to sing something in a light but agreeable tenor?’

      Amy bit the corners of her mouth, hard. Johnny Guild was the most persistent and most harmless of her admirers.

      ‘Here you are. I’ve searched high and low. Amy, I was hoping you might have a dance or two left for me. ‘Evening, Lovell.’

      Amy looked at Richard and Tony in the hope of rescue, but they stood up politely, clearly expecting her to go. She let Johnny take her arm.

      ‘I’ll telephone you in a few days, if I may,’ Tony said, ‘about that arrangement we made.’

      Johnny led her away to the ballroom.

      It seemed to be full of pink faces looming over white ties, tulle skirts that were beginning to droop along with the corsages, and the determined bray of voices against the dance music. Johnny took her in his arms. His hand against her bare skin felt moist and warm.

      It was all depressingly familiar.

      ‘Who was that with your brother?’

      Amy considered the possible responses, but in the end she simply said, ‘He used to be my brother’s tutor, years ago.’

      ‘Oh. Well.’ Nobody at all, she silently supplied for him.

      When at last Johnny led her back to the supper room, the far table was empty. Tony and Richard were gone.

      In the bathroom of the odd, florid hotel between London and the South Coast that Peter had chosen for their first night together, Isabel wrapped the heavy satin robe around her and tied it carefully. She had brushed her hair until it crackled, dabbed herself with scent, and hung her honey-coloured suit up herself in the fake Empire cupboard. Her maid would rejoin them at Dover tomorrow, before they sailed.

      Peter was waiting for her. She had heard the creak of his heavy tread as he moved around the bedroom, but now there was silence.

      She breathed in slowly and deeply, trying to ease the hammering of her heart, and walked through into the bedroom.

      Peter was already in the wide bed. He had drunk a bottle of wine over their late dinner, and two brandies afterwards. His face looked red against the pillows.

      ‘I thought you were never going to come,’ he whispered. He held up the covers, beckoning her in beside him. Isabel hesitated. She couldn’t get into bed in her robe, but was he expecting her to take it off?

      ‘Shall I turn out the lights?’ she asked.

      ‘No. I want to look at you.’ Peter’s voice was hoarse.

      Obediently Isabel unwrapped the robe again, slipped it off and laid it across the foot of the bed. Her silk nightdress, made for her in exactly the same shade, was cut on the bias so it clung to her, with a translucent lace inset from the mock-demure high neck to the top of her breasts. Peter didn’t even glance at it. ‘Come here,’ he said. ‘Get into bed.’

      Isabel did as she was told, sliding under the covers and then lying still, trying to make her stiff body relax. Peter’s large hands reached out and moved over her, groping for an opening in the folds of silk.

      ‘Take this thing off,’ he begged. Isabel sat up again and reached up to undo the tiny pearl buttons. She lifted the nightdress off over her head. Peter groaned, a long Uhhhhn sound that frightened her, making her think that he was ill. But he slid across the bed to her, and put his mouth on her breast. He began biting and gnawing at it, the blond stubble on his chin tearing at her skin. Isabel drew in her breath sharply with shock and disgust, and Peter lifted his head.

      ‘Like that, do you? That’s good.’

      He pushed her backwards so that she was lying flat, and then hung over her. He was naked, and the heat of his heavy, hairy body shocked her again. Peter kissed her, rubbing all over her lips with his mouth and tongue, making little grunting noises under his breath. Isabel’s mouth felt frozen, with a choking sensation at the back of her throat as if she might vomit. This was nothing like the times Peter had kissed her before, gently, so that she had wanted to kiss him back and answer his tongue with her own. He had even touched her breasts before, reverently, with the tips of his fingers. Now he was kneading her as if she belonged to him.

      You do belong to him, a cold voice reminded her. You are this man’s lawful wedded wife.

      This bristly, panting creature with a sweating, screwed-up face was her handsome, confident husband.

      Now Peter moved his hand down between her legs, parting them with his fist. His fingers probed at her, and then he groaned again.

      ‘Sorry. Can’t hold on,’ he whispered. His breath burned her ear. He heaved himself on top of her. Something bumped and then stabbed, bluntly. Isabel clenched her teeth to stop herself screaming. There was a jolt of pain and then her husband buried himself inside her. He began to rock up and down, tearing at her inside, and moaning in his throat. Isabel tried not to listen or to feel. She tried to retreat into some cold, white, locked place inside her head.

      ‘Oh God!’ Peter shouted, and then came a roar, so pain-filled that her arms tightened protectively around him. He jerked involuntarily, his face distorted and drops of his sweat falling on her face.

      At last the jerking stopped and his full weight sank on top of her, the roar dropping away into a sob.

      Isabel stroked his damp shoulders, staring up past him at the curlicued wallpaper on the ceiling. If it wasn’t so horrible, she thought, it would be funny. It was so absurd. And it was pathetic, and hardly human.

      Peter

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