Even he, powerful swimmer that he was, might not be able to save himself from that cauldron of conflicting currents. The thought of his splendid body being lacerated by the rocks, and herself standing helplessly by, made her turn away, hating the place.
From there they went to Long Bay which had a reef close to the shore of a crescent moon beach with unobtrusive hotel buildings at either end. When, after an hour of snorkelling, they were having a drink at the, beach bar of the Long Bay Hotel, Christie remembered Kate's praise of the hotel's boutique.
She asked Ash if he would mind waiting while she went to have a look for an extra present for Margaret.
'I'll come with you. There might be something I should like to buy you,' he answered.
The shop was full of temptations. She bought a dress length for Margaret, and several small presents for former colleagues whom she hoped to see and say goodbye to.
Ash insisted on buying her a pair of black coral ear-rings, and a white evening skirt from Mexico, covered with vivid embroidery.
Attractive as it was, she would have preferred not to accept it, but was prevented from demurring by his obvious determination and the presence of another customer.
It was late afternoon when they returned to the Hathaways' house.
They had supper earlier than usual, to allow an interval before the meal which would be served to them on the aeroplane.
'I'll go and finish my packing,' said Christie, after supper.
She felt badly in need of some time alone. In the same room with Ash she was continually conscious of the things he had already done to her. At least she would be spared any further lovemaking tonight.
But her respite from his disturbing presence lasted less than ten minutes. She had turned the Mexican skirt inside out and was folding it to be as little creased as possible when she heard the door open and close behind her.
Surely he hadn't followed her to—?
As she bent to lay the skirt in her case, lean brown hands slipped under her arms and closed firmly over her breasts, drawing her upright. She closed her eyes as a kiss burned the nape of her neck, and his fingers fondled her softness.
'You can finish your packing later. There's plenty of time.'
She wanted to hate it: the feel of his hard male body already pulsing with desire for her, the practised assurance with which he unbuttoned her shirt, pushing the strap of her bra off the curve of her shoulder to make it easier to slip the warm palm of his hand between the cup and her bare flesh.
But the truth was she didn't hate it. Already, though her mind rebelled, her body had signalled its surrender. The peaks of her breasts had swollen. Her thighs were quaking. She was panting.
'Shall we have our first shower together? Hot water makes the skin more sensitive.'
Christie stifled a groan at the thought of becoming even more responsive than she was at this moment. She had almost no control left. It horrified her that, in less than twenty-four hours, Ash had changed her from the woman she thought she was into the eager, pliant wanton he held in his arms now.
It was this self-disgust which made her say, 'What a fool I was ever to trust you! And it's not as if I wasn't warned.'
'Were you? By whom?' As usual, he sounded amused. His fingers didn't stop their soft effleur- age. With his other hand he began to loosen her skirt.
'By someone I didn't listen to at the time. I should have. I should have known that anyone capable of seducing another man's girl would make mincemeat of someone like me.'
Ash withdrew his hand and turned her round. 'Whose girl am I supposed to have seduced?'
'Their names were Lucy and Roger. I expect you've forgotten her by now. A quick bash, or whatever you'd call it, in the back of a car, after a dance.'
His hands fell from her shoulders. He tilted a sardonic eyebrow. 'Was your informant an eyewitness, or is that an assumption on your part?
A rather curious assumption in view of your own recent experience of my approach to women. Last night and this morning didn't come in the category which you've just described in those rather unbecoming terms, did it?'
Christie coloured. 'I'm sure you've heard worse.'
'Much worse,' he agreed, on a dry note. 'But I'd rather not hear them on your lips.'
'That's a red herring,' Christie said shortly.
'All right: you answer my question, and then I'll tell you the facts about Lucy and Roger.'
She bit her lip. 'No, it didn't, but presumably, as your wife, I rate preferential treatment.'
'Another remark like that and you'll rate an old- fashioned spanking!'
He moved a few paces past her to a table where Rose had left a try with glasses and a flask of iced water. He filled the glasses before he said, 'Lucy was engaged to Roger for two reasons— because her family were in favour, and because she'd panicked.'
'Panicked?' she echoed, as he came back to where she was standing and put one of the glasses into her hand.
'She was pregnant by an older man. He already had a wife and a child, and he didn't want to know about hers. She couldn't face telling her family, and she couldn't face an abortion. The only alternative was Roger, poor chump.'
He paused to drink some of his water. 'On the night you were told about, I could see that she wasn't used to drinking and was well on the way to being tight. I could also see Roger wasn't the type to handle the situation with any finesse. So I danced her off and took her across to
Sunbird One
where I gave her black coffee and some fatherly advice. Someone must have seen us leaving the festivities, and warned Roger that my intentions were usually dishonourable. He came to her rescue, by then rather tipsy himself, and was too aggressive for his own good. He took a swing at me, and I dodged it.
He fell over, hitting his nose, and bled like a pig.'
He grinned at the memory of it. 'He couldn't go back to the dance with his shirt all bloodied, and he wasn't fit to drive her home. To avert a quarrel between them, I left him on board with another chap who was there, and took her for a stroll round the Dockyard. Then she wanted to see it by moonlight from Shirley Heights, and I like it up there on a fine night, so up we went. On the way she unburdened herself, and asked my advice.'
'What did you tell her?' Christie asked curiously, wondering how a man would see the girl's problem.
'That it would be asking for trouble to palm the child off on Roger.
Either she had to be honest with him, and hope that he cared for her as much as he claimed. Or she had to face up to bringing up the baby single-handed, with aid from her people and the State. She wasn't a girl with much spirit, but one couldn't help feeling sorry for her. She'd been pretty badly conned, poor little wretch.'
'By the wretched man who made her pregnant. Yes, what a rat he must be.'
'By him, but not only him. By all the people who promote claptrap ideas about free relationships and open marriages, and so on. There are quite a few girls like Lucy who do things they don't really want to because they think "everyone" does it, and they'll either miss out or be laughed at if they don't go along with the herd. She's not the only person to have her fingers burned in the permissive Seventies, but it looks as if the Eighties might see a revival of commonsense.'
Such views, coming from him, astonished her.
Ash guessed her reaction, and said, 'A life style which works for a man in his thirties can be disastrous for a girl in her twenties. Anyway, Lucy and I had a long talk up there on the Heights, and by the time we returned Roger had gone home in a huff. So she stayed the night on
Sunbird,
chaperoned by a retired Naval chaplain and his wife who were spending Christmas here. The next day she told Roger the truth.
At the time he couldn't take it and shot back to England on the first available plane. However, I heard from her later that he'd come back to her and they were going to be married.'
'Could it ever work out?' said Christie doubtfully. 'Two not very sensible people, and another man's child?'
'I believe so. If they both want it to work, and concentrate on each other's happiness rather than their own.'
He was watching her very intently as he made this statement.
'Is that an oblique way of saying that I should concentrate on your . . .
well-being, even if it conflicts with mine?'
'Is there a conflict?'
'You know there is. We agreed to a certain kind of marriage, and you've changed that. You . . . you've forced all this on me.'
' I've never yet known a woman who wanted a man to ask her permission to make love to her. Any man who says "May I?" is going to be refused on principle,' was his dry response.
'A convenient theory, but not well founded,' she said coldly. 'The dozens, perhaps scores, of women who have welcomed you into their beds don't represent their entire sex. Just as not all men—very few, I should think—would have acted as ... highhandedly as you have.'
She had not yet drunk any of the water he had given-her, but he took the glass away from her and replaced it, with his own, on the table.
Then he came back towards her, and something in his expression made her shrink back a pace before standing her ground.
About two feet from her, he halted, arms folded.
'Let me make something clear to you, Christiana. I don't want to hear any more of these cutting allusions to my past. No normal man of my age has not had some—not scores and not dozens!—relationships with women. In my case they've always been women like myself, adults and free agents. Contrary to gossip, I've never seduced a young girl or been the first person to cuckold another man. For practical reasons as much as moral ones. Inexperienced women are unsatisfactory partners, and the number of divorcees floating about makes it unnecessary to break up any more marriages.'
He paused, his lips momentarily compressed in a grimmer line than Christie had ever seen before. She discovered that when he was displeased he could be daunting indeed.
'However, all that's in the past. I now have a wife to warm my bed and'—and the grimness lightening—'although you're inexperienced now, I detect signs of natural aptitude. So no more shrewish cracks, please. One more and you'll find that pretty backside of yours smarting!'
The dark eyes were smiling now. 'This time I'm going to be lenient, although perhaps you won't think so.'
'W—what do you mean?'
He reached out and drew her to him.
'I'm going to give myself the pleasure of undressing you, and then we'll take that shower I suggested, and then—'
He left his intentions unfinished, and his mouth came down firmly on hers.
Their take-off that night was delayed. Owing to some mix-up in the bookings, there were more passengers boarding at Antigua than had been expected. In consequence some of the aircraft's fuel had to be discharged to compensate for the extra weight of people and baggage.
Christie heard, without really listening, the grumbles of the homegoing holidaymakers. Some had small fretful children to cope with, and all were sorry to have come to the end of their holiday in the sun, and to be returning to everyday life with three months of the English winter still to come.
She knew how she would have felt had she been in their shoes, with the added anguish of leaving her nephew behind. But what were her feelings as things stood?
As the aircraft soared into the night, and they waited for the illuminated safety-belt sign to be extinguished and the cabin crew to pass along the aisles with the drinks trolleys, she wondered if all she had gained by becoming Mrs Ashcroft Lambard could outweigh being forced to submit to the passion of the man beside her.
In a way it would have been easier to bear if he had been like her first husband, intent on his own satisfaction and achieving it without delay.
But Ash was at pains to ensure that she shared his enjoyment, and it was that which, somehow, made it unbearable. At least Mike had loved her, and said so. Ash abstained from using any endearments. A few hours earlier he had forced her to a high pitch of ecstasy, and never once called her darling.
She was beginning to think that an act of love, however clumsy and frustrating, was preferable to an act of lust performed with great virtuosity but no real affection.
It was one o'clock in the morning before, at last, dinner was served.
The menu that night was seafood cocktail, roast sirloin of beef, and Black Forest Gateau. It sounded better than it tasted, and Christie was not hungry anyway. Nor, apparently, was Ash.
He had bought her a headset in case she wanted to follow the film, but immediately after the meal he settled down to sleep. They were in the Economy Class section because, in his view, the extra comfort of First Class was not worth the extra fare. But their part of the plane was extremely cramped for a tall man, and some of the passengers were not considerate of their fellows and went on wandering about and chatting to people they had met on holiday. Ash had the aisle seat, Christie the one in the middle, and the window seat was occupied by an unsmiling dark- skinned woman who had got on at Barbados or Trinidad.
Christie watched the film because she knew it would be impossible for her to sleep. But Ash, having closed his eyes, did not stir. It gave her, when the film was over, her first opportunity to study his face in minute detail.
A fine face to match a fine body, she thought. With his eyes closed so that one wasn't distracted by the sardonic gleam which often lurked in them, it was possible to appraise his features as critically as those of a sculpture. A strong face, bold and decisive.
She remembered him referring to the motto of the Special Air Service, the elite British regiment of commandos whose exacting training was only survived by men of exceptional fitness, initiative and guts. He would have survived it, she was certain.
Who dares wins. Last night was a mutual victory. Can you deny it?
Suddenly she remembered the source of the phrase which, on and off, had been plaguing her memory all day.
It had been in an article by Katherine Whitehorn, the well-known journalist and columnist. She had read it ages ago, probably before her first marriage, and one sentence had been filed way in her mind, like an obscure fact in a computer, and had never since been retrieved, until she woke up this morning.