'Oh, indeed. Although the odds were not very good. Hilltop Dancer's reputation is growing.'
'None the less, I shall give Peter Eleven my personal congratulations.' She smiled at her husband.
‘I
even think, as he rides so well, we could grant him the use of a decent name. I shall think of one and let you know.'
He held her arm. 'Shall I come with you?'
A darting look, before she once again studied the stairs they descended. 'I'm sure that will not be necessary, Tony. I was under the impression that blacks bored you. Besides, have you not got dear Phyllis to see to? I trust you spent a pleasant night?'
They had reached the foot of the stairs, and the grooms were lining up as they passed. The slaves feared the mistress more even than the master. No one knew for certain what had happened on that afternoon fifteen years before, but a man had died. While attempting to run away, certainly; that was the official account. But Absolom and Jeremiah had not been able to stop themselves whispering.
Ellen smiled at them, glanced at her husband. Their guests were already strung out across the grass, making their way slowly back towards the house, gossiping and laughing, anticipating another sumptuous meal, another bout of indiscriminate drinking and indiscriminate flirting. Or more. And were Ellen to suspect that he had not bedded Phyllis, last night, her contempt would undoubtedly grow.
'My night was much as I expected,' he said. 'And yours?' 'Oh, the same. The same.' 'His name?'
She stopped, and turned, her fan coming together into a short wand, held with the tips of her fingers, to slap him gently on the chest. 'You would break the rules? And it would merely make you jealous.'
'Of one of the pot-bellied, pasty-faced planters?'
'Your guests,' she gently reproved. 'But then it need not have been one of your guests, need it?' She gave that arch, secret smile he adored.
'I don't believe yo
u. I know you like to look. You'd never stoop so low.'
This time the secret smile became a secret laugh, as she turned away. 'Why do you think Peter Eleven rode so well, today?'
The cavalcade wound its way through the valley. When the first of the carriages was already entering the road through the hills, three miles from the Great House, the last was just rumbling down the slope outside the house itself. Dust hung on the air in a long swathe, travelled with the light breeze, scattered across the town and the village and the factory, coated the cane stalks.
Ellen Hilton held a handkerchi
ef
to her lips as she waved. 'Thank God that is over, for another season,' she said. 'Truly, I am ceasing to wonder at your uncle's decision to shut himself away here, and take no part in Jamaican society. It would be difficult to imagine a more boring, a more vulgar and more uninteresting lot.'
Tony lowered his arm. 'But you enjoy playing the queen of that society.'
'I wonder if it is worth it.' She turned, and went into the comparative cool of the house. 'A light breakfast, Boscawen,' she stretched. 'And then a long, long siesta. Will you be going aback?'
He watched her climb the stairs. 'It hardly seems worthwhile.' He climbed behind her.
At the top she seemed to realize for the first time that he was following her, and hesitated, before continuing on to the gallery. Her hand touched the knob of the door to her bedchamber, and again she hesitated, realizing that he stood at her shoulder.
'I really am quite exhausted,' she said. 'I am going to lie down.'
'That w
ill suit me ad
mirably,' he said.
She turned, frowning at him, and he reached past her to open the door, allowing his body to come against hers. The door opened, and he walked forward, using his right hand to hold her round the waist and half lift, half push her in front of him. Bridget, Ellen's personal maid, stared at them in alarm.
'Out,' Tony said.
'Oh, really, Tony,' Ellen complained. 'You are not going to play the fool, I hope.'
'Out,' he said again. 'Your mistress will manage for herself today.'
Bridget gave Ellen a terrified glance, and received a quick nod. She scurried through the door.
Tony kicked it shut behind him, released his wife. 'I don't believe what you said yesterday,' he remarked. 'If I thought it was true, I'd set the dogs on him.'
'Oh, pfft,' she said, and sat at her dressing table. It was huge, with three mirrors, and made out of best Honduras mahogany to her own design.
'So, tell me it is not true.' He sat on the bed.
She watched him in the mirrors. 'We made a bargain, you and I. As mistress of Hilltop, you promised me, I could do what I liked, when I liked, and with whom I liked.'
'As long as you were also my wife.'
She smiled, at herself, and at him, in the mirror. 'I am quite prepared to be your wife, whenever you wish me, Tony. I had supposed you were well suited.'
He sat up. 'You'll not pretend you are jealous of Judith?'
'That creature? No, no. I suspect she can attend to your needs better than I. She was trained to it, by her poor, unlamented mother. I was, unhappily, educated to be a lady.' 'You are a bitch.'
She turned, and stood up. And continued to smile. 'I am speaking with my husband, in the p
rivacy of my bedchamber. Will yo
u assist me?' She crossed the room, stood in front of him, turned her back. She waited, for his fingers to touch the buttons on the neck of her gown. 'We are both perverted, you and I, Tony. In the oddest of ways, I suppose. People imagine us to be far worse than we are. They respect us for it. They would be utterly contemptuous, did they know the truth of us.'
The gown was loose, she shrugged it from her shoulders, past her thighs, stepped out of it. She left it lying on the floor, herself took off her petticoats, but returned to the bedside, and again presented her back to him.
'You are talking rubbish.' His fingers plucked at the ties for her stays. Although she wore a cotton shift under the whalebone, the garment was still soaked with sweat, and the bows rapidly turned into knots.
'Oh, indeed. But look at yourself, Tony. Tony Hilton.
The
Hilton. You are the wealthiest man in Jamaica, and possibly the most handsome. You have other assets, such as your name and even an understanding wife. You could take your pick, over and over again, of every woman in this island. Of every woman in the West Indies, I would say, should you choose to travel. Yet you find all your comfort at the hands, quite literally, of a little whore whose mother was a whore and whose grandmother, I have no doubt at all, was also a whore.' She spoke perfectly quietly and evenly, allowed herself a faint sigh of relief as her lungs and belly were at last released, reached over her shoulder to take the garment.
'I have always felt responsible for Judith,' Tony pointed out, and lay down again, his hands behind his head. 'You know that. What with her childhood, and then, being raped by Dick . . .'
'Do you really believe that?' Ellen stood in front of her mirror to remove her shift. She did it slowly, raising the garment first of all to her thighs, to expose her legs, long and strong and powerful, and then higher, to allow him to inspect her wide thighs, her pouted belly, and then over her head, slowly, inhaling at the same time to push her somewhat low slung breasts away from her chest.
'And with her mother dead,' Tony muttered. But he was watching her, as she could see in the mirror.
The shift joined the rest of her clothes on the floor. Only her hair remained. Slowly she unfastened the bows, keeping her breathing carefully under control. 'A man should try to be honest with himself,' she said, quietly. 'Judith is the only woman you dare approach. You only lie about the others. As you lied about the night before last.'
He
sat up. 'Lie? Me? Why . . .'
'I had Charmian keeping an eye on you.' The chestnut hair fell past her ears, rested on her shoulders.
'Then she saw us go into the study.'
'She also saw dear Phyllis leave again, very briefly, and very angry. And she also saw you sleep in there, later on. All by yourself. My God, how absolutely childish, to be quarrelling about whether you did or whether you did not sleep with that detestable woman.' She crossed the room, slowly, sat on the bed, close enough for him to touch her, if he chose.
His face was red and angry. When he was angry, only the coarseness showed through. The Hilton grandeur quite disappeared.
'Well, then,' he demanded. 'What of you?'
'Ah.' She lay down, beside him, rested her head on his shoulder, placed her left leg carefully across both of his. From where he lay he would look down a long sweep of very white, faintly freckled flesh. 'I am more honest than you.' She exerted all her strength to keep him flat. 'I did try a buck, once.'
'You . . .' He attempted to get up, was held still. She rolled on to his stomach, straddling him with her legs, placing her hands one on each side of his face. She shook her head to tickle him with her hair.
And smiled at him. 'You always knew I wanted to.'
His hands rested on her back, but lightly. 'I knew you wanted to whip a man.'
She nestled her head against his neck. 'It is merely a form of sexual attraction, to wish to whip a man. But as I say, I only tried it once. Oh, it was magnificent. But I felt ashamed afterwards.'
'And where is he now?'
She gave her secret laugh. 'I'll not tell you that, Tony dear. And it was not Peter Eleven, if that is what you are thinking.' She raised her head, smiled at him. 'Does that knowledge repel you, or make you want me?'
'I ought to whip
you.
7
She shook her head. 'I would not enjoy being whipped. But you could make love to me. The amusing thing is, you could have made love to me, last night. I also slept alone.'
His eyes were watchful. 'You?'
'Why not?' She smiled at him.
‘I
entertain your friends. I do not accommodate them. When I wish to share my bed I seek a more positive approach. And at this moment that positive approach is absent.'
His brows slowly drew together as a terrible suspicion crystallized in his mind. 'You are lying.'
Ellen kissed him on the nose.
'I'll kill him.'
'You won't. Firstly because I would not let you, secondly because without him you are nothing. And you know that.'
Once again he strained, once again she pressed him flat.
'And anyway, your jealousy is quite absurd. I am not jealous of Judith. And I am your wife, wherever I find my pleasures. I think you ought to make me pregnant.'
'Eh?'
'Well, really, Tony dear, have you no thought of the future? I am thirty-seven years old. I shall shortly be too old for motherhood. I have shared your bed for fifteen years. And we have no children. Worse, there are no Hilton children anywhere. At least, no legitimate ones. You do not even have any distant cousins to inherit. What will happen to the Hilton wealth, the Hilton name? 'Tis a most serious matter.'
Her voice mocked him, her smile mocked him, the faint movements of her body mocked him. She was angry, because she had so deliberately gone about seducing him, and he remained unseduced.
And did he not want to be seduced, by his own wife? Had he not dreamed, for so long, of having this so self-possessed woman in his arms, surrendering to his passion? Or having him surrender to her. But there was the entire cause of the estrangement. She enjoyed mastering men, but not her own husband. His confession, on only the fifth night of their honeymoon, that his secret desire was to be tormented into orgasm had brought contempt, not understanding. The mistake had been his. He had sought more than was perhaps possible from a marriage. Than was perhaps possible from anyone, save Judith.
Then what did she find in Hardy?
Her face twisted. 'Or can you not manage such a thing, Tony dear?' she whispered softly.
'Aaaah,' she gasped. 'Aaagh.' Her body writhed to and fro, but he'd not let her go. His fingers dug deeper and deeper into the taut brown flesh, squeezing tighter and tighter. She had small buttocks, and he had large hands. She lay on her face, on his belly, and tears mingled with the sweat on her cheeks, distorting the handsome, almost beautiful features, making the huge dark eyes expand, the whites show, while that splendid mouth sagged open, to reveal her teeth and her tongue, and saliva dribbled over her lips. She was the most beautiful creature he had ever known, and to turn that beauty into a mask of despair was the greatest pleasure he had ever known.