Silk

A look Jay couldn’t interpret crossed his grandfather’s face. ‘Get on well with him, do you?’

‘Everyone gets on with Greg,’ Jay answered calmly.

‘Cassandra don’t think much of him.’

Though Jay didn’t say anything, Barrant still grunted and said, ‘You’re right, it’s time Cassandra found herself a husband. No looks to speak of, but she’s got de Vries blood in her veins. Too sharp in her manner by half, though. No man wants a wife with a tongue like vinegar. Don’t know where she gets it from. Certainly not from your grandmother. She was as meek as milk.

‘Cassandra was telling me that Blanche is sending the girl to London with some fool idea of thinking she can buy a title for her.’

‘Amber is to be presented at court, yes.’

‘Good-looker, is she?’

‘Yes.’

Barrant grunted again. ‘She’s still trade, though. Your grandmother was a Fitton Legh. Her ancestors came over with the Conquest, just like the de Vrieses. It’s good blood that counts in a marriage, not good looks. Like to like. You remember that when your time comes. Not that you’re a true de Vries, since it’s its father’s name a child carries and not its mother’s.’

The bitterness in his grandfather’s voice was as familiar to Jay as the reasons for it. Barrant de Vries had never got over losing his son and he never would. His grandfather would have valued him far more, Jay knew, if he had been born to Barrant’s son and not one of his daughters.

‘You’re getting bored with me, I know you are.’ Her voice was fretful, rising dangerously towards hysteria.

Greg wished he had not come. He had turned down an invitation to drive into Manchester to a new nightclub that had just been opened.

‘Of course I’m not.’

‘Yes you are. You didn’t even call me your dearest darling like you used.’ She was pouting now, tears swimming in her large blue eyes.

Greg could feel his heart sinking as fast as his irritation was rising.

The bedroom smelled of scent and sex, both of them somehow equally cloying. The feeling of being trapped in a situation he no longer wanted, which had been growing on him for several weeks, now intensified. He hadn’t realised in the first thrill of his lust for her that her extraordinary beauty cloaked such a clinging and possessive nature. His desire for her had blinded him to the dangers.

An affair with a married woman was something that a young man in his position did, so far as Greg was concerned. He had been momentarily obsessed by his lust for her, it was true, and in that moment he had perhaps made rash promises to her, but now Greg was bored and ready to move on. She, though, was making it clear that she was not ready to let him go.

Somehow their, to him, casual affair had in her eyes – and words – become something very different. Something that Greg had never intended and most certainly did not want.

‘You said you loved me, but you were lying,’ she accused him. ‘How can you be so cruel? Isn’t what I already have to bear enough? Must I be punished even more by having my heart stolen with false promises of love?’

She was pacing the floor of the bedroom now, her behaviour becoming wilder by the minute, the white marabou-trimmed silk peignoir she had pulled on when they had left her bed, swirling round her. The silk clung to her naked body beneath, but that knowledge no longer excited him as it had once done.

Her behaviour was making Greg feel on edge. He had never imagined at the start when she had been so cool with him, teasing and tantalising him, that she would become like this, practically begging him.

She stopped in front of him, reaching for the martini she had insisted he make for her earlier, even sending for her maid, whilst he had had to conceal himself in her bathroom so that she could bring up the ingredients and a cocktail shaker.

Greg had warned her then that she was taking too many risks but she had flown into a wild outburst of tears, accusing him of no longer loving her and reminding him that once he would have risked anything for her.

Now she drank greedily from the glass she was holding. Her face was flushed, her gaze unfocused.

‘I know,’ she told him brightly, ‘I’ll ring Nurse and she can bring Baby in.’

‘No!’ Greg couldn’t conceal his horror. ‘No, I don’t think that’s a good idea.’

‘Why not? After all, he’s—’ She broke off and flung herself down on the bed, its covers crumpled from their earlier lovemaking, remembering the first time he had made love to her here in this room, their passion for one another so intense that they hadn’t even made it to the bed. She had known that he would call and she had been so wildly excited. She had worn a softly draped dress by Chanel, over a silk satin chemise and matching French knickers, her stockings held up by silk garters, every item of clothing chosen for the speed with which it could be removed, although she had not told Greg that.

He had taken her in his arms the minute they were inside the room, leaning back against the door to close it and holding her against him, his hands stroking and kneading, exploring her with an avid hunger that had matched her own need. He had groaned out loud when she had teased his erection through the fabric of his trousers, shaping it and then running her fingertip along its length as though to measure it, pouting up at him, wanting to excite and torment him.

He had retaliated by nibbling the flesh just below her ear and stroking the soft curves of her breasts hidden from his view by the Chanel dress. When he had found the edge of her chemise bodice he had teased the flesh above it and then slowly eased it lower until her bare breasts were pressed against the fabric of her dress, her nipples swelling tightly when he pinched and toyed with them.

She hadn’t stopped him when he had pulled up her dress, and then lifted her in his arms, bracing her against the bedroom door, her arms and legs wrapped around him.

He had taken her quickly and fiercely, not even bothering to remove her knickers, simply pushing the loose legs to one side after he had unbuttoned himself.

She had screamed with excitement and pleasure, urging him deeper, panting and clinging to him as he thrust into her.

He had come too quickly for her, but she had pretended that she had had her own orgasm, putting him first – as she had done so many times since, she thought now, giving in to self-pity, before begging him, ‘Tell me you love me, Greg.’

‘You know that I do,’ he lied uncomfortably.

‘Say it. I want to hear the words.’

‘I love you.’

‘No, I want you to say it properly and mean it, like you used to.’

Her voice had begun to rise again. If she kept on like this someone would hear her. Greg began to sweat, the room felt like a prison and she his gaoler.

‘It’s late. I must go.’

‘No.’ She turned and ran to him, gripping the lapels of his jacket, clinging to him, pushing her body into his, grinding herself against him. ‘I want you to stay.’

‘You know that I can’t.’

‘Because of her: your grandmother. I suppose she has already picked out a wife for you.’

‘Not as far as I know.’

‘But you wouldn’t mind if she had.’

‘This is silly talk …’

‘You think I’m silly? You didn’t think that when we first met. You loved me then. Remember? Tell me again what you thought the first time you saw me?’

It was a ritual he had enjoyed in the early days of their affair, but one that no longer held any appeal for him: a series of hoops through which he now had to jump before he could escape.

‘I thought you were the most beautiful woman I had ever seen,’ Greg told her obediently.

‘And what did you say to me?’

‘I said that I idolised and adored you, that I wanted you and loved you …’