‘Now for Heaven’s sake get that dress off or I’ll strip it off you myself.’
I started to blush. ‘I can’t while you’re looking.’
He grinned. ‘After that matinée earlier, I can’t see much point in false modesty.’
Then he must have seen something in my face because he turned his back and started talking to Monkey who was sitting shivering in the suitcase.
I’d just peeled off my wet smock when there was a loud knocking on the door. I grabbed a towel as Mrs Lonsdale-Taylor walked in.
‘Miss Brennen,’ she spluttered. ‘I’ve told you I won’t have men in my house. You must leave at once,’ she added to Gareth.
‘She’ll be out of here in five minutes,’ said Gareth curtly, ‘so beat it.’
‘Don’t you dare address me like that, young man,’ said Mrs Lonsdale-Taylor. ‘What about my rent? She owes me £60.’
Gareth put his hand in his pocket and pulled out a wad of notes. He counted out six tenners and gave them to her. Then he looked at poor little Monkey still shuddering in the suitcase.
‘How much d’you want for the dog?’
‘He’s not for sale. He belonged to my late husband.’
‘Ten quid,’ said Gareth.
‘Well, it doesn’t seem right.’
‘Twenty,’ said Gareth, thrusting the notes into her hand. ‘Now get out, you fat bitch, and bully someone your own size.’
Three quarters of an hour later, Gareth and his two waifs had reached home, and were sitting in the drawing-room. Although I was wearing one of his sweaters and nursing a large glass of brandy, I was assailed once again by a terrible fit of shaking. The tension was unbearable. The only sound was Monkey gnawing ecstatically on the remains of a leg of mutton which Gareth had found him in the fridge.
‘He’s happy,’ said Gareth. ‘Now it’s my turn, come here.’
‘I can’t,’ I said in a stifled voice.
‘All right, I’ll come to you.’
He sat down on the sofa about a foot away from me. I gazed desperately at my brandy.
‘I’m now going to give you a short lecture,’ he said. ‘If you had any idea what I’ve been through since we got back from the boat, wanting you so fucking badly I thought I’d go up in smoke. I know I showed it in a funny way, fighting it because I didn’t want to betray myself, because I couldn’t see any way that you could possibly feel the same way about me. The reason I finally agreed to take over Seaford-Brennen was because it gave me a chance to keep in touch with you, and that wasn’t the only length I went to, sucking up to your degenerate brother, Xander, in the hope he might put in a good word for me, ringing Jakey every evening to see you were OK. Why do you suppose none of the guys there ever laid a finger on you? Because I’d have fired them if they had.’
‘I don’t b-believe you,’ I said incredulously.
‘Don’t interrupt,’ he said. ‘You’re also right about my being a Welsh prude. I couldn’t stand anyone coming near you. I nearly went spare over Jeremy and Charlie. This afternoon, as you saw, I flipped my lid.’
‘You were wonderful,’ I breathed, putting a hand up to touch his poor bruised eye.
He grinned, imprisoning my hand against his cheek:
‘There’s something to be said for being brought up in the valley. Then I talked to Xander. He told me about your childhood, and your parents and what a lousy deal you had all along. But that’s all over now.’
And, kneeling beside me, he took me in his arms. I started to cry.
‘What’s the matter?’ he whispered.
‘It’s no good,’ I sobbed. ‘I love you more than anything else in the world. I’m crucified with longing for you, but that’s just in my heart. You were right from the beginning, I am frigid. I’ve been to bed with so many men I can hardly remember, but I hated it with all of them. I can put on a good act, but inside I just freeze up.’
‘Hush lovie, hush.’ He was stroking me in that soothing way you might gentle a horse.
‘I’m telling you this because I love you, I’m no good to you.’
‘I’m the best judge of that,’ he said. ‘You’ve never been properly loved in your life, just spoilt, and told to push off and play somewhere else, and produced to show off when grown-ups came to tea because you’re so beautiful. Come on,’ he went on, pulling me to my feet and leading me towards the bedroom. ‘Let’s not muck about any more.’
‘No.’ I shrank away from him. ‘You’d be disappointed. I couldn’t fake it with you.’
‘I won’t, because I don’t expect anything. We’ve got to get used to each other.’
In the bedroom he switched on a sidelight, illuminating the vast double bed, and drew back the fur counterpane. As he undressed me with undeniable deftness, I thought of all the women he must have laid on that bed before me. . I felt like a novice horse entering the Horse of the Year Show for the first time, with the jumps up to six feet and all the previous competitors having had clear rounds.
Once we were in bed he just held me very gently until the horrors of the day began to recede. Then he said:
‘I’m not going to lay a finger on you tonight. You’re too tired.’
I felt a stab of disappointment.
‘At least I don’t think I am,’ he went on, putting a warm hand on my tits, spanning both nipples with finger and thumb.
‘Look,’ he whispered, ‘I can stretch an Octavia.’
I giggled.
‘That’s better. Come on lovely, remember, from now on I’ve got custody, care and control of you — and I’m not going to leave you, like your bloody mother did, ever again.’
And with infinite tenderness he kissed me, until I felt the waves of lust begin to ripple through me.
‘It’s Friday,’ he said, as his hand edged downwards. ‘We’ve got the whole weekend ahead. We needn’t get up at all.’
Then later he said, ‘Relax sweetheart, don’t try so hard, there’s no hurry. I actually like doing these things for you.’
Then later, more harshly, ‘Stop fighting me; we’re on the same side.’
Then suddenly it happened — like a great, glorious, whooshing washing machine — it’s the only way I can describe it — leaving me shuddering and shuddering with pleasure at the end, like the last gasps of the spin-dryer. And afterwards I cried some more because I was so happy, and he held me in his arms, telling me how much he loved me until I fell asleep.
A few hours later the dawn woke me. We’d forgotten to draw the curtains. All I could see were huge windows framing the plane trees of Holland Park. I blinked, turned and found Gareth looking at me. I must be dreaming.
I put my hand out to touch his cheek.
‘Are you real?’ I said incredulously.
He smiled. ‘I am if you are.’
His eye had turned black, his chest was covered in bruises.
‘I think I’m in bed with Henry Cooper,’ I said. ‘I never dreamt he’d make such a sensational lover. Do you think we could possibly do it again?’
And we did, and it was even better than the last time, and I screamed with delight and joy because I’d been so clever.
When I woke again he wasn’t there. I looked round in panic; then I found a note pinned to the pillow.
‘Gone shopping with Monkey. Back about eleven. I love you, G.’
Still overwhelmed with wonder at what was happening to me, I got up, wrapped myself in a towel and, wandering into the kitchen, found a pile of unopened mail. I flipped through it. Three envelopes were written in distinctively female hands. I turned them over. One was from someone called Michelle in France, another from a Sally in the Middle East, another hadn’t put her name on the back, but it was post-marked Taunton, and she’d written ‘private and confidential’ on the bottom.
I stood, overwhelmed with terror. Gareth had had millions of women before me. What was to stop him having millions in the future? Last night’s protestations might have been just a ruse to get me into bed. I couldn’t bear it. I went back into the bedroom and sat shaking on the bed, feeling myself pulled down into the familiar black slimy cavern of horror.