What made people like Louis Marchmount and Bobby Wellesley take drugs?
Where was Rafe?
I had a most persistent vision of Louis Marchmount lying on the couch, with Bobby Wellesley's twitching length superimposed on his bony chest.
Where was Rafe?
"I can protect you, Nialla. I want the right to protect you…" Rafe had told me. Was it really only four days ago?
He did well enough with police and doctors and insurance men, but in the bosom of his own family, he was a bust. (Oh, Gawd!) But the awful pun brought my humor into operation again. I needed every ounce of it I owned, with that kind of mother-in-law playing charades and sending a kid brother (not even a full brother, at that) to buy me off.
I burrowed under the sheet, for the warmth of the shower had dissipated enough to make the night air a bit chilly. I'd half-thought that Rafe might be showering, but it seemed to me he was taking a long time coming to bed. I listened until the night insects sounded louder than the distant passage of long-haul trucks on the highway half a mile beyond the farm. I could hear nothing of manmade noises. The house emanated such a deserted silence, my breathing was positively stertorous.
Where was he?
I slid from the bed to the window and realized that both the porch and living-room lights were off. The nearest glow welled up through the evergreens around the stable. I concentrated, discounting insect buzzes and frog chirpings, listening for any odd sound.
Where had Rafe got to? Had he learned something he didn't mention to me? Had he gone back to the big house? Perhaps that was it. Although Rafe in the role of loving son was about as ridiculous as his mother cast as Florence Nightingale-unless you made it "Martingale," and that was what she wanted to put on Louis Marchmount.
The droll notion did not restore my sense of proportion, for there was nothing really amusing about Wendy Madison. Well, at least Pres Branegg was trying to slice the silver cord, but John Milanesi's fixation was damned unhealthy.
Where was Rafe?
I rose again, uneasy and-yes-afraid to sleep without his protective presence. I might not be able to cope with someone like Wendy Madison in person, but once she was out of sight, I didn't have to worry about her. It was the things I couldn't see, the enemies I knew I had that really frightened me.
I paced through the upper floor of the house, peering out of each window and listening intently, trying to catch the crunch of someone on the gravel. Clever of Rafe to surround the house with gravelly paths that couldn't be jumped easily or crossed silently.
Not a noise, not a leaf stirred without the light breeze to account for its movement.
Maybe Rafe was disappointed in me?
Then… I heard something. The slightest bit of scraping noise. On the stairs.
My throat went dry-just like they say it does-and although I couldn't seem to breathe, my pulses were pounding so hard they ought to be audible.
I could see the interruption of normal shadows on the staircase, a darker patch that advanced, not toward our bedroom but toward the back of the house, toward me, where I was standing in the west bedroom.
"Rafe!"
I raced to him, almost crying with relief and joy. I flung myself at him so hard that the breath went out of his lungs in a whoosh. Then his arms encircled, hard, comforting, and he swung me, chuckling into my ear.
"Glad to see me, huh?"
"Oh, Rafe, where have you been?"
"Sentry-go-round."
I leaned back, trying to see his face in the dark. The shadows made him seem totally different, a stern stranger, until he turned his head slightly, and I could see the gleam of his teeth and eyes.
"You were worried?"
•"Not particularly," he said, which meant he had been. "Thought you'd be asleep by now."
It was the casual comment, delivered in a sort of impersonal tone, that told me how much the disastrous evening had upset Rafe. If I had dreaded the affair, he had loathed it. Yet even Rafe couldn't have foreseen the ghastly capper to the party.
Well, he'd done his filial duty, introduced his bride, and neither she nor he could be compelled to make another appearance there!
"Asleep? You gotta be kidding, man," I said. I felt him tense slightly, saw his smile fade, and realized he misunderstood me. I tightened my arms around his neck, pressing my body against the tight muscles of his torso with what I thought was a sensuous motion. I angled my head so our noses wouldn't collide, and kissed him till our teeth grated together.
"Dear heart." He laughed as he gathered me up in his arms and made for our bedroom. "Dear heart," he repeated as he laid me very gently down on the bed. "Don't rush the fence. Sexy is soft." And his lips covered mine very lightly, his tongue caressing the edge of my mouth in a feather touch. "Very soft, until you ache for more."
And he demonstrated.
8
I'd no notion when we finally went to sleep. Who thought of wristwatches? But the morning sun slanting over the top of the windowsill through the beeches woke me. I had been so deeply asleep that for a moment I couldn't recall my whereabouts.
"Thank God tomorrow's Sunday," Rafe said close to my ear. His toes brushed mine as he arched his back in a joint-popping stretch.
"What difference does Sunday make?" I wondered. "Sun rises same as ever."
"I ignore the sun until noon on the Sabbath." Rafe threw back the covers-off me, too-and bounced to his feet. He looked down at me, a little reminiscent smile lifting the corner of his mouth. "I feel like ignoring the sun right now." He looked about to dive on top of me. I giggled. "Shameless hussy!" He didn't dive, but he had me in his arms again, his warm flesh exciting against me. But, as our chests touched, I winced. My breasts were tender. He put me from him with an oath, and there was absolutely no desire in the penitent kiss he placed on my cheek.
"Rafe?"
"We can wait. It's not going somewhere else."
With that cryptic remark he hauled me out of the bed, swatted me on the buttocks, and pushed me toward the shower.
"We gotta ride, and then I want to take you to the Locust Valley meet this afternoon at Charlie's place. That is, if you'd like to go."
"Is that where the Eldicotts are going?"
"Yes."
"I'd like to see them again especially."
"Thought you would. Old friends of my father's, and good friends of mine." Then he was off down the hall.
I showered quickly without steam effects, pleased I'd see the Eldicotts again and also watch a meet I didn't have to compete in for a change. I'd been going steady on that routine ever since Florida. But I'd plenty of points accumulated for the big trophies.
I have a tendency to forget time in a shower: I get pensive from the mesmeric beat of water on my shoulders. God knows the last few days-few days?-had given me a lot to think about. Incredible! I'd met Rafe only last Saturday, and yet, in some aspects of our days together, I felt I'd known him a great deal longer. Could I actually have met him when he jockeyed for Dad? And simply not singled him out of the gaggle of short men who drifted in and out of the Du Maurier paddocks? I shivered with erotic memories of last night. Unlikely that I'd have met Rafe and not remembered. No, now, Nialla, you'd've been twelve? Thirteen? You weren't noticing boys in that way… only horses.
I was also a little nonplussed that Rafe hadn't taken me again this morning. He certainly looked like he wanted to. I wouldn't have minded the hurting: it was perversely stimulating, I'd discovered. But if Rafe was considerate of me, he hadn't married me just for that. (I couldn't any longer use the contemptuous vulgar words with which I was used to referring to the sex act-not after being pleasured by Rafael Clery. "Pleasured"-that was exactly the right word, too.)