"No—yours. But now we've got a proper reason . . . And we're already invited up to the Tower for an orgy tonight, so we can combine business and pleasure."
"And it's David's turn to buy the drinks and hold the floor, dummy5
too," said Steffy. "That'll put him in a good mood for a start."
Roche looked from one to the other, and to Lexy, trying not to goggle at them. In spite of the tough talk, they were still only three grown-up English schoolgirls; indeed, because of the tough talk, which was at least partially designed to impress him that they were women of the world, they couldn't really mean orgy when they said it. So he was a bystander to some sort of in-joke of theirs.
"Well, as long as I don't have to hold the floor," said Lexy fretfully. "I don't mind buying the booze, but I draw the line at having to spout."
"Your turn will come, Lexy. You're bound to draw the short straw sooner or later," said Steffy.
"It's all right for you—and Jilly. You're both too bloody clever for words, with your scholarships and your degrees. But all I've got is five School Cert passes and a bit of shorthand-and-typing—I'm no blue-stocking!" Lexy protested. "What am I going to talk about, for God's sake?"
The dress had begun to gape again: Lexy was certainly no blue-stocking. Steffy spread her hands. "Sex, darling—what else?"
Lexy opened her mouth, searching for words but not finding any. So this was the moment, thought Roche, when David of the Secret Service must sing for his orgy, if not his supper.
"If you draw the short straw, Lady Alexandra, then I'll take it," he said gallantly. "It's the least I can do, whatever it is, in dummy5
return for your speaking up for me, to find me a place to lay my head."
They all looked at him in silence for a moment. Then, before he could think of retreating, Lady Alexandra threw her arms round his neck and kissed his cheek.
"Put the man down, Lexy!" said Jilly. "At once!"
Mmm . . ." Steffy pursed her lips. "I don't whether that's permissible under the rules."
"What rules?" said Lexy. "There aren't any rules! Let's go to the Tower at once and find a bed for this super chap, Jilly!"
"No!" said Jilly, in command as always. "David's not there yet. He's in Cahors, talking with his French rugger boozers—
you don't play rugger, by any chance, do you, David?"
It was like not being a hussar. "No, I'm afraid not. Hockey is my game."
"Thank God! Don't be sorry—I couldn't bear to go through the Lions' match against the Springboks at Ellis Park again, blow by blow! And we've been through it twice in French too . . . Anyway, he won't be back until nightfall—always supposing he doesn't drive into a ditch somewhere on the way back, that is." She gave Roche a grin, wrinkling her snub-nose. "Besides which, we came here to bathe, and I need cooling down."
Cooling down had its attractions, not least after that collision with Lady Alexandra's unrestrained curves.
"Me too!" He grinned back at her. It wasn't really a snub-dummy5
nose, it was delightfully retroussé, and the grin beneath it was infectious.
"I shouldn't wonder, with what you've just been through!"
And there was no maliciousness in that knowing look, either.
In the catalogue of their very different virtues, Jilly Baker's might strike a higher total than either Lady Alexandra's and Meriel-Steffy's, when they were all added up.
"Right then!" Jilly's command never slipped for a moment.
"David and I will bathe forthwith. Steffy will hold up a towel so that Lexy can attire herself in those inadequate red bandages of hers without causing offence to the local voyeurs, and then both join us in the Dordogne."
They didn't seem to mind being pushed around as peremptorily as Lexy's sort-of general father had once pushed his Audley subalterns to their deaths, they seemed happily accustomed to it.
Roche, less accustomed, found himself looking to the river to see if the Marathon-swimming, long distance-no distance Frenchman was still breasting the current—if this was their accustomed swimming place, to which Raymond Galles had so accurately directed him, was he one of the local voyeurs?
Was all that effort in aid of them?
But there was no one there, the river was empty now. Had the sight of Lady Alexandra's charms, briefly glimpsed, been too much for him, spoiling his concentration for one fatal moment, so that the river had swept him away?
dummy5
At any rate, he wasn't there, and they were alone.
" Right!" Jilly's voice turned him back towards her just in time to see her strip off her dress over her head with one continuous serpentine movement, to reveal a slender body in a white bathing dress.
He kicked off his sandals at the water's edge, and then the discomfort of the slippery stones under his feet brought him down to earth painfully.
"Come on—you have to do this bit as quickly as you can!"
Jilly Baker took his hand, pulling him forward. "Once the current starts to lift you off your feet it's not so bad—"
The water swirled about his knees, and then frothed about his thighs, surprising him with its solid force even though he had watched the Frenchman battle against it. He had never stepped into a river like this, which dragged at him as though it was alive.
"There's a flat piece there—see?" Jilly pulled at him, pointing to a rippling white shape beneath the surface just ahead of them. "There now! That's right—just hold me—make them jealous!"
Roche anchored his feet, one on bearable gravel, one on the smoothness of bed-rock stone which had been sandpapered by ten thousand years of shifting pebbles.
He looked back at the charade on the dry strand from which they had come. The rush of the river was loud all around dummy5
him.
"Don't worry! They can't hear us. And Lexy'll take hours stuffing herself into her bikini," Jilly said conversationally, her cheek against his shoulder. She was wet and slippery as an eel, and he didn't know quite where to put his hands, although he knew where he wanted to put them.
"I'm sorry about that, Captain Roche—David—can I call you
'David'? I shall have to, anyway—so . . . David?"
Jilly." Her waist was the only safe place.
"I don't know what you're doing. . . and I don't think I want to know. . . But they said it had to be natural, after I picked you up, so it had to be Steffy who thought of it, if not Lexy—
inviting you to Audley's. . . Only she was so slow to catch on."
"I thought you did it beautifully." He couldn't help kneading her stomach under water. "What's this chap Audley like?"
"He's okay—big, tough man . . . likes his own way too much for my taste. But he also likes it if you stand up to him. And he doesn't suffer fools gladly ... So don't let him push you around just for good manners' sake ... In fact, the best thing you can do is make a straight play for Lexy—it shouldn't be too difficult now."
"Not for you? I'd prefer that, if there's a choice."
She moved against him. "Thanks for the compliment."
“It wasn't a compliment, Jilly."
"Well. . . thanks for the insult. But, the way it was put to me, there isn't any choice. Play for Lexy, and put the rest down to dummy5
might-have-been, David."
All the world was might-have-been. Julie was might-have-been. "Won't Audley take exception to that?"
"Audley doesn't give a damn for anything, least of all competition. I think he really fancies Steffy more than anyone, only he's afraid she's up to something . . . Lexy isn't up to anything—but she's not nearly as stupid as she pretends, she just doesn't want a tough guy like Audley for a husband. She wants someone she can mother. Audley's just for kicks—and vice-versa . . . The point is, Steffy also fancies Audley. So you go for Lexy, and Steffy'll be on your side, and so will Audley."
Roche glanced quickly towards the riverbank, and had to tear his eyes away from Lexy, magnificently bikinied. Steffy was still undressing.