She still couldn't recall the theme of the article, only that single sentence about waking with all one's hormones the right way up after a smashing night with one's true love.
But Ash was not her true love.
She stared at his sleeping face which was half turned towards her, emphasising the high slant of his cheekbone and the strong, uncompromising jawline.
Then it hit her with a force of a blow; the sudden shattering discovery that Ash Lambard
was
her love.
In almost every respect he personified all she admired in men. He was courteous, capable, responsible; he had a ready sense of humour and, to quote Miranda, 'a cultivated mind in the body of a man of action'.
He was kind to old ladies and children. Physically he was the most attractive man she had ever met. As a lover she knew him to be both painstaking and imaginative. What more could a woman want in a man?
Only that he should love her was well as desire her.
But that doesn't make any difference to my having fallen in love with him, she thought.
For the next hour or more, as they flew east, into the early sunrise, she sat motionless, trying to come to terms with this new and amazing complication of an already complex situation.
She could see now why she had been nervous when Ash had crossed Devil's Bridge. It had been one of several signals which she had not understood at the time.
She did not remember becoming drowsy, but she must have dozed.
Because the next thing she knew was that breakfast was about to be served, and she was no longer sitting upright but leaning against her husband.
He had put the arm-rest out of the way, and had his arm round her, with her head cushioned on his broad shoulder.
'How long have you been awake?' she asked, drawing away.
'About an hour. I went to have a quick shave before the main rush to the washrooms, and when I came back you didn't look too comfortable, so I got rid of this'—putting the arm-rest back in position.
'Thank you. I hope I haven't given you pins and needles.'
She avoided his eyes, afraid that he might see in hers some clue to the revelation which had come to her during the night.
It was late morning when the aircraft touched down. Immediately the ebony face of the woman on her right was split by a beaming smile.
She began to chat, making Christie realise that she wasn't as sullen as she had seemed. She had been afraid, but now, safely back on the ground, was cheerful and friendly.
How easy it is to form a wrong impression of people, Christie thought, as Ash handed down the woman's belongings from the locker.
As they left the aircraft, she noticed how the smiles of the two stewardesses standing by the exit became more animated as they saw the tall man behind her. She wondered if he was looking appreciatively at them. Even if he were in love with her, she would not expect him never to take note of a pretty face.
All that's in the past,
he had said, of his close relations with other women.
But could a wife hold a husband who did not love her once making love to her had lost its novelty?
Never having landed at Heathrow before, Christie had no idea of the procedure at a very large airport. But Ash had and when, after landing, some of the people around them began to stand up and open the lockers for their belongings, he said, 'There's no hurry. The last off the plane will get clear just as fast as the first.'
There was some way to walk from the aircraft to the barrier where their passports were briefly inspected. Then they entered a large baggage hall where passengers from several flights were waiting to see their cases appear on the various baggage carousels.
'Wait here.' He strolled off and, some minutes later, returned with a trolley.
When their cases appeared, he hoisted them easily off the conveyor belt and pushed the trolley towards the Green section of the Customs hall. Only a couple of officers were on duty there, and they showed no interest in Ash and Christie.
On the other side of Customs, a large crowd of friends and relations were waiting to meet arrivals. Christie assumed that now Ash would make for the Underground, or perhaps take the airport bus to the Victoria Air Terminal in Central London.
Instead, she was amazed to find, he had laid on a chauffeur-driven car. The address he gave to the driver was not that of her flat where she had expected to be staying, but somewhere in the West End.
'Where are we going?' she asked him, as the car set off.
The driver had put a plaid wool rug over her knees, but the morning, although cold, was bright and sunny—a pale, soft sunshine compared with the golden light of Antigua.
'I've booked one of the apartments where I always stay when I'm in London. I prefer them to a hotel, and they're more conveniently situated than your place. A lot of the stores are within walking distance. If you want to go over to the Sloane Street-Knights- bridge area, you'll have this car to call on. Taxis can be hard to come by at lunchtime and towards closing time. You're going to have a full enough schedule without hanging about in the cold, or the wet, waiting for a taxi to bring you and your parcels home.'
'You're very considerate,' Christie said stiffly.
'My consideration is not entirely disinterested. I don't want my wife to be too exhausted at the end of a wearing day's shopping to have any energy left for me.
He reached for her hand, raised it to his lips and, when she glanced at him, gave her a smile of unequivocal sensuality.
Flushing, she snatched her hand free, and looked quickly at the driver. But the glass panel between the front and back seats was closed. If the man could see them in his rear-view mirror, he had not been looking in it just then.
The entrance to the flats was in one of Mayfair's quieter squares.
They stayed in the car until the driver had announced their arrival on an entryphone and the electrically-operated door had been unlocked by whoever was in charge of the flats.
When the lift brought them to the sixth floor, they were met by a woman in an overall whom Ash introduced as the housekeeper. She showed them to their apartment, followed by the driver with their cases. Ash asked him to call for them at four.
When they were on their own, he said to Christie, 'I expect you'd like to have a bath after that uncomfortable night. I'm going out to buy something to eat and drink. I'll be back in about forty minutes.'
This was an unforeseen respite. As soon as the outer door had closed behind him she expelled a long sigh and relaxed slightly.
The sitting-room seemed small by comparison with the Hathaways'
exceptionally spacious rooms, but it was well furnished with a fitted carpet, a sofa and two armchairs, a glass-topped coffee table to match the round dining-table, and good quality lamps and pictures. There was a television set, and a coin-operated telephone. The green and white glazed chintz curtains were lined and interlined, and when Christie drew aside the white net glass curtains she looked out on the topmost branches of the plane trees growing in the square gardens.
Double-glazing reduced any noise from the traffic circling the gardens, and the flat was centrally heated.
The rest of it consisted of a small fitted kitchen, a pink bathroom, and a bedroom with a double bed and plenty of storage in drawers and cupboards.
In much less than forty minutes, or so it seemed to her, she heard Ash's key in the lock. She was in the bedroom, wrapped in a bath towel, unpacking and hanging up her clothes. Had she realised how much time had passed , she would have dressed sooner. However, having seen that he had two large paper carriers with him, she thought he would unload and put away his purchases, giving her a chance to dress.
But she barely had time to unwrap the towel and scramble into briefs and a bra before he strolled into the bedroom.
Moving to the head of the bed, he took hold of the cover and pulled it away from the crisp white pillowcases and neatly folded down top sheet. At the same time, his other hand was starting to loosen his tie.
'Are you g-going to bed?' she asked uncertainly. She had picked up the towel and was holding it in front of herself.
'I am. How about you? I should think you could do with a nap after having so little sleep last night.'
'No, I—I'm not tired at the moment.'
'Good, because I'm not tired either. I wasn't intending to sleep.'
He threw aside his tie and came to her, reaching out to take away the towel with which she was concealing her scanty underclothes.
Christie backed away. 'No . . . please . . . not now.'
'Why not now? We have half an hour to fill before the wine will be chilled. What better way is there?'
She shrank back until the wall behind her made further retreat impossible. 'I—I don't want to . . . you have no right to force me.'
'I'm not going to force you. Only coax you.' There was a smile in his eyes.
Her grip on the bath towel tightened. The stubborn line of her chin became more pronounced as she braced herself to resist him.
'Are you going to fight me again? I don't know why, since it's now established beyond doubt that, far from being frigid, you're a normal, warm-blooded girl with all the right reflexes. You also have a beautiful body, so there's nothing to be shy about.'
As he spoke, he moved close and reached out, not to take hold of the towel she was clutching, but to put his arms round and behind her, and open the clasp of her bra.
'Don't. . .
don't—
But her angry protest was smothered by the hungry pressure of his mouth.
He kissed her for a long time and then, with his lips to her cheek, he said, in a husky murmur, 'You want this as much as I do. Why not admit it?'
'I don't... I do
not!
It's degrading.'
At that he lifted his head, looking down at her tormented face with eyes which had narrowed and hardened.
'Degrading? Why, for God's sake?'
Forgetting the clasp he had undone, she let go the towel and, placing both palms on his chest, gave him a vigorous shove. She succeeded, because he let her, :n pushing him off a couple of paces. But the sharp movement also made the cups fall away from her breasts.
As she snatched them back, she said furiously, 'Because we don't love each other. To me, sex without any love is a ... a disgusting travesty.'
'It didn't seem to disgust you the night before last, once I'd overcome your initial reluctance.'
A deep blush suffused her face and spread down her neck. She said in a low, goaded voice, 'If you torture someone you can make them admit to anything. If you use your sexual skills on me, of course my body will respond. But not my mind ... not my heart. You can never impose force on them.'
Ash had been unbuttoning his shirt. He pulled it free of his pants, unbuttoned the cuffs and shrugged it off, his dark gaze intent on her face.
'At least my despised sexual skills have relieved you of the depression of believing yourself to be abnormal. I thought you might have been glad to be freed of that burden.'
'But now I have a new and worse burden imposed on me,' she retorted bitterly.
She saw anger flare in his eyes. He jerked down his zip and stepped out of his trousers.
'Yes,' he said curtly. 'If that's how you choose to regard it, I'm afraid you have. Because for me, the delights of your body are better than all the other pleasures of the flesh. And one day you're going to agree that what we are about to do together is not degrading. It's a gift from the gods which I don't intend to deny myself because of your scruples, my girl.'
He was fully undressed now, as naked as the statues of ancient Greek athletes. Except that they had not been sculpted at the moment described so graphically in the poem she had read on the eve of their wedding.
She was afraid that, because she had annoyed him, this time he might take her swiftly, before she was as ready for him as obviously he was for her.
The still unforgotten misery of past ordeals made her cringe as he came towards her. But it was an inward cringing which she was too proud to let him see.
She might have known he would have a far more subtle way of punishing her than by hurting her. The first thing he did was to refuse her uneasy appeal, 'Can't we draw the curtains?'
Now that she knew she loved him, she was terrified of revealing it; of having him watch her face as he drove her mad with his devilishly skilful hands and his knowledge of all the most sensitive parts of her body.
'No, I like to look as well as touch.'
He smiled as he said it, but there was a vengeful glint in his eyes which made her quail. She could tell that her angry outburst—and particularly that last lie, that he would never reach her heart—had only served to fuel his determination to conquer her completely. She felt sure that, without loving her, he meant to make her love him.
As usual, she tried to resist and, as usual, he soon overcame her. It was not long before his kisses had deprived her of all rational thought.
Aroused as she knew him to be, he still held himself in check until, though she strove not to show it, her pulses were racing with a fever of desperate excitement. But this time Ash did not allow her to reach the lovely sensation she had experienced on the island.
Suddenly he stopped kissing her and touching her. She kept her eyes closed, but felt a movement on the bed which made her feel sick with disappointment. She thought that now, for the first time, he was going to indulge his own hunger without the delectable prelude she had already learned to expect.
Ash parted her legs, and his mouth seared the tender flesh inside one quivering brown thigh. She waited for him to enter her, and then gave a gasp of shock and a smothered scream.
Her body coiled like a spring as she reached down to grab with both hands his thick, springy hair. Her tug on his head must have hurt him, but it didn't stop what he was doing to her. His strong hands snapped over her wrists, biting painfully into her flesh until she released her hold on him.
Christie's shoulders sank back on the bed. She surrendered to waves of ecstasy.