There was no time to fly up the stairs before he emerged into the hall.
She whisked herself inside the room next door to the library which she knew to be the seldom-used morning room.
Through a narrow aperture she watched Nicholas cross the hall to say goodnight to his host and hostess. As soon as he had disappeared, she emerged from her hiding-place and ran up the staircase. She was breathless when she reached the bedroom and flung herself into an armchair.
She had assumed that Celia had left the party with the two men who had entered the house with her. But now it was clear that the three of them had merely arrived on the doorstep at the same moment, having travelled to the party in different cars. Now she came to think of it, Celia was not the type of woman to rely on lifts from friends. She would have her own car, probably something rather dashing like a Mercedes sports or a two-seater Porsche.
It was almost two o'clock by the time Christie had undressed, taken off her make-up, paced about the room for a while, and finally climbed into the curtained tester bed.
The perfect hostess, Emily had placed or caused to be placed on the night table an airtight tin of biscuits and a vacuum flask of iced water.
After a while, Christie switched off the light and lay down. She had left three of the windows curtained, and drawn back the pair at the window with the witch hazel on the sill. Its sweet scent permeated the room.
The shaft of winter moonlight coming in through the window did not reach the bed. But the travelling clock she had brought with her had hands which could be read in the dark. She lay on her side, and watched them creep round the dial until they reached three. A few seconds later, from somewhere far along the corridor, she heard the muffled chimes of a longcase clock.
Was the party still in progress? Surely not. A more likely explanation of her husband's continued absence was that Celia lived not far away, and had prevailed on him to drive her home and walk back across the park. For all her talk of freedom, she would not disdain the gambit of playing the nervous female, glad of a strong man to see her home safely. And once she had him on her own ground . . .
Tormented by visions of Ash making love to Celia while his wife lay alone and sleepless, Christie's temper began to boil with rage, and with what she was forced to admit was jealousy.
For a while she dozed, to be woken by a slight sound which, instantly alert, she recognised as the door closing. She lay rigid, holding her breath until she heard the bathroom door being opened and closed. It was now half past four in the morning.
He was in the bathroom for a little more than five minutes. Then she heard him emerge and soundlessly cross to the bed. She forced herself to breathe with the shallow, even rhythm of the sleeper.
Whoever had turned down the bed had placed his pyjamas on the pillow. But Ash would not put them on. In Antigua, and in warm houses, he slept naked. The pyjamas were for night-time emergencies.
She felt the mattress move as he climbed in beside her, but he settled down quickly, leaving a space between them. She heard him yawn.
Soon afterwards he was sleeping as deeply and peacefully as she had pretended to be.
Less than one week married, and already he had been unfaithful to her. Hot tears coursed down her cheeks, but she made no sound as she wept.
Christie woke up in the morning feeling heavy-eyed and jaded. Ash was still asleep, lying on his stomach with his forearms under the pillow and his dark head turned away from her. He appeared to be sleeping heavily, and no doubt would continue to do so for several hours.
Fortunately Emily had suggested that they should get up when they felt like it. Hugo, normally an early riser, on Sundays liked to lie in bed reading the newspapers until it was time to drive his mother to morning service at the parish church.
Not from any religious conviction, but out of his strong sense of noblesse oblige, he sat through the service and drove her home.
Sometimes Emily went with them, but not every week.
Sliding stealthily out of bed, Christie went to the bathroom where, slowly, to make as little noise as possible, she ran a hot bath.
Meanwhile she brushed her teeth, combed her hair, and splashed her eyelids with cold water.
She felt immeasurably depressed that the not unexpected disillusionment had come so much sooner than even she had expected. Clearly, although Ash had transformed her attitude to making love, he had found her an unexciting partner. What did Celia do which made her so much more satisfactory? she wondered.
She had scarcely sat down in the water when, to her astonishment, the bathroom door opened and Ash strolled in. He was wearing his navy dressing- gown.
'You don't mind if I shave while you bath, I hope?'
She had been about to lie back, but now she stayed as she was with her knees drawn up to her chest.
'I—I thought you were asleep.'
'No, I've been awake for half an hour.'
There was no hint of guilt in his expression before he turned to the handbasin and opened the mirror- glass doors of the hanging cupboard to take out his tooth and shaving brushes. A moment later he shed the dressing-gown and stood there as naked as she was, the muscles rippling on his back as he started to brush his teeth.
Christie, who had intended her bath to be a relaxing one, now began briskly to lather herself. In the circumstances, she resented the casual intimacy of his invasion of the bathroom while she was using it, and regretted not locking the door.
Her resentment fermented as she used her soapy bath mitt, loofah on one side and friction terry on the other, on her legs and arms. By the time she used the hand shower to rinse off, her temper was again at boiling point.
Suddenly she saw a way to put him out of countenance for a change; to indict him for his despicable behaviour far more subtly than by a direct accusation.
All men, but particularly men like Ash, were vain about their virility.
She remembered her sister telling her about a local
crime passionnel
in which a woman had narrowly escaped being killed by her normally inoffensive husband, not because of her infidelity but because of her cruel taunts about his inadequacy as a lover.
After a debauch with Celia, and less than four hours' sleep, it seemed unlikely that Ash's potency would be equal to any further demands on it. Obviously he had made love to Celia relying on the certainty that his still-timid wife would never dream of inviting a repeat performance before he had recovered his powers. But there were situations which could goad the shyest people to take bold initiatives, and this was one of them.
'Shall I leave the bath water for you?' she asked. 'It's not dirty, and I didn't put any scented essence in it.'
'Yes, there's no point in running a fresh bath. While there's no shortage here in England— although heating the stuff is expensive—there's often a shortage on the island. To use water more economically is something most people have to learn. I'm glad you're already economy-minded.'
She stood up and reached for a towel. Meeting his glance through the mirror with an affable smile, she said, '-As you say, hot water is expensive. I've never wasted it.'
Although she deliberately paused before wrapping the towel round herself, she noticed that his gaze didn't-stray to her wet body but returned to his jaw, now covered with creamy lather. That in itself was unlike him, and an indication that he was not in a lecherous mood.
Christie made a performance of drying herself so that Ash had almost finished shaving before she stepped on to the bathmat, leaving the bath free for him.
As he lowered himself into the water, she let down her hair which had been pinned up out of the way. Then she discarded the towel and sat down on the cork-topped stool to rub lotion into her legs. The stool was near the foot of the bath where she was in full view of her husband.
She did not look at him, and was sure he did not look at her. But if he hadn't already got the message, she would make sure he had before she had finished with him.
Her legs and elbows satisfactorily moisturised, she capped the bottle and stood up, one hand on her hip. 'Shall I scrub your back for you?'
'If you wish.'
His tone held a guarded note. For the first time since they were married it was his turn to show reluctance, she thought vengefully.
Not that it gave her any satisfaction to have her suspicions confirmed.
It made her feel sick with misery.
She re-lathered the loofah side of the mitt and, perched on the rim of the bath, a little behind him, she began to apply it vigorously to his broad shoulders and down his spine. At the same time her other hand stroked the nape of his neck, and several times she leaned closer and allowed her breasts to brush against him.
By now, in his usual frame of mind, Ash would have looked over his shoulder and given her the predatory grin which indicated that the signal had been received loud and clear, and very shortly she would be the one being tantalised.
But he didn't look round. He just sat with his long legs drawn up and his forearms resting on his knees.
Carefully concealing the evidence that her ministrations were having no effect whatever, Christie thought furiously.
Suddenly her wish to humiliate him by forcing a situation in which, if not admitted in words, his temporary impotence was clear to them both, changed to a profound despair. Even if she was not frigid, she lacked the power to hold her husband even for the short duration of their honeymoon.
'There you are,' she said listlessly, tossing the mitt into the water in front of him.
'Thank you.' His tone was that of a man thanking a middle-aged waitress for bringing him a cup of tea.
Christie dried her hands, and her breasts where they had been moistened by contact with his back. Looking down at herself she saw that, ironically, it was she who had begun to react to the slippery smoothness of his tanned skin.
She went through to the bedroom, closing the door behind b.er. She saw the room through a shimmer of tears, and longed to crawl back into bed and weep as she had in the night.
Oh, God! What sort of life could they have together if Ash was going to be continually unfaithful to her?
With drooping shoulders she crossed the room towards the drawers containing her clean underwear. Before she reached them, strong arms swung her off her feet, and she found herself cradled against Ash's chest. As she opened her mouth to protest, he kissed her—the demanding kiss of a man confident of an equally passionate response.
Before the kiss ended, and he straightened to smile down at her, she was on her back on the bed, and it was instantly clear that, far from being impotent, he desired her with the utmost urgency.
'I enjoyed that seduction,' he said. 'I suspected you had it in you, but I thought it would be much longer before you could bring yourself to make love to me.' His voice was husky, his dark eyes alight with hunger. 'Move over a little.' He made to lie down beside her.
Christie moved, but not to make room for him. She flung herself across the bed and sprang to her feet on the other side.
'Hey, where are you off to? Come back here.'
'I don't want to come back.' She snatched up her robe from the ottoman at the foot of the bed and hastened to cover herself. 'Do you think you can ignore me all evening, come to bed when it's practically morning, and then do as you please with me? I wasn't trying to seduce you. I was simply scrubbing your back, and trying very hard not to show how furious I was.'
Ash sat up and put his feet to the floor. 'Come now, Christiana, I wasn't born yesterday. You were inviting me to make love to you, and you know it. What's all this nonsense about my ignoring you last night?'
'You didn't speak to me all evening.'
'It wasn't necessary. You were never left alone. A husband and wife aren't supposed to stick together at parties. When a couple do talk, to each other, they're either bored out of their minds by uncongenial company, or they're not pulling their weight as guests.'
'Miss Dane certainly wasn't pulling
her
weight. She was concentrating exclusively on you, except at dinner when she was forced to speak to other people.'
At first she couldn't read his reaction. His eyes narrowed slightly. She thought he was starting to scowl at her. Then she realised he was amused; not only amused, but also pleased.
'So that's it,' he said, his voice silky. 'You were jealous of Celia.'
'Not jealous. Annoyed,' she said shortly. 'And I think with good reason. We had an agreement not to advertise the peculiarities of our marriage.'
'Which is now a great deal less peculiar than you had intended it to be,' was Ash's dry comment. 'In fact it's becoming more normal all the time. You must have grown fond of me, Christie, if Celia's antics made you jealous.'
'I was not. .
.not
. . . NOT jealous!' she blazed. 'I just thought it extremely bad manners for you to devote almost the entire evening to a woman who used to be your mistress when you're honeymooning with someone else.'
'Who told you that about Celia? Not Emily, I'm certain.'
'Nobody told me. It was obvious from the way she kissed you, and from your own reputation. Yes, I know you warned me never to drag up your past. But you also assured me it
was
past. It didn't seem to be last night.'
'That's rubbish,' he told her roundly. 'As a matter of fact, a wife with a little more nous would have come to my rescue. It's none too easy for a man to avoid the clutches of a really determined man-eater without being churlish. Eventually Hugo detached her.'
'Are you saying she was never your mistress? I don't believe it.'
'I think the term mistress suggests a different type of relationship from a very brief fling with Celia five years ago.'
'And your even briefer fling with her last night.'
Recklessly, Christie went on, 'I was awake when you crept into this room at half past four in the morning. When I came to tell you I was going to bed, you and she were alone in the library. I'm not a
complete
fool, Ash.'