HF - 05 - Sunset (32 page)

'I am Margaret Hilton. I must confess I very seldom bother with underclothes around the plantation. And I had not expected to visit town today.' She laid her hat on the table, stood facing him. 'Aren't you going to kiss me?'

'Kiss you ? I say, what
...
I mean, well
...'
He was looking at her left hand.

'I really would not let that bother you,' she said. 'My husband began life as a convenience, and has now become an inconvenience.'

'Yes, but I say, dash it all, isn't this rather, well
...
open? These people
know
you.'

'Everyone in Jamaica knows me, Tommy. I am Margaret Hilton.'

'My word. I hadn't realized. Oh, I say
...'
He turned to the door, almost gratefully, at the knock. The waiter placed the tray of glasses on the table, bowed to Margaret, and withdrew. 'I say,' Tommy complained. 'Dash it all, the fellow didn't wait for a tip.'

'I will see to the tip, later on.' She held out a glass, raised her own. 'Here's to us. And the last time we met.'

'Oh, I say
...'
He gulped rather than drank, seemed to feel better. 'There was a to-do, wasn't it? I say, did you really leave England the next day? That's what they said.'

'Yes. I did. Not to get away from you, so much, Tommy, as to get away from Oriole. Besides,' she lied, 'I had heard things were very bad here, and 1 had to sort out the plantation.
Aren't
you going to kiss me?'

'Well, I ...' He put down his glass, held her shoulders, leaned forward. His breath smelt of rum, but then, so would hers. His lips touched hers, and she opened her mouth and sucked his tongue inside. For a moment he resisted her, then his body came against hers, and she felt his hands on her back. 'Oh
I
say,' he whispered, when he had got his breath back. 'Meg
...'

She released him, walked away from him, sat on the bed. 'I wouldn't like you to think I'm a tart.'

'Oh, eh, I say, how could I?'

'Because I am behaving like one. I'm afraid my circumstances are rather odd. I had to marry my husband to gain control of my plantation. Now he is reluctant to divorce me. Why should he ? And as he has, well, overlooked various sins in my past, he is not likely to be concerned with sins in the future.'

'Oh, I say
...'
He sat beside her on the bed.

'So I can only come to you as a mistress, you see, Tommy. But I cannot even be as straightforward as that. I must have ten thousand pounds. I cannot pledge anything, as 1 am under age, and my guardian would certainly not condone what I am doing, what I am planning to do with the plantation.'

'Oh, I say
...'

'So all I can offer is to sell myself for the required money. I imagine it is a good bargain, Tommy. I am told I am a beautiful woman. Well, I can see that every time I look in the glass. I am also a desirable woman, as I shall prove to you. And I suspect, I will put it no stronger than that, that you are in love with me. I also only wish the money as a loan, so you are getting what you want more than anything else in the world, really for free, and with a bit of interest thrown in.'

'Oh, I say
...'

Meg got up at the rap on the door. 'Come.'

Two maids brought in the steaming tin bath, placed it in the centre of the floor, laid the folded towel and the scented soap on the table, bowed to Meg.

'Oh, I say,' Tommy said. 'I really think I ought to be off, if you are going to have a bath.'

'Of course you are not going to be off, Tommy,' she said, and smiled at the maids. 'You are going to scrub my back. Aren't you ?'

The girls simpered, and closed the door behind her.

'Oh, I say,' said Tommy Claymond. 'You are, well, very frank about things, aren't you?'

'I'm Meg Hilton,' she said. 'Will you assist me?' She turned her back on him, and as he continued to hesitate, added, 'It unbuttons'.

His fingers touched her shoulders, began to fumble. She found her breathing quickening as the sex urge tumbled in her belly. Perhaps, she thought, I should have been a whore. What a terrible word. I should have been a courtesan. Because I would have enjoyed my work as well as been able to make men happy. Providing the men would not have been like Billy.

She felt his breath on her neck, leaned back in his arms. His hands slipped under the material, stroked round her ribs, found her breasts. She wanted to scream with joy; his touch was so remarkably gentle. Yet there could be no argument about the strength in those fingers, so much more used to wrapping themselves around the handle of a cricket bat.

'Oh, Meg,' he whispered. '1 do love you so, Meg.'

She had not been touched like that since Cleave. She turned, in his arms, found his lips once again. And this time his mouth was opened and waiting. She drove her own hands down, to caress the front of his trousers, to find what she wanted and hold it, and feel it swell beneath her fingers.

'Oh, Meg,' he said again. 'Oh, Meg.'

She shrugged her shoulders and felt the material slipping. It caught on her breasts, and she moved away from him, still holding his mouth with hers. The gown settled on her thighs, for a moment, and then clouded around her ankles. His hands, on her shoulders, began to slip down her back, roaming lower in delighted amazement at finding nothing but flesh.

His mouth slid from hers, touched her ear. 'Oh, Meg, my-darling Meg,' he said. 'How I love you, Meg. How I want you.' He was turning her, and her knees touched the bed. Instinctively she began to fall backwards, and then checked herself. Always in the past she had been in too much haste, with Billy in her anxiety to get it over, with Alan for fear that she would not enjoy it. She had not hurried with Cleave, and she had never been allowed to hurry with Oriole.

She sat down, released him.

'Meg?' His head moved away, as he was bending from the waist. 'You haven't
...'

'I haven't changed my mind, Tommy. I want to enjoy you.'

'To
...'
He had clearly never supposed a woman, or at least, a lady, could say something like that.

'I've shocked you again,' she said, and lay back, one knee up, nestling her head on her hair. 'Do you like being shocked?'

'By you, Meg. By you. Meg?'

He was staring at her breasts.

'I am feeding my son, Tommy. But not tonight. Would you like some?' 'Oh. I say
...'

'Someone has to, Tommy. Or it will be very painful.' She realized it was something she had wanted to experience since Richard's birth. 'Please.'

He hesitated, then slowly lowered his head to suck the oozing milk.

'And touch me, sweetheart. Touch me,' she whispered. She felt his hand on her knee and sliding up the inside of her thigh. 'Meg
...'

'Don't stop sweetheart. And don't talk. Just touch me.' Fingers. Not so expert as Cleave's certainly. But yet, sufficiently practised. Tommy Claymond was a man about town, and if he classed all
ladies
as feelingless lumps of propriety, he had surely encountered sufficient of their more fortunate sisters.

She spread her legs, wider and wider. She wanted to tear herself apart, with slowly building desire. Her knee bumped into him, and he got up to make room. For a moment his hands were gone, and she reached down in frantic endeavour. But he had merely replaced his fingers with his lips, and she could drive her fingers into his hair, while her legs suddenly wanted to come back together, and had to be prevented by his own hands, parting her thighs.

And now the passion had built into a physical force, almost separating her groin from the rest of her body, but yet sending out thrusts of the most utter delight, reaching up into her belly and thence her heart and her throat and her mind, streaking down to affect even her toes, a climactic eruption of everything she had wanted for two years, a final exorcism of the last memory of Oriole, a final obliteration of her hazy recollection of the night in the mountains.

His head raised, and he gazed at her in alarm. 'Meg?'

'What did I say?'

'You screamed,' he said. 'Meg, did I hurt you?'

'No,' she said. 'No, you have not hurt me. Now, Tommy. Now, now, now.'

She could look at it now, slowly lowering to touch her. She knew that its touch alone would restore the ecstasy, and there it was, stroking gently over her flesh as he sought an entry, and then plunging downwards, reawakening every quivering nerve-end, every jangling desire.

He rose and fell and rose and fell, each surge a joy. She wanted to make it last for ever, but already his movements were slackening, and his mouth was gasping beside her ear. But it had been good. So very good. And there would be others, so many others. It seemed that all of her life she had been waiting for just this moment. But how strange, after all that had happened, to find it with Tommy Claymond.

'Now,' she whispered. 'Instead of just my back, you can wash me all over.'

Meg listened to the cock crow, settled herself more comfortably into her bed, reached out a hand to find the man, and discovered she was alone.

She rolled on her back, gazed at the ceiling. Her head hurt. They had drunk too much champagne with their dinner, and afterwards
...
afterwards they had lain together on this bed, their bodies seething against each other, until they had both fallen asleep from sheer exhaustion.

Who would have supposed it. Tommy Claymond. The man she had been in such haste to reject in London. How foolish could one be. And she should have known, from the way in which he reacted to her quite preposterous demands.

And yet, now it was done, she would have changed none of it. She had been very, very lucky, in meeting him again. But it had not been luck, because he had come to find her. That could not be luck. And having it happen this way meant he was hers, free of the guidance and encumbrance of Oriole. Just hers. In her own way. In
their
own way.

She rolled her head to find him, and saw him in the window.

'Admiring a Jamaica sunrise?'

'Well, it is quite magnificent, don't you know?' He turned, came back to the bed, sat beside her, took her in his arms, kissed her forehead, her eyes, her nose, her chin, her mouth, lowered his head to bury it in her breasts, while she hugged him closer, enclosing him in those magnificent mounds of flesh. And then slipped her hands down to make sure he was ready, and lay down, bringing him on top of her. She wanted no more passion, for the moment. She just wanted to feel him inside her, to know he was there. And yet, the passion was there as well. It lurked even beneath the cocoon of exhaustion, and within seconds she was moaning her ecstasy and rocking her body.

'Meg. If only
...'

'Ssssh,' She waited for him to roll off her. 'Never "if only". We have met again, sweetheart, and that is sufficient.' She raised herself on her elbow, kissed him on the nose. 'Now, you spend the morning here, just lying in bed. She kissed him again as she smiled. 'I wish you fully restored to strength by this evening.'

'What will you do?'

‘I
will go out to Hilltop, and get some clothes. I will also have to make arrangements for a wet nurse for my child. But I will be back by this evening.'

'But Meg
...'

'That is the only way to do it, my sweet. My husband, as I told you, will not easily give up being the Master of Hilltop. I must be so open, so flagrant about my adultery, that he will
have
to divorce me. And then
...'

'My ship leaves tomorrow.'

'Well, cancel it. You'll have to put up with this place for a little while, my darling, but as soon as I can get Billy moved out, you may move into Hilltop. You do want to do that?'

'It sounds delightful. But, Meg, the scandal
...'

'Are you afraid of scandal?'

'Of course
...
well, not, I mean, not if you aren't'

She kissed him again. 'All
Hiltons live scandalous lives. You wouldn't have me a changeling, would you ? Anyway, this is Jamaica. People have to accept scandal as a way of life. The island is too small.' She kissed him again. 'They are too anxious to be invited to Hilltop.'

'But, Meg, I can't stay on Hilltop. I have
...'

'Of course you have your responsibilities, your own life, my darling. I never supposed you would really want to sit down and plant. But I must It is my life. Hilltop is my life. But you'll see. After we are married it will not matter. We will spend part of each year on Hilltop, and part of each year in England, or Scotland, or wherever it is you wish. Isn't that fair?'

'After we are married ?' He spoke slowly.

She kissed him again. 'And I won't even ask you to change your name to Hilton. There is a Hilton now. My son Richard. Besides
...'
She kissed his nose. 'I think I have grown up a little.'

Strangely, he licked his lips. 'Meg
...'