Kissing Toads (42 page)

I went up to bed around ten-thirty – far too early, but there wasn't much night life at Dunblair, unless you counted the ghosts. I thought I was tired – I hadn't been sleeping too well lately – but in bed I found myself thinking about Elizabeth, and the skeleton, and the whole murder mystery thing, until I was so creeped out that I had to sit up and switch on the light. Basilisa's horrible décor surrounded me, thankfully minus the devil-mask, but I was so used to it I barely reacted any more. That's the danger of bad taste. It's insidious – or do I mean invidious? It sneaks up on you and takes over and in the end you don't even notice it's there. Working on a makeover show is a good thing because it's supposed to be about making the world more beautiful, though I have serious doubts about Laurence Lloodwelling-Boredom. After one or two series these interior people go slightly off the rails, if you ask me.

It was nearly half-eleven now and I couldn't sleep, so I picked up the phone – Morag answered – and ordered tea. I was more or less prepared for it to arrive with Harry, but he'd been so nice to me lately I wasn't worrying about it.

Presently, there was a tap on the door and he came in. No tea. Just a tray with several bottles, alcoholic ones, and two brandy bubbles.
Two
. I was suddenly aware that I ought to be wearing a bedjacket. I've never owned a bedjacket in my life, naturally, but I remember my mother having one, a sort of fluffy angora thing which tied across her bosom with pink ribbon. I suspect somebody knitted it for her. Mummy will actually wear the things people knit for her, unfortunately. (First rule of fashion: never,
ever
wear anything anyone has made for you, no matter how much you care for the person – unless they're a leading couturier, of course.) Anyway, all I had on was a pair of men's pyjamas I'd bought for Alex but liked too much to give him, thank heaven. They weren't indecent, but they
were
sexy.

And there was the alcohol and
two
glasses . . .

‘Where's my tea?' I demanded.

‘I thought you needed a nightcap,' Harry said. ‘I recommend the brandy, but I brought Cointreau, Grand Marnier, or Glayva if you'd rather have something sweeter.'

It wasn't such a bad idea, really. Except for the second glass.

‘What's Glayva?' I asked.

‘A Scottish liqueur. Made from whisky and honey.'

‘I'll stick with brandy.' I don't really like it all that much, but those sweet drinks all taste like medicine to me.

Harry poured my drink and one for himself.

‘I didn't ask you to join me,' I said tartly.

‘I won't if you don't want me to. I thought you might like someone to talk to, that's all.'

He wasn't grinning, or being impertinent, or eying up my tits. He had the kind of expression which in a guy with a different type of aura might have passed for sensitive. And he hadn't mentioned anything about collecting on the second half of the kiss. Perhaps he didn't fancy me any more, now I was single. Perhaps he was the sort of guy who only fancied women who were fancied by other men, and when they didn't, he didn't either. Perhaps no one would ever fancy me again . . .

‘Okay,' I said.

‘Can I sit down?'

I didn't want him looming over me.

‘Okay,' I said again.

He moved Fenny and sat down. On the bed. I'd expected him to pull up a chair and I was disconcerted.

‘You looked pretty unhappy after finding that skeleton today,' he said gently. ‘Of course, finding a skeleton is distressing for anybody, but you seem to mind a lot about Elizabeth Courtney.'

Suddenly, I was very very wary.

‘You're being sensitive, aren't you?' I accused. ‘You're
deliberately
being sensitive. Trying to get under my guard.'

The flicker of a grin returned. ‘Is it working?'

‘No – yes! You're sitting on my bed and we're drinking HG's liquor. How does he feel about that?'

‘He won't notice as long as I don't overdo it.'

‘I think it's a cheek.'

‘Perks of being a butler.'

I didn't say he was a fraud. I'd done that one to death. I took a mouthful of the brandy and it slithered gently down my throat, evaporating into heat somewhere beneath my ribs. ‘Well, all right then,' I conceded, though I wasn't sure what I was conceding. ‘But I want you to know that
I
know . . .'

‘You know what?'

‘What you're up to.' Whatever that was. ‘You've been incredibly kind to me lately, but I know it's just a sneaky attempt to . . . to . . . Look, I'm not going to start saying you're my rock or anything like that, okay?'

Harry grimaced. ‘I have no desire to be anyone's rock, thank you. I don't do rock. I'm not
your
butler, anyway. I wouldn't be your butler if it was the last job in the world and you were offering me a six-figure salary.'

‘Why not?' I said indignantly.

‘Because it's against the Secret Code of Butlers to make a pass at your employer.'

‘Are you making a pass?' I demanded, wanting clarity.

‘In a minute. Don't rush me.' He polished off his drink in one long swallow.

‘
In a minute?
'

‘You're a believer in instant gratification, aren't you?' He took the glass from my unresisting hand and set it down on the table. ‘When you want something, you want it
now
.'

Belatedly, I tried to summon up some coolth. Failed. ‘If what you're after is the half-kiss I owe you . . .'

‘I was going to start with that.'

And then he was kissing me, really
thorough
kissing, deep and hungry – his tongue in my mouth, his hand on my breast – sliding under my pyjama top, cupping the curve of my flesh, massaging my nipple between finger and thumb. His touch sent a lance of feeling right down between my legs and I was melting again, my whole body melting, dissolving towards a single knot of exquisite tension. The spot marked X . . .

I was in
serious
trouble. I was on a bobsleigh-ride careering downhill to destruction – but I didn't care.

Then Harry drew back and started pulling off his clothes. He was much bigger than Alex, not taller but bigger, probably a few pounds overweight, with rolling muscles and sandy hair on his arms and a diamond-shaped patch of hair beneath his pecs. Alex had been slim and willowy, with slim willowy muscles, hairless as a baby, always lightly tanned from the aftermath of some expensive holiday. Harry looked as if tans were for wimps who had nothing better to do with their time. His skin was skin-coloured, his body big – big was the word that got stuck in my head – big and powerful and intensely masculine.

‘I can't . . .' I began. ‘I mean, I won't . . .'

He was unzipping his fly; his boxers bulged with more bigness. Then he had kicked off both trousers and pants.

‘All you have to do is say no,' he said.

Unfair. Totally, unscrupulously unfair.

‘No?'

‘Are you sure?'

‘Um . . . no . . .'

He dumped Fenny on the floor and got into bed with me. My powers of resistance had gone wherever powers of resistance go at these times. He moved on top of me, undoing buttons, getting stuck with them the way men always do. His erection was pressing into me with only the thin silk of my PJs in between and the
big
word was filling up my thoughts until I couldn't think about anything else. I said shouldn't we have the light off but he said no, he wanted to see me, and then he was gazing at my breasts like a tiger at its dinner.

‘No silicon . . .'

‘It's all me.'

‘God, I'm going to fuck you,' he said slowly, in a furry sort of voice that went to the X-spot like the touch of his hands. In his mouth,
fuck
wasn't a swear word, it was sexy and dirty and straight to the point. ‘I'm going to fuck you like you've never been fucked before. I'm going to fuck you and fuck you and fuck you till you beg for mercy, but I won't stop, I'll fuck you deeper and deeper . . .'

I couldn't say anything any more. I just whimpered. He was tugging at my pyjama trousers and I was wriggling out of them, and
then
I felt his knob pushing at me, pushing into me – no preliminaries, no foreplay – and he was fucking me like he said, fucking me so deep, and I was helpless and melting and creaming myself at the feel of him, at the hardness and the deepness and
him
, Harry, Harry inside me, Harry inside me all night long . . .

Much later, when we came up for air, I asked him, ‘Did you seriously expect this to happen when you came in with the drinks?'

‘Yes. I made up my mind it would.'

The conceit of the guy! ‘What if I hadn't ordered anything?' I said cunningly.

‘I'd have turned up anyway. Or left it till tomorrow. No longer. My self-restraint was running out.'

‘And if I'd said no?'

‘You didn't.'

‘I
did
– sort of.'

‘You said no when I asked if you meant no,' Harry said. ‘Double negative. Doesn't count. Anyhow, I knew you wouldn't.'

‘How could you know that? Up till two days ago, I was supposed to be getting married.'

‘Alex is a prat,' Harry said dismissively. ‘You were wasted on him. I wanted you the first time I saw you, when you got out of the car and looked at me so snootily. I thought: What she needs is a good shagging. When a bloke thinks that, what he means is he intends to be the one doing it. I didn't like you at all, but I wanted you. As competition, Alex rated rather lower than Fenny.'

‘I was
engaged
to him! He's rich and classy and much better-looking than you—'

‘All true. Tell me, did you fuck him even
once
after he got here?'

‘Well . . .' I wasn't going to give him that satisfaction. ‘Yes. Yes, I did . . .'

‘Liar.'

I collapsed. ‘How did you know?'

‘Chemistry,' Harry said briefly. ‘You and I had it. You and he didn't. Simple.'

‘Weren't you even a little bit jealous?' I knew I sounded peeved, and I didn't like it.

‘Nothing to be jealous of.' He stroked my cheek with one finger. ‘Why don't you just give in and go with the flow? Stop trying to fit me into your formulae.'

‘Relationships always follow a formula,' I said. Mine did; I saw to that.

‘Not the ones that matter. That's what bothers you, isn't it? No formula, no control. That's scary. Good. Be very, very scared . . .'

He started to kiss me again, but after a moment I pulled back an inch. I was still picking over everything he'd said. ‘Do you like me now?' I said.

He smiled – not the grin but a smile, softer, more intimate. ‘Sometimes.'

‘Just
sometimes
?' I said furiously. It's difficult to be furious with someone when you're in bed with them, naked, within a few millimetres of penetration, but I did my best.

‘All right. I think you're a terrific person – you're brave and loyal and generous and loving. You're also selfish and spoiled and in need of regular beating. And – yes, I like you. Right now, I like you a lot.'

‘Thanks!' I snapped, trying for sarcasm. ‘Well,
you
are—'

‘I'm more selfish than you and less generous, or I wouldn't be here with you.' He looked oddly serious. ‘I don't expect
you
to like
me
. Just enjoy the moment.'

He was nuzzling my ear – the line of my throat – the swell of my breast. Lifting it to his mouth, biting my nipple – so hard I cried out.

‘Sorry . . .'

‘No – it's okay. Don't stop . . .'

He bit me again, more gently – the tiger with his dinner – then worked his way down, all the way down, till he reached the X-spot.

He knew what to do when he got there.

Oh God . . . oh shit . . . oh bliss bliss bliss . . .

Oh
bloody
hell.

I woke up. It was morning – the daylight behind the curtains was a dead giveaway. I thought of
Romeo and Juliet
(I'd done the play at drama college): ‘It is the nightingale and not the lark . . .' But it was no good. Morning had definitely broken and I was crashing back down to earth, face to face with reality in all its grim ghastliness. I hadn't even been pissed – the lack of hangover knocked that idea on the head. I couldn't plead mitigating drunkenness on any level: my sole glass of brandy still stood on the bedside table with half an inch of liquor in the bottom. I was responsible for my actions. The balance of my body had been disturbed, but not my mind. There was nothing between me and the Awful Truth.

I was in bed with the butler.

He lay beside me, half on his side, half on his stomach, one arm thrown across my chest. A chunky, muscly, bristly arm like that of a gingery gorilla. Oh God – could it be . . . I was into
rough trade
? You heard of cases – gorgeous upmarket women and sleazy downmarket guys. Next it would be the plumber, the gas man, one of those sexy couriers in black leather with his motorbike throbbing at the curb . . .

Oh
shit
.

Harry rolled over, still half asleep, pulling me into his arms. The melting process started all over again . . .

With an effort of will I dragged myself away and sat up, hugging the duvet against me by way of protection. Harry lay exposed in all his skin-coloured nakedness, big and solid and much too hairy for my refined taste. Part of his anatomy was far more awake than he was.