treated like one.
'Marquds?' Ramsey murmured as they rode on. 'You know considerably more about me than I do about you.' 'Oh, I must have seen your photo in one of the slosh columns,' Isabella suggested airily as she thought: God, don't let him think I have been that interested.
'Ah, the Tatler of course...' Ramsey nodded. His photograph had never appeared anywhere, except possibly in the files of the CIA and a few other intelligence agencies around the world.
'Yes, the Tatler, that's it.' Gratefully Isabella jumped at the escape he offered her, and then set herself out to captivate him, without making her interest too obvious or oppressive. It was easier than she had anticipated.
Ramsey had a relaxed charm, a savoir-faire that fitted in with their group.
Soon all of them, except Roger who was still sulking monumentally, were chatting and laughing together as though they were old chums.
As the dusk gathered and they turned back towards the stables, Isabella kneed her mount closer to Harriet's and hissed at her: 'Invite him to the party tonightv 'Who?' Harriet opened her vacuous pansy eyes in feigned incomprehension.
'You know damned well who, you randy little witch. You've been rolling your eyes and ovaries at him for the last hourv Lady Harriet Beauchamp had the run of the family house in Belgravia during the week when her parents were in the country. She put together some of the best bashes in town.
Tonight most of the cast of Hair, the current musical hit, pitched up after the show. They were still in costume and stage make-up, and the four-piece Jamaican band that Harriet had hired burst into a calypso version of 'Aquarius' to welcome them.
It bode fair to becoming one of Harriet's more memorable parties. It was so crowded that those couples with serious business in mind took up to twenty minutes to get from the ballroom up the staircase to the bedrooms; even there they were forced to wait their turn. Isabella wondered sourly what Harriet's papa, the tenth Earl, would think if he knew of the flow of traffic through his four-poster bed.
In the midst of all the gaiety and laughter, Isabella was determinedly insular. She had found a perch halfway up the sweeping marble staircase from which she could keep an eye on all arrivals at the front door, as well as on the action in the ballroom and the front drawing-room into which the dancing had overflowed.
She steadfastly refused to dance herself, despite an incessant string of invitations to do so. She had been so icily dismissive of Roger Coates-Grainger's ponderous attention and callow humour that, discouraged, he had wandered away to the champagne-bar on the terrace. By now he was probably pissed out of his gourd, she thought with gloomy relish.
Such was the success of the evening that none of the guests could tear themselves away to move on to any other venue. All the traffic through the teak double front doors from the square was one-way, and the noise and crush increased with every passing minute.
Another group arrived squealing and shouting tipsy greetings, and Isabella felt a fleeting lift of her spirits as she saw amongst them a head of dark wavy hair, but almost immediately she realized that the man was too short, and when he turned so she could see his face, he was sallow and jowly. She actively hated him, whoever he was.
As a kind of masochistic penance she had made her single glass of champagne last all evening, and now the wine was flat and warm from her fingers on the stem. She looked around to find Roger and send him for another glass but saw that he was dancing with a tall thin girl with false eyelashes and a high penetrating giggle that carried even to where Isabella sat.
God, she's awful, Isabella thought. And Roger looks such a ponce, slobbering all over her like that.
She glanced at the ormolu and porcelain French clock above the door to the drawing-room. The time was twenty minutes to one, and she sighed.
At half-past noon today, Daddy was having an important lunch for a group of influential Conservative Members of Parliament and their wives. As usual Isabella was to be hostess. She should get some sleep to be at her best, but still she lingered.
Where the hell is he? she thought bitterly. He promised he'd come, damn him. (Actually, he had said that he would try to drop in later.) But we were getting on so well, it was as good as a promise.
She dismissed another invitation to dance without even looking up, and tasted the champagne. It was awful.
'I'm not going to wait a minute after one o'clock,' she promised herself firmly. 'And that is absolutely final.' Then abruptly her pulse checked and then raced away again. In her ears the music took on a sweeter, more cheerful note, the oppressive crowds and the noise seemed to recede, her dark mood evaporated miraculously, and she was borne up on a wave of excitement and wild anticipation.
There he was, standing in the front doorway. He was so tall that he towered half a head above those around him. A single lock of hair had fallen like a question-mark on to his forehead, and his expression was remote, almost contemptuous.
She wanted to shout his name. 'Ramsey, here I amv But she restrained herself, and set aside her glass without looking. It toppled over, and the girl on the step below her exclaimed as lukewarm champagne cascaded down her bare back. Isabella did not even hear her protest. She came to her feet in one fluid movement, and instantly, Rarnen's cool green gaze was on her.
They looked at each other over the heads of the swirling, gyrating dancers, and it was as though the two of them were completely alone. Neither of them smiled. It seemed to Isabella that this was a solemn moment. He had come, and in some vague way she sensed the significance of what was happening. She was certain that in that instant her life had changed. Nothing would ever be the same again.
She began to descend, and she did not stumble over the sprawling, embracing couples that clogged the staircase. They seemed to open before her, and her feet found their own way between them.
She was watching Ramsey. He had not moved to meet her. He stood very still in the giddy throng. His stillness reminded her of one of the great predatory African cats, and she felt a tiny thrill of fear, an exhilaration of the blood as she went down to him.
When she stood before him, neither of them spoke, and after a moment she lifted her tanned bare arms towards him and as he took her to his chest she wound her arms around his neck. They danced, and she found every movement of his body transmitted to her own like a current of electricity.
The music was superfluous; they moved to a rhythm of their own. As she flattened her breasts against the hard rubbery muscle of his chest, she could feel his heart beating, and her own nipples swelled and hardened. She knew he could feel them pressing into him, for the beat of his heart quickened and the colour of green darkened in his eyes as she stared up into them.
She arched her back, a slow voluptuous movement that made the ridges of hard muscle stand proud along each side of her spine. His fingertips traced them down, moving lightly over the crests of her spine as though he were playing a musical instrument. She shivered under his touch, and pressed her hips forward instinctively, welding them against his, and she felt his flesh harden and swell just as hers had done.
For her he was a great tree and she was the vine that entwined it, he was a rock and she the current of a tropical ocean that washed about it, he was a mountain peak and she was the cloud that softly enfolded it. Her body was light and free, she seemed to float in his arms, and that was all of reality. They were alone in the universe, and transported far beyond all the natural laws of space and time; even gravity was suspended, and her feet no longer made contact with the earth.
He moved her towards the door, and she saw Roger mouthing something at her across the room. The tall girl was gone, and he was flushed with outrage, but she left him caught helplessly in the press of bodies like a fish in a net.
They went down the front steps, and she took the key of the Mini-Cooper from her sequinned evening bag and pressed it into Ramsey's hand.
He drove very fast through the deserted streets, and she leant as close to him as the bucket seats would allow and watched his face with such a fierce concentration that she did not see or care where he was taking her. She did not think she could endure another moment without touching him, without feeling his hands on her body again. She found that she was shivering once more.
Then, abruptly, he pulled into the kerb and parked the Mini. He came round to her side with long strides, and she knew his need was almost as great as her own. She clung to his arm, and she could not feel the ground beneath her feet as they crossed the pavement and went to the entrance of the red-brick house in a row of similar buildings. He led her up the stairs to the second floor.
As soon as he closed the door of the flat he turned to her, and for the first time she felt his mouth on hers. His face was as rough as shark-skin with new beard, but his lips were soft and hot, and sweet as ripe fruit, and his tongue was like a live thing deep in her mouth.
She felt something burst within her, and all reason and restraint were washed away on the flood. There was a sound in her ears like a gale-force wind over a turbulent sea, and a madness descended on her.
She twisted out of his embrace and tore at her own clothing in a frenzy of impatience, letting it fall around her feet on the polished
