Emily

His glance wandered in my direction. He had exactly the same way of stripping off all one’s clothes that Rory had.

‘This is Rory’s wife,’ said Coco.

Alexei sighed and bowed over my hand. ‘What a pity,’ he said, ‘I suppose that puts her out of bounds?’

‘I wouldn’t let that worry you,’ I said in a shaking voice. ‘Incest has never deterred anyone in this house.’

I’ll never understand any of them, I thought hopelessly. Only Marina was beginning to generate a fitting amount of emotion.

The next moment she had rushed up to Rory and flung her arms round his neck.

‘Don’t you see, darling?’ she cried wildly. ‘That lets you and me off the hook.’

The room swam before me.

Chapter Thirty-one

The next moment I blacked out. I remember coming to and seeing a sea of faces and hearing Rory shouting at everyone to get out of the way and give me some air.

‘She looks terrible,’ said Coco. ‘Are you all right, mon ange?’

‘She got up too soon,’ said Buster.

‘She ought to see someone,’ said Coco.

‘I can see at least ten people already,’ I joked feebly.

‘Shall I call Finn?’ said Marina.

‘No,’ snapped Rory, ‘that’s the last thing she needs,’ and picking me up, he carried me upstairs.

‘You’ll rupture yourself,’ I grumbled, as he stumbled on the top step. Thank God I’d lost some weight in hospital.

Rory kicked the door of the best guest room open. A fire was blazing in the grate. The purple-flowered sheets of the bed were turned down. The scent of freesias filled the room.

‘But it’s all ready for Marcelle,’ I said feebly.

‘She can sleep somewhere else,’ said Rory, depositing me on the bed. He started to undo the zip of my dress.

‘I’ll do it,’ I stammered, leaping away. He looked at me, frowning.

‘Do you hate me so much you can’t even bear me to touch you?’

‘No — I mean…’

‘What do you mean?’ The tension was unbearable.

‘I can’t explain.’ He shrugged his shoulders.

‘All right, if that’s the way you want it. I’ll get you a couple of my mother’s sleeping pills.’

I sat down on the bed, burying my face in my hands. I felt sick. How could I explain to him that I couldn’t bear him to touch me because if he did, I’d only collapse, gibbering with lust, telling him I couldn’t live without him, that I loved him — all the things he hated.

Coco’s sleeping pills must have been very strong. It was mid-day when I woke up. The sun was streaming through the curtains, everything was quiet, except for a persistent thrush, and the occasional click of Buster hitting a captive golf-ball in the garden.

The fire had been re-lit in the grate. The scent of freesias was stronger than ever. Walter Scott lay sprawled across my feet. It was such a pretty room. For a moment I wallowed in the voluptuous euphoria created by the sleeping pills, then, bit by bit, the events of the last night came filtering back. Coco’s sister arriving and then that glorious Russian turning out to be Rory’s father, and Rory not being Marina’s brother after all, and there being nothing now to stop them getting married — and having hordes of ravishing black-eyed, red-haired children or ravishing blue-eyed, black-haired children. Oh, God, God, God, I writhed on the pillow — a bad business paid only with agony.

What the hell was I to do next? The last month had been difficult certainly, Rory and I living together with no sex, but at least we’d had a few laughs, and I felt somehow that even if he didn’t love me in the white-hot way he loved Marina, he was making very real efforts to make a go of it. Then Marina’s words of yesterday came back to me: ‘If he weren’t my brother, he’d drop you like a hot coal.’

I lay feeling suicidal for a bit, then got up and drew back the curtains. It was a marvellous day, the sea sparkling, the larches waving their pale green branches against an angelically blue sky. I felt the sun warming my hair and smoothing away the marks of the sheets on my skin.

Buster, hearing the curtains draw, looked up. I moved out of range and examined my body in the mirror. The only advantage about being miserable is you do lose weight. For a minute I forgot my gloom and admired my flat stomach and my ribs, then I sucked in my cheeks, and putting on a haughty model’s face, stood up on my toes.

‘Very nice,’ said a voice at the door, ‘you’ll make the gatefold of Playboy yet.’ It was Rory. I gave a squeak of embarrassment and grabbed a towel to cover myself. ‘Don’t,’ he said, shutting the door. He looked extremely pleased with himself. I wondered, with a flash of despair, if he’d spent the night celebrating with Marina.

‘You look better,’ he said, coming towards me. I backed away.

‘Oh for God’s sake, Em, stop behaving like a frightened horse.’

He was wearing a dark blue sweater, and an old pair of paint-stained jeans; his hair was ruffled by the wind: he looked so unspeakably handsome, I felt my entrails go liquid. I lowered my eyes in case he read the absolutely blatant desire there. I wanted him so much I had to turn away and jump back into bed, pulling the sheets up to my neck.

‘That’s a good girl,’ said Rory. ‘It seems a pity to get up on such a lovely day.’

‘Where is everyone?’ I asked.

‘Wandering around the house in various stages of undress, groaning about their hangovers.’ He sat down on the bed and lit a cigarette. ‘Do you still feel sick, does the smoke worry you?’

I shook my head in surprise, fancy Rory bothering to ask that.

‘How are you getting on, adjusting to your new — er — father?’ I baulked on the word.

Rory grinned. ‘I quite like him, but he’s an old phoney; he’s already tried to borrow money off me, but then my mother always did have frightful taste in men. I’m very glad he didn’t bring me up, I’d have been cooling my heels in Broadmoor by now.’

‘Is he as grand as he makes out?’ I said.

‘I don’t think so, he looks degenerate enough, but I don’t believe those claims about tracing his ancestry back to Peter the Great. It does appear in fact that I’ve been born on the wrong side of an awful lot of blankets. Do you mind having an illegitimate husband?’

‘Do you mind?’ I said cagily.

‘Not at all, I never understood how Hector could be related to me anyway. His favourite painter was Peter Scott. There’s only one slight problem now to tax the ingenuity of the family solicitor. Have I any right any more to Hector’s money?’

‘Are you worried about it?’

‘Not particularly, I quite like the thought of starving in a garret.’ He shot me a glance under his eyelashes. ‘How about you?’

‘I haven’t tried it,’ I said carefully. ‘How’s your mother taking it?’

‘Medium. I think she’s a bit put out. Buster and Alexei have taken to each other like drakes to water, great bounders think alike I suppose. Alexei, like all foreigners, has a great reverence for English upper-class institutions. His ambition, like Buster’s, is to murder as much wildlife as he can. He’s so heartbroken the grouse shooting season is over that Buster has promised to take him pigeon shooting this afternoon.’

‘Are you going?’ I said.