room.
‘Put me down, Master Kit!’ she protested, half laughing, her legs going like a centipede.
The kitchen was large, but with Kit’s arrival, it seemed to shrink. He polished off three double whiskies and most of the walnut cake, and exchanged gossip with Mrs Bottomley, but all the time his eyes were wandering lazily over Harriet.
She tried to decorate a pudding for tomorrow, but found, in her nervousness, she was decorating far more of the table.
Kit picked up a handful of crystallized violets and scattered them higgledy-piggledy on the top of the mousse.
‘It’s got to look nice for Mrs Erskine,’ wailed Harriet.
‘No-one bothers about her,’ said Kit. ‘You should have the courage of your confections.’
‘How’s Cory?’ he asked Mrs Bottomley.
‘I’ve never known him as bad as this,’ said Mrs Bottomley disapprovingly. ‘I made that walnut cake this morning. You know it’s his favourite and he wouldn’t touch it. Like a bear with a sore head. Ever since he heard she was bringing that Ronald Acland. What’s he like? He looks a smart fellow.’
‘Ronnie Acland? Well, he calls himself an actor but, frankly, I wouldn’t have him on my side playing charades. But his father is dying, which means any moment dear Ronnie will become Lord Acland, and that’s what Noel finds attractive. She’s spent all her life waiting for Lord Right to come along.’
Harriet giggled. You couldn’t help liking Kit. Kit sensed weakness. ‘I say Botters. .’
‘Don’t call me that. It’s rude.’
‘Will you babysit so I can take Harriet out to dinner?’
Mrs Bottomley looked dubious. ‘She needs a break. Mr Cory’s been nagging her terrible but he won’t like you both swanning off the moment his back’s turned.’
‘He won’t know. I’ll get her back early. Please, darling Botters?’
‘Well, if I weren’t fumigating with Mr Cory, I wouldn’t do it.’
Kit took Harriet to a small dimly-lit club where they both talked and drank a great deal.
Kit shook his head. ‘So Noel’s really coming tomorrow. I suppose Botters told you Noel and I once had a walk-out.’
‘It sounded more like a stay-in to me,’ said Harriet.
Kit grinned. ‘So the kitten had claws, after all. The odd thing is that Cory’s never held it against me. “How can I blame you,” he said to me afterwards, “when I’m incapable of resisting her myself”.’
‘Oh poor Cory,’ said Harriet. ‘Why doesn’t he find someone else? He’s so attractive.’
‘He’s bewitched,’ said Kit. ‘He’s burnt himself out in the idiotic hope that one day, after a year, maybe five years, ten years, a lifetime, he’ll suddenly crack the rock, and conquer that shallow, dried-up heart.’
‘I hate her,’ Kit went on savagely, ‘for her damn narcissism, and yet when you first meet her she’s so dazzling, you can’t see anything else. It’s like looking straight into the sun. Anyway.’ He stretched his legs so one of them brushed against Harriet’s. ‘Enough of other people’s worries. What about yours? What made you keep the baby? Hung up on the father are you?’
‘Yes — I suppose I still am.’ She flaming well wasn’t going to tell him anything about Cory.
Kit took her hand. ‘I’m realistic about love. What’s the point of eating your heart out for someone who doesn’t love you? The answer is to find an adequate substitute.’
‘Yes?’ said Harriet, taking her hand away ‘And where do I find that?’
‘Right here, darling. What could be more adequate than me?’
Harriet looked at him. Yes, he was adequate all right. Everything about him, the deep, expensive voice, the sexy eyes, the mocking mouth, the thick blond hair, the broad, flat shoulders, the long muscular thighs, one of which was rubbing against hers again.
‘I think we’d better go home,’ said Harriet.
He stopped the car halfway up the drive and switched off the engine. Suddenly he reached forward and took hold of the ribbon tying back her hair.
‘Don’t touch me,’ she spat, springing away.
‘My, but you’re jumpy,’ he said, pulling off the ribbon, so her hair rippled down thickly over her shoulders.
‘That’s better,’ he said. ‘You must stop hiding the fact that you’re a very attractive girl.’
‘I don’t want to attract men,’ she said in a frozen voice.
‘Listen, darling, you’ve had a bad knock, but it’s like falling off a horse. The longer you take to ride again, the more difficult you’re going to find it.’
Bending his head, he kissed her very gently on the lips.
‘There,’ he said, as though he were soothing a frightened animal. ‘Not so bad, was it?’
Not bad at all, thought Harriet. Very pleasant, in fact. And when he kissed her again, she kissed him back.
‘God,’ he whispered, ‘we’re going to be great together.’
He opened his fur coat and pulled her inside, so she could feel the length of his hard muscular body against her.
Oh dear, oh dear, she thought. Here I go again. I mustn’t be so loose.
‘Come on,’ he said softly. ‘Relax, I’m not silly enough to let you get pregnant again.’
Pregnant. If he had jabbed a branding iron on her back, nothing could have brought her to her senses more quickly. Panic stricken, she wrenched herself away from him, opened the car door, and tore up the drive.
‘Hey, wait a minute!’ She heard Kit laughing behind her. ‘Take it easy, darling. Don’t be in such a hurry to get me into bed.’
Panting, she pushed open the front door, and fled into the house, slap into Cory.
‘Harriet! Thank God you’re back. Are you all right?’
Her hands shot to her face, rubbing mascara from beneath her eyes, smoothing her hair, tucking in her shirt.
‘I’m fine,’ she stammered. ‘I’ve been having a drink with Kit.’
‘You’ve been out with Kit?’ The voice changed, became so brutally icy that Harriet drew back as though she’d been struck. For a second she saw the blaze of contempt in his eyes, as he took in her dishevelled condition, then the shutters came down, and his face resumed its normal deadpan expression.
‘I might have guessed you’d run true to type,’ he said. ‘William’s been yelling his guts out for the past hour. If you can’t have a more responsible attitude towards the children, you’d better pack your bags and get out in the morning!’
For a minute Harriet gazed at Cory appalled. Then she jumped as a voice behind her said, ‘Do I hear the sound of high words?’ and Kit wandered through the front door, straightening his tie, and ostentatiously wiping lipstick off his face.
‘Hullo, Cory,’ he went on. ‘You look a bit peaky, my dear. What you need is a few late nights.’
Harriet didn’t wait for Cory’s reply. She fled upstairs, scalded by remorse and humiliation. Surely he couldn’t sack her for something so trivial.
She found William scarlet in the face, his eyes piggy from crying for so long.
‘I’m sorry, darling, so sorry,’ she whispered, as she picked him up and cuddled him. Gradually his sobs subsided and, as she waited for his bottle to heat up, she shivered with terror at the thought of the future — bleak, salary-less, with no Chattie and Jonah, no Cory even when he was being nice. In just a few weeks, she thought miserably, I’ve come to regard this rambling house as home.
As she gave William his bottle, however, there was a knock on the door. It was Cory.
‘Don’t get up,’ he said, looking at William. ‘Is he all right?’
‘He’s fine,’ stammered Harriet. ‘I’m sorry about going out.’
‘It wasn’t a very good idea going out with Kit. He’s only interested in easy lays — and that’s the last thing you need.’
Harriet hung her head. ‘Then you don’t hate me?’
Cory smiled faintly. ‘When my horses do stupid wilful things, I beat the hell out of them. It doesn’t mean I love them any the less.’
