“Not interested in him, you mean.”
Despite the heat he could feel the gooseflesh on her arms. She was still shuddering violently, her teeth chattering.
He reached for her glass, making her take a big gulp, and then a second and a third.
“Come on, now, tell me all about it.” Then it all came pouring out — the humiliations, the taunts, Rupert’s always insisting on sex whenever he came home, despite the endless infidelities, then the clap and, finally, Samantha Freebody.
“That’s not all, is it?” said Jake. “What happened in Kenya?”
“How’d you know anything happened?” whispered Helen.
“Second sight. Come on. We can’t afford to have any secrets.”
He made her take another slug of gin.
“I can’t talk about it,” she whispered.
“Go on. It’ll help, I promise.”
So she told him, often crying so hard he couldn’t hear the words, about the foursome with Billy and Janey.
“Afterwards, Rupert made me feel as though I’d let him down, paid him the ultimate insult by not joining in. I couldn’t. I’m simply not made that way.”
Jake tipped her head back, swept the sodden hair away from her forehead, and dried the tears with his handkerchief.
She heaved a long sigh. “I’m so sorry to bore you.”
Jake held her tightly. “Poor baby, poor poor little baby. You did end up in the wrong yard, didn’t you?”
Her yellow dress had no zip, so Jake was able to slide it off over her head, before laying her back on the counterpane.
“Still got the pain?”
“A little.”
“I’ll bring you something for that next time. The gin’ll start working soon.”
Beneath the coffee-colored silk petticoat, he could feel her stomach muscles tightly knotted. But gently, as he stroked them with those magic hands that could calm the most frightened horse, she began to relax. She was so tired, after nights of not sleeping, that the singsong voice and the stroking hands and the gin were making her drowsy. Almost before she knew it, he had slid off her petticoat and unhooked her bra. Then he was kissing her mouth and, almost in spite of herself she was kissing him back, gently at first, then more and more fiercely, and still his hand continued to stroke her belly.
“You’re so beautiful,” he murmured.
“I’m so thin.”
“No, you’re perfect.”
After Tory’s bulk, he found Helen’s fragility incredibly erotic. For once he felt like a great hunk of man, all- powerful by comparison.
And she looked so unbelievably touching, with her damp cheeks and wide yellow eyes smudged with mascara, and her hair falling in a long red tangle over one shoulder. As he kissed her again, his hand slid downwards, caressing all the time, circling the pubic hair then sliding under the pants to find the clitoris, stroking it with the utmost delicacy. Helen tensed and then relaxed.
She’s not frigid, he thought in triumph. Slowly, slowly like a moth emerging from a chrysalis, she seemed to yield to him. Then she gave a deep sigh of contentment.
After a minute she opened her eyes and smiled.
“Frigid, eh?” he muttered into her hair.
“That was so lovely,” she gasped.
“Wasn’t it?” He grinned down at her, looking absurdly pleased with himself.
“But you haven’t had any sex at all,” she said, suddenly distressed.
“Doesn’t matter. I can wait till next time. It’ll be worth waiting for.”
The unselfishness, the insight, the kindness put the seal on her love for him.
“That was the most wonderful sex I’ve ever had,” she said.
“For me, too,” he said, kissing the hollows of her throat.
Three days later, he had her for the first time in a meadow on the edge of Bifield woods, near the old gypsy encampment, where his forefathers must often have taken his foremothers. A heavy shower of rain had flattened the grass for them and dispersed the regiments of insects, but it was still very hot. Their lovemaking was rapturous. They fitted together perfectly and despite anything he might say to the contrary to Helen, Jake experienced a feeling of pure triumph: that this was Rupert’s wife lying beneath him and reduced to a quivering jelly of ecstasy. Once again he had succeeded where Rupert had failed.
Meanwhile, in Rome, at almost the same time, Rupert Campbell-Black was experiencing an almost identical moment of triumph, as he lay on top of Amanda Hamilton for the first time. Rock Star had had a glorious double clear in the Nations’ Cup, making up for Fenella Maxwell’s indifferent form and clinching the victory for Great Britain. Today, Amanda was actually missing the final of the men’s doubles in order to play mixed singles with him. Full- breasted, narrow-hipped, long-legged, her body was superb for a woman of forty. Only a slight creping on thighs and breastbone betrayed her age. Her string of pearls was still round her neck. In out, in out, superbly in control, Rupert drove her towards orgasm.
Suddenly her face contorted with concentration, then she gave a cry of ecstasy.
“At last.”
“My darling,” said Rupert, smiling tenderly.
“I’ve suddenly worked it out,” said Amanda. “It was
If it had been any other woman, Rupert would have hit her.
53
For the first four weeks Helen and Jake enjoyed an unnatural freedom. Rupert and Fen were traveling abroad with the British team, following the same route from Rome, Fontainebleau, Paris to Lucerne along which, the previous year, Fen had cavorted so joyously with Billy. Now Fen did no cavorting. She went to bed early, listened with both ears to Malise’s advice, worked her horses diligently, but still showed an alarming lack of form. Each day she grew more panicky that she wouldn’t be selected for L.A. and would never see Dino again. That was her sole ambition.
In England, however, Jake was on sensational form. Macaulay, blissful to have his master on his back again, was jumping superbly. Hardy, recovered from the operation and still erratic and cantankerous, had some brilliant days. Wherever Jake went, he annihilated the competition. But he was still nagged by the worry that the selectors had forgotten him because he’d been off the circuit so long. How much more would he have to achieve before they began to sit up and take notice?
Almost, but not entirely, taking the edge off his anxiety was his obsession with Helen. Traveling the British circuit, he was away from home three or four nights a week. Sarah was abroad with Fen. Hannah, Jake’s new young groom, had a convenient crush on one of the Irish riders, spending most nights sleeping under haycocks or in the back of the Irish boy’s lorry. Helen, with a Volvo at her disposal, whizzed up numerous motorways and spent as many nights as possible with Jake, stretched out in his lorry or on a duvet in the back of the Volvo. Sometimes they went to hotels. Often, despite Jake’s reluctance, Helen paid. If she had the money, why not? From the moment she committed herself to Jake she felt absolutely no guilt about being unfaithful to Rupert or spending his money.
She did feel guilty about neglecting the children, but she was so happy whenever she returned, radiant and talkative, and so loaded down with guilt presents, even choc drops for Badger, that everyone flourished. Helen,
