Before Katharine had a chance to suggest it was time for him to leave, Kim was lowering himself next to her on the floor. He smiled as he gazed down at her. There was something emphatically feline about her just now, in the way her eyes slanted as they regarded him almost warily, under the long silky black lashes, in the graceful pose she had struck, reclining elegantly on the pillows, her head tilted to one side ever so slightly. All of the niggling questions he had been on the point of asking her immediately fled. His mind went blank as he continued to observe that tantalizing and seductive face. And he was entranced with her, mesmerized.
Kim touched her cheek with his index finger. ‘My dearest, sweetest Katharine,’ he murmured so softly she scarcely heard him, and then, leaning forward, he took her in his arms and kissed her swiftly, catching her offguard. It was a light and tender kiss initially, and Katharine did not struggle, even though she was far too preoccupied for his kisses.
Slowly the pressure of Kim’s mouth increased. He pressed her down into the pillows, his tongue feverishly seeking hers, one hand stroking her neck. A moment later, his other hand was on her breast, warm and gentle as it caressed, and then it strayed down, following the curve of her hip on to her thigh, moving in longer firmer strokes. Kim shifted his body slightly, so that it was partially covering hers, and she felt his hardness through his trousers and the thin silk of her robe and was suddenly aware of the rapid pounding of his heart, his laboured breathing as he paused briefly between his kisses. And those kisses began to increase and intensify in their voluptuousness and force and fervency, his ardour running unchecked.
A mixture of panic and fear assaulted Katharine, and she held her breath, squeezing her eyes tightly shut, seeking a way to make him stop without offending him. She did not want him to continue his lovemaking, and a tremor rippled through her, and then again, and again and again.
Kim, overwhelmed by his strong and deeply-felt emotions, mistook her trembling, believing it to be an echo of his own urgent need… the overwhelming need to possess her fully, to become one with her, to join his body with hers… irrevocably. He had wanted her for so long now, all these endless months, and apparently so had she. Even though she had not really shown it before. Not exactly. Not responsively like this.
His heart, thundering in his chest, was bursting with the purest joy, and he thought: Oh my love my sweet darling love my Katharine my only love. He was burning up with excitement, and he lifted his body so that he was lying on top of her completely. She was so soft and melting under him, and he moulded himself to her legs and her lovely breasts and her stomach. How perfectly she fitted under him and with him. He found her mouth with his own, so hungry and yearning, and crushed his lips to hers. And he thought he was going to explode.
Katharine was trapped unbearably under his weight, unable to move and terrified. I don’t want this. I don’t want it, a voice in her head screamed. I’ve got to make him stop. Oh my God what am I going to do? Now, to her immense horror, that warm and loving hand was touching her bare calf, stroking gently, and rising slowly to her knee under the robe. His hand lingered on her knee and progressed up her leg and then trailed across the inside of her upper thigh, where it lingered again, the tips of his fingers expertly tracing circles on her flesh, almost imperceptibly, so delicate was their touch. Katharine turned her head, trying to breathe, and then she strangled a cry of protest in her throat and she went cold all over. Kim’s hand was drifting across her stomach and moving down, ever so slowly down and she stiffened, holding her body taut.
Although she did not push him away from her, Katharine’s sudden and enormous coldness communicated itself to Kim. He was conscious of the unusual rigidity of her body, no longer pliable and yielding under his, nor quivering under his touch. He pulled his hand away hurriedly, as if he had been scalded, and after a moment he raised himself on one elbow. His eyes were baffled and questioning and he stared into her face, and his own was covered with hurt and confusion.
It took him a short while to recover his equilibrium, to throw off the shock of her emotional withdrawal and physical frigidity. At last he mumbled, his voice choked, ‘What’s wrong?’ And then he flushed deeply. ‘Don’t you want me to kiss you? To touch you? Are you off me?’
‘No. No, it’s not that,’ Katharine began and halted, alarmed by the anger trickling into his eyes. ‘I told you, I’m very tired, Kim, and anyway, I’m not a te—’
‘You don’t have to mention your tiredness again, for God’s sake! You’ve been rubbing it in all evening!’ Kim was beset by a terrible shaking and he jumped up, charged with rage. He reached for the packet of cigarettes on the coffee table, lit one swiftly and then strode over to the fireplace. He turned to face her, and said with unfamiliar coldness, ‘I don’t understand you any more, Katharine. You blow hot and cold at the drop of a hat. And it’s damned unnerving, to say the least!’
‘No, I don’t,’ Katharine said defensively, returning his icy stare. She got to her feet with swiftness, smoothed down her robe and positioned herself on the sofa.
‘Oh yes, you do,’ Kim retorted, his anger unabated. ‘When we’re with other people you’re sweet and loving and flirtatious and encouraging. But when we’re alone you’re as distant as Mount Everest and just as bloody chilly. Tonight I thought you were going to be different. A grave error! My God, you let me kiss you and fondle you, and you didn’t stop me. In fact, you returned my kisses, and, mistakenly it seems, I thought you returned my feelings as well. It certainly appeared so. Then inexplicably you turn into a block of ice,’ he finished furiously, the deep colour darkening on his face. ‘You’re not very fair, Katharine.’
She drew herself up on the sofa with some dignity, and adopted an injured air. ‘I started to say, a moment before, that I’m not a tease—’
‘But you are!’ Kim cut in with a hard laugh. ‘The way you dress and get yourself up, oh so alluringly, and then set out to entice. I’d say you’re a hell of a tease, my dear.’
Katharine glared at him, truly taken aback and also annoyed. ‘In that case, you can say all women are teases, simply because they’re women! What I meant was that I didn’t want to encourage you any more tonight, to get you… well, get you worked up and then leave you frustrated—’
‘But you did exactly that!’ he cried with indignation, interrupting her again. ‘Good Lord, Katharine, I’m not made of iron. I’m a man. How much do you think I can take of this heavy petting… without… fulfilment?’
Katharine leaned forward, a patient expression firmly in place, and said placatingly, with reasonableness, ‘Kim, that’s why I’ve been so very, very careful with you. You just said I’m not fair, but I believe I’ve been exceedingly fair, simply by not allowing our petting ever to go as far as it did tonight. Not ever in the past.’
‘Then why did you permit it this evening?’ he demanded. He was still furious with her, but the shaking had stopped, much to his relief.
This was the first time Kim had been angry or spoken one harsh word to her, and Katharine decided it would be far wiser to smooth his ruffled feathers rather than plunge into a long and complicated discussion about sex. Her eyes and her mouth smiled at him gently. ‘I didn’t really allow it. It just sort of… well… happened, and before I could stop it. I let things get out of hand, I suppose. Perhaps because I am so terribly tired. Not thinking clearly. And despite what you believe, these past few weeks have been difficult for me. I take the screen test very seriously,’ she continued, adopting a different tack to divert him. ‘It has put extra pressures on me. And frankly, today in particular has been quite rough. I had an important lunch, and then Norman dropped the bombshell, about Terry being sick. Also, there was the strain of tonight’s performance, and Norman’s—’
‘It strikes me you’re only tired and feeling the strain when you’re with me. Alone with me. And that’s another thing. Inviting Norman over here to talk about blasted antiques, when you knew we had this very special date! I could have given the same i
nformation to you to pass on to him or Terry quite easily, you know. And whilst we’re on the subject of other people, what’s so important about lunch with my sister?’
‘Didn’t Francesca tell you she’s going to adapt a scene from Wuthering Heights? For my screen test?’ she asked, ignoring the comment about Norman and making her voice sweet and melting, hoping to mollify him. She could hardly tell him the real reason for Norman’s presence in the flat, not without breaking a confidence and her promise. And that she would never do.
‘Yes, she did,’ Kim said edgily.
‘It was important to me, even if you don’t see it that way. I’m very grateful for Francesca’s help. And look, I’m sorry I upset you. I am, honestly.’
Kim was silent. He lit another cigarette, and then poured himself a glass of wine, stepping away from the coffee table and Katharine quickly. He positioned himself in front of the fireplace as before, his face set, a small pulse beating in his temple. He was still seething inside. His feelings of hurt, anger and frustration sprang, not unnaturally, from his disappointment, and the belief that she had wilfully led him on, only to finally reject him. Kim Cunningham was not accustomed to being rejected.
On the contrary, until he had met Katharine Tempest, he had been the pursued rather than the pursuer, for like his father, he was irresistibly attractive to women from all walks of fife. For a young man not yet twenty-two he was remarkably experienced sexually and had a voracious appetite. Before the advent of Katharine in his life, he had had one involved love affair and a number of liaisons of lesser significance. His only involved relationship, until Katharine, had been with the German princess he had met on a skiing holiday in Königssee, when visiting his cousins Diana and Christian. Astrid, the lady in question, had been seven years his senior, twenty-six at the time, and married. It was the latter reason which had led the Earl to intervene, but only at the request of the irate husband. The prince had not taken too kindly to his younger wife’s dalliance with a nineteen-year-old ‘pup’, as he disparagingly termed Kim. Although the Earl had immediately articulated his annoyance to Kim and insisted the affair end, he had been amused. He was also patently aware it was merely a passing fancy on the part of the princess, who had married a fortune she had no intention of forgoing, and therefore in no way represented a threat to his son.
Kim thought of Astrid now. She had been so warm and loving and passionate, and it was she who had awakened his latent sensuality, the voluptuousness that lay hidden behind his contained and reserved facade. It was Astrid who had imparted her own expertise to him, which in turn had been so appreciated by all of those other young women who had followed in her footsteps. For reasons unknown to himself, and despite his now well-developed needs, Kim had never pressed Katharine into succumbing to his advances, or been sexually aggressive with her. In fact, he had always been extraordinarily restrained. He wondered about this as he continued to ruminate in front of the fire, sipping his drink, and he came to the conclusion that he had been behaving in a way that was quite foreign to his nature. Was that because she herself was always so restrained? No, controlled was a much better word. He was not sure, and he was also puzzled. Why had he invariably handled her with kid gloves?
Watching him intently, Katharine now recognized and with a sense of dismay, that Kim’s anger was not going to dissipate as rapidly as she had anticipated. He had never acted in this manner before, when she had adroitly sidestepped him, slithering out of his embraces, laughing lightly, reproving him, but sweetly so, making plausible excuses. She asked herself if Kim was going to become a problem in the way the others had been a problem, and her heart dropped. She did not relish the idea of having to fight him off physically, which inevitably became ugly and unpleasant. In the past she had always been able to deal with him without affronting him. In her own way Katharine loved Kim, and she had set her heart on marrying him. She was fully aware that she could not afford to hurt him again, not like this, and perhaps lose him in the process, simply because she baulked at lovemaking.
Her eyes rested on him. He looked so handsome in his Anglo-Saxon way, with his pleasant, open and sensitive face and fine eyes and fair hair. Perhaps it was his very English-ness, as well as his refinement and his aristocratic bearing, that was so appealing.
‘Kim…’ she began in her silkiest voice.
‘Yes?’ he responded frostily.
She ignored the tone and gave him a look guaranteed to warm the hardest of hearts. ‘We have tomorrow, darling. I’ll be feeling better by then and—’
‘We don’t have tomorrow,’ he told her peremptorily. ‘I haven’t had a chance to tell you, but I’m afraid my father has cancelled the dinner.’
Surprise registered in Katharine’s eyes and she stared at him. ‘Oh!’ she said after a pause, and then, most carefully, ‘Might I ask the reason why?’ She had not considered the Earl to be an obstacle and this announcement momentarily threw her off balance.
‘The old man had a call from the bailiff at Langley, earlier this evening. Some pipes have burst and ruined parts of the panelling in the Widow’s Gallery where a lot of the family portraits by Gainsborough, Lely and Romney hang. Fortunately, none of the paintings has been damaged, but my father is worried the leak might have spread to other areas underneath the panelling. Areas not visible. We have to get to Langley as quickly as possible. We’re leaving for Yorkshire at the crack of dawn.’
‘Oh Kim, I am sorry! Really and truly,’ Katharine said with absolute sincerity. ‘It must be awfully worrying for your father… and you, too, of course. How awful.’ Disappointed though she was, she forced a smile on to her face. And then she admitted the truth, as she said, ‘I thought perhaps your father didn’t like me, didn’t approve of me.’ Her voice, low and quiet, sounded so plaintive and she was gazing at Kim with such a woebegone expression in her eyes, he was suddenly unable to sustain his anger. His rage fell away as swiftly as it had attacked him.
‘Don’t be a silly goose. He thinks you’re smashing. And so do I. I suppose that’s the root of the problem.’ Kim gave her a gentle smile, quickly replaced by a shamefaced look, and there was an echo of con triteness as he added, ‘Sorry I was so cross. It’s well… as I said, I do adore you, and you’ve kept me at arm’s length for ages.’ He attempted a cheery laugh, not very successfully. ‘Come to think of it, you were much more… responsive, shall we say, when we first met. I expect that’s why I became so furious tonight. You are very baffling, you know.’
Katharine did not answer immediately. She sought a way to appease him further, make amends and bind him to her. Why not tell him the truth. Instantly she changed her mind. Partial truths were infinitely more appropriate, so much easier to deal with, and by everyone. She patted the sofa. ‘Please, Kim, come here. I’d like to explain about tonight. At least try.’
He sat down beside her, and she took his hand in hers, stroking it, playing with his strong fingers absently. ‘I adore you too, you know, as I’ve tried to tell you in different ways lately. And because I care about you, I can’t play games with you. Lead you on, tease you, get you all excited and then turn you down. I think that would be cruel and provocative. That’s why I’ve kept you at a distance.’ She draped her arms around his neck, lightly, loosely, and stared deeply into his eyes. Then she kissed him on the lips, a long slow kiss that was equally as passionate as any he had given her. She drew away and touched his cheek. ‘But despite my strong feelings, I do want to be sure about us and our deepest emotions before taking that last step. I’m not promiscuous, Kim.’
‘Oh, gosh, Katharine, I never thought you were!’ he protested fiercely.
‘My being chaste with you is as difficult for me as it is for you, Kim,’ she told him, bending the truth. ‘When you became so angry a little while ago I couldn’t stand it. I… I…’ Katharine broke off dramatically and dropped her head, and when she raised it tears were welling in her eyes and glistening on her black lashes. ‘I couldn’t bear to lose you, darling. It would break my
heart.’ She took a deep breath. The tears spilled over and trickled down her cheeks in little rivulets. ‘So if you still want to… now… I mean… ‘She moved closer to him, pressing her body invitingly against his and kissed him deeply, her hands playing with the tendrils of hair on the back of his neck.
Kim was astonished at her sudden reversal, but before he could sort things out in his head, he felt himself being carried along with her, staggered yet again by the extraordinary sexual power she had over him. His heart was hammering, blood rushed up into his face and he was aroused and losing control. And then, just as he was about to sweep her up in his arms and carry her into the bedroom, some deep-rooted instinct told him to resist this impulse.
Gently, and with a great deal of effort, he extracted himself. He held her away from him, his hands firm on her arms. ‘No,’ he said, his voice gruff. ‘You’re only trying to please me. I want it the way you want it. When it’s exactly right for you. When you feel ready. It has to be perfect between us, Katharine…’ He looked down into her face, upturned to his and awash with sweetness and innocence, and his heart tightened. He said impetuously, ‘And that will only be when we’re married.’ He had surprised himself. He had not intended to propose just yet, but now that he had, he was glad. It struck him then that Katharine had always been different from the other women he had known, because she was extra special and important to him. Undoubtedly this was the real reason why he had always treated her so… so… reverently.
Katharine’s heart seemed to soar at his words. For a moment she was speechless, and she simply stared into his eyes, her own still sparkling with tears.
Kim lifted his hand and wiped her cheeks with the tips of his fingers, first one and then the other. ‘There, I’ve said it. Now you know how much I care.’ He smiled a little lopsidedly. ‘I’m in love with you, Katharine.’ His eyes remained on her face. And he waited.