Before he came she wouldn’t have thought it possible to feel such crushing disappointment and such intense joy at the same time. That must be what all those love songs were referring to: about love being confusing and painful even though it was wonderful. She’d never understood them before, but now she did. That was exactly the way she felt with Bobby. It was love, it had to be.
“You are coming to my play tonight, aren’t you?” she asked eagerly.
“Your play? Of course,” Bobby heard himself saying. “Wouldn’t miss it.” In fact he’d forgotten all about Milly’s little “turn” at the local am-dram event, and had been planning a hot date with Deborah, the same girl who’d so wonderfully redefined the concept of British hospitality for him last Saturday night. But one look at Milly’s huge, tear-glossed doe eyes turned hopefully up at him, and it was all over. He hadn’t the heart to let her down twice in one day, not even for a night with Newmarket’s answer to Pam Anderson.
“Yay,” she said, and smiled.
She had the sort of smile that cracked her face in two like a scythe, the sort you couldn’t help but smile back at. For a split second, she looked so beautiful, he felt the beginnings of a familiar stirring in his groin. Horrified, he stamped it down.
What the hell was he thinking? She was only a child, for Christ’s sake. Maybe Cecil knew him better than he knew himself? It was an uncomfortable thought.
“I’d better get back to work,” he said, pulling away from her and heading for the stable door before he got himself into any more trouble. “I’ll see you tonight. Okay?”
“Sure,” said Milly, turning back to Easy. Still reeling from Bobby’s unexpected embrace and the disappointment of her dad’s reaction, she didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. All she did know was that he would be there for her tonight.
For the moment at least, that was enough.
Some twenty odd miles away at the Delaneys’ manor in Mittlingsford, Rachel and Jasper were upstairs in Rachel’s bedroom, fucking.
“Do you like that?” Jasper grunted, thrusting deeply into her from behind, admiring his own shoulder muscles and tight, toned backside in the mirror as he did so. Recently they had taken to doing it with Rachel’s wardrobe door propped open, ostensibly so that he could watch her while he screwed her, although in reality he spent more time gazing at his own physique than hers.
“Mmmmm,” Rachel murmured. Actually, she was deeply involved in a fantasy involving Bobby Cameron and a riding crop and was rather enjoying herself. So far the real Bobby had been disappointingly impervious to her charms—all he seemed interested in was babysitting bloody Milly for reasons she couldn’t begin to fathom. But she hadn’t given up hope of seducing him before he left.
In the meantime, she looked on Jasper as a useful human dildo.
Feeling the rhythm of his thrusts increasing, and little droplets of sweat falling onto her back as his moans got louder and louder, she assumed he was about to come and squeezed her own muscles tightly around him.
“Oh, J., yes! Please, don’t stop,” she panted. Happily, she was on the point of climaxing herself. As tiresome and vain as he was, she had to admit that Jasper had marvelous timing in bed. “I’m almost there!”
A few seconds later and she came violently, her spasms of ecstasy pushing him over the edge as well. It was only with an effort that she managed to prevent herself from calling out Bobby’s name, turning it instead into a sort of drawn out “oh boy!” that Jasper naturally took as a compliment.
“Not bad, eh?” he said, easing himself out of her with a look of smug satisfaction on his face. She didn’t deign to reply but shot up out of bed and straight into the shower. She’d never been one for chitchat after the deed was done, and wasn’t about to break the habit of a lifetime for Jasper Lockwood Groves.
Emerging a few minutes later, naked and dripping, she started drying her hair.
“So he’s definitely coming then, is he?” she shouted, through the whirr of the dryer.
“Who?” asked Jasper, frowning. “Coming to what?”
He wasn’t used to being ignored by girls, and Rachel’s sangfroid really pissed him off. Most of the racing groupies he slept with were more than happy to wax post-coitally lyrical about his lovemaking prowess. To be honest, he often enjoyed the post-shag praise fest more than the bonking itself. But Rachel could never be bothered. It made him feel insecure, as did the fact that all the exertion had made his nose go horribly red and shiny. If she’d have taken a little longer in the shower he could have swiped some of her face powder from the dresser and toned himself down a bit before she noticed. Now he’d be forced to talk to her looking like bloody Rudolph.
“Bobby,” she said, whipping the towel down from her head and drying herself between the legs quite unself-consciously. “He is coming to Milly’s play tonight, right?”
“I doubt it,” said Jasper. He was starting to feel well and truly fed up. He was sick to death of all the attention Bobby had been getting from everyone at Newells, not to mention the local female population. And now even his own girlfriend seemed to want a piece of him. “He had a bust-up with Dad the other day about Milly.” He pouted. “Apparently he’s been letting her ride with him in secret, and Dad went ballistic. What do you care, anyway?”
His lower lip was sticking out so far he looked like a five-year-old who’d just dropped his lollipop in the sand. Sighing inwardly, Rachel turned off the dryer and climbed back into bed, straddling him as she leaned forward and planted a long, lingering kiss on his mouth.
“No reason,” she simpered between kisses. “Just curious, that’s all.”
His jealousy was pathetic, but she had to be careful. Even Jasper had his limits, and the last thing she wanted now was for him to dump her in a huff. She’d barely begun the tortures she had planned for Milly. For the time being, at least, she needed him.
Still, she hoped he was wrong and that Bobby would put in an appearance tonight. It was the only reason she’d agreed to go to the tedious production of Romeo and Juliet that the ADC were doing at Mittlingsford Commemoration Hall. That and the fact that she knew it would infuriate Milly that Linda had invited her. Jasper’s mother had gone into social-climbing overdrive the moment she’d heard that little Johnny Ashton—Lord Ashton to be—was playing Tybalt. Despite Milly’s protestations that his breath smelled of cat food and he had more spots on his face than a ladybug, Linda hadn’t given up hope of fostering a “friendship” between her daughter and “The Hon John” as she cringe-makingly referred to him.
“Good,” said Jasper, ramming his tongue in and out of her mouth like a lizard trying to catch flies. Grabbing her hand, he yanked it down and wrapped it firmly around his erection. “Because if I see you anywhere near the Lone Ranger, I swear to God . . .”
“Shhhh,” Rachel cooed soothingly in his ear. “Why would I want him, when I have you?”
Mollified, Jasper got back to what he liked to think he did best: screwing her. Bobby might have every other girl in Newmarket flinging their knickers at him. But Rachel, the one they all wanted, was his. And she was damn well going to stay that way.
Mittlingsford Commemoration Hall was typical of postwar village architecture. An ugly brick structure with a green tin roof, it was as dour and utilitarian inside as it was outside, with a small wooden stage facing rows of uncomfortable-looking metal and canvas chairs and a pervasive smell of disinfectant lingering in the air.
Backstage, Milly was intermittently sneaking glances through the curtains into the dimly lit audience looking for Bobby and surreptitiously devouring the latest edition of the Racing Post which she’d hidden between the pages of her script.
Johnny Ashton sat a few feet away, looking green. His pimply features were so taut with fear that even Milly couldn’t help but feel sorry for him. The rest of the cast called it his firing-squad look and it was at its worst tonight, due to the fact that both his horribly overbearing parents, Lord and Lady Ashton, were sitting in the front row, wait
ing to pounce on the slightest mistake he might make. The Ashtons were the sort of parents that made Milly feel grateful for her own, and that was really saying something.
Her crowded thoughts left little room for Johnny, however. All she could think about was Bobby and their encounter in Easy’s stable earlier. She knew he didn’t love her—at least not in the crazy, desperate, passionate way that she loved him. But he liked her. He definitely liked her. It was a start.
Where was he, anyway? He’d promised he’d be here, and they were going to start in a minute, but so far he was nowhere to be seen.
“Oh, no way,” she seethed under her breath. For there, making her way to the empty seat next to her parents—Bobby’s seat—was Rachel. She was turning heads in a pink baby-doll dress that, if it were possible, made her tits look even bigger than usual. What the fuck was she doing here?
So far, miraculously, Bobby had shown no sign of sexual interest in Rachel. But unlike her boneheaded brother, Milly could see quite plainly that Rachel fancied him. And as she knew to her cost, Rachel had an uncanny habit of getting what she wanted.
“Five minutes everyone!” William Best, Newmarket Drama Club’s neurotic director, clapped his dry, flaky hands for attention, and the low hum of backstage conversation immediately ceased. Milly hastily stuffed her Racing Post down the side of the back stairs and peered into the audience one last time.
Thank God! There he was.
Her heart skipped a beat as she glimpsed Bobby making his way toward her parents. Evidently he and her father had had some sort of rapprochement, as Cecil smiled and immediately instigated a hurried shuffling of chairs, pinching a vacant seat from the row behind and squeezing it next to his own. It was only when Bobby sank down into it, all long legs and tan, that she realized with horror that Rachel was now on his other side.
Bobby, though he didn’t look it, was almost as stressed as Milly was. Pissed about missing his date with Deborah, and still bothered by the fleeting flash of lust he’d felt with Milly earlier, he’d thrown himself into work this afternoon to take his mind off things. As always when engrossed with his horses, he’d lost track of time and set off late for Mittlingsford. Needless to say he’d then promptly gotten lost in the brain-aching maze of country lanes that led to the village. He was starting to panic that he might miss the damn thing altogether by the time he finally stumbled upon the hall.
“Sorry. Excuse me,” he said, sweat pouring off his forehead as people got to their feet to let him through.
“You’re cutting it a bit fine, aren’t you?” hissed Jasper as he slid by. Annoyed he’d been bullied into coming tonight by his mother, and even more annoyed that Bobby and his father appeared to have buried the hatchet, he was not in the warmest of moods.
Ignoring him, Bobby turned to Cecil.
“Those lanes were a nightmare in the dark,” he whispered. “Sorry.”
“Not to worry,” said Cecil, as the lights began to dim. “You’re here now.”
“Hello. Remember me?”
Great. That was all he needed: Sir Michael’s slutty daughter leaning over him in what looked like a whore’s nightgown, sticking her grand canyon of a cleavage in his face. Why did so many pretty girls dress in a way that left nothing to the imagination? It was so unsexy.
“Rachel,” he said coldly. He’d seen firsthand what a bitch she was to Milly, and had no intention of making nice. But she seemed to have missed his unfriendly tone, dissolving into a flirtatious, girlish giggle and, as soon as the lights dimmed, reaching over and brazenly grabbing his hand.
Was he imagining things? Or did she just caress the inside of his wrist with her thumb?
Before he had time to react, the curtain went up. A ripple of applause spread around the auditorium as the cast filed onto the stage to take their places. Milly beamed at Bobby and, forgetting herself in her excitement, waved, like a four-year-old spotting her mother at the Nativity play.
“Oh, do look, she’s waving,” Rachel whispered patronizingly in his ear, leaning in so close that he was knocked sideways by a waft of her Chanel 19. “I think somebody has a little crush on you.”
Snatching away his hand, he hissed back at her, “Milly and I are friends. She’s only a kid.”
“Exactly.” Once again, Rachel had failed utterly to pick up on his hostility, or register that she had inadvertently touched a nerve. “I expect you prefer real women, don’t you? Women with a bit of experience?”
Hiding the gesture behind her purse, she stretched out her arm and allowed her hand to graze his thigh in a definite come-on. In other circumstances he might quite have enjoyed the thrill of doing the dirty on Jasper while he sat just a few feet away. But everything about Rachel Delaney made his hackles rise. A wave of revulsion poured over him like ice-cold water and he pried her hand firmly away.
“I prefer women I can trust,” he said flatly. “I could never respect a promiscuous girl. Never.”
Rachel’s eyes narrowed and her full, pouting lips puckered into a little purse of fury before she recoiled, stung, into her seat.
“Is he bothering you?” asked Jasper, who couldn’t hear what they were saying but had witnessed some sort of exchange.
“No,” she said, collecting herself, grateful that he couldn’t see the hot flush of her cheeks in the darkness. “You’re right about him, though. He is arrogant. And distinctly average looking. I have no idea what people see in him.”
Snaking his hand up under her dress, Jasper began stroking proprietorially beneath her panties. “Course I’m right,” he said, nuzzling her neck. “He could never satisfy you like I can, Rach. Nobody could.”
The first act was groaningly awful, a litany of missed cues and wobbling sets that left much of the audience, including Bobby, struggling to stay awake. His legs were also killing him, squashed into a seat so small it would have shamed an economy cabin on American Airlines. The moment the interval was announced, he shot to his feet in relief.
Cecil made his excuses and nipped outside to make a phone call. Rachel and Jasper were also quick off the mark, dashing off for a cigarette, leaving Bobby to make small talk with Linda at the makeshift bar in what was optimistically termed “the foyer.” Everything about the place—the chairs; the 1960s windows; the hideous, shit-brown linoleum floor—reminded him of his old school auditorium back in Solvang: not a place that held many happy memories. He gave an involuntary shudder now at the thought of it.
“What did you think?” asked Linda, handing him an unwanted warm beer in a plastic cup. She was dressed, conservatively for her, in an electric blue shirt-waister offset by thickly caked blue eye shadow that stuck to her crow’s feet like Polyfilla whenever she smiled. “Wasn’t Milly a dream?”
“She, er, was one of the best actors in it,” he said truthfully, choosing his words with care. “You must be very proud.”
“Oh, I am.” Linda smiled knowingly. “And did you see the way the Hon John was staring at her whenever he didn’t have a line?”
“I’m sorry, the on who?” asked Bobby.
“Johnny. The future Lord Ashton,” Linda gushed. “He’s quite smitten with our little Milly, I should say. Quite smitten!”
Bobby found himself feeling more than a little put out at this information. If some dirty little kid was after Milly, surely her mom should be against it, not for it? Maybe he should talk to Cecil. Then again, maybe he’d already shot his bolt on that score.
“What are you bending his ear about now, Mummy?” Milly, still dressed in her costume of long black skirt and ruffled, burgundy blouse, had snuck up behind them.
“What are you doing out here?” Linda sounded aghast. “You should be backstage with all the others. Go on, off you go.” She made shooing motions with her hands. “Go and chat to Johnny, darling. I’m sure he could use the company.”
“I doubt it,” said Milly, matter-of-factly. “He’s been chundering his guts out in the bogs ever since the curtain came down. His parents are such fucking tyrants, h
e’s a nervous wreck. Anyway, I only popped out for a sec to say hi to Bobby.”
She beamed up at him, a picture of innocence, cheeks flushed and eyes blazing, and Bobby felt another stab of guilt, both for the way he’d let her down and for wanting her earlier, however briefly. There might be only six years between them, but at this age they were like six light-years. Only days ago he’d been telling her father that he wasn’t a pedophile. Now he wasn’t so sure.
That was it. Tomorrow he’d take the morning off, drive over to Deborah’s, and have sex till he couldn’t see straight. One marathon session with a real, grown-up woman should sort his head out.
“You did a great job,” he said, showing Milly no hint of his inner misgivings. “I’m looking forward to act two.”
“Huh,” she sniffed. “I wouldn’t hold your breath if I were you. It’ll be super boring. I saw you chatting to Rachel earlier,” she said, trying to keep her voice casual.
“Not by choice,” he reassured her, and was rewarded with a second enormous grin.
“Milly, darling.” Linda, sensing her matchmaking window with Johnny Ashton slipping inexorably away, was getting anxious. “You’re really being terribly rude. You must go backstage.”
“In a minute,” said Milly. “Ooo, is that for me?”
Cecil had returned from the bar bearing ice creams. Handing one each to his wife and daughter, he reached into his inside jacket pocket and pulled out his vibrating mobile.
“Lockwood Groves,” he said, ignoring a frosty glance from Linda. But her expression changed when, a few seconds later, she saw the color drain from his cheeks and his brow knotting into a frown of deep concern. “Jesus Christ,” he whispered. “Are you sure?”
Jasper and Rachel had wandered back in, and were now staring at him along with the others.