Spare Brides (22 page)

He did not.

He strutted in the opposite direction and plonked himself down on another sofa, one that Lady Anna Renwick was occupying. As there were already three people sitting over there, he had no alternative but to sit very close to Lady Renwick. It was noticeable. Her arm was squeezed so tightly next to his that her breast was pushed almost out and over her neckline. It was obvious and sordid. Painful.

Lawrence, by contrast, did come to find her. ‘I’m done in. I’m off to bed.’

‘Right.’

‘Are you coming too?’

‘I find I have lots of energy.’

‘Do you think you’ll be very late?’

‘Yes.’

‘Then I shall ask Pondson-Callow for another room. I don’t want to be disturbed.’

‘Good idea.’ He kissed her cheek; she had to force herself not to move away from his touch.

‘Good night.’

‘Good night.’

Lydia watched for the next hour as Edgar chattered to Lady Renwick, leaning in ever closer, almost impossibly so, whispering into her ear. Twice he touched her upper arm, the one dangerously close to her heaving breast. Lydia felt each of his caresses like a blow. They danced. Lydia and Edgar had not danced. It was such a conventional and acceptable part of a courtship, but the opportunity had not presented itself. Would it ever? Lady Renwick was drunk too, so their dancing was chaotic and clumsy. Limbs tangled where they shouldn’t have. His arms snaked down her back, around her waist. She accidentally dug her elbow into his rib; they both thought this was hilarious and fell into one another’s arms, laughing. Delighted. Their flirtation was drawing eyes and comments. It couldn’t not; it was the brash and bold sort of flirtation that had no mystery or witty elegance to it. Lydia told herself it was inferior in every way to what she’d enjoyed with Edgar Trent last night and today.

Except they could dance in public.

Except he did not pull away from Lady Renwick’s kisses. Lydia wanted to kill her. And him. And herself.

The music got louder. The room was exhaustingly hot and overcrowded. Despite the fact that it was still snowing outside, someone opened a window; smoke and morals drifted out.

Ava sat down next to Lydia; she lit a cigarette and passed it over, then lit another for herself and inhaled deeply. ‘Having fun, darling?’

‘Not at all.’ Lydia tried to drag her eyes away from him, but failed spectacularly. Ava’s gaze followed. ‘What is Anna Renwick wearing?’ Lydia snarled. It was an inadequate cover for her thoughts, but all she could muster.

‘Good lord, it’s a trouser suit.’ Ava sounded somewhat envious, but she was clearly awed too. ‘I ought to have thought of that first. Tell me I’m not losing my touch.’ Lydia knew it killed Ava that a younger woman had stolen a march on her fashion antics, but she couldn’t bring herself to care, as it was killing her that the same younger woman was stealing Edgar from under her nose. While Lydia could not find it in herself to be graceful, Ava’s passion and respect for style meant she could. ‘A deluxe evening version of a trouser suit, shimmering with sequins. How utterly marvellous. Look, it goes all the way up to between her legs.’

‘Well, I suppose it must.’

‘It’s very daring, very revealing. I suppose she is making that her thing.’

‘What? What’s Anna Renwick’s thing?’

‘She’s a dramatic and witty dresser.’

‘Plus a bit of a slut.’

‘They make a lovely couple.’

‘Don’t.’ Lydia’s hand trembled as she held her cigarette high, the stem of ash threatening to fall on her shimmering silver frock. The jealousy slit through her being, shredded her sense of propriety, left an open gash where her common sense had been.

‘But, darling, it’s simply a fact. He’s beautiful and poor, she’s …’ Ava paused. Lady Renwick was not beautiful, but she was well put together, attractive. Lydia’s mother would describe her as a woman who made the best of herself. ‘She’s handsome and rich. They are the very epitome of the modern-day romance.’

‘Please, don’t.’ Tears bit nastily at the top of Lydia’s nose.

Ava would not indulge her. ‘Darling, what did you expect? He’s a beauty and a beast. You are a respectably married woman. The whole flirtation was doomed before it began.’

‘You normally encourage this sort of thing.’

‘It’s not right for you.’

Lydia blanched; a flicker of concern spilt across Ava’s face. ‘Please don’t tell me you’ve already done the nasty. Today? Hell’s teeth, you
are
a fast worker.’

‘No, no, of course not,’ Lydia snapped.

‘Well, thank God. That’s a relief.’ Ava sipped her champagne. Her head almost fitted into the glass. She looked out from underneath her lashes. It was clear from Lydia’s expression that she did not thank God. ‘Anna Renwick is single, Lydia. Like your sergeant major. Be reasonable. There aren’t enough chaps to go around; you can’t expect to bag two. He ought to marry, then you can both do as you please.’ Lydia loathed everything Ava was saying. She stared sulkily at the floor. ‘Lydia, my angel, you must know that he was simply having fun with you. Don’t look so serious. Surely you can’t have imagined …’ Ava either didn’t know how to finish the sentence or didn’t feel the need to finish it. ‘Not you.’

‘You don’t know what you’re talking about, Ava.’

‘I always know what I’m talking about.’

‘I refuse to accept your clumsy clichés. One single man plus a single woman does not add up, in this case.’

‘But then when has two men and one woman ever been the correct maths?’

Lydia felt the air thicken, choking her. She glanced at Edgar again. He was practically wrapped around Anna Renwick. It was agony. She couldn’t stand to watch him demean himself, slurring drunkenly over his words and another woman’s body. She couldn’t stay in this room. She rushed out, grateful that Ava’s level of concern and judgement meant that she neither called after her nor followed her.

E
DGAR SENSED HER
dash from the room. Although he had been trying to ignore her all night, her beauty and intensity was such that he couldn’t quite discount her. She had crawled up under his skin. It was inconvenient. It was exhilarating. He extracted himself from some woman’s hot embrace by promising, insincerely, that he would be back soon, and left the drawing room by another door.

A flash of silver around the corner in front of him. He trailed her. A boy with a net chasing a butterfly. She slipped into a room he had yet to explore. He followed. Inside, it took a moment for his eyes to adjust. The room was lit only by the blue moonlight flooding through the window; the drapes had not been drawn. A stately leather-topped desk revealed that it was Sir Peter’s study; Edgar took in huge gulps of dust and the smell of old paper.

Hearing the door open, she turned and glared at him. She stood behind the desk, haughty. Her dress fell in cascades, like a waterfall. She moved in a flash; he didn’t notice her lithe fingers scrambling desperately around the desk. She found a heavy glass paperweight, one that Lady Pondson-Callow had commissioned; it housed a small ammonite shell, something she’d picked up off the beach the day Sir Peter proposed to her, at Lyme Regis. The paperweight was a rare testament to Lady Pondson-Callow’s sentimentality. Lydia hurled it at Edgar. He instinctively ducked, although her throw was inadequate and the paperweight did not land anywhere near the target, if he was such. It didn’t even hit the wall and smash satisfyingly; it fell against the leather chaise longue in the middle of the room and then bounced on the floor. It may have left a dent on the wooden floorboards.

Lydia let loose a cry of frustration and humiliation. He moved swiftly across the room and grabbed both her wrists, in case she intended to attempt any more hooliganism. She struggled against his grip, but the protest was as token as it was futile; he was infinitely stronger than she was.

‘Think what you are doing. You can’t behave like this,’ he told her sternly. She stared at him, fury and passion pouring like a gushing wound.

‘Why are
you
behaving like this?’ she demanded. ‘That girl is a frothy nothing.’

Her jealousy was mesmerising, her imperious dismissal of the young debutante magnificent. ‘You could have had me!’ Her pathetic admission was heartbreaking.

Lydia quivered in the darkness. They were both breathing heavily. Desperate, Edgar looked away from her and towards the window; he spotted a fox, at a distance, autographing the freshly laid snow with its tail and paws. It was impossible to ignore what was between them. He’d been enthralled by her exquisite looks and seemingly impervious, haughty demeanour; still, he might have been able to let that go. Pass it by. But her angry, uncontainable jealousy was irresistible. It was not to be discussed or debated any more. They both knew what they would do, and how.

Not even caring enough to take the time to lock or barricade the door, not considering anything as pedestrian as being discovered, he let go of her wrists and clasped one hand behind her head. The silky feel of her hair caressed his fingers for just a moment as he pulled her face towards his and clamped his lips down on hers. His other hand slid over her body: her breasts, her waist, her arse. He felt the muscled hardness of her through her thin dress, he felt the small mounds and curves, he felt her nipples harden. She was not wearing any sort of corset or girdle, not even a bandeau brassiere. Her audacity caused his cock to shudder. This woman wanted him to know her body. She had counted on it. She bent towards him, melted into him. He broke away, but only to pick her up and land her on the desk, a move he accomplished as though she weighed little more than a toy. She sat facing him, lips and legs slightly open. Invitingly. His fingers slipped up under her skirt, hers weaved into his hair and pulled him towards her again; their mouths banged heavily on one another, almost painful, totally delicious. With a swift, practised confidence that should have worried her, he undid his trousers, pushed her dress roughly up her thighs and pulled her knickers away. He was inside her. It was awkward for a moment; she tilted her hips, lay down on the desk, and then her hot flesh accepted him completely. He put his hands on her small but perfect tits and went at it. Lost himself in her. Deep in her.

S
ARAH WASN’T CERTAIN,
at first, exactly what she was witnessing. Of course she knew that it was sex; she simply didn’t know who was having sex, or how and why it had come about in a private study. She’d followed Lydia out of the drawing room because her friend had looked shocked and upset, possibly drunk. She’d been sure she had come this way but she’d checked in the library, the smaller drawing room and the dining room and she hadn’t found her. Assuming she had gone to bed, Sarah was debating whether she ought to follow her and talk to her to see what was on her mind, or whether she should simply slope off to bed herself. It had been a long day. Snow was somehow draining in a way no other element seemed to be. The elements had a disproportionately large effect on Sarah’s mood; inclement weather made her think of what Arthur and the men on the Front had endured for four winters – though not that many, if any, were out there for four; no one lasted that long. She would never have thought to enter Sir Peter’s study; studies were personal and off limits, even to house guests during parties, but the door was ajar and she heard something. An animal? Could one of the lap dogs be trapped in the room?

His buttocks were beautiful. The sight of them and his wide, perfect, youthful thighs made Sarah gasp. She wanted to turn away, she knew she should, but she couldn’t. His broad shoulders and imposing height meant that she instantly identified him; certainly she knew it was a clandestine thing, a secret, not hers to share, but still she lingered in the doorway. His naked lower body brought a whisper of a memory of Arthur’s body. It had been such a very long time since she’d touched him, or even seen him, that the reality of him had completely disintegrated, and she found, agonisingly, that the memory of him was fading too. She couldn’t remember exactly what his smile had been like, she’d forgotten the precise tone of his voice and the particular feel of his hands on her body. The raw maleness thrusting so close by painfully underlined the fact that her memory was inadequate, a let-down. She couldn’t remember the essence of Arthur. She couldn’t remember the tremendous, wonderful feeling of him inside her. She was so embroiled in the unrefined and unrestrained sexual act, it took her a moment to see or care who was under the officer.

Lydia.

She couldn’t see the woman’s face or upper body, but the skirt of her dress was splayed out over the desk, unmistakable; in the moonlight, Sarah saw and recognised the shimmering silver. She knew the shoes, too. The grey leather shoes, the ones with the lattice openwork and steel bead decoration, perched on the end of the shapely legs; legs that were wrapped around Edgar Trent’s torso.

Sarah ran. As she fled, she considered that she ought to have closed the study door behind her. What if someone else was to discover them? But then she cast the thought aside; it wasn’t her problem, it wasn’t her mess. She dashed up the wide marble stairs and headed for the bedroom she was sharing with Beatrice. As widow and spinster, neither had the status that was required to secure a room of their own, and she hoped that Beatrice wouldn’t yet have turned in; she wanted the bedroom to herself for a while. She was not normally a person who craved privacy, far from it, but suddenly it was a necessity. She needed solitude, space, seclusion.

No one had tended to the fire; what was left of it whimpered in the grate. The maids were beleaguered with the number of guests, and as neither Sarah nor Bea had their own lady’s maid to prioritise their comfort, it was obvious they had been overlooked. Sarah hauled a log out of the wicker basket and threw it on to the ailing coals. The flames half-heartedly licked around the log, but it would take some time before it caught. Hunched over the dressing table, Sarah gasped in the chilly air, trying hard not to spew up her misery, which was likely to flood from her like a stinking bodily fluid. She felt empty. Her loneliness had a breadth and depth and height and weight that staggered her. It sometimes seemed fathomless.