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‘But my wife is not. Hmm?’ He was harsh. ‘Where’s your pride, Kate?'To be beaten by only the thought of a bridal night! Don’t you think you’re being excessively modest? After all, you’re twenty-six years old and few women of your age are expected to have led a nunlike existence. I thought better of you than this. Come here.’

Kate sat unmoving except to put up a hand to sweep her hair away from her forehead. So that was what he thought of her! Dully she wondered what he would say if she told him that this would be the first time for her. She stole a look at the dark, harsh, cynical face and decided to say nothing. He would probably tell her to pull the other one, it had bells on it!

‘Come here!’ Jerome repeated the command more sharply and she rose to her feet and crossed the room to where he was standing. A long finger tilted her chin.

‘You have several smuts on your face and a few more on your shirt. Your skirt is creased where Philip has been sitting on your knee and your nose is shiny. Go and tidy yourself, then we’ll have dinner and talk. You’ll feel better when you’ve eaten.’

Past him, in the long pier-glass, Kate caught a glimpse of herself and nearly died with shame. It was even worse than he had said, and with a gasp of horror she grabbed her toilet bag and fled to the bathroom.

Dinner was quite pleasant and under other circumstances, Kate would have enjoyed herself. The
peperonata
was the best she had ever eaten, and she wished she had more appetite to do it justice, and there was a delicious sweet of bottled cherries and whipped cream that tasted heavenly. At the end of the meal, as Jerome had said, she did feel much better. She dismissed the idea of asking him humbly to be gentle with her, she was not going to sue for quarter at this late stage, but she was able to stop halfway up the stairs and look back at him where he stood at the stairfoot, watching her.

‘Rape is not a pretty word,’ she told him severely.

Jerome was unmoved, as she knew he would be. ‘I’m going to bed with my wife, Kate. It won’t be rape!’

‘Then you’ll have to forgive my ignorance,’ she snapped back at him, ‘if I don’t notice the difference.’

Later, lying rigid and praying for some sort of unconsciousness, she felt him slide between the sheets, then there was a hard arm about her and firm hands which deliberately divested her of her nightgown. She gasped with outrage and started to struggle, but a cool mouth found hers, cutting off the blistering words on her tongue while his hands moved about her. At first they only held her arms to her sides while his mouth blazed a trail from her forehead down to her breasts, then they began to caress insidiously so that after a while she stopped struggling and gave herself up with a moan of despair. Almost without consciousness on her part, she found her hands tangled in the crisp hair at the back of his head and she was holding him to her while his mouth slid over the slender curves of her body, sending a flame leaping through her. And then there was only a savage need which demanded satisfaction, a sharp, sweet pain, a wild surge of something like victory and a deep contentment. .

She woke to a pale grey light at the window and lay watching as it deepened to lemon. When she tried to move, the arm about her tightened, denying her even that small liberty. She turned her head away from Jerome and gazed at the white, roughly plastered wall with a chill hopelessness.

No, it hadn’t been rape! But the wildness of the night was now gone and morning had reduced everything to a shameful memory. That she should have behaved in such a way—she couldn’t even bear to think of the word ‘abandoned’. She closed her eyes, fighting back tears, and then common sense took over. Self-disgust? Yes, she could feel that, it was allowable, but shame? No! She had done nothing for which she need feel shame. She had not forced Jerome into marriage, neither had she forced herself upon him. She was the injured party, and as she winced as she moved, she thought grimly that she would have the bruises to prove it. She had pitted her abysmal ignorance and inexperience against an expert, and she had lost. She need feel neither shame nor embarrassment.

She wriggled around until she could peer over the side of the bed in a search for her nightgown. The arm tightened and pulled her back, turning her to face him.

‘Not rape, Kate!’

‘No.’ She raised her eyes and kept them quiet and steady on his. ‘I’m not experienced enough to give it a name. It was something purely animal, I suppose. I’m not ashamed of myself, but I am filled with self-disgust, and I think I shall never forgive you for it— for making me behave like an animal, I mean. I disliked you and distrusted you before and I came as near to hating you as it was possible for me to hate anybody. Now, I
do
hate you. Not for what you’ve done to me, but for what you made me do. And don’t bother telling me that it’s all my own fault, I know that already.’ Her mouth grew wry. ‘But I wasn’t much of an opponent, was I? A green girl up against an expert!’ She made a face. ‘I didn’t stand a chance!’

‘Correct.’ He pulled her down against him so that she felt the hardness of his thigh against her and she held her breath as traitorous warmth started to steal through her body. She heard him laugh softly, a nasty, triumphant laugh. ‘A very green girl—a virgin! I hadn’t expected that; I’d begun to think they were an extinct species, but you can’t fight an expert, Kate, so why try?’

‘I must!’ she said desperately even as she felt herself weakening. ‘Even if I don’t stand a chance, even though I know I’ll lose every time, I still have to fight.’

‘Why?’ His hand slid down to the curve of her body to her hip, tightened on the delicate bone and pulled her hard against him.

Despite the shivers running over her body, from some unknown depths she dredged up a little sarcasm. ‘Call it my nuisance value. I’m a fighter by nature.’

‘Why bother?’ he murmured against her mouth, his body a warm, heavy weight on hers. ‘Learn a few simple rules, Kate,’ it was not much more than a whisper, ‘the first being that no man wants a practical discussion when he’s giving pleasure to a woman.’

When she next woke, it was broad daylight, the sun was high and Philip was bouncing on her chest. ‘Sea,’ he was chanting. ‘Swim! Fiss!’

‘Fish!’ she corrected him automatically while she endeavoured to draw the covers over her bare shoulders.

‘Fiss,’ he agreed amiably before he was removed from the bed. Jerome was behind him, looking rather piratical in a dark jersey and slacks. Kate glowered at him with what she hoped was a glacial eye and slid farther down in the bed.

‘Here on the coast, fish is nearly the staple diet. Constantina wants some, so we must go and catch it.’

His tone was severely practical.

‘You don’t require me for that,’ she muttered. ‘I’ve never caught fish in my life, I wouldn’t know how to start.’

‘You aren’t required to catch fish,’ he was reasonable. ‘Your task will be to ensure that Philip doesn’t fall overboard. I shall tie him to the mast of the boat and you will sit with him and keep him quiet. I shall do the fishing.’ His glance flicked over her in a most embarrassing way and he tucked Philip under one arm and went off downstairs, leaving Kate prey to a number of emotions which she had never known she possessed.

The cold shower restored her to nearly normal and she went down the stairs in pale blue jeans and a white pullover, her feet making no sound in soft sneakers.

‘Charming and practical,’ Jerome approved her clothes as she helped herself to coffee. ‘May I?’ He passed her another cup and she busied herself pouring it while Constantina pattered in and out in flat sandals which made slapping noises on the tiles of the floor. Despite her resolution, Kate felt embarrassment—or was it that? Wasn’t it more like envy? Yes, she decided, it was much more like envy. She wished she could behave as he did, as if nothing had happened—but that’s what experience does for you, she told herself wryly, and sat drinking coffee while she longed for the day when she also would have sufficient experience to be able to sit calmly, with no thought of the night before, just an ability to look forward to the day ahead. She bit into a warm roll and ventured some polite conversation. Two words only, they came out a bit jerkily, but at least she was trying.

‘What fish?’

‘Nothing you would know.’ There was no embarrassment in him as he passed his coffee cup to be refilled. 'There’s no cod or haddock here.’ His gaze slid past her to the window. ‘I recommend that we leave soon,’ and at her look of surprise, he continued smoothly, ‘before our nephew flings himself into the fountain.’

The ‘honeymoon’ lasted ten days, ten days during which Kate learned a lot. She learned not to be embarrassed; it was difficult anyway when Jerome treated everything as being perfectly normal, perfectly ordinary. He seemed well satisfied with his strange bargain and Kate was quiet and submissive; at least she was as submissive as it was in her nature to be. She was living for the day when she would be back in England and could do something. They spent long days in the quite warm sunshine, sitting in the courtyard reading or walking along the rough grey-white roads with Philip mounted on a tiny donkey. Several times Kate tried to start a really serious conversation with Jerome, a conversation which would run on the lines that now he knew she wasn’t a promiscuous type of woman, now he knew that she was in all respects a decent person who could be trusted to care for a child properly ... but her faltering tongue stilled under his mocking gaze and the hot blood rose in her cheeks, so the conversation never took place.

The evenings were the worst part, after Philip had gone to bed, although she had discovered that a couple of glasses of wine with dinner gave her quite a euphoric feeling and enabled her to play cards for pence with a reckless abandon. But Jerome had stopped that.

‘I do not want a drunken woman in my bed,’ and he had removed the wine bottle from her fingers. That showed how insensitive he was, she glowered at him; once through the bedroom door the euphoria deserted her and she was stone cold sober. But it was as he had said, she reflected. This was a period of adjustment, and as they boarded the plane in Rome, she decided that she was not quite as well adjusted as she would have liked to be.

They didn’t go to the apartment when they returned to London, instead the waiting limousine at the airport swept them to a small house in Kensington and it was there, in the tastefully furnished sitting-room, that Jerome showed his teeth.

‘Tobias,’ he had introduced her to the middle-aged, blunt-featured man Who had driven the car. ‘And this is Mrs Davies, his wife, who is your cook-housekeeper. There is a maid—Ellen, I think,’ and he had smiled down at Mrs Davies in quite a kind way.

‘That’s right, sir,’ the housekeeper had folded firm, hardworking hands. ‘Ellen, our youngest. I think you’ll find her satisfactory, madam.’

Kate murmured that she was sure she would and, sitting down, thankfully poured herself a cup of tea. It was the first tea she had drunk since they had left London over ten days ago and it tasted like nectar. She sighed with relief. She was not a particularly good traveller and Philip had been bored, irritable and aggravating on the last stage of the journey, so that it had seemed to go on for ever. When the door closed behind the housekeeper, Jerome seated himself, accepted a cup of tea and announced blandly that tomorrow morning she would be busy and she was therefore to keep it free.

‘Learning the geography of a gentleman's residence?’ Kate was acid.

‘No,’ he remained bland. ‘Interviewing nurses.’

‘Nurses?’ She put her cup down very carefully. ‘I don’t need a nurse.’

‘You may not, Kate, but Philip does. He’s becoming thoroughly spoiled—and in any case, you won’t have as much time to spare for him from now on.’

Kate’s eyes glittered nastily. ‘You’re mistaken! All my time is Philip’s. He doesn’t need a nurse, he has me.’

‘No!’ He put down his cup and rose to his feet, seeming to tower over her. ‘When it’s convenient, we’re leaving for Derbyshire where we will stay with my mother for a week or so, and when we return to London there’ll be a certain amount of entertaining. We shall receive invitations to dinner and things like that, and we can’t refuse them all. In return, people will expect to be invited here. Furthermore, the house is not yet completely furnished or finished, there are still several rooms which have to be decorated. You’re going to be busy, therefore there will be a nurse for Philip.’

‘I prefer to look after Philip myself,’ she told him truculently. ‘You don’t understand. What should I do with my time otherwise? I wasn’t brought up to a life of leisure nor to be idle. As for the entertainment part of it, I’ve never done any and I don’t think I’d be any good at it. What’s more, I don’t want to!’

‘You ask what you will do with your time?’ He raised an eyebrow. ‘What do women ever do with their time? Aren’t there frequent visits to shops and dressmakers, then there’s the hairdresser and coffee mornings, bridge afternoons and things like that. You’ll have to superintend the household, although you can safely leave the cooking and day-to-day running to Mrs Davies. As for your never having done much entertaining, we’ll accept a few invitations first, so that you can see how it’s done and then you can experiment. You’ll soon pick it up, you’re a clever girl, not a fool. So there
will
be a nurse for Philip, either of your choosing or mine.’ Hard fingers came under her chin, forcing her face up and holding it firmly so that she could not escape without an undignified struggle. ‘You’ll make an excellent hostess, Kate,’ he murmured.

She stared into his grey eyes and quite suddenly she was obsessed with a desire to please him, but she dismissed it. She was a fool and becoming weak!

‘Coffee mornings would remind me of morning breaks at school, in the staff room, and I never cared for them. Nor can I play bridge, I’m not nearly clever enough. I’d rather look after Philip.’

‘No,’ he shook his head. ‘Philip must learn that he can’t have all your time. He must learn to share you, otherwise there’ll be trouble when we have children of our own.’