Several hours later, having been to the West End where they enjoyed every moment of the latest James Bond film, the hostesses arrived back to the crew hotel in Richmond.
Kay entered the foyer jauntily, her senses still quivering from the impact of Sean Connery’s dark, suave charm and stopped dead in confusion at the sight of another dark good- looking man standing chatting to the night porter.
Her heart did a double flip. The pilot turned and saw her.
‘Well, well, if it isn’t my Aphrodite,’ Captain Pender murmured, his face lighting up in a dazzling smile. ‘How very nice to see you.’
‘What are you doing here?’ Kay blurted out before she could stop herself. She could have died with shame. As if there wasn’t every reason in the world to meet a Celtic Airways pilot in an airline hotel.
‘Overnighting like yourselves,’ he replied equably. ‘As a matter of fact, we shouldn’t be here at all. We were due out to Beirut this evening, but we’ve been delayed.’
So he was flying eastern routes. That was why she hadn’t seen him since the emergency drill.
Beside her Nicola gushed, ‘How exciting. I suppose the eastern hostesses are all terribly glamorous?’
‘If you like the sultry type,’ Graham smiled, his dark eyes resting briefly on Kay.
She decided he was even more handsome than she remembered. And a little older. She was aware of a dusting of silver in the dark wings brushed back from the tanned face as he bent his head to catch what Nicola was saying. Wow! she caught her breath, he was gorgeous!
She stole another look and meeting his amused glance, blushed hotly, uncomfortably reminded of the embarrassing encounter in Griffith House.
As if reading her thoughts he said quickly. ‘How about a nightcap, girls? I was just about to have one myself.’
They went into the bar.
To Kay’s delight when Captain Pender returned with their drinks he by-passed the others to sit in the seat beside her. She sipped her gin and wished she could think of something brilliant to say that would mark her apart from the other rather vapid pair, but try as she might, her mind remained annoyingly blank.
As another airline crew seated themselves nearby with much noisy laughter and talk, she was conscious of a lessening of tension within their own party and was at a loss to know how to rectify it.
‘Well, what do you know,’ a voice suddenly whooped. ‘This is my lucky night.’
Startled, she glanced around, not at first recognising the young airman from the RAF station in Wales, where they had made the emergency landing, although the painfully butchered crew cut should have struck a familiar chord.
‘Now Kay, don’t say you’ve forgotten me... that crazy afternoon at the base,’ Hiram prompted.
‘Valley! Of course.’ Kay extended her hand, aware that her pilot was watching them, a slightly scornful look in his dark eyes.
‘How’s the blonde bombshell?’ Hiram demanded, ‘Got herself hitched to that poor fish yet?’
Actually Eva and her fiancé had split up and a sulky Eva no longer sported the emerald rock, but Kay was too busy keeping an eye on the pilot to be able to answer Hiram intelligently.
Out of the corner of her eye, she saw him rise and go across to whisper in the ear of the attractive blonde stewardess. Kay trembled in an agony of jealousy, hating the familiar way he pressed the girl’s shoulder, the way she kept throwing her blonde mane about. Out off all the hotels in London, why had Hiram got to go and pick this one!
With a last laughing rejoinder, Captain Pender moved on. Kay’s heart raced in panic. He was going! He probably thought Hiram was her boyfriend!
‘Look, Hiram, I’m sorry.’ she desperately cut across him. ‘I can’t have a drink with you. The thing is...’ she abandoned caution, ‘I’m with that pilot over there.’
Hiram shrugged good-naturedly, ‘Heck, Kay, why didn’t you tell me to butt out. Should have known I couldn’t be that lucky.’
As he ambled off, Kay trembled in her seat, miserably aware that her pilot was almost across the room. ‘Come back,’ she wanted to shout, but restrained herself.
Graham glanced around and was surprised to see the young airman at the counter drinking with his friend. Perhaps she was on her way to join them, he thought. But no, another quick glance revealed her to be sitting with the hostesses. He paused, not in such a hurry now to get away.
It’s now or never, thought Kay. Boldly she got up to intercept him, some scatty half- formed plan in mind. But drawing near, her nerve failed and she found herself outside in the foyer without having said a word.
Damn! She gazed miserably at a figurine of a winsome shepherdess and her lad in a glass showcase, cursing the shyness that was ruining her life. Then, suddenly she heard a familiar voice behind her. Her heart gave a great lurch of excitement.
‘Admire that sort of thing, do you?’
She turned her head. ‘Not really,’ she answered shyly, pointing at some Edinburgh crystal decanters.
‘Nice,’ Graham agreed. ‘Though our own Waterford crystal is every bit as beautiful, Kay, wouldn’t you agree?’
The sound of her name on his lips startled her. ‘You didn’t go with that young man,’ he queried.
Kay shook her head. ‘I scarcely know him, I only met him once,’ she explained, as if this was sufficient reason for her lack of preference. She didn’t stop to think that she didn’t know this man for any greater length of time.
It seemed to satisfy him, however, for the ruffled look smoothed from his forehead and he gave a deep pleased laugh.
‘Then why in tarnation are we standing here wasting precious time discussing this rubbish,’ he dismissed the contents of the showcase. ‘I’m off to Karachi in a few hours and I’ll be gone for days.’
It was a declaration that was also a plea and Kay didn’t refuse it.
He looked into her eyes and said softly, ‘Kay... ‘ and even softer. ‘My Aphrodite... are you coming with me?’
She immediately nodded.
As they moved quickly across the foyer, the other hostesses came sauntering out of the bar. Kay saw their curious glances, then stepped into the revolving door and was whirled before him out into the night.
Sitting together in the taxi speeding rapidly towards the city, Kay glanced shyly at him and saw him smile at her in the half-light.
‘Since I first saw you I’ve been unable to think of anything else,’ he confessed. ‘Isn’t that terrible.’
Kay stared down, thrilled and confused by his words. ‘I suppose you have a boyfriend... dozens maybe?’
She gave a small laugh, glad of the covering darkness to hide her hot cheeks. ‘Hardly dozens.’
‘Anyone special?’
She shrugged. ‘Not really.’ Apart from the laconic Dave there was Harry, but again his courtship was slow.
‘So there’s some hope for me,’ he murmured, taking her hand and spreading it on his thigh, making her conscious of the warm solid feel of his muscled leg through his uniform pants.
When he covered her hand cosily with his own, she shyly froze, not daring even a flutter of movement between those two warm traps. Was she really here? It was all like some marvellous dream.
‘Hungry?’ he inquired suddenly.
‘Not very.’ Kay was taken aback. Hungry at a time like this! She was aware of all sorts of other emotions but hunger wasn’t one of them.
The taxi drew abruptly into the kerb and stopped, meter ticking over. She followed him on o the pavement and waited while he paid off the driver. When he took her elbow, she shivered slightly at his touch and allowed herself be guided through a doorway.
‘I hope you like Italian cuisine,’ he murmured. ‘Yes, I love it.’
‘Good. I felt you might. See how well suited we are.’
Politely, he went ahead of her down the narrow stairs. ‘You’ll like Luigi’s,’ his voice floated back to her.
Below, an accented voice greeted him with loud and characteristic affluence. ‘Ah Captain Pender. Nice to see you. Buena sera, come right in.’
It was the first time Kay had heard his name. ‘Captain Pender,’ she repeated quietly to herself. What was his first name? She felt stupid not knowing.
He ushered her ahead of him into the dining-room, past a side table laden with elaborately dressed joints of meat and terrines of fish and pate. The proprietor seated them at a small table covered by a cream lace tablecloth and touched flame to a candle set in a garland of flowers. Kay was struck by the difference between this restaurant and the one she had visited with the crew in Soho. At the time she had thought it the height of sophistication. Now comparing it with Luigi’s lavishly elegant establishment, she realised her error. This was a trattoria of the highest order.
What followed passed in a haze of pleasure as the menus were brought and Luigi proffered a bottle of wine for Captain Pender’s approval.
‘You may leave it, Luigi,’ he told him. ‘We’ll pour it ourselves.’ The proprietor discreetly withdrew.
Graham leaned across and took Kay’s hand in both of his, stroking it gently with his thumbs, long sensuous strokes that caused Kay’s body to tremble with an answering lust.
‘You’ll never know how my heart failed me tonight when that young man turned up,’ he confessed as she sat transfixed, saying nothing. ‘I was terrified he’d carry you off. Not of course that you would have cared,’ he chided smiling. ‘Off you’d have gone without a thought and left me to drown my sorrows.’
Kay took a shaky breath, her head in a whirl. Dizzily she stared at the dark silky hairs on the backs of his wrists and felt an irresistible impulse to lay her cheek against them.
‘Graham! I thought it was you,’ a voice intruded on the idyllic scene and a tall, sandy- moustached man banged the pilot on the back. ‘Aren’t you in Karachi this weather?’
So his name was Graham, Kay thought. Graham Pender. Captain Graham Pender.
Captain Pender laughed and released Kay’s hand. ‘Yes I am... practically. Been delayed till tomorrow.’ He hesitated, glanced meaningfully at Kay and laughed again. ‘I won’t ask you to join us.’
‘Quite understand, old boy.’ The sandy-haired man peered in Kay’s face. ‘Hello, my dear. Hope he’s looking after you all right. Be happy to take over if he’s not. Only got to say the word.’
Kay gave a tight, polite smile, feeling an instant aversion to him. He reminded her of a slimy fellow in the Smithfield Insurance Corporation who was always spilling paper-clips at the typists’ feet, then sniffing up their skirts as he gathered them in. She was glad when he passed on to his own table.
She looked at Captain Pender, eager to get back to the lovely intimate footing they were enjoying before the interruption and admitted shyly. ‘I never knew your name till now.’
He smiled at her. ‘Does it suit me?’
‘Yes, I think so. I’ve never know a Graham before.’ ‘Grame,’ he mocked her slightly. ‘I like the way you say it.’
His hand was back to stroking hers again but he was forced to release her as the waiter brought the steaming plates of pasta to the table. When they were alone again he said ‘My dear, I’ll be thinking of the way you said my name when I’m far away in Karachi. You have a lovely voice. Has anyone ever told you?’
Kay ducked her head at the compliment. When she brought her eyes slowly to meet his again, he was regarding her with a tender, bemused look.
‘You’re enchanting, do you know that.’
Suddenly he chuckled, ‘Are you pleased with the effect you’re having on me? I don’t know whether I’m in the air or on the ground when I look at you, my lovely Kitty.’
When Kay’s blushes died down he said, ‘Crazy about flying, are you? Wait till you get a Rome overnight. You’ll have a marvellous time, splashing in the Trevi fountain, wandering the Via Romana by moonlight.’ He leaned back in his chair and regarded her through lowered lids. ‘What I’d give to be with you. We wouldn’t close an eye all night.’
Kay didn’t know where to look.
In an attempt to bring the conversation down to a less intoxicating level, she asked desperately, ‘Do you like flying to the east?’
‘Oh it’s only for another few weeks,’ he replied. By which she deducted he was glad it would soon be ending.
‘What routes will you be on then?’ she persisted, wondering if she could possibly bear the excitement of bumping into him every other day on UK and European flights and not seeing how she was ever going to stand it if she didn’t.
‘I’m going on the Atlantic when I get back,’ he said. ‘I finished training for the Boeings just before the Karachi venture.’ He smiled into her eyes. ‘In fact, that’s what I was doing that day I got my first glorious glimpse of you.’
So he did remember! Kay’s cheeks went on fire.
Taking pity on her, he signalled the waiter to bring them the dessert menu.
Studying it, Kay struggled to regain her composure. ‘I don’t think I have any room left...’ she started to say, then changed her mind and chose a cassata ice-cream.
As she nibbled it he regarded her with an approving smile as though the sight gave him pleasure, then turning to the waiter said, ‘Just coffee for me. And you can bring the bill.’
They sped back to Richmond in another London taxi. Kay rested her head on Captain Pender’s shoulder (it was drawn there the second he took his place beside her) and wondered if he would kiss her. When he would do it (if he did it) completely occupied her thoughts on the journey back. But although he had ample opportunity, beyond a murmured, ‘Happy?’ when he positioned her head against him, he did not attempt to touch her. Once she lifted her head thinking he might have fallen asleep but at once his fingers firmly pressed it back again.
Stumbling stiffly after him on to the pavement, she was surprised to find that they were not at the hotel but at the bottom of the hill leading up to it. She yawned hugely as Captain Pender paid off the driver, then obediently turned with him and walked along the deserted street. On the narrow bridge spanning the river he put his arms around her, and she leaned with him against the stone parapet to gaze down at what must be water flowing below but was difficult to make out in the dim light. Somewhere close at hand a church clock struck two.
Captain Pender’s face was in shadow as he looked down at her. ‘Kay, my dear,’ he murmured. ‘This has been a delightful evening.’
Deliberately, he lowered his head and placed his mouth warmly and sensuously over hers, plushly burrowing into her soft underlip in what she could only think of afterwards as a bottomless kiss. Like none she had ever before experienced, the drugging wonder of it left her weak and a little breathless.
When he finally lifted his head, she gazed up at him hazily, seeing his features only as a pale blur. And then he was kissing her again and the same magic was being re-enacted and she was suspended in dark, fathomless depths each time his mouth descended on hers.