Christmas time for the Pattens and their charges was a special time indeed. Everyone was part of it, a part of the hints and secrets, the preparations and anticipation. Sally had been planning it for a month. After church in the morning the children were to sit down to a special meal – goose followed by plum pudding – cooked by Mrs Briggs and served in the gaily decorated schoolroom. After that there were to be games and then, treat of the day, tea in the parlour with Doctor Will and his family, where presents from the tree that sparkled like a small, colourful miracle in the corner of the room would be handed out. Under Sally’s guidance the children were making little gifts for the family. The ‘babies’ were painting bright pictures for Doctor Will and Miss Charlotte, the ‘seconds’ – a group of half a dozen six and seven year olds – were making cardboard bookmarks for Mr Ralph and an ingenious cardboard tiepin holder for Mr Peter, and the others – eight children ranging between the ages of eight and twelve – were producing a desk tidy for Doctor Ben and a neat sewing box for Miss Hannah. They worked like little demons in the week leading up to Christmas, every room in the home littered with seashells, beads, cardboard and multi-coloured scraps of cloth, all to be hastily hidden away amidst much shoving and giggling if the intended recipient of the gift should come near.
‘Well, at least it keeps them occupied,’ an all-but exhausted Sally said to Hannah two days before Christmas Eve, ‘even if not entirely out of mischief. The things they get up to, even right under our noses!’ She laughed a little wryly. ‘That young Tom for instance – he’s got the makings of a market trader if ever I saw one! He’d sell a grindstone to a knife sharpener that one. You know what he did the other day? He swopped a piece of red sticky paper for Billy’s last two bull’s eyes. God! The one thing we’ve got more of than trouble is red sticky paper! When Billy found out he was ready to tear Master Tom limb from limb. Tom took off like a jack rabbit all over the house and it took us a good hour to get the place back to normal again!’
Hannah laughed. ‘You’re making such a wonderful job of the children, Sally. Ralph’s delighted.’
Sally smiled her swift, slightly crooked smile. ‘Thanks.’
‘I came to say that Pa wants you to come to dinner with us on Christmas night – you, Bron and Mrs Briggs. After the children are settled. Would you like to?’
The day before, Dan had asked her, ‘Christmas Night, Sal – Surely they’ll let you off for that?’
And, ‘P’raps Boxing Day,’ she had said to him gently, ‘I’ll come to tea on Boxing Day.’ Because she had not wanted to be away from the Bear on Christmas Day; perverse it may be to force herself through torment, but she did not want to be away from the Bear on any day.
‘Thank you,’ she said again, firmly suppressing the memory of a blunt, square, baffled face, ‘that would be nice.’
Nice? To sit at the same table as Ben Patten? To watch his meticulous attentions to his newly returned, pretty young wife who alternately glittered like a chandelier or sat in a strangely provocative, childlike silence, her eyes lit with secret dreams. Nice?
‘Good. Pa’s arranged for help in the kitchen so that Mrs Briggs can eat with us. A couple of friends of Peter’s are coming, too. It should be fun.’
Sally nodded. ‘I’ll look forward to it.’
And – blimey, she thought with deliberate wryness as Hannah turned to leave, I’m sounding more like one of them every day!
But not enough. Never enough.
Christmas Day went well. After the dreary weather that had preceded it, the day was clear and cold and bright. The children, apart from a couple of scuffles, behaved themselves well enough in church – at least until the last five minutes when the tooth and nail affair that broke out between Tom, Toby’s first lieutenant, and Billy Turner, his only real rival for the leadership of the children, was smartly broken up by Ralph and Ben. Toby himself knelt, hands joined in innocence before him, eyes fixed upon the candlelit altar, the very picture of cherubic boyhood, ignoring Sally’s furious glare. Dinner was suitably and predictably exhausting and thoroughly enjoyed by its young participants. Roast goose and roast potatoes, stuffing and sauce, cabbage and Brussels sprouts, all disappeared at lightning speed down young throats that still had time and breath to roar out Christmas carols or squabble with automatic rancour with a neighbour. The plum pudding and custard, Sally noted, kept them quiet for a full three minutes. Then it was blind man’s buff, hunt the thimble, musical chairs and yet another set-to between Tom and Billy.
‘Enough, you two!’ Sally hauled them apart and cuffed them with indiscriminate force. ‘One more squeak – just one! – and you’re in bed for the rest of the day! Now – upstairs, and quick about it. I want you all smartened up and clean as a whistle in fifteen minutes!’
Twenty minutes later they filed two by two, bright, shiny, brushed and for the moment overawed to silence, into the parlour. The small, communal gasp of pleasure and amazement when they saw the Christmas tree with its candles and its gleaming decorations brought smiles to the faces of those already assembled.
‘Is it magic?’ little Betsy whispered, and blushed scarlet as the words dropped loudly into the silence.
‘Yes, little one – that’s exactly what it is – magic!’ Peter Patten swept her into his arms, his fair, bright face alight with laughter and sudden tenderness. ‘Come on, play Saint Nicholas with me. Help me give out the presents.’
Hannah, with Sally’s help, had done her job well. Dolls and books, trains and puzzles, all were grasped by small eager hands that had held few enough such things before. For a short while even the roughest of the youngsters was subdued by the munificence. With awkward grace the gifts they themselves had made were handed out, and Sally was touched almost to tears by the ungainly picture of her that the babies had painstakingly painted, the shell box the older children had constructed and above all the small string of beads that Toby nonchalantly proffered. ‘I pinched them,’ he volunteered with an angelic smile, ‘from the ones the girls were sewing on to Miss Hannah’s box.’
She hugged him, blinking. ‘Thanks, Tobe. Here. I bought something for you, too.’ She fished in her pocket.
He stood with bowed head, looking at the shiny, brand new fountain pen that lay in his slim, pale fingers.
‘It’s – to help you with the scholarship. For – for good luck.’ She was taken aback by this stillness, the lack of reaction. Did he not, after all her thought, like her gift?
‘Thanks.’ He cleared his throat. ‘Thanks,’ he said again, and lifted his face for her kiss, the arms that he flung about her neck all but strangling her, saying the things his young tongue could not master.
‘You like it?’
‘It’s the best present I’ve ever had,’ he said simply. ‘And the best I ever will have.’
Tea was taken in a well-mannered calm that astounded even Sally, who was, it must be said, the source of the imaginative threats that had brought it about. The girls smiled and dimpled their ‘pleases’ and ‘thank yous’ and the boys did their level best to come up to such perfection.
‘Splendid!’ Doctor Will said beaming. ‘You’ve all been absolutely splendid! And as a reward – tomorrow you shall all go to the zoo! What do you think of that?’
Toby, ever a man for the moment, sprang to his feet. ‘Hurrah! Hurrah for Doctor Will! Hurrah for the zoo!’
The children cheered themselves hoarse.
‘Hurrah for everyone! Hurrah for Christmas!’
The adults, laughing, joined in that one.
‘Hurrah for a quick story and hurrah for bed,’ Sally said crisply, sensing the moment with a sure instinct. Little Bessie, having eaten more in one day than she would usually manage in a week, was looking decidedly pale.
‘O-oh!’ The chorus, disappointed though it was, could not disguise a certain weariness. It had been a very long day.
Sally clapped her hands. ‘Zoo tomorrow, so a good night’s sleep tonight. But before you go – what do you say?’ She was suddenly, uncomfortably aware of Ben’s eyes upon her, his face relaxed and laughing.
Toby, still standing, raised his small hands elegantly, like the conductor of a symphony orchestra. ‘Thank you, Doctor Will,’ the children chanted obediently, grinning. ‘Thank you, Miss Hannah. Thank you, Mr Ralph. God bless you, and a merry Christmas.’ And then, forgetting at this last moment the hard-drilled lessons of the week before, in a tangle of arms and legs, pushing and tumbling like unruly puppies, they left the table and fled through the door, the bounty of their presents clutched in sticky fingers, the prospect of tomorrow’s outing lighting their eyes like beacons.
Sally, about to follow them found herself stopped by a hand on her arm. ‘Wonderful work, Miss Smith,’ Doctor Will said. ‘You’ve got the little barbarians eating out of your hand.’
She laughed. ‘Not quite. But thanks anyway.’
‘Your speciality, is it? Taming barbarians?’ It was Ben, the rugged face creased into laughter. She lifted her head and for a moment their eyes met. The communication between them was instant and warm and totally unexpected for them both. Some flash of laughter, an instinctive rapport, flickered between them. She had not imagined it; she knew she had not. A sudden, irrational and blinding happiness rose. She felt the warmth of colour creep into her face.
‘Why?’ She tilted her head in smiling challenge, ‘Do you know any that need it?’
For the strangest moment they might have been the only people in the full and chattering room. The quality of his smile changed as she watched, the long sweep of his dark lashes veiled his eyes. Her heart all but stopped, laughter fled. ‘I think’, she said, carefully composed, ‘that Betsy might be going to be sick. I’d better go.’
‘You are coming to dine this evening?’ Doctor Will asked genially.
She tore her eyes from a strangely questing, even more strangely uncertain face of his son, who stood looking at her she thought as if he had never seen her before. ‘Yes, I’m coming,’ she smiled a swift smile, directed at anyone and everyone but Ben, ‘after I’ve seen the barbarians tucked safely into bed.’
Sally spent more time before her mirror that night than she ever had in her life, though that, to be truthful, was not saying much in an age when a lady of leisure might contrive to spend the best part of her day so. She had no special dress to wear; her two good, serviceable white blouses and dark skirt were her only decent clothes, but she had washed and neatly pressed the prettier of the two blouses and had accepted gratefully from Bron the offer of a small brooch to pin at the neck. The sleeves were puffed at the shoulder and were full and soft to the wrist, disguising, she hoped, the lack of plump, soft flesh that no amount of Mrs Briggs’s wholesome cooking seemed to remedy. She was still thin and angular, her face narrow, the bones prominent. Piling the weight of her brown hair inexpertly upon her head she admitted a little ruefully that even in the softening candlelight no one would ever call her a beauty. But her skin at least was now clean, clear and smooth, her hair shone and her long-lashed, slanting eyes beneath their dark, tilted brows were bright. She leaned closer to the mirror inspecting the white scar that flawed her lower lip. Ben Patten had done a good job – her always slightly lopsided smile was perhaps a little more crooked, but the scar did not disfigure. She sat back. So; it might not be a pretty face that looked steadily back at her – but it was hers, and it was like no other face she knew. That would have to do.
She stuck the last pin firmly into her hair, gave her reflection one last, long and far from enchanted inspection and prepared to take herself downstairs.
Dinner was a far more rowdy affair than she had expected, thanks mainly to Peter Patten and his two sidekicks who, flushed with wine and the glory of the season made sure that not one dull moment was allowed to intrude upon the fun. A constant stream of jokes and anecdotes kept the company laughing, whilst the young men indulged with some gusto in fulsome compliments and outrageous flirtation with every female at the table, from the plump, flustered and flattered Mrs Briggs and the blushing Bron to the over-gay, exquisitely pretty Charlotte. Every now and again, by way of a change Peter would demand a Christmas carol, and the loved old words would echo heartily around the ancient room that must have heard them so many times before. The meal was splendid and passed in a tempest of conversation and laughter. Sally, seated between Peter and a friend he had introduced as Crispin, found herself the target of her fair share of attention. Crispin, who had obviously enjoyed a tot or two before arriving at the Bear, spent a good deal of time with his hand upon her knee; she spent an equal amount of time laughingly but firmly removing it. The candles in their silver candlesticks upon the table gleamed and flickered upon the happy faces, shone in the glasses, glowed in the wine.
‘A toast!’ Peter jumped to his feet as the last of the great plum pudding was carried away and the glasses were charged yet again.
A silence fell, in which Bron giggled loudly and then, blushing furiously fell to silence as smiling eyes turned to her. Crispin, sitting opposite her, discreetly removed his foot from hers and attempted once more an exploration of Sally’s upper leg. Very firmly, as she might have with an errant puppy or kitten, she picked up his hand and placed it back on the table. He smiled winningly.
‘To Mrs Briggs, her helpers and her splendid dinner! The King himself can’t have partaken of a better feast!’
‘Hear, hear!’ The toast was drunk.
‘And to us all.’ Peter looked affectionately from face to face. ‘As a more literary brain than mine has put it: God bless us, every one!’
Again glasses were lifted amidst a smiling murmur.
‘And now—’ he waved his arm, a general commanding his troops, ‘—to the parlour. And bring your glasses. There’s champagne for everyone.’
The parlour was bright with lamps and candles, the tree glowed in its corner. Beneath it a new pile of presents had been laid. Amidst squeals and cries of delight they were handed out.
‘Oh, Peter, how lovely! Do, please, help me to put it on!’ Obligingly Peter clasped a small locket about his pretty sister-in-law’s neck.
‘My goodness, how splendid.’ Will eyed his new pipe a little doubtfully.
Hannah kissed him. ‘I just hope it smells a little better than the old one!’
‘Well, I do declare!’ Mrs Briggs held up a pair of soft slippers, ‘Just look at that! And quite the right size, too!’
Ralph leafed through a book, lost to the world for a moment, oblivious of them all. Ben and Hannah exchanged amused and affectionate glances.
Hannah came to Sally, smiling. ‘For you. From us all.’
Startled, Sally took the small, soft package. ‘But—’ she stopped, embarrassed. Although now earning her keep her salary was no fortune and every spare penny she had saved had gone on the pen for Toby.
Hannah beamed. ‘Open it, then.’
She tore the paper, looked in absolute silence at the pretty tumble of soft green silk in her lap.
‘Do you like it?’ Hannah asked, a little anxiously.
‘I’ve never seen anything so pretty,’ Sally said simply. ‘Never.’ She lifted the blouse, with its drift of lace at collar and cuffs, held the soft material to her face.
‘The colour will suit you very well. It matches your eyes.’
‘But – I haven’t got anything to give—’
‘Oh, nonsense.’ Hannah interrupted her briskly, ‘No one would expect it. Happy Christmas, my dear fellow prisoner!’ and she dropped a laughing kiss on Sally’s cheek which, even more than the present had a rather alarming effect on Sally’s emotions. She blinked rapidly. Entirely unable to speak, she smiled her thanks.
‘And now,’ Peter again had assumed the role of master of ceremonies, ‘ladies and gentlemen, for your delight and delectation,’ he paused, grinning, savouring the puzzled expectancy on the faces about him ‘the pièce de rèsistance!’ He walked to the table, upon which lay a solid, rectangular shape hidden beneath a fringed shawl. ‘Ladies and gentlemen, girls and boys – here it is! – my present to the household.’ With a dramatic gesture he whipped the shawl away to reveal a long, beautifully inlaid box that shone with a mellow loveliness in the light, its elaborately decorated brass hinges and lock shining like gold. The company pressed forward, murmuring at the sheer beauty of the thing.
‘But – what is it?’ Charlotte ran a small finger in wonder over the shining wood and then, in sudden understanding, delightedly answered her own question. ‘Oh, Peter! It isn’t—? It is! A musical box!’
Pleased with the effect of his gift Peter leaned forward and lifted the heavy lid, revealing to gasps of admiration an extraordinary arrangement of brass cylinders and bells, the whole thing polished and gleaming like precious metal.
‘Oh, look! Butterflies!’ Charlotte clapped her hands. ‘Oh, Peter – quickly! – how do you play it?’
He leaned forward and flicked a switch. There was a whirr and a click, loud in the expectant silence, and then the cylinder began to turn and the music played, clear and precisely beautiful, intricate and charming as the pattern of sunshine on water. The bells chimed, struck prettily by the metal butterflies that, on their slender metal rods, swooped about the box in time to the lilting music.
‘Oh, Danube so blue—’ Peter had seized the giggling Bron and was waltzing her about the room, ‘la-la, la-la.’
In moments Crispin had caught Charlotte about the waist and Ralph had taken Hannah’s hand. The musical box played on, weaving an enchantment of sound such as Sally had never in her life imagined could exist.
She of all of them had made no sound, no exclamation. She stared at the lovely thing like a child, in wonder, watching the magic intricacies of its movement, enthralled by the chiming music. The harps of the angels could not have sounded lovelier to her ears.
She heard Charlotte, ‘Peter! What extravagance! It must have cost a fortune!’
Peter leaned to her ear, a wary eye on his father. ‘Had a bit of luck on the gee-gees, actually.’
‘Wicked!’ She pushed him playfully.
Fascinated, Sally watched the slowly turning cylinder, with its bright brass pins. She had never seen anything so amazing in her whole life.
‘Let’s push the chairs back – make a bit more room. Then we can all dance.’
‘Why aren’t you dancing?’ Peter’s other friend, whose name she had not caught, slid an arm about her waist. ‘Come on, join the fun. “After the ball was over, After the night was through”.’
It was undoubtedly the loveliest evening she had ever experienced. She danced with Peter, she danced – rather less exuberantly – with Doctor Will. She shared a glass of champagne with Crispin and drank another all to herself. She laughed a lot and talked more about nothing than she would ever have believed possible. And then she turned to find Ben beside her, that dear, warm smile lighting his square face, a hand held out in invitation. She stepped into his arms as if it were the most natural thing in the world to do. The room was crowded. Crispin and Hannah bumped into them, careered away. Ben’s arms tightened about her protectively. She could feel the warmth of him, the incredible, unlikely strength of the man, smell the indefinably male smell of him. She closed her eyes. They danced in absolute silence, a small bubble of intimacy in that noisy room. The musical box was slowing down. Peter disengaged himself from Bron’s eager arms. ‘Wait, everyone. It just needs rewinding—’
They stood very close, Ben’s arm about her waist, hers resting lightly upon his shoulder, their other hands clasped, waiting for the music. Then Sally lifted her head to look at him; and caught her breath at what she saw. If at any time over these past, confused weeks she had convinced herself that the intense attraction she felt for Ben Patten was not returned, in that moment such doubts were dispelled. Before he could veil it she saw the deep hunger in his eyes as he looked at her. They stood for a moment in still silence amidst the talk and the laughter.
‘There we are – Oh, Danube so blue—’ Peter waltzed back into Bron’s waiting arms. The couples about them started to move. For an odd, suspended second Sally and Ben stood, still and alone, looking at each other. And then the spell was broken. They moved with the music, a little stiffly, awkward with each other. He steered her to the table where the champagne and glasses stood.
‘A little refreshment. It’s really remarkably warm in here.’ He poured two glasses of champagne, handed her one, drank his own much too quickly.
‘So there you are, Benjamin Patten – do you know you haven’t danced with your only sister yet?’ Hannah claimed him, laughing. Sally sipped her champagne, holding the sparkling, heady liquid upon her tongue, savouring it, savouring that moment, that look she had surprised upon Ben Patten’s face. She had not imagined it. She knew she had not. Her eyes went to where he danced with Hannah. As if drawn he glanced at her, and then quickly away.
She drained the narrow glass.
‘Lordy, Miss Sally,’ an extremely tipsy Crispin bowed before her, ‘what are you doing standing alone? Pray d-do me the honour?’
It was almost midnight when Hannah slipped up to her, leaning to her ear confidentially, ‘Sal, it’s Bron – I don’t think she feels terribly well. I don’t want to embarrass her – she’ll die if I go over there. I’m sorry to ask – but do you think you could get her to bed? A little too much champagne I suspect.’
Sally, her own head swimming a little, looked to where Bron stood by the table, an empty glass in her hand and a slightly bemused expression on her face. She was very pale. The party was breaking up; Doctor Will and Mrs Briggs had long ago departed for their beds, Peter’s friends were wrapped in greatcoats and preparing to brave the winter’s cold.
Sally moved to Bron, slipped an arm about her waist. ‘Time for bed, I think?’
Bron turned startled eyes to her. ‘I feel that queer!’ she whispered. ‘I’m not sure I can move!’
Sally suppressed a grin, took the glass from the girl’s unresisting fingers. ‘Take a couple of deep breaths. That’s right. Now – hold on to me. We’ll go round and say good night to everyone together.’ She steered the girl around the room bidding the remaining guests good night. Hannah and Ralph were collecting the glasses together, Charlotte, her slippers off, curled into one of the big armchairs, was playing a silly word game with Peter. Of Ben there was no sign. Bron tripped over her own feet once or twice but managed, creditably, to remain upright and more or less under her own steam until they left the room. Once through the door, however, she slumped against the wall, moaning.
‘Oh, Sal! I feel that bad! Truly I do!’
‘Come on, my love. Bed’s what you need.’ Encouragingly Sally caught her arm and hauled her upright, guiding her towards the courtyard door. ‘Once you’re lying down you’ll feel right as rain,’ she said with more faith than conviction.
When the cold night air hit the girl, she reeled. ‘It’s no good. I’m going to be sick—’ and she was, very sick indeed. Twice.
Sally waited. It was a clear, cold windy night. Stars as chill as chips of ice studded the dark sky. ‘Feeling better?’ she asked the shivering Bron at last sympathetically. ‘Come on, now. One more effort. Up the stairs, then you can lie down.’
Half-way up the rickety stairs poor Bron began to cry miserably. ‘Such a fool I’ve made of myself!’
‘Oh, rubbish! No one noticed a thing,’ Sally lied cheerfully. ‘Don’t spoil it, now. It’s been such a lovely evening.’ She put a supportive arm about the other girl’s shoulders, her own eyes distant with her own thoughts. It had indeed been a lovely evening. An evening of magic. She would at that moment readily have sacrificed five years of her lifespan to live through those few hours again.
She guided Bron to her room, helped her to undress and loaded her unceremoniously into her bed where, after a couple of heartfelt groans, she fell immediately to snoring. Grinning, Sally tucked her in and tiptoed from the room. If she knew anything at all of such things poor Bron was going to have a head like a haystack in the morning.
She went to her own room, humming. ‘Oh, Danube so blue—’ She turned up the lamp, let down her hair, brushed it with long, lazy strokes in time to the tune she sang softly, beneath her breath. In the mirror her eyes glowed and sparkled. She leaned forward, watching herself intently. What had he seen when he had looked at her that had lit his eyes so? Her eyes gleamed green in the candlelight, bright and soft as the silk of the blouse Hannah had given her. She smiled at the thought. It was a lovely present – quite the prettiest thing she had ever owned. And Hannah was right, it would suit her. She would wear it tomorrow – the thought brought her up short.
So busy had she been getting Bron to bed she had left her present in the parlour.
‘Damn it,’ she said aloud mildly. Could she be bothered? The wind rattled the window. But yes – she really did want to wear the blouse tomorrow. Impulsively she reached for a warm shawl, threw it about her shoulders and sped to the door.
The parlour was deserted and dark apart from one low-burning lamp and the light from the fire. The house was silent. She slipped through the open door, saw the blouse at once, where she had left it on the arm of the sofa. She picked it up and as she turned her eye was caught by the shape of the musical box on the table. She moved to it, running her fingers over the fine inlay that shone in the firelight. Greatly daring she lifted the lid, to peep at the bells and butterflies that glimmered beneath it.
Very close, someone cleared his throat.
She almost jumped from her skin. She dropped the lid of the box with a crash that rang the metal of the bells.
‘I’m sorry,’ Ben said. ‘I didn’t mean to startle you.’
She laughed shakily. ‘Startle me,’ she said, her husky voice cracking a little, ‘you nearly frightened me to death!’
He laughed with her, softly and apologetically. ‘I came to turn out the lamp.’
She held up the shirt. ‘I came for this. I left it behind.’
Their eyes held for a moment. Then he moved past her to the table.
‘Splendid thing, isn’t it? Trust Peter to outdo us all.’
‘It’s the most wonderful thing I’ve ever seen or heard,’ she said with an earnest simplicity that brought the smallest twitch of a smile to his lips.
He lifted the lid, flicked the brass switch with his finger.
‘Oh, Danube so blue—’ the pretty, tinkling notes filled the air about them. Smiling, eyes half closed, she swayed to the music, humming to the music.
He turned to watch her, the smile suddenly gone from his face. She had never been so aware of anything as she was of his eyes upon her. She tilted her head, lifting her face to the soft light. Her long hair hung like a heavy brown curtain down her back, swaying to her movements. ‘La-la, la-la-la—’ She wanted him to touch her. She wanted it with an urgency that she had never experienced in her life before. She wanted it with every pore of her skin, every ounce of her energy. Her breasts tingled and ached at the thought of his hands upon them, the muscles of her belly contracted.
He moved abruptly. Checked himself.
She smiled. Lifted her arms. Danced the few steps to him, swaying gently and gracefully.
He held her as if she had been a butterfly, a fragile flower. As if he were afraid of his own strength, his own towering need. They danced in the half light, drifting in a dream, isolated from the world by the enchantment of the tinkling music.
In perfect contentment she rested her cheek against the roughness of his jacket, closing her eyes, loving the feel of it, loving him, revelling in the strength of the arms that held her, aware of every movement of his body. She hardly noticed the moment when they stopped dancing and stood, still and trembling, close as lovers yet barely, lightly touching each other, suspending the moment, stretching the ecstasy of expectancy that held them both. She lifted her head at the precise time that he bowed his. Their lips brushed gently, brushed again and then, blindly and in a sudden fury of passion her arms had lifted about his neck and his had tightened about her, his hard mouth hurting hers, his strength crushing the breath from her body. She clung to him with hands and lips and thighs. She felt his hand upon her breast, the long, strong fingers manipulating the rigid nipple. She arched her back fiercely. His hand was tangled painfully in her hair, pulling her head back. His lips moved savagely to her throat, her shoulder, her breast. Only his huge strength held her upright, her own was spent in the demented wave of emotion that surged through her body at his touch.
His sudden, fierce rejection of her took her so much by surprise that she nearly fell. He released her with such violence that she stumbled against the table. He backed away from her, the back of one hand to his mouth as if he would wipe away the imprint of hers upon it. ‘You little fool! What the hell do you think you’re playing at? Get away from me!’
She flinched as if he had slapped her. ‘Ben!’ It was the first and only time she had called him by name.
He scrubbed harshly at his mouth. ‘Get out!’
She stared at him, her hands clutched at her breast where her shirt gaped open. The musical box played on heartlessly, mockingly gay.
He turned his massive back upon her, stood hands clenched as if in uncontainable anger by his side, his head thrown back.
Dazed and frightened, she backed away from him. At the door she tried one more plea. ‘Ben – please,’ her low voice was an abject whisper. ‘Please!’
He flung around to face her, his expression terrifying.
‘Get out I say!’
Sick with hurt and humiliation, blinded by tears, she fled.
Behind her the sweet, terrible, chiming music stopped abruptly.