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Dizzy with the tumult of sensations inside her, Lizzie could only cling to him, innocently offering herself to him, wanting only to please him.
When he released her, she felt disorientated and bereft.
‘Which way is it…this place?’ Kit was demanding, hoarsely.
As she pointed in the direction of the glade, Lizzy realised guiltily that Mary’s shoes were going to be ruined. They had to cross two fields and then fight their way down the overgrown pathway to get to the glade and Mary’s courts were not designed for such stuff.
Neither, it seemed, were Kit’s flannels and blazer. He frowned impatiently when the brambles caught in the fabric, and complained that she might have warned him what to expect. His irritation jarred a little but Lizzie dismissed those feelings.
The path seemed more overgrown than it had been the last time she had visited the glade a few weeks ago, but at last she could see the glint of sunlight on water through the tangled undergrowth and branches and when at last they broke through into the silence of the sun-dappled clearing she asked breathlessly, ‘Will this be all right?’
‘Well, we certainly won’t be disturbed,’ Kit told her, examining their surroundings, and walking towards the dilapidated summer-house. Personally he would have preferred the comfort of a double bed, but beggars couldn’t be choosers and the woman running the boarding-house where he was staying had made it plain that she did not allow her guests to bring in ‘friends’.
‘Pity you didn’t think to bring a rug,’ Kit added as he studied their surroundings.
‘But it is private, isn’t it?’ Lizzie asked him anxiously, suddenly desperate to placate him and win some word of approval, knowing that she was somehow responsible for that frown of displeasure which had banished the warmth of his smile and hating herself for it.
‘Oh, it is private,’ Kit agreed, and suddenly he was smiling at her again so that her heart and body were flooded with warmth and love. She went eagerly towards him, feeling as though she had stepped into heaven itself when he took hold of her arm and led her inside the summer-house, and then turned her more fully into his arms.
Even with familiarity the sensation of his tongue moving erotically within her mouth didn’t lose its power to make her body ache and melt, Lizzie recognised, thrilled by the way Kit was moving against her, silently telling her how much he loved and wanted her.
‘You know how much I want you, don’t you?’ he told her thickly. She trembled, too full of emotion to speak, tremulously eager to show him how much she loved him…how much she needed him. She was still so bemused by it all, still caught up in the miracle of it all, totally blinded to reality by her innocence and her love.
In the past, a lifetime ago, had she really been a girl who had believed idiotically that the physical aspects of love were its least important, that the physical consummation of love was something unimportant and even faintly sordid, something to be endured rather than enjoyed? If so, she was discovering how ignorant she had been, how blind and unfit to be the recipient of the love of a man like Kit.
That he needed her and that he was so open and urgent in that need touched her with tenderness that bordered on the maternal. When they were apart he would have these memories of her to bring him safely back to her, and as he kissed her and held her against his body she recognised that what she was experiencing now was a world away from her girlish dreams of what love might be.
How could it be wrong to experience such pleasure…such joy…to feel her pulses leap as Kit kissed her face and her throat, as his hands caressed her sun-warmed body through her borrowed clothes?
‘You don’t need this on, do you?’
He was already unfastening the cardigan, exposing the V-neckline of her dress and the softness of her skin. She tensed a little suddenly, made nervous by the way he was looking at her and Kit, who had thought himself long beyond ever allowing his reactions to escape his own control, was almost angered by the sensation that coiled through him as the sunlight slanted across her body and he saw quite clearly through the thin cotton the shape and shadowing of her nipples. He had already known that she was naked beneath her dress, but the unexpected glimpse of her body through it was somehow more erotic, more arousing than if he had been looking at her naked body, and, as he removed the bulky cardigan from her stiff body, he was suddenly possessed by a frenzy of need so sharply intense that almost before he had finished his hands were gripping her waist, his head descending so that his mouth could find the dark-fleshed peak and punish it for its temerity in so arousing him.
Lizzie had never felt a man’s hands on her body so intimately, never mind his mouth, and the sensation of Kit’s teeth savaging her flesh froze her into immobility, and alarm. It was far too much, far too soon.
As he felt her tension, her resistance, Kit cursed silently. For a moment he had forgotten her lack of experience, but now her body was forcibly reminding him of it, causing his own flesh to ache with resentment. He was almost tempted to take hold of her and make her body accept his, but she was so small, so delicately made that he could hurt her easily if he did. There had been an innocent young girl once before; a pretty little thing from the village. That had been before he had learned not to play in his own backyard. Her father had complained to his parents. His father had been furious with him. He had been forced to buy her family off. It was a pity that this one happened to know his cousin.
If she chose to go running to Edward… Not that there was a damn thing that Edward could do about it… Except tell Lillian…
His mouth had grown still on her body. Relief unlocked her muscles into shaky weakness. She felt sick and tremulous. She had known that men enjoyed touching a woman’s breasts, but she had not known…never dreamed…
Despite the sunshine, and the musty scented warmth of the summer-house, she suddenly felt so cold that her teeth had started to chatter.
He still wanted her, Kit recognised, and it wasn’t too late to retrieve the situation. ‘I’m sorry, sweetheart,’ he told her, murmuring the words in her ear, so that she wouldn’t see the lie for what it was. ‘But you know it really was your own fault.’
When she tensed again, and turned towards him, her eyes dark with confusion, he smiled ruefully at her. ‘Coming out dressed like that…tempting me like that…’
Subtly, cleverly, he shifted the responsibility, the blame, so that Lizzie, who had felt uncomfortable enough about her appearance to start with, now flushed dark red and bit nervously at her bottom lip.
‘I’m sorry if I frightened you,’ Kit told her, smiling at her as he saw her reaction. He could perhaps turn the situation to his advantage.
‘I didn’t know…I didn’t realise,’ Lizzie was apologising abjectly. ‘I—’
‘I know… I know…’ Kit took her back in his arms, stroking her hair. ‘The trouble is I want you so very much, and you don’t have the experience…’
Immediately Lizzie tensed again, hearing the reproach in his voice, wincing beneath the implied criticism.
‘Let’s try again, shall we?’ Kit suggested, and her heart bounded with the relief of knowing that despite her deficiencies he still wanted her.
Shyly she nodded her head, blushing harder when he added, ‘Let’s take this off, then, shall we?’
His fingers were already deftly unfastening the buttons on her dress, freeing her breasts to his eyes and his hands.
He wasn’t going to make the same mistake this time, Kit told himself, and besides, a little holding back now, a little coaxing and persuading, would pay him handsome dividends later. What he had already seen of her body was making him urgently eager to possess her. She felt so small and soft beneath his hands, so vulnerable, her bones so fragile that he could almost believe he could break them. Would she be as small inside as her body seemed to suggest, would she…?
‘Perfect…you’re so perfect,’ he told her thickly as he caressed her bare breasts with his hands, silencing the hesitant protest he sensed she was about to make by kissing her.
As he kissed her the memory of her earlier fear faded; there was, Lizzie recognised tremulously, something sharply pleasurable about the way he was touching her, something which, if she allowed it to grow, she sensed would lead her into a whole new world of experiences and feelings. But what she was doing was wrong, she reminded herself…this kind of intimacy…
As Kit stopped kissing her mouth and started instead to kiss the soft flesh of her throat, her thoughts became muddled and confused, impossible to hold on to in the flood of sensation that swept through her body. This time Kit held his desire in check, caressing her slowly and lingeringly until at last his mouth was once again on her breasts.
Immediately she froze, but he refused to let her push him away, whispering against her skin, ‘Did I hurt you, my sweet? I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to. Here, let me kiss it better.’
She was still too tense, too shocked really to enjoy what he was doing to her, her mind too full of Aunt Vi’s teachings and warnings for them to be totally ignored. And yet…and yet, dimly, distantly, she sensed that there was a pleasure to be found in this shockingly intimate exploration of her body, if only her darling Kit had the patience to lead her to it gently and tenderly.
But tenderness and gentleness, never mind patience, were virtues that were unknown to Kit Danvers—already he was growing impatient, bored with such juvenile caresses. He pushed up her skirt, and put his hand on her thigh, sliding it upwards until he reached her knickers.
Immediately fresh tension gripped her—her upbringing, Aunt Vi’s strictures, warning against the instincts struggling for life inside her.
Kit was kissing her again, and, untutored though it was, somehow her body recognised the selfishness in his touch, the determination and the greed, and her tension increased.
‘If you loved me you’d let me,’ Kit was telling her angrily. ‘I thought you and I had something special.’
If it weren’t that the very innocence that was irritating him so much now was also exciting him, arousing him in a way he had not experienced in a very long time, he would already have lost interest in her and abandoned her, but for all her reluctance, her fear, indeed almost because of them, he felt his desire sharpen.
‘I want you, Lizzie…let me show you how much. Let me show you how good it can be,’ he coaxed her, kissing her again, ignoring her tension, ignoring the tremors that made her thigh muscles quiver.
‘I’m not going to hurt you,’ he told her, ‘I only want to show you how good it’s going to be between us… You do love me, don’t you…?’
What could she say? Of course she loved him.
‘Yes,’ she whispered helplessly.
‘Then let me touch you…let me love you. You’re not one of those women who can’t please a man, are you?’ Kit asked her, abruptly changing tack and making a fresh shiver of fear ice along her spine. Of course she wasn’t what he was suggesting…was she? Confused thoughts jumbled in her brain. She did love him, she knew that; so why did she feel this hesitation…this fear? Why, when she had enjoyed his kisses so much, did she feel this apprehension at his more intimate touch?
She heard the hospital village clock tolling the hour. Four o’clock already, and she was due back on the ward at five.
Mingling with her panic was a sense of relief…of escape almost, as she pushed desperately against Kit’s imprisoning arms and told him huskily, ‘I must go… I’m due back at work at five.’
Cursing beneath his breath, Kit released her. She was proving more of a challenge than he had expected and like green unripe fruit she was beginning to leave a sour taste in his mouth, but he still wanted her; not just because he desired her. Now anger and male pride were also spurring him on. There was something about her. Something about her vulnerability, her naïveté, that made him almost want to reach out and punish her for them.
Not a man given to introspection of any kind, he withdrew from her abruptly, uncomfortable with his own thoughts. It wasn’t in his nature to give in, to back down from a challenge of any kind.
‘I’d better drive you back, then,’ he told her curtly, watching the effect his coldness was having on her, and smiling inwardly as he recognised her pain. Well, it wouldn’t hurt her to suffer a little… It might even teach her a much-needed lesson, and it would certainly make her all the more eager to give him what he wanted the next time he saw her.
He walked her back to the car in a coldly remote silence that made Lizzie ache with misery and regret. Why on earth had she behaved so stupidly? Of course she loved him, and of course he had expected her to allow him to make love to her. He wasn’t a boy; he was a man…a man who was fighting for his country, a man who could walk out of her life today…
She felt the tears clogging her throat and pain and the panic churning inside her stomach. Why had she panicked like that…? Why had she felt that tension, that apprehension? Was there something wrong with her…was she perhaps incapable of pleasing a man as he had suggested, of sharing physical desire?
It was a devastating thought and one that made her face go white with anguish as they finally reached Kit’s car.
When he turned to look at her Kit was pleased to see the effect his silence had had on her. It made him relent a little towards her and cup her face with one careless hand while he demanded softly, ‘When can I see you again, sweetheart?’
Lizzie’s heart leaped with gratitude and relief. He still wanted her, after all. He was actually giving her a second chance—he did love her.
‘I—’
‘Tonight,’ Kit pressed. ‘What time do you finish work? I could pick you up…’
Lizzie shook her head.
‘Not until late.’
‘Then when?’ Kit pressed her. ‘Tomorrow…’
Tomorrow was her day off. Her heart started to pound, as, almost incapable of speech, she nodded her head.
‘Good,’ Kit told her, and then added carelessly, ‘Look, I’ll tell you what. Instead of picking you up, why don’t I meet you at the summer-house? That way…that way we’ll keep it our secret…something special just for the two of us…’
Silently Lizzie nodded her head. She had no idea how she was going to get through the interminably long hours before she could see him again, but one thing she had already promised herself, and that was that when she did see him, when he held her and kissed her, when he touched her and told her how much he wanted her, she was going to behave like a woman and not a child, she was going to remind herself of how lucky she was to have met him, and how precious this time together with him was…how vulnerable their future together when the war could sweep them apart again at any time, maybe only for a short space of time, or maybe for eternity.
She shuddered from head to foot, suddenly so cold that her teeth were chattering.
‘Tomorrow, then…eleven o’clock,’ Kit reminded her before they parted.
‘Tomorrow,’ Lizzie echoed in a whisper, her sight suddenly blinded by weak tears.
She loved him so much. She wanted to reach out to him and to say the words, to be held in his arms. To be kissed by him…to be loved by him, she recognised shakily. So why was it that when he touched her the way he had she had acted like that, tensing against him, rejecting him?
As she watched him drive away from her she shivered again, feeling more alone, more sharply aware of the precariousness of life, more confused by her feelings than at any other time in her life…
Back at the hostel there was her borrowed finery to be returned. When questioned, she kept quiet about her date with Kit in the morning. She still felt too bruised by her own stupidity, by the way she had angered him and jeopardised their love to want to discuss what had happened with anyone, so that when Rosie asked eagerly, ‘Seeing him again, are you?’ she made a non-committal reply, glad that the fact that she had to hurry to get to work on time made it impossible for them to question her too closely.
The evening shift was always a busy one, with the men to be settled for the night, their medication to be given to them, the wards to be cleaned and made ready for the morning.
Lizzie only saw Edward Danvers briefly as she passed through his ward.
As she helped another aide with the blackout cloths, she noticed how grey Edward’s skin looked and guessed sympathetically that he was in great pain. She wanted to go across to him and ask him if he would like some extra medication, but already she knew how touchy his pride was, how he hated any reference being made to the physical agony he often had to endure.
She glanced uncertainly across the ward. The sister on duty was a woman in her late fifties who had little time for the young aides, and Lizzie knew there would be no point in her trying to have a discreet word with her to solicit her help for Edward. She was the kind of woman who genuinely believed that to endure pain was good for the soul. All the junior nurses, and even some of the doctors, were in awe of her. The aides detested her, mercilessly mimicking her and making fun of her behind her back.
‘A sexless old bag,’ was how Lizzie had heard them describe her. Sexless… She grimaced over the word, exploring it apprehensively, her heartbeat quickening with anxiety. Surely she wasn’t like that…surely she wasn’t that kind of woman? No, of course she wasn’t…
Then why hadn’t she been able to respond to Kit’s lovemaking…? Why had she felt so afraid, so tense?
Too young and far too inexperienced to know that the answer lay both in her aunt’s grim upbringing and Kit’s lack of true care for her, she was unaware of the danger of the destructive seeds which Kit had so cruelly sown for her.
Eleven o’clock. Lizzie tensed as she heard the chimes from the church clock. She had arrived at the summer-house over fifteen minutes ago and now, as she waited for Kit to join her, her nervous tension made her stomach ache and her thoughts fly helplessly in a hundred different directions at once.
Before coming out she had scrupulously washed every inch of her skin, wincing at the coldness of the water, and wishing that she had something other than carbolic soap with which to scent it.
The weather had changed, clouds covering the sky, the wind cold, promising rain for later, and today she was once more dressed in her own clothes, or rather Lady Jeveson’s. Perhaps they weren’t as flattering as Rosie’s borrowed dress, but somehow she felt more comfortable in them.
One thing she had done, though, and that was to discard her bulky, unfeminine bra.
At first she had flushed with guilt, half glancing over her shoulder almost as though she had expected Aunt Vi to materialise behind her to chastise her for what she was doing, for her wanton dress, her lack of morals.
There was a small bruise mark on her left breast where Kit had bitten her, and her nipples still felt uncomfortably tender, and yet last night, lying alone in her narrow, cold bed, when she had closed her eyes and daringly allowed herself to remember the later, more gentle touch of Kit’s hands and mouth against her breasts, the tiny thrill of sensation in her stomach had made her tremble with mixed excitement and relief.
Everything was going to be all right, she was sure of it. Today she would be able to show Kit how much she loved him. Today…she took a deep breath…today she would do whatever he asked of her, if only to prove to him that she had not been lying when she had claimed to love him.
And yet she still felt nervous, ill at ease…vulnerable. She tensed as she heard someone coming down towards the pool. What if it wasn’t Kit? What if it was someone else, a stranger, coming unwittingly to destroy their precious time together? But when she looked through the broken window it was Kit’s tall, lithe body she saw striding towards her. Today he was dressed in his uniform and her heart was caught up in a jolt of sharply piercing sensation, a mingling of pride and dread as the reality of their situation swept in on her on an unwanted tide, reinforcing her awareness of how precious their time together was. Kit—who knew quite well how good he looked in his uniform, how very male it made him seem, how very much the epitome of all that an airman ought to be.
He paused as he walked towards her, recognising in her expression her adoration and her fear. A feeling of power, of triumph filled him.
‘Come here,’ he commanded softly as he walked towards the summer-house and then paused on its threshold.
Uncertainly, tremulously, Lizzie did as he instructed, and, as she felt his arms go round her, she lifted her face towards his in blind supplication of his kiss and his forgiveness for her errors of the previous day.
‘That’s better,’ Kit told her approvingly, savouring the soft tremble of her mouth. ‘Much better.’
As he slid his tongue between her lips, he pulled her closer to his body, reinforcing her awareness of his arousal, his hands moving rapidly over her back and buttocks, his own body moving urgently against hers as he sought to impress its sexual message, its need on her still innocent flesh.
When his hand slid up to cover her breast and discovered that beneath her dull sensible jumper she was naked, he told her approvingly, ‘Good girl,’ and then whispered thickly in her ear, ‘I ought to reward you for being so thoughtful, oughtn’t I? What would you like, sweetheart—what would you like me to do?’
Her mind registered the thickening of his voice and sent sharp warning signals darting through her body, so that when she squirmed in his arms it was more with apprehension than excitement, but Kit was in no mood to be patient with her. He had lain awake far too long last night with his body aching and his temper on edge to waste time this morning. He wanted her and he intended to have her.
Fighting against her apprehension, Lizzie reminded herself that this was what she wanted; that only last night she had lain in bed and thrilled to the memory of Kit caressing her breasts as he was doing now, first with his hands, and then with his mouth, and yet she still cried out with pain when he savaged their tender crests with his teeth, wanting to beg him to stop, to protest that he was hurting her, but afraid of doing so in case she angered him, in case it proved that there was something wrong with her, that she was somehow lacking as a woman. There was nothing wrong with her, she told herself despairingly, but the doubt persisted and grew, locking her muscles, and making her feel tense and uncomfortable.
Kit undressed her quickly, roughly almost, she thought, trying not to flinch when his hands almost bruised her sensitive skin, closing her mind to the hesitant but instinctive knowledge that told her that this was not the way it should be, that in some way she was being cheated.
Dark, shadowy thoughts, doubts and fears chased one another across her mind. By Aunt Vi’s standards what she was doing was totally unforgivable…wrong… Her own emotions, so at war with her physical inhibitions, confused her. She shivered, and Kit, sensing her withdrawal from him, cursed under his breath and demanded abruptly, ‘What is it, what’s wrong?’
Lizzie looked nervously at him. He was frowning at her and she shivered again, but her doubts, her fears couldn’t be suppressed.
‘I shouldn’t be doing this,’ she told him huskily, ‘it isn’t right. I…’
Not bothering to hide his irritation, Kit took hold of her. He was not having her back out on him now. He wanted her too much, ached for her too much.
