NIGHT OF THE YELLOW MOON. FLORA KIDD. CHAPTER ONE

NIGHT OF THE YELLOW MOON

FLORA KIDD

CHAPTER ONE

'Looks like your aunt and uncle have a visitor,' said Brian Collins as he brought his rather battered green sports car to a sudden screeching stop behind a gleaming white Jaguar car which was parked at the front entrance of the Tudor-styled creeper-covered cottage.'

'Oh, it's probably someone from the University. Or perhaps one of Uncle Roy's ex-students. I think he said one of them was in the district and might drop in this week-end,' replied Delia, picking up her tennis racket and string bag of balls. 'Thanks for the lift, Brian, and for the games.'

'Won't we see you later?' asked Sue Martin, who was sitting in the front of the car with Brian. 'We're all going into Southleigh this evening. There's a new discotheque opened on the promenade. I believe it's fabulous. Like to come with us?'

Standing outside the car, Delia looked from Sue to Brian and back to Sue again. By 'we' Sue meant herself and Brian and two other young couples belonging to the tennis club, all local people whom Delia had known on and off during the years she had been coming to stay for week-ends and holidays with Marsha and Roy. If she went with them this evening she would be the 'odd girl out', something which she was often and something which she was beginning to dislike being.

'Thanks for the invite,' she said lightly with her brightest smile and a show of nonchalance. 'I think I'd better stay at home and help entertain the visitor.'

‘Oh, come on, Delia,' said Sue. 'He's probably some middle-aged general practitioner escaped for the week-end from his patients. He's probably a frightful bore, married and with two or three kids.'

'I'll take a chance on that,' retorted Delia, laughing. 'See you next month. I'll be down for my holidays.'

The little car went off with a roar. Still smiling, Delia waited until it had gone through the gateway into the narrow lane, then, her smile fading, she turned and walked slowly to the front door, swinging her tennis racket idly, a slim young woman in a crisp short-skirted tennis dress, her smooth dark brown hair shining under the rays of the sun.

In the small hallway of the cottage horse-brasses glinted on dark wood and antique copper jugs were crammed full of greenery and sweet-smelling summer flowers. Hearing her aunt's clear and rather strident voice coming from the direction of the lounge, Delia supposed she had better look into the room to show she was back and to be introduced to the visitor.

Marsha and Roy often had week-end guests, usually professors or lecturers from the nearby University where both of them worked, Roy as a professor of physiology in the Faculty of Medicine and Marsha as a lecturer in sociology in the Social Science department.

It sounded as if Marsha was working hard to make an impression, thought Delia with an impish grin which put dimples in her soft pink cheeks and a glint of mischief into her greyish-green eyes, so it wasn't hard to guess that the visitor was a man. She pushed open the panelled oak door further, looked into the room. Her heart seemed to miss a beat, she stood stock still and stared, looked at him and loved.

He was lounging against the back of the chintz-covered settee and he was carefully dressed in dark blue pants and a dark blue shirt which was open at the neck and half way down the front. His face was lean and clean-shaven, tanned to an even golden brown. The forehead was high and broad, the cheekbones prominent, the nose high-bridged, long and straight, the jaw square and clean-cut. All were framed by thick curly brown hair, much fairer than her own, which glinted here and there with golden flecks in the sunlight shafting through the window behind him.

Marsha was sitting opposite to him on the other settee, Leaning forward and talking enthusiastically. Roy was sitting in. his favourite wing chair listening and nodding, indulgently as his wife talked. The guest wasn't listening, Delia could tell by the expression of boredom on his handsome face, and he was looking down at the contents of the glass he was holding in one hand.

Then Marsha asked him a question. There was a brief silence. The guest looked up. His eyes glimmered brilliantly blue between thick bronze-coloured lashes under finely marked eyebrows. Delia held her breath to stop herself from bursting out laughing at his predicament, for it was obvious to her that he hadn't the slightest idea what the question was about.

He was disconcerted for a moment only. A smile curved his well-shaped mouth and softened the angularity of his lean face and Delia felt suddenly dizzy.

'Naturally I agree with you, Mrs Halton,' he drawled, his voice deep and soft, 'The jungle isn't the place for a woman who is used to all the amenities of your way of life.'

Roy Halton laughed out loud and clapped his knee with his hand.

Dammit, Edmund, I always used to think you'd chosen the wrong profession. You should have been a diplomat, not a doctor,' he exclaimed.

Marsha continued to talk lightly, provocatively. The man facing her raised the glass in his hand to his mouth and drained it, as Delia moved forward. Her slight movement drew his attention as he lowered the glass. He turned his head and looked straight at her.

For Delia it was a moment out of time, a breathless fateful moment as their glances met and locked. Drawn towards him by a strange magnetism, she advanced into the room.

'Ah, here you are at last, love,' Roy said, rising to his feet. The guest unfolded his lean length from the settee and stood up politely. Roy introduced them.

'I'm pleased to meet you, Dr Talbot,' Delia said stiltedly, overwhelmed by a sudden unaccountable shyness, and went to sit by Marsha.

'Edmund was one of the star students of my physiology class some years ago,' Roy was explaining.

'You'll have another drink, Edmund?' asked Marsha, rising to her feet and going over to take his empty glass from his hand. Tall, dark-haired and shapely, she was wearing a close-fitting dress of yellow and black spotted material which gave the effect of shimmering leopard skin. She returned with a full, ice-clinking glass, her figure swaying voluptuously as she teetered on her high heels. Sitting down beside Edmund Talbot, she offered him the drink, leaning forward towards him so that the deep plunging neckline of her dress sagged away from her breasts leaving very little to anyone's imagination.

Delia scowled, recognising Marsha's tactics only too well. It wasn't the first time she had seen her aunt making up to a man other than her husband, especially a man younger than herself. Attractive and dynamic in her middle age, Marsha was finding life with Roy, who was almost twenty years her senior and close to retiring age, just a little dull and was trying to enliven it with the occasional extra-marital affair. There was no doubt that she considered Edmund Talbot with his graceful body, curly hair and deep blue eyes a suitable partner for such an affair.

'It it safe to go swimming from the beach here?' Edmund asked suddenly and quite irrelevantly in the middle of a discussion about tropical diseases.

'Of course it is,' said Marsha, smiling. 'Do you like to swim. Edmund?'

'Very much, especially in the sea. Would you mind if I went swimming now ?'

'Not at all, not at all.' Roy was enthusiastic. 'Please make yourself at home while you're here. Delia will show you the way to the beach. It isn’t jar, just down the lane.'

'You'll want to change into your swimming things, I expect,' said Marsha, rising to her feet again. 'Come with me and I'll show you to the room where I've put your overnight lag. Delia will meet you at the front door when you're ready.'

Edmund went with Marsha from the room and after a few words with Roy Delia also went upstairs to change into her bikini in the small room with the sloping ceiling which she always considered as hers. When she left it a few minutes later to go downstairs she could hear the murmur of her aunt's voice coming from the guest room along the landing and she frowned. Surely it wasn't necessary for Marsha to go right into the room with the guest?

She waited almost twenty minutes for Edmund to appear and they walked together down the lane between the high hedges of sweet-smelling laurel, where swallows swooped, to the small cove rimmed with pale yellow sand and backed by crumbling chalk-white cliffs which were topped by green grass.

Edmund dropped his towel to the sand, removed his trousers and shirt without any thought for anyone who might be watching and sped into the water which stretched like flat blue silk into a hazy blue distance where a few sail boats drifted about with their sails flopping idly. A little piqued at being left behind, Delia followed him. She could see he was a highly competent swimmer and she kept up with him to show him she was his equal, but when he continued to ignore her she left the water and went to sit on the sand and watch him.

After a while he came out and flung himself down on the beach a little in front of her. .

'That's better,' he said, pushing his wet hair back. 'Your aunt pours a strong drink and I'm not used to alcohol. For a while I felt quite disorientated back there in the house.' He laughed with a touch of self-mockery, rolled over on to his stomach, rested his chin on his folded arms and looked up at her. 'So you're Frank Fenwick's daughter,' he drawled. 'I find it hard to believe.'

'Why?' she exclaimed, opening her eyes wide.

'I never thought of him as being married, let alone having any children,' he replied.

'Did you ever meet him?’ she challenged.

'Yes, I attended a series of lectures he gave about ten years ago on the need for us to protect the primitive peoples of the world, the tribes which live in inaccessible places in Indonesia and South America. It was those talks of his which inspired me to specialise in tropical medicine once I'd qualified as a doctor so that I could go and work with such people.'

'Have you been yet to see any of them?' she asked, excited by the fact that he had known her father about whom she knew so little.

'Yes, I'm just back from Africa where I've been working for an international health organisation.'

'When will you go again?'

"When someone asks me to go or when the itch to go comes.. Right now all I want to do is have a good time living it up in London.' He gave her another underbrowed glance. "Preferably with an attractive woman for company. Would you be interested?'

Without waiting for a reply, to his offhand question he roiled over oh to his back. The beach was almost deserted at this time of day because the afternoon swimmers and sun-bathers had gone home for tea. But the sun was still warm and the sky still hazy with heat. The only sounds were the lapping of water and the occasional cackle of a seagull.

Delia's cheeks tingled with the blood which had rushed to them at his casual suggestion that she could be the attractive woman who could keep him company in London. She piled up a little heap of sand with one hand, wondering how she should answer him. She wanted to be that woman, very much so, but, shy and inexperienced in the ways of young men, she didn't want to appear too eager to accept his invitation..

"Do you find Aunt Marsha attractive?' she asked. Out of the comer of her eyes she studied his bare torso. Grains of and and drops of water, glinting like diamonds in the sunlight, clung to the criss-cross of brown hairs on his chest. Otherwise he was unadorned. There was no chain with a medallion around his neck, no beads, and the clean spare lines of his body and limbs made an appeal to her senses which was new and slightly shocking.

'She's remarkably well preserved for her age,' he replied diplomaticallv.

'She's almost forty-one,' she said, determined to make him see Aunt Marsha for what she was.

'Ten years older than I am,' he murmured. 'How old are you?'

'Twenty one.'

'Thank heavens for that,' he said mockingly. 'I was beginning to think that perhaps you were still at school.'

'Perhaps you prefer older women,' she jibed, knowing she was treading on dangerous ground yet wanting to find out somehow what had happened when Marsha had shown him to his room.

'I admit there are times when experience in how to please can make up for lack of youth in a woman,' he retorted, his voice shaking a little with laughter as if he was finding the whole conversation highly amusing.

'Did Aunt Marsha please you when she showed you to your room?' she queried. 'I heard her talking to you in there.'

He didn't react at once, but when he did it was with a suddenness which caught her off guard. Sitting up in one smooth lithe movement, he turned on her, grasped her face with lean fingers and forced it round so he could see it. His eyes were a hard metallic blue and there was a nasty curve to his mouth.

'Just what are you getting at?' he drawled menacingly.

Although her heart was fluttering crazily Delia managed to return his gaze and to speak coolly.

'She likes you. I expect she'd like to have an .affair with you. Oh, you're not the first man younger than she is that she's made up to. I've seen her do it before. She made your drinks too strong. She hoped you'd be tight and a little careless so that you wouldn't mind what happened when she showed you to your room ...'

'That's enough.' He didn't raise his voice, but the steely tone of it made her stop. He was so close to her that she felt his breath feather across her mouth like a caress. His fingers relaxed, slid across her cheek and wound in a damp tress of her hair which spiralled over her shoulder. 'Nothing happened when she showed me to my room,' .he continued softly. 'I'm not exactly a callow youth unused to the ways of women and unable to fend off a seductress when I come across one. But you’d better keep that imagination of yours under control before it gets you into trouble, you jealous little cat.'

' I'm not jealous,' she protested, trying to move away from him, only to find that his grasp on her hair was tight.

'If you’re not jealous why all the fuss about Marsha and me?" he taunted.

'I ... I ... don't like to see her behaving the way she did this afternoon in front of Roy. He's so good and kind to her,' she mumbled desperately.

'Are you sure that's the reason?' he challenged. 'Wouldn't it be more true to say you can't bear the thought of her and me being together because you want to be with me yourself?'

'No. it wouldn't. Oh, how conceited you are to suggest that!" she raged, furious because he had discovered a truth she had been unwilling to acknowledge about herself. Then realising he was laughing at her she tried to slap him,-missed. tried to pull away and cried out when her caught hair tugged at her scalp. 'Ah, let me go, please let me go !'

"Now that I've caught you I don't want to, little mermaid,' he whispered. 'Mmm, you smell of the sea and some other perfume. I think it's sandalwood.'

'And you smell of rum,' she accused, but he only laughed at her and with his lips close to her cheek murmured,

That could be, but I'm finding you far more intoxicating than Marsha's drinks.'

His lips touched her cheek near the corner of her mouth and then moved on to cover her lips in a ruthless kiss. Vainly Delia twisted her head from side to side in an effort to break free, but her efforts only increased his desire to keep hold of her. His hand tightened on the back of her neck so that she couldn't move her head at all. He pushed her backwards until she was lying against the sand and she could feel its grains scratching against her bare skin as his mouth continued to take its toll of hers and his hard muscular body crushed the softness of her breasts which were barely covered by the bodice of her bikini.

The stifling warmth of his lips, the rubbing of his damp bare skin against hers sent her senses spinning. She had no idea' of time or place. She knew only the quick urgent demand of his body and felt the slow rising of a desire within herself to satisfy his demand totally and without restraint.

Her lips softened and opened. Her hands lifted to the damp tangle of his hair and she thrust her fingers through it. She touched his bare shoulders experimentally and finding there was a sensuous pleasure in the feel of his skin against her palms she experimented more and stroked downwards over his taut bare back.

He relaxed in a sigh against her. The touch of his mouth became tender and exploratory, trailing down from her mouth to her throat to press against the hollow between her breasts. She felt his curls brush against her chin and a little shiver of ecstasy tingled through her.

'You're pretty,' he, said softly, raising his head to look into her eyes. 'And you're sweet and tender like a new shoot in spring. And you have green eyes. Why should anyone want Marsha when you're around? Am I going to see more of you? Will you come up to London to meet me there?'

Joy exploded within her because this handsome, god-like person had been dropped into her life and actually wanted to see her again because he liked her.

'I work in London and live there,' she replied, daring to show her liking for him by tracing the outline of his mouth with one finger tip.

'That's even better. We'll be able to see each other every day. Where do you work?'

'At the Multiple Publishing Company. I'm in the editorial department of Geography Illustrated.'

'Following in your father's footsteps?' he jeered gently.

I'd like to, one day, but I'm still learning how to write.'

'Where do you live?'

'I share a flat with another girl in Kensington.'

'Is that far from "Knightsbridge?"

'No, not really. Why?'

'A friend of mine, Pete Manson, has lent me his flat there for six weeks- while he's on holiday in the Mediterranean, and I wondered how near to each other we'd be. I'm glad it isn't far. Is Marsha your only relative?'

'Yes. She's my mother's younger sister. My mother died when I was twelve. Daddy was away a lot, so he sent me to a boarding school near here and I always came to Marsha and Roy for holidays. You must know what happened to Daddy. He was killed in a helicopter crash in Ethiopia about five fears ago.'

'Yes, I read about it.'

'Do you have any family?' she asked shyly.

'My father died a few years ago too,' he replied with a touch of reserve in his manner. 'My mother is married to someone else now and lives in Italy.'

"No brothers or sisters?'

'No. Only dozens of uncles, aunts and cousins. But you don't have to worry about them. You're not likely to meet any of them,' he said, kissing the tip of her nose.

'Can I drive you back to London tomorrow, leaving here as soon as we can? I want you all to myself far away from your aunt's curious eyes. She's standing at an upstairs bedroom window of the cottage watching us through binoculars just now.'

'Oh no!' Delia sat up abruptly and scrambled to her feet, and shading her eyes with her hand stared in the direction of the cottage. Sure enough Marsha was at a window holding Roy's powerful binoculars to her eyes.

Later that night when Delia, still dazed with love, was about to get into bed Marsha came into her room.

'You seem to be getting on very well with Edmund Talbot,' she said, going straight to the point in her usual forthright manner. 'I hope you're not going to take his sudden interest in you seriously.'

'Shouldn't I?' Delia countered as she settled into bed.

Marsha came to stand beside the bed and look down at her.

With her dark brown hair unwound and straggling on her shoulders, without make-up, she looked tired and a little haggard.

'Listen, darling,' she said earnestly, sitting down on the edge of the bed. 'Since your mother died I've tried hard to take her place in your life and guide you as I think she would have liked you to be guided, but perhaps I haven't been as frank on some subjects as I should have been.'

'If you mean you haven't told me the facts of life,' Delia said with a gurgle of laughter, 'you're quite right, you haven't. But it's all right, Aunty, I know them and I can take care of myself and have done up till now.'

'I know, darling,' said Marsha with a sigh. 'But you're still very innocent when it comes to people and you could make an awful mistake with this doctor. He isn't what he seems. Under that surface warmth and charm he's a cool, tough customer.'

'You're only saying that because you weren't able to make an impression on him,' Delia accused, shakily, not wanting to hear any defamation of Edmund. 'But just because you failed to seduce him it doesn't mean that there's anything 'wrong with him.'

'I'm sure I don't know what you're talking about,' retorted Marsha icily, her grey eyes flashing angrily. 'I'm trying to point out to you that Edmund is the type who loves and leaves because his work is more important to him than any woman. So you want to be careful what you do when you're with him. And he's also a bit of a hippy—likes to go off into the jungle and live with primitive tribes. Says he prefers the simple life with minimum of possessions. Now you don't want to become involved with anyone like that, do you?''

'I don't care what he is or what he does,' replied Delia dreamily. 'I like him, and tomorrow I'm going to London with him and we're going to see each other every day.'

Marsha stood up suddenly and swept across the room to the door. There she turned and glared back at Delia rather viciously.

'Then you're a fool, just like your mother was, and one dav you'll be sorry you didn't listen to me, but when that time comes you needn't come running to me for help.'

Convinced that her aunt's warnings had been prompted by spite because Edmund had rejected her advances to him, Delia ignored them and once back in London spent all her spare time during the following week with Edmund so that by Friday night she found herself admitting to him that she was in love with him.

'Then you'll stay the night, here, with me,' he whispered as they sat side by side on the settee in Peter Manson's luxuriously furnished apartment.

'I ... I ... can't,' replied Delia, even though she longed to give in to his request with every fibre of her body.

'Why not?' he countered, kissing her neck just below her ear, at the same time sliding his fingers under the edge of her blouse opening to curl his fingers over her breast.

'S-something inside won't let me,' she quavered.

'Then all your talk about loving me is a lie,' he retorted, springing to his feet suddenly and walking over to the window to look out at the lights of the city which were just beginning to glimmer in the late summer dusk.

'Oh, it isn't, it isn't! I do love you,' she protested. 'But I can't stay with you. I can't live with you unless . . . unless ...'

'Unless there's a ring on your finger and you have the right to use my surname, is that it?' he interrupted her, swinging round to look at her, and she could only nod. 'And I'd thought you were different,' he added softly yet sting-ingly.

Realising she had disappointed him, unable to do as he had asked because she was suddenly unsure of. how he felt about her, Delia stood up, fastened her blouse properly and pushed it into the waistband of her skirt. She went across to the chair where she had- thrown her suit jacket when she had entered the room.

Picking the jacket up, she pulled it on without bothering to fasten it.

'If ... if ... you love me as I love you you'd ask me to marry you first,' she muttered miserably, and grabbing her handbag she slung the strap over her shoulder and made rather blindly for the door.

He was there before her, leaning against it, long and lean with a thin clever face topped by curling brown hair and lit by blue eyes which could dance with gentle mockery or look through you coldly.

'Where are you going?' he asked quietly.

'I don't know!' she cried out wildly, not wanting to go anywhere where he wouldn't be.

He stepped towards her. His hands curved about her cheeks. For a moment he studied her face and there was no laughter dancing in his eyes, no coldness either, only a dark unnerving sadness. Then he smiled, a half-tender, half-challenging smile.

'All right, we'll do it your way, mermaid. We'll get married as soon as it can be arranged quietly with the least fuss possible, because I want you to live with me while I'm here. ‘And quite suddenly they were clinging to each other like two lonely children lost in the dark. 'Oh, Delia,' Edmund half groaned and half laughed against her hair. 'The smell of you, the feel of you has sent me out of my mind and I don't know what I'm doing any more. You've come between me and sanity.'

It was a strange remark for him to make, but she didn't question it. She was too happy. So they were married quietly and unobtrusively and she went to live with him at Peter's flat while they searched for a flat of their own. And they were happy those first two weeks, at least Delia was, ecstatically happy as Edmund proved to be the sort of lover she had always imagined she would like to have, demanding yet considerate of her desires and helping her to fulfil them.

On the day before Peter Manson was due to return from his holidays Edmund went to Oxford to a meeting of some organisation which was concerned with the welfare of primitive tribes in various countries in the world. Returning to the

Knightsbridge flat after work, Delia began to pack their belongings ready for moving out. She was just finishing packing her own clothes when she heard someone enter the flat. Thinking it was Edmund, she hurried out into the

living room and exclaimed with surprise when she saw a tall dark-haired, good-looking man about the same age as Edmund standing there looking through the mail which had come and which was stacked neatly on the sideboard.

He was equally surprised to see her, and when she explained quickly who she was and why she was there his mouth gaped in spontaneous surprise.

'Edmund married?' he exclaimed. 'Oh, no! I can't believe that. You're pulling my leg.' His dark eyes twinkled as he recovered from the surprise and he stroked his dark moustache with his fingers. 'Come on, now, no need to be coy with me. I know Edmund too well. He's always said he'd never get married. You don't need to cover up with a tale like that. I'm not offended because you and he are living together in my flat. I expected something like this to happen.'

'But we're not... 'she began to object. Then realising how silly it would sound to say that she and Edmund weren't living together when they were, she flung out her left hand. The plain gold ring on her third finger glinted. 'There. Does that convince your' she challenged.

He looked suitably taken aback. His hand went to his neatly-styled dark hair and smoothed it unnecessarily and he stared at her with puzzled eyes.

'Good God,' he said in a hushed voice, and sat down suddenly in an armchair.

'Excuse me, but I'm really shaken by this and don't seem to be able to take it in. Edmund has always been such a loner, dedicated to tropical medicine. How long have you known him?'

'Six weeks,' she muttered, and it didn't sound long enough.

'Oh, my God!' Peter Manson sprang to his feet and digging his hands in the trouser pockets of his elegant three piece grey lounge suit began to pace up and down the room. 'I wouldn't be at all surprised if you know nothing about him * he accused, stopping abruptly in front of her, his hazel errs boring down into hers.

'I know all that matters,' she retorted, lifting her chin. 'I know how old he is and what he likes doing. What more do I need to know? I love him, and that's all that matters.'

Peter's eyes narrowed thoughtfully and he smiled slightly, tolerantly.

'A romantic, eh?' he remarked. 'So he hasn't told you,' he added tantalisingly as he began to pace again, and she took the bait.

'Told me what?' she asked, imagining rather wildly that Edmund might have committed bigamy in marrying her and the fact that he might have had a wife already had been the reason of his hesitation about marrying.

'He hasn't told you that he inherited a fortune when his father died a few years ago?' Peter flung at her over his shoulder on his third time round the room.

'Well, I know he isn't short of money, even though he doesn't seem to own anything much apart from a Jaguar sport; car and a few clothes,' she replied.

'Not short of money, ha!' Peter's laughter was mocking as he came to stand before her again. 'He's worth several hundred thousands of pounds, all made from toffee. Now you're not going to tell me you've never heard of Talbot's Toffees,' he added scornfully.

She had of course heard of them and had often bought them but she had never connected them with Edmund.

'Edmund doesn't seem like a toffee maker,' she said rather foolishly.

'He isn't, and has nothing to do with the business, which is now owned entirely by some cousin or other. He would never have anything to do with it, much to his father's disappointment,' said Peter. 'No, Edmund is the odd one out in his family. He always wanted to be a doctor and to help people less fortunate than himself. He even tried to persuade his father to leave the money to a philanthropic organisation instead of to himself. But Matthew Talbot refused and said he would leave his money to his own flesh and blood and that after he was dead Edmund could do what the hell he liked with it. Edmund has too, using it to finance his studies in tropical medicine at Oxford and his expeditions to various jungles.' Peter paused and frowned. 'And that's something else you've got to consider. What are you going to do when he goes off to live in some isolated, malaria-infested swamp, in Africa or Brazil?'

'I'll go with him,' Delia retorted promptly, and he gave her a pitying glance.

'I doubt it, because if I know Edmund as well as I think I do he won't take you. He believes in the old adage that he travels fastest who travels alone.'

'You were mistaken about him once, so you could be mistaken about him again,' she replied. 'You didn't think he would marry.'

'That's why I'm worried about you,' he said with a sigh. 'Oh, I can see why he likes you and wants your company while he's here in England, but he won't always be here and He isn't the domesticated type.'

She must have looked very distressed because he passed a hand over his face and shook his head apologetically.

'I'm sorry, Delia, I'm saying all the wrong things. I should be congratulating you, wishing you all the best, and I do quite sincerely. I hope you believe that.'

She tried to believe him, but she was disturbed. Then Edmund returned from Oxford and the doubts Peter had raised in her mind were obliterated. They moved into their own flat and she settled down to the delights of living and loving with Edmund.

For three months they lived contentedly. Delia continued to work for the magazine and Edmund commuted daily between London and Oxford where he was engaged in some research to do with tropical diseases. During that time she

learned that though Edmund liked to live simply he wasn't above spending money extravagantly on her. She also learned that he was very sensitive on the subject of his inherited wealth and had donated large amounts of it to charities. When she asked him why he hadn't told her of his association with Talbot's Toffees, he said coolly,

"I didn't want you to get any ideas about marrying me for my money. I nearly got caught like that once.'

‘You mean you nearly married someone before you met me.?' she asked in surprise.

'Yes.' His mouth twisted cynically. 'I was almost at the point of making vows at the altar when I found out it was my inheritance she was interested in and not me.'

'Oh, how awful!' she gasped, putting her arms round him to comfort him.

'It was very disillusioning,' he murmured. ' Were you in love with her?' she asked, face hidden against the pulsating warmth of his neck.

'Not as much as I am with you,' he replied diplomatically, curving his hands about her head to hold it away from him so that he could kiss her.

Then one day he came home to tell he had been asked to serve on a Red Cross relief team being sent to an area in Indonesia which had been devastated by an earthquake and where it was believed that thousands of primitive people were suffering from disease and hunger.

Can I come with you’ asked Delia.

'No.'

'Why not?'

'Obvious reasons. Only doctors, nurses and social workers can go. Anyway, I wouldn't want you ,to come out there. I'd feel happier knowing you're here safe and comfortable . . . waiting for me to come back.'

It hurt to be left behind, but she accepted it. Peter helped by calling on her often and sometimes taking her out to a theatre or to dinner because, he said, Edmund had asked him to keep an eye on her.

Edmund was away much longer than she expected, almost seven months. She was overjoyed when he returned at last, thin and tough as tarred rope, with hardly any luggage and his clothes almost in rags. He shrugged off his adventures with a careless 'Oh, it was nothing much,' and seemed intent on enjoying himself with her. He went personally to see her boss, Ben Davies, and asked that she might be allowed at least two weeks' holiday so that she could be with him all the time.

He stayed in England for nearly six weeks. Then he was asked to go with another relief team to Central America where another earthquake had wreaked destruction in a jungle area. Again Delia pleaded to go with him and again he refused to take her, with die result they had their first serious quarrel, and although they both tried to make it up there was a definite coolness in his attitude to her when he left.

While he was away Delia worried incessantly in case he didn't come back to her. Once again Peter 'kept an eye' on her and she was grateful for his concern, but she missed Edmund terribly. Even so she was unprepared for his return less than a month after he had left, one day in September.

It was Sunday. Peter called and suggested they drove down to the coast for a change. They returned to hers and Edmund's flat in the early evening. Peter went up to the flat with her as he often did and Delia offered him a drink, which she usually did when he escorted her home.

They were sitting on the settee in the twilight when Peter turned to her suddenly and said, ‘It's at times like this that I wish you weren't married to Edmund.'

She wasn't surprised by the statement. For some time she had been noticing that he was more attentive, had called on her more often and issued more invitations, and it had occurred to her that she should start refusing to go out with him. She shouldn't be sitting here with him close on the settee.

About to move away, she found her hand caught in his and looked at him enquiringly.

You realise I've done the unforgivable, darling,' he murmured. 'I've fallen in love with my best friend's wife and I'm going to take advantage of his absence from home. I can't keep my distance any longer.'

'No. Peter, no!' she whispered, desperately putting her hands against his shoulders to push him away as he moved in on her, but he wouldn't be denied. His arms went round her and his mouth sought hers. She turned her head quickly and the kiss fell somewhere on her hair, but she didn't really feel it because she was staring in shocked surprise over his shoulder. It seemed to her that someone was standing in the doorway which led into the narrow hallway of the flat, a dim shadowy figure in the fast-deepening gloom; a familiar figure. Was it really Edmund? Or was it a figment of her imagination?

The figure vanished when she gasped. Hearing her gasp, Peter withdrew slightly.

'Sorry, Delia, I got carried away,' he said, stroking a strand of her hair back from her face. 'You're so lovely and so sad, in need of comfort. Won't you let me stay and comfort you ?'

'No, please, Peter, don't say things like that, don't even think them. If you do I shan't be able to see you any more or go anywhere with you. Please go now,' she whispered, sending, another glance to the doorway. The shadowy figure hadn't reappeared.

To her relief Peter stood up.

'All right, I'll go,' he said. 'But I'll be back to see you again, you can be sure of that. After all, didn't someone say once all's fair in love and war? And I'm in love with you and I want you.'

'Oh, Peter, it isn't any use. You're wasting your time,' she said. 'I'm married ...'

'That's a situation which can soon be remedied, as you should know,' he retorted, turning towards her as they stood by the front door of the flat. 'Yours isn't much of a marriage. Edmund is hardly ever here.'

'Please, Peter, stop! I don't want to hear any more,'. she cried in a low voice in case the figure she had seen wasn't a figment of her imagination, in case Edmund was somewhere in the flat and could hear what was being said. 'Will you, go now?' She opened the door. He smiled down at her, his bright self-confident smile.

'You're a fool, Delia, to stay faithful to him, do you know that? I doubt very much if he's faithful to you.'

'Goodnight, Peter, and thank you for taking me to the sea today,' she said woodenly, and closed the door after him. But the doubt he had expressed clanged about in her mind as she hurried down the hallway, past the living room to the bedroom. The door was closed. She opened it slowly. The room was shadowy within, lit only from the glow of the street lamps.

Her heart leapt and began to pound against her ribs when she saw that there was a figure standing by the window.

'Edmund?' she asked, and clicked on the light switch by the door. At once the two bedside lamps went on, making pools of golden light on the ceiling and dispersing the shadows in the room.

The figure by the window, turned to look at her. An oblique shaft of light from a lamp revealed that he was wearing a short dressing gown of blue silk open to the waist where it was belted. The light burnished the skin of his chest and his bare legs, giving the deep sun tan a coppery hue. In the shadowed eye sockets his eyes seemed to burn like blue flames as they regarded her.

But he didn't move towards her and knowing what he had just seen in the living room and how it must have looked to him, she stood hesitantly by the door instead of rushing up to him to fling her arms about him and kiss him welcome.

'When did you get back?' she asked at last, her voice hurried and breathless. She felt guilty because she hadn't been at home when he arrived.

'About an hour ago,, I think,' he replied coolly. 'I was in the bathroom getting rid of a month's growth of beard and soaking out all the sweat and filth of the place where I've been and didn't hear you come back. I didn't know you were in until I head Pete's voice as I left the bathroom.'

'I ... I'm sorry I wasn't home,' Delia said nervously, advancing into the room. 'I wasn't expecting you today, that's why I went out. Peter and I drove down to the sea. It was such a lovely day and . ..'

'Has he gone now?' he interrupted harshly. 'Or does he usually stay the night after you and he have been out together?'

She gasped at the implication and moved forward urgently, going right up to him. He looked thin and tired, she noticed, but the expression in his eyes frightened her. They smouldered with barely controlled anger.

'He's gone,' she said breathlessly, her hands going out to rest on his arms as if by touching him she could impress him with the truth. 'Oh, Edmund, don't look like that! I can explain about what you saw just now. It wasn't what you're thinking. It's never happened before. It meant nothing ...'

'How am I to know that?' he interrupted her again. 'How the hell am I to know what you're doing when I'm away?'

Appalled by his answer and not knowing how to deal with this furious different

Edmund who seemed to have no relation to the tender loving companion of the first months of their marriage, Delia stepped back from him.

'I don't do anything,' she whispered forlornly. 'I go to work and I come back here to wait for you. Oh, Edmund; if you knew how lonely I've been without you !'

'Lonely?' he queried with an ironic lift of his eyebrows. 'You expect me to believe that after what I saw happening in the living room, after you've told me you've been out all day with Peter . . .'

'Well, you told him to keep an eye on me while you were away,' she defended herself.

'There's a hell of a lot of difference between keeping an eye on someone and moving in to take possession,' he replied with a dry bitterness.

'He hasn't moved in and taken possession. Oh, how can you say that? How can you believe that?' she flared suddenly, caught in a storm of helpless anger because instead of being in each other's arms trying to make up for all the weeks they had been apart they Were quarrelling. 'You say

say the same. How am I to know what you do when you're, thousands of miles away, when I don't even know if you're..you're still alive . . .' Her voice shook a little and she drew a deep breath to steady it. 'For all I know you could have a woman in each of the four corners of the earth

It was the wrong thing to say, she could see that as soon as the words were out of her mouth. It had the effect of petrol Grown on a smouldering fire. Edmund blazed suddenly and she stepped back—too late because, moving with that swiftness which always surprised her, he scooped her up in his t arms and carried her over to the bed. He dropped her on to the soft damask cover, and alarmed by the swift savagery of Ms action she tried to roll away from him, but he was too quick for her.

His hands gripped the sides of her head so cruelly that she was unable to twist it and avoid his mouth which came down on hers in a brutal insolent kiss which gave her no chance to respond. The weight of his body pinned her down relentlessly so that she couldn't move. Frightened by the fury which she had unwittingly aroused, she tried to struggle and push him off, but her struggles only seemed to inflame him more and for the first time in their relationship there was no tenderness or gentleness in his possession of her, no consideration of her desires.

When it was over and he released her he leaned over her to whisper tautly,

"That was just to make sure you know who's in possession here—me, your husband. When I come back I hope you'll be a little more loving and welcoming.'

He swung off the bed, pulled on his dressing gown and went from the room, closing the door quietly. After a while Delia rose from the bed and went along to the bathroom to bathe her face, which was blotched with crying.

Returning to the bedroom, she ignored the dress and underwear he had stripped from her and dressed in light woollen slacks and a coloured tunic top. She was sitting in front of the dressing table combing her hair and crying' silently inside herself because she seemed to have lost the Edmund she loved and had in his place a violent punishing stranger, when he returned to the room carrying, of all things, a cup of tea.

He set the cup and saucer in front of her on the dressing table and looked down at her. She refused to return his glance and stared woodenly at the cup of tea. He squatted down beside her and taking her chin in one hand turned her face so he could see it and so that she had to look at him.

His eyes darkened with compassion and the line of his mouth softened. Releasing her chin, he touched her swollen mouth with gentle fingers.

'I'm sorry,' he said softly.

But Delia was still too upset, too overwrought by what had happened to behave sensibly. She started back from him and sprang to her feet, overturning the stool in her attempt to escape from him.

'Don't touch me, don't touch me!' she hurled the words at him and he straightened up, folded his arms across his chest tightly as if it was the only way he could prevent himself from touching her.

'I didn't mean to hurt you,' he said, and his voice was as usual deep and soft. He raised a hand and rubbed at his forehead. 'I don't know what happened,' he added. 'I suppose I was disappointed when I arrived here and you were out. I'd managed to come home sooner than expected because I wanted to be with you. I thought it would be a pleasant surprise.' He took a sharp shuddering breath and added more, harshly, 'Oh God, Delia, stop looking at me as if I'm some sort of monster! I didn't mean to hurt you. I've said I'm sorry. What else do I have to say or do to make you believe me?'

He stepped towards her again and she stepped backwards. All she could think was that he wasn't the man she had fallen in love with and had expected to come back to her.

'You can't say or do anything,' she cried. 'Oh, why did you have to come back today? Why did you have to spoil everything by corning back when you weren't expected ?' She saw him stiffen. His face went pale and she realised that what she had said could be misconstrued. Her hands went to her face. 'Oh, that's not what I mean. Oh, I can't bear it any longer ! What am I going to do ?'

She rushed over to the wardrobe, snatched a coat from a hanger and pulled it on. Her one aim was to get out of the flat, to be alone for a few minutes to sort out her muddled feelings. Darting over to the dressing table, she grabbed, her handbag and knocked over the peace-offering, the cup of tea.

'Delia, where are you going?' Edmund demanded.

'I don't know,' she sobbed wildly, 'I don't want to see you. You've spoilt everything!'

She ran from the room and down the hallway. Maybe she hoped he would stop her from leaving as he had once before, but he didn't follow her and he wasn't leaning against the front door of die flat to prevent her from going through it.

She took the lift down to the ground floor and out in the lamp lit softness of the summer night began to wonder why she was there. She almost turned back through the swing doors of the apartment building. Then she saw a red double-decker bus coming along the road. She ran to the nearby stop sign and signalled. The bus stopped and Delia climbed

She rode on the bus all the way to the terminus which was in a suburb and stayed on it, much to the conductor's surprise and concern, until it began its journey back into town. By the time it reached the street where she lived she had calmed down and was ready to apologise to Edmund for her silly, frantic behaviour.

She went up to the flat and opened the door and knew as soon as she stepped inside that he wasn't there. She sat up most of the night in the living room waiting for him to come. Next morning, her eyes burning through lack of sleep, she went to work, but every time the phone rang in the office she hoped it would be Edmund calling her to arrange to meet her for lunch.

He didn't phone and he didn't appear to ask Ben Davies if she could be allowed time off. Delia phoned the flat several times and found the ringing tone a depressing sound of defeat.

On the way home she bought his favourite foods and two bottles of wine. A.s soon as she entered the flat she called out his name. There was no answer and when she went into the bedroom there was no sign of him having been there.

In desperation she phoned Peter.

'Have . . . have you seen Edmund?' she asked.

'Yes, I have. As a matter of fact he's just left.'

'Oh.' Relief seeped through her. 'Then he'll be here in a few minutes.'

She heard him take a deep breath and clear his throat.

'No, I'm afraid he won't, Delia. He's gone away again. He left a message with me for you. Look, darling, why don't I come round to see you and talk to you? It isn't the sort of news I can pass on to you over the phone.'

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