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.Reluctantly, almost painfully, Caroline moved away from him.His hand reached out and held hers tightly.‘When will you come?’‘I don’t know.Perhaps after shopping, on Saturday morning?’‘I won’t move from the house all day!’Their eyes strained toward each other through the dusk.‘Good night, Lewis.’‘Good night, Caroline.’ He lifted his hand and touched her hair, then they walked together round the corner and he pushed his way back into the bar.The wave of noise and light spilled out toward her as though trying to draw her back, before the door swung shut behind him.For a few moments she leant, weak and trembling, against the cold stone wall.Then she pushed herself away and walked unsteadily to the car.Once inside, she gripped the wheel with both hands and rested her forehead between them.‘Oh, God!’ she whispered.‘Oh, God!’ It was out in the open now.No more demure, averted gazes, no more wondering whether he felt as she did.He did, and they had acknowledged their impatience to each other.The sick trembling buffeted her whole body.The passion his kisses had aroused in her was beyond her experience, aeons away from the placid, pleasurable contentment which had been her response to sixteen years of Edward’s lovemaking.This was something savage and essentially selfish, something that left her ashamed but crying out for more.In a dream she forced herself to put the key in the ignition and, hardly knowing what she was doing, drive slowly back home.Edward was propped up in bed reading when she went upstairs.He raised an eyebrow as she came into the room, but she avoided meeting his eye and he made no comment.Swiftly, trying to conceal her shaking fingers; she undressed and took a shower, gradually turning the tap until the icy needles stung her body with the impact of a hailstorm.She was still saying, ‘Oh, God!’ under her breath, over and over like an endless litany.As she slid between the sheets beside Edward, he reached up and switched off the light.They lay side by side in silence while their light-dazzled eyes gradually adjusted to the outlines of the darkened room.After a few minutes, Edward stretched out a hand.‘Sorry, love,’ he said gruffly, ‘I didn’t mean to fly off the handle.’She had stiffened at his touch, her mind turbulently boiling at the memory of Lewis’s hands.She forced herself to say briefly, ‘I’m sorry too.’ Sorry for the way I betrayed you tonight, for the way I intend to go on betraying you, sorry, sorry.The word meant nothing.‘Fine.’Night.’ And Edward, innocently convinced that all was well again, turned unsuspectingly on his side and went to sleep.But Caroline lay stiff and unmoving, her eyes wide open while she made one final, halfhearted attempt to purge Lewis Castleton from her thoughts, knowing that the battle was lost before it had properly begun.CHAPTER SIXAs it happened, Caroline did not manage to go to the cottage that Saturday.She slept late the morning after her meeting with Lewis, having fallen into a deep sleep just as dawn was paling the sky, and she did not even hear Edward leave the house for work.She awoke finally at nine o’clock to the sun streaming onto the bed and the telephone on the table beside her jangling stridently.She pushed back her heavy hair and reached for it, with the half-formed hope that it might be Lewis, but the brisk masculine voice said succinctly, ‘Caroline? Richard.How’s Laura?’‘Laura?’ She was still struggling free of the last strands of sleep.‘Much the same as when you last phoned.Up and down.’‘Um.Okay if Gilly and I descend on you for the weekend?’‘Oh—I—yes, of course.’ As long as she could lose them tomorrow morning.Tomorrow—Richard was talking and she forced herself to attend.‘.so we can be with you around six.’She frowned, having lost the thread.‘This evening?’‘Most assuredly this evening.And by the way, don’t worry about making up two beds—we shan’t use them.’Bye, Caroline, see you later.’ The phone clicked in her ear.Slowly she replaced the receiver and lay back again.Damn Richard! Why should he be so free when everyone else was bogged down with some responsibility or other? Bogged down? She? In view of what she was planning? She stared resentfully at the ceiling.She was conventional enough to have the prospect of her affair with Lewis marred by the voice of conscience and fleetingly envied Richard his apparent lack of it.She swung her feet to the floor and stretched luxuriously, mentally going over the planned weekend meals in view of the additions to the household.She would go into Ledbrook this morning and do most of the weekend shopping, leaving only a few things over for tomorrow, to serve as an excuse to get out of the house to meet Lewis.Laura was still at the breakfast table when she reached the dining-room.Caroline sat down and poured herself a cup of black coffee.‘And how are you today?’‘All right, thanks.’‘No ill effects after your tiring afternoon?’‘No.How’s Peter?’‘He seems all right.He’s curled up on his bed with a comic.By the way, that was Richard on the phone.He and his—girl are coming for the weekend.’Laura’s face lit up.‘Oh, lovely! What time will they get here?’‘About six, he said.I must get Mrs.Baines to air the bed.’ She sipped her coffee.‘What’s all this about your writing Lewis’s biography?’Laura’s eyes shot to her face.‘How did you hear about that?’Damn, damn, damn! ‘I had to go out last night and happened to bump into him with his friend.’‘Harry Tait.Yes, they were together in Biafra a few years ago.In fact, Lewis saved his life.’‘Really? Did he tell you that?’She looked vaguely puzzled.‘I suppose he must have done.’‘It wasn’t mentioned last night, but I dare say it’s hardly the thing that comes up in ordinary conversation.Tell me, what made you pick on Lewis?’Laura smiled slightly at her choice of words.‘I think it was actually Edward who suggested him when I first said I was thinking of basing the book on a central character who’d come up against a lot of violence.Then, when I looked through Lewis’s scrapbook yesterday, it all seemed to come so fantastically alive—almost as though I’d been there myself and could recognize different scenes.I knew then that it was something I had to do.The worst part was trying to convince Lewis!’‘I can imagine,’ Caroline said drily.‘And when do you propose to start work?’‘Probably tomorrow, I think
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