The Undoing of Daisy Edwards (A Time for Scandal) (4 page)

‘Yes.’ He smiled that curiously curling smile that tied knots inside me. ‘If you’d looked back, I’d have asked you to stay.’

‘If you’d called me, I’d have looked back.’

I was smiling, and it had happened without my even noticing. What I was noticing was the breadth of his shoulders under his dinner jacket. The fan of lines around his eyes that didn’t come from laughter. The grooves that ran between his nose and his mouth. And his mouth. Such a contrast, that mouth, so soft and sensual set in such a hard face. I was standing there, not quite in his arms, but close enough to touch him, in my tunic and tights, with my hair flattened on my head, and my face shiny with cold cream, and I didn’t even think about how awful I must look until afterwards, because the way he was looking at me, the heat in those eyes of his, it was as if I was naked. And that’s what I wanted to be. Naked.

It was as though I’d said it aloud, because he put his arms around me then. And I moved right into them. And he kissed me. Hard. And I reached up and pulled his head down so he could kiss me even harder. And there it was, just like the morning before, that flame, that heat, that tension, only more, tighter, because this time I knew that I wouldn’t be disappointed.

Chapter Four

Dominic

I didn’t go to the theatre thinking this would happen. No, that’s not entirely true. I didn’t go to thinking it would happen at the theatre, but I went hoping it would happen, because I took a preservative with me.

On-stage, she was mesmerising. Offstage, just looking at her made my blood heat. She looked so fragile, and so damned determined not to be. She was beautiful too, that goes without saying. Even when she was dressed as Joan of Arc, that tunic and those tights showed off every sensuous curve. I’m sure that wasn’t the intention. Maybe it’s because I’d seen them in the flesh, those long legs, that soft skin, those curves. I could have looked at her forever. Just looked. Though I’m glad I got to do more than look.

I didn’t mean to kiss her like that. I meant to ask her out to dinner. I meant to try to be civilised, to remember what it was like to be civilised, but as soon as her mouth opened under mine, as soon as she responded to the pressure of my lips with a pressure just as fierce, any idea of civility fled.

I’ve never been like this with any other woman. Before—before I used to pride myself on my finesse. I was a gentleman, if you know what I mean. Ladies first. But when Daisy kissed me I couldn’t think, never mind plan my next move, and I didn’t have to worry about what she wanted, because she made it very clear that she wanted exactly what I wanted. She kissed like a devil, and it happened again, that raw, ripping sense of being flayed, of having my skin torn open and having her crawl inside me, flood through me. I can’t explain, but it happened, and I couldn’t stop it, though I knew I should.

‘It can’t mean anything,’ she said, wrenching her mouth away, panting up at me. ‘You understand, Dominic, this doesn’t mean anything.’

It did, I knew it did, but I also knew what she meant and at the time I was certain, pretty certain, that I agreed. ‘No,’ I said, ‘nothing. I understand.’

I’d got rid of my jacket and my waistcoat. She’d ripped open the buttons of my shirt. I was struggling with her tunic. She tugged it over her head in one fluid movement, just as she’d removed her dress yesterday. She moved like a dancer. I made short work of the cotton thing she wore underneath. I lifted her up onto the dressing-table. She wrapped her legs tight around my hips and kissed me again. My hands were on her breasts. She has beautiful breasts.

I watched her as I touched her. Watched her eyes slide heavily shut as I stroked those perfect hard dark pink nipples. I watched her in the mirror, the way her back arched as I caught one of her nipples in my mouth. I lifted her up to help her wriggle out of her tights and her knickers. I thought I couldn’t get any harder, but the sight of her in the mirror then—I really thought I might come.

She was wet when I touched her. She was as tight as I was hard. I could feel her fighting me as I stroked her, just as she had the first time. Wanting. Not wanting. Like me. Fighting. I’d forgotten where we were until she bit my shoulder to stop herself crying out. I couldn’t remember whether the door was locked. I didn’t care. I felt her clenching tight around me, trying to stop herself. I didn’t want her to stop. I needed to be inside her. Just like that. One minute I was thinking,
wait
, the next minute I couldn’t, didn’t want to. And then she kissed me again, and I knew if I didn’t hurry it would be too late.

I did remember the preservative, but only just. I tilted her towards me. She wrapped her legs around me again, digging her heels into the backs of my thighs. I looked down at her, and she was looking straight at me, her eyes dark, glittering, right with me. Then I slid inside her and she let out this tiny sound, like a sigh, and started pulsing around me straightaway, but pulling me in higher, her nails digging into my shoulders, urging me on, as if I needed any urging, and I thrust like a wild animal and she laughed, this strange sound, and said yes, yes, yes, over and over, a harsh whisper in my ear, with each thrust, and I came quick and hard, harder than the first time, and just as lost.

She put her hand over my mouth. That’s what made me realise I’d cried out. Her hand, soft on my mouth. I looked over her shoulder and saw my face in the mirror, skin dark and flushed, pupils huge. I barely recognised myself.

‘Don’t,’ she said, shaking her head slightly.

‘What?’

‘Apologise.’ She gave me one of those smoky smiles, reading my thoughts before I had them. I’m not sure how I felt about that. I’m still not sure.

‘I’m not usually so—did I hurt you?’ I asked her.

‘No, but I think I left my mark on you.’ She pointed to my shoulder, and there it was, a purpling bruise where she’d bitten me. ‘I’m not usually so, either,’ she said, ‘but that’s the point, isn’t it?’

She was right, but standing there, naked and emptied, I wasn’t that clear about what the point was, though I knew there was one—and that, really, she was avoiding it. I shrugged. I picked up my clothes and headed for the tiny bathroom in the corner of the dressing-room. Her self-possession bothered me, but when I came back and caught her unaware, wrapped in one of those Japanese kimono things, there was a moment, a split-second, when she was standing there, staring off into space and looking quite as shipwrecked as I felt.

Then it was as if she’d smoothed her face over with her hand. She picked up my coat and handed it to me. ‘I’m glad you enjoyed the play,’ she said.

Making it perfectly plain that she wanted me gone. Making it perfectly plain that she was determined to stick to what we agreed—it couldn’t mean anything. Exactly what I wanted. Thought I wanted, until that point. Then something inside me sort of shifted. I took my jacket, but I shook my head. ‘Get dressed,’ I said, ‘we’re not done yet.’

Daisy

Was that the start of it? The point where, if I’d just ignored him, I could have walked away?
It can’t mean anything
, I’d said to him, but I hadn’t really been talking to Dominic, I’d been talking to myself. It couldn’t mean anything, because I couldn’t go through that again. I wouldn’t. I’m pretty sure now that it was already too late. I’m pretty certain that even if I’d simply left him as soon as I woke up in his bed, it would have been too late. Looking at Dominic, it was like looking in the mirror, in a strange way. Not that I saw myself, but I saw inside myself.

Good grief, how utterly self-indulgent that sounds. Like something one of Poppy’s Hollywood friends would say. I don’t believe in fate, but if it had been another day, any other day than
that
day, that Dominic had hauled me out of the police cell, would I have done what I did? No, absolutely not. But it was that day, and I did do what I did, and I’d just done it again, and it was every bit as good. So when he told me
we’re not done yet
, I told myself that this was different, that because Dominic was nothing like Anthony I wouldn’t be so stupid as to care. He was my drug, that was all. I’d found my drug, and I was going to keep taking it until I didn’t need it any longer. That’s what I thought to myself as I pretended to consider telling him that we were done. That’s what I thought to myself as I washed in that tiny cubicle, and behind the screen I pulled on my favourite Chanel, the claret velvet with the long sash. Dominic was my drug, and I was Dominic’s drug, and we’d use each other, and then when we’d had enough of each other, we’d be—better? I didn’t think that far ahead. Looking back, my capacity for self-delusion astonishes me.

* * *

‘We could go to the Café de Paris,’ Dominic said, ‘but it’s a fair bet my sister will be there at some point tonight, so I thought we’d go some place a bit quieter. Unless you’d rather –’

‘No.’ Behind the screen I dabbed powder onto my knees and pulled my coat on, keeping my eyes fixed on my hands as I fastened the two huge buttons. Moiré velvet, chocolate-brown, trimmed with fur, it was newly delivered from Paris, and had cost me a small fortune. I told myself it was cold outside, and my gorgeous new coat was warm. I shivered as the silk lining caressed my bare arms.

In the mirror, as I applied a coat of lipstick, I could see him watching me. Such an intimate act, putting a face on, and not one I ever let anyone watch, but I enjoyed it. He didn’t pretend not to be watching. I didn’t pretend to be unaware of him. Our eyes met in the mirror. They held, just enough time for us both to remember what had happened on that dressing-table half an hour before. For us both to know that we’d do it again, right now. For that knowing to be there between us, almost tangible, when I turned, putting the gold cap on my lipstick, tucking it into my beaded evening bag. For it to feel as if he touched me as he ushered me out, even though he didn’t, not quite.

We walked to Covent Garden, where he said there was a good restaurant in a basement there. A crowd of Bright Young Things appeared, en route to a party, or more likely coming from one to go to another.

‘No Grace,’ I said.

‘They’re so young,’ Dominic answered, frowning as we stood back against a railing to let them clatter past. ‘What the hell were you doing with them on Saturday night? Do you often—I mean, you don’t strike me as someone who cares much for parties.’

‘I don’t.’

‘Then why are you friends with my sister?’

I hesitated. He spoke casually, but he wasn’t looking at me casually. ‘I’m not, not really,’ I said.

He raised a sceptical brow. ‘You know her well enough for her to risk my wrath when she called me in the middle of the night.’

‘Were you angry? Were you sleeping? I didn’t know—was it very late?’

‘I wasn’t sleeping,’ he said. ‘You haven’t answered my question.’

‘Has she spoken to you?’ I asked, because I’d just realised what it was he’d asked. Not
how
we came to be friends, but why. ‘You have spoken to her,’ I said flatly. ‘It was Grace who told you about me.’ I was embarrassed. I was disappointed. Not so much with Grace, but with Dominic. ‘I don’t need anyone to feel sorry for me.’ I turned to go.

He caught my arm. ‘I don’t feel sorry for you, Daisy. Grace didn’t betray any confidences, if that’s what you’re worried about. She told me that you’d lost your husband, that’s all. She told me that she liked you. That you were friends. That’s it, I promise. My sister—my sister doesn’t confide in me. Truthfully, I’m willing to bet you know a lot more about Grace than I do.’

‘If that’s true, I’m not about to spill the beans on her. Is that why you asked me to dinner?’

‘No! I asked you to dinner because I wanted—because I thought—oh, because it’s what people do, isn’t it? Ordinary people. They go out to dinner. They talk. They get to know one another before they go tearing each other’s clothes off and—and devouring each other as if they were—as if they were savages.’

He had his hands on my arms, but I wasn’t making any attempt to escape. It was cold enough for his breath to make clouds in the night air. I could feel it, warm on my face. He was speaking low, soft enough so that only I could hear. I could feel the tension in him, and at some point along the way, my own anger had become tense, too. Was it that word,
devouring?

‘Maybe we’re not ordinary people,’ I said. ‘Maybe we are savages. Maybe that’s what the war made us.’ I forgot we were in Covent Garden. If I’d remembered it wouldn’t have made any difference. I lifted my face to his as I spoke. I stepped into the shelter of his body. ‘Maybe the hunger we have doesn’t need food.’

His hands slid under the wide sleeves of my coat. Cold fingers on my warm skin. His mouth hovered over mine. My heart was pounding. Then, just as I thought he would kiss me, he stepped away. ‘No,’ he said. ‘You don’t get out of it that way.’

‘What do you mean?’ I was struggling to catch up with the fact that he’d rejected me, but I think I could have guessed what he meant, really.

‘Why don’t you want to talk about Grace?’ he said.

‘Why don’t you talk to her yourself?’

‘I haven’t tried.’ He said it as if he’d only just realised it. Then he looked guilty, as if he’d only just realised how terrible it sounded. As if he didn’t care. Yet he did, enough to bribe the constable at the desk. ‘
Does
she talk to you?’ he asked.

‘Dominic…’

‘I don’t want you to tell me her secrets, and I didn’t ask you to dinner to talk about my sister. I just—do you think you could help me to understand her?’

Why now?
I could have asked, but I didn’t need to. What we’d done had stirred everything up. Everything. I could feel it myself, all these things I didn’t want to think about jumping inside my head for attention. And because I really didn’t want to think about them, I thought it might be better to think about Grace instead. I know.
Displacement
is the fancy term Poppy would use. And I know I’m guilty of it. But I said, didn’t I, that my capacity for self-delusion is pretty huge.

Chapter Five

Daisy

The restaurant was low lit; the food was excellent. A ham terrine with pickled cucumber, duck leg with lentils. I was hungry. There was wine in a big jug, not a bottle, but I didn’t drink much of it. Dominic knew the woman who served us. He knew her husband, the chef. He spoke to both in what sounded to me like fluent French. You could tell that they were more than fond of him. Much more. The woman, she had that way of looking at him that told a familiar, tragic story, of what she’d lost.