‘Tamara—I’m afraid I shall have to call you that as Colonel Mellors hasn’t told me your surname.’
There was mockery and something else—less kind—a kind of hard inflexibility underlining the words, but no one else seemed to be aware of the suddenly charged atmosphere which was to colour the entire evening like a tautly drawn glittering thread in a skein of dull grey wool.
Merely his presence was like an electric charge, Tamara admitted when they went into the dining room.
Malcolm’s parents were talking about the iniquities of income tax, and the problems of leaving one’s possessions to one’s families.
‘Of course, Malcolm will take over from us here one day. Mellors have owned this land since the time of Queen Victoria.’
‘And how does Tamara feel about living in the country?’ Zach asked carelessly, his question voiced to the Colonel, but his eyes on Tamara herself.
‘Oh, she knows that Malcolm would simply not countenance living anywhere else,’ Mrs Mellors cut in before anyone else could speak. ‘And of course it is still a woman’s duty to live her husband’s life rather than vice versa.’
‘Whither thou goest?’ Zach quoted, his eyes still on Tamara’s faintly flushed face. ‘An ideological and often impossible belief. You have no career, then, Tamara? No ambitions of your own?’
He was deliberately trying to goad her, Tamara realised with a sudden shock of pain that even now after all that had happened he was still trying to hurt her.
‘There’s no need for Tamara to have ambitions,’ Malcolm’s mother told Zach firmly. ‘Of course it’s a pity that she refuses to hunt.’ Having turned the conversation on to the topic which was the purpose of the meal, all three Mellors now discussed the merits of hunting enthusiastically, breaking off now and again to ask Zach’s opinion, which was always given in a pleasant but carefully noncommittal tone, which told them nothing, either of his personal views or his intentions with regard to the hunt’s access over his land.
‘Well, I suggest that we males retire to my study with the port,’ the Colonel declared genially when the meal drew to a close. ‘It will give the girls a chance to make wedding plans, eh, Tamara?’
Needless to say they did nothing of the kind, in fact Mrs Mellors sedulously avoided the subject, and it gave Tamara a certain amount of grim satisfaction to know that little though she realised it, Mrs Mellors was about to be granted her greatest wish.
/> Pleading a headache, Tamara excused herself when the men finally joined them. She suspected from the Colonel’s darkly crimson expression that all had not gone as well as he had anticipated, and this was borne out when Tamara heard Zachary saying coolly,
‘Yes, I’m sure you’re right, Colonel, and far be it from me to spoil any man’s sport, but I have plans for my land which do not include the hunting of foxes all over it.’
Upstairs in her room Tamara started to prepare for bed, running her bath while she started to undress. The silk jersey dress fell to the floor, where she let it lie unregarded. Coming into the room afresh, she had caught the elusive echo of her own fragrance, and was startled by its alien sophistication and the image it projected; the image which was now hers.
It there was one thing and one thing alone she had gained from knowing Zach, it was the sheer pleasure of sensuality. Her silk camiknickers had been another frivolous present to herself. She had read that they were all the rage in America, where for some reason they referred to them as ‘teddies.’ These were silver grey to match the sheer silk stockings she had bought to wear with her new dress. She was just starting to clean off her make-up when she heard the tap of her door, and picking up her robe from the bed, she went to open it. The last thing she wanted now was an argument with Malcolm. The headache which had originally been fiction was fast becoming fact.
As she opened the door she said wearily, ‘Oh, Malcolm, please—not tonight …’
‘My, my, things have changed since St Stephen’s!’ came the drawling taunt from the doorway, as Zachary Fletcher stepped across it.
If an evening suit became Malcolm, it turned Zach into a virile demigod. Tamara stepped back instinctively, panic fluttering in the pit of her stomach as she acknowledged the danger he represented to her fragile defences.
‘You’re certainly a creature of surprises,’ Zach continued, stepping past her into the room and turning to close the door, which he then proceeded to lean against, effectively blocking her exit, arms folded across his chest. ‘What happened? Or can I guess? Having lost your virginity to me, you had to discover some other means of keeping Malcolm interested, so you swopped from innocence to world-weary experience, and he, poor fool, couldn’t tell that your newly found “experience” was gained in the arms of another man. Clever, aren’t you, but a word of warning. Your estimable mama-in-law to be isn’t fooled, and she doesn’t want to see you married to her one and only.’
‘It’s what Malcolm and I want that matters,’ Tamara flung at him tightly, anger superseding the shock his words had originally caused her.
‘And Malcolm wants you? No wonder!’ Zach drawled insultingly. ‘Dressed like that you’re every adolescent’s dream of a centre-fold come to life.’
The sound of her palm across his jaw filled the room, leaving Tamara white and sick, hating herself for the violence he had forced her into.
‘Oh, come on,’ Zach mocked, ignoring the red flush marking the brown skin. ‘What did you have in mind? A little visual titillation to follow up that bored, “Not tonight?” I’ll just bet the poor so-and-so doesn’t even know what’s hit him. He’s the type that thinks women come in two varieties—the ones you marry and the ones you go to bed with. No doubt he thinks he’s got the bargain of the decade in you—both in one sweet-smelling, tantalisingly wrapped package. So tantalising in fact that I’m tempted to unwrap a little of it myself.’
‘Get out!’ Tamara snapped at him through gritted teeth. ‘Just get out of here!’
This was a thousand times worse than anything she had visualised even in her worst moments; despite the smiling lips the jade eyes were as cold and empty as glass. Tamara could sense within him an unrelenting anger, and it was that that made her retreat, trying not to betray the effect he had upon her.
‘When I’m ready,’ he told her softly, adding almost conversationally, ‘Do you know that since I made love to you there hasn’t been a day when I haven’t regretted robbing your husband-to-be of the privilege of being the “first.” I even wondered if what had happened between us might somehow make you feel guilty enough to break off your engagement—it isn’t unknown. But I needn’t have worried, need I, Tamara? A scheming little bitch like you soon found a way to turn circumstances to her own advantage.’
‘Scheming? I prefer to think of myself as resourceful,’ Tamara lied tightly. ‘Why did you come up here? So that you could self-righteously denounce me to Malcolm?’
‘What’s the matter? Frightened he might break the engagement if I do?’ Zach sneered.
His contempt seemed to unleash a reckless torrent of rage inside Tamara, so strong that she no longer cared what she risked; what she did.