.

the tautness in the atmosphere, and wondered that it was that was hardening his jawline. She looked down at her knees and saw that her twisting movements had loosened two buttons on her blouse which, like all her school clothes, was getting too small for her. With burning cheeks her fingers sped to fasten the offending buttons, but her hands trembled so much that they fumbled over the task. A rising sense of emotionalism brought the tears to the backs of her eyes. What was the matter with her? What was the matter with him? What had happened to that affinity between them?

      With a curt exclamation, Robert had grown tired of watching her unsteady ineptitude, and putting his cigarette between his lips he pushed her fingers aside and tackled the buttons himself.

      But before he had the time to fasten them it seemed that everything exploded around them. A shaft of lightning struck a tree only a few yards ahead, splitting its trunk without apparent effort. Overhead the thunder was an ear-rending volume of noise, and the violence of the torrent which fell in a great curtain obscuring all but their most immediate surroundings was drowned as the heavens resounded menacingly.

      Sophie trembled uncontrollably and with an oath Robert pulled her towards him, putting his arms around her and pressing her close to his hard warm body.

      ‘Calm down,’ he exlaimed, taking the cigarette out of his mouth and pressing it out in the ashtray. ‘Everything’s going to be all right. Believe me!’

      ‘I’m sorry, Robert,’ she whispered huskily, her cheek against the rough texture of his shirt. ‘But I hate storms. I’m not pretending. Don’t be angry.’

      ‘I’m not angry,’ he retorted in exasperated tones, drawing back to look down at her. ‘Here, let me fasten those damn buttons.’

      She looked up at him as his fingers busied themselves near her midriff and almost against his will her eyes encountered his. He stared down at her for a long disturbing moment and then she covered his hands with hers, stilling their activity, holding them closely against her.

      ‘Sophie!’ he protested thickly, trying to pull away, but she held his gaze and reaching up, put her mouth to his. For several agonising moments he resisted, and then his fingers slid beneath her blouse, closing on the firm flesh, propelling her against him with almost desperate urgency. He was trembling now, she could feel it, and his mouth moved on hers, parting her lips, seeking to penetrate the moist sweetness within. Sophie was oblivious to the storm. Her arms were around his neck, touching the smooth skin of his shoulders beneath his shirt, tangling themselves in the thick darkness of the hair on his nape. This was what she had dreamed about—this was where she had longed to be all those months when she had been working at her studies, taking exams, pretending to enjoy the social round of school life. There had been boys there—it was a mixed school. But Sophie’s relationships with boys had remained purely platonic and none of them had aroused the slightest interest in her. Yet she only had to see Robert, to touch him, to feel an aching, melting weakness inside her …

      At last he pushed her away from him, breathing heavily, reaching for his cigarettes and lighting one with none of the precision he had exhibited earlier. He inhaled deeply and then, resting his head back, he said: ‘Oh, God!’ in self-derisory tones.

      Sophie ran a hand up to her throat and pulled off the tie which seemed so incongruous after what had just occurred. She folded it and thrust it into the pocket of her blazer. Then she fastened her blouse and tucked it back into her skirt before looking at him again.

      ‘Robert——’ she began, but he shook his head.

      ‘Don’t say anything,’ he commanded, drawing on the cigarette again. ‘Don’t say anything. Just give me a minute to think straight.’ He exhaled unsteadily. ‘I knew I shouldn’t have allowed your father to persuade me to come and meet you.’

      ‘To—persuade—you?’ Sophie stared at him. ‘Did you need much—persuasion?’

      She sounded hurt and he shook his head impatiently now. ‘No—no, I suppose not. God, Sophie—you’re my sister——’

      ‘Stepsister,’ she corrected him tautly.

      ‘All right, all right, my stepsister.’ Robert raked a hand through his hair, staring out at the unceasing curtain of rain. ‘Even so, you know this is—ridiculous!’

      ‘Ridiculous?’ Sophie felt unsure of her ground. For a few moments she had been confident that everything was going to be all right, but now … ‘Why is it ridiculous?’

      ‘Don’t be naïve, Sophie!’ He drew savagely on his cigarette. ‘Look, let’s get this into perspective, shall we? You—that is, the last time we—were together was that Christmas a couple of years ago when I’d had—too much to drink——’

      ‘That’s not true!’

      ‘It is true, Sophie. What other reason could there be for—for what happened?’

      ‘And just now?’

      ‘Yes. Just now.’ He ran the back of his hand across his damp forehead. ‘I knew I shouldn’t have come. I knew—or at least, I guessed what kind of an emotional scene you’d have built up of that incident between us.’

      ‘Incident?’

      ‘Yes, incident, Sophie. For heaven’s sake, what do you expect me to call it? You can have no notion of my feelings after—after touching you. I was sick—really sick to my stomach, do you know that? There was I, a supposedly mature and sensible man of twenty-eight, kissing a kid of sixteen——’

      ‘It wasn’t like that,’ she denied, a little desperately.

      ‘Yes, it was. Just like that.’ He raised his eyes heavenward. ‘I despised myself utterly.’

      ‘Do you despise yourself now?’

      He turned his head to look at her. ‘What do you think?’

      Sophie moved her shoulders helplessly, feeling the hot prick of tears behind her eyes. ‘I don’t know what to think.’

      ‘Don’t you?’ Robert seemed to be enjoying taunting her. ‘My God, Sophie, do you know what you just did?’ He uttered a mirthless laugh. ‘You’re a beautiful girl. That’s no excuse, I know, but it does help.’

      ‘Does it?’

      ‘Oh, stop it,’ he muttered, straightening to squash out his cigarette in the ashtray. ‘You know what you did as well as I do. You’re fully aware why those two Army kids offered to carry your cases. I never realised before what a menace you might be.’

      ‘Stop trying to hurt me.’

      ‘Why should I? You don’t seem to care who you hurt, do you? Oh, lord, Sophie, stop looking so tragic!’ He was gradually recovering his sense of humour. ‘All right, I apologise for what happened. I guess it was my fault.’

      ‘Don’t talk like that.’

      ‘All right, if you don’t want an apology I won’t make one. I’m sorry. I was forgetting what a permissive society we live in!’

      Her fingers stung across his cheek and she sat in horror staring at the marks of her fingers appearing against the tanned flesh. She caught her breath. ‘Oh, Robert,’ she exclaimed, starting to cry. ‘I’m sorry …’

      Robert took a deep breath and expelled it slowly. ‘It’s all right, Sophie,’ he said steadily. ‘Look, I think we’d better start all over again, hmm?’ He paused. ‘You’ve got rid of all that pent-up emotionalism and I’ve given myself a—well, we won’t go into that. Perhaps your father was right. Perhaps it was as well to come and meet you after all. Get all this foolishness out of your system right at the beginning——’

      ‘My father?’ Sophie dried her eyes with the sleeve of her blazer. ‘What does my father know about this? What do you mean?’

      Robert sighed. ‘Naturally I told him what had happened.’

      ‘You—didn’t!’