and picked up a saddle from one of the pegs. It was clear that he had a low opinion of anything that took the place of hunting in his lordship’s life. Oliver was still laughing as they climbed back into the car together. Helen could swallow her curiosity no longer.
‘What is this place? The house? Who’s Jasper?’
It was almost completely dark now and she could barely see Oliver’s face. But she did see that he hesitated a moment before answering, poised with his fingers on the keys in the ignition. And she was certain, too, that after a moment’s hesitation he looked backwards over his shoulder in the direction of the big house. Then the car’s engine roared into life again.
‘Jasper is an old ally of mine,’ he told her. ‘He’s part groom, part gamekeeper and a fund of useful knowledge. He taught me to ride when I was about three. Nell – the dog you saw – is as much his as mine, and he’s in charge of the pups. I’m the Master of the House beagles this year, and I want to present the best of the litter to the pack.’ There was pride in his voice as he spoke.
He does belong with another world, Helen thought. I don’t know what he’s talking about half the time.
As an afterthought, Oliver said quietly, ‘And the house … it’s where my parents live.’
The car surged forwards so fast that Helen was jerked backwards in her seat. She settled back, ready for the return drive to Oxford, but Oliver merely drove down the little rise away from the house, took another road across twilit parkland from which a damp mist was already rising and drew up in front of a cottage that might have belonged to a groundsman. It was screened on three sides by tall trees and all the windows were dark.
Helen followed Oliver through the drifts of leaves to the front door and stepped inside after him. When the lights came on they blinked at each other.
‘Home,’ he said.
The door had opened straight into a low, square room. It was shabby, filled with a mixture of what looked like outworn drawing room furniture and outgrown nursery pieces. The atmosphere was unmistakably welcoming. Helen looked round at the worn chintz covers, overlapping and unmatching rugs and the plain cream walls with an air of relief. She suddenly felt more comfortable with Oliver than she had done all day.
‘Make yourself at home while I do the fire.’ He knelt down at the open hearth. ‘Or, better still, be an angel and make some tea.’
The kitchen was at the back. Helen hummed softly as she rummaged in cupboards to discover thick red pottery mugs and a homely brown teapot. When she carried the tray in, Oliver was lying on a rug in front of the fire, his head propped against the sofa cushions. He watched her as she put the tray down on the floor and then rocked back on her heels to meet his eyes. Oliver patted the cushions beside him, but Helen ignored him for a moment. Instead she poured tea into the red mugs and then handed him one. Then she wrapped her thin fingers round her own. Emboldened by the cosy domesticity of the little room, she asked him, ‘Why do you call this home? If your parents live over there?’
‘I’ve used this little house to escape to for years. When I was younger, to escape from the family. Nowadays, when I’m here, which isn’t often, it’s to avoid the tourists.’
‘Tourists?’
‘Mmm. The house is open to the public. Hordes of it. We’ve retreated to one of the wings, like survivors in a sinking ship.’
‘What is this place?’ Helen asked again.
‘It’s called Montcalm.’
Of course. Oliver’s father, then, was the Earl of Montcalm. And this blond boy who was laughing at her in the firelight came of a family whose history stretched back to the Plantagenets.
‘Didn’t you know?’ he asked her.
‘No,’ Helen said humbly. ‘Or, if I did know who you were, I’d forgotten.’
‘How lovely.’ Oliver was laughing delightedly, and her own laughter echoed his. ‘Come and sit here.’
Helen went. Her head found a comfortable hollow in the crook of his shoulder, and his chin rested in her hair. In front of them the fire crackled and spat. Helen let her eyes close, thinking of nothing but the sound of their breathing and the immediate sensations that lapped around her. Oliver’s sweater was rough against one cheek and the heat of the fire was reddening the other. She felt his mouth moving in her hair.
‘Comfortable?’
‘Mmm.’
Gently, Oliver began to stroke her cheek. Instinctively, Helen turned her face closer to his. Her body felt soft, warm after the day’s bright cold and relaxed with the ebbing of tension.
Very slowly, Oliver bent his head and kissed her mouth. Even as she felt herself respond to him, answering his kiss with a kind of hunger that surprised her, Helen heard a cold little voice inside her head.
You know that there will be no going back, after this?
You could still stop him.
You could still play safe.
No. I don’t want to be safe. I don’t want to lose him. I don’t care what happens. This is all that matters now. This room, the firelight, the roughness of the rugs beneath us. Oliver.
His hand was on her breast now and his mouth was more urgent over hers. Like a suicide pushing away the lifebelt that drifted within reach, Helen shut her ears and eyes and let herself be submerged in him.
‘You look so fragile,’ he whispered, ‘but your strength is all inside, isn’t it?’
He lifted her from the cushions and peeled her sweater off. Her eyes focused on his hands, portrait hands, insistent as they took off the rest of her clothes. Helen’s skin was creamy-pale, but the light and warmth made it rosy now. Intently Oliver’s fingers traced the line of her collarbone and the tilt of her small breasts, ran over the smooth flesh that stretched tight over her ribcage and then grasped her waist. She felt herself pulled towards him and her hands reached, in turn, at his clothes, wanting to touch him too.
At last, they faced each other, kneeling naked in the red glow.
‘Now,’ he said, and she echoed him on a long breath. Helen’s fingers slid over him as he waited for her.
The dreamy languor which had bathed them both was gone in that instant. A flash of longing for him swept through her, making her gasp aloud. Her fingers knotted in his hair as they came together and her head arched back, and further back, as his mouth slid from hers to her throat, and then to the hardness of her nipples. His hands explored her, relentless now, and she felt herself open to him like a flower.
‘Oliver,’ she murmured, ‘Oliver.’ It was the first time she had called him by his name, but she felt as though it had been in her head for her whole life. His eyes were closed and his breath was coming in quick gasps.
Still kneeling, Oliver lifted her effortlessly and then drew her down on top of him. He pierced her with a single thrust and at once she felt a wave of pleasure so intoxicating that she cried out loud. Her legs wound around him, jealously imprisoning him inside her. Poised, they moved together, at first slowly and then fiercely, unstoppably.
Helen felt the deep buried stirrings of her own climax with the first low moan in Oliver’s throat. Her back arched, taut, as he ground deeper into her. Then her fingers clenched, once, and fell open as the liquid currents shot through her veins, pulsed, extinguished everything except the man within her and then, slowly, exquisitely, receded.
By infinitesimal degrees, time started up again. Helen lifted her head from where it had sunk against Oliver’s shoulder. Looking down at him she saw that his face was soft, just as it had been when he bent over the tiny pups. Sweat had damped his fine blond hair so that it lay close against his head and his eyelashes were dark and spiky. For an instant, Oliver looked almost vulnerable. Helen stroked the hair back from his face and laid her cheek against his.
Beside them