The Hidden Years Read online

  Time passed. She seemed to have been waiting for hours. Her stomach tensed and she began to wonder if Kit wasn't coming after all. She had no watch and no way of telling what time it was. She couldn't stay standing here for ever, she told herself, thankful that the lane was seldom used so that there was no one about to witness her humiliation.

  She could just imagine the other girls' reactions when she went back and told them that Kit hadn't turned up. Her eyes stung with tears. It had never occurred to her that this might happen. She had been so certain, so sure that Kit felt as she did…

  She was just about to retrieve her shoes when she heard the sound of a car engine. Her heart bounded, her pulses thudding frantically as she froze and waited.

  When she saw the familiar bonnet of Kit's car coming round the corner she almost cried with relief, unaware of how very easily he was interpreting her reaction as he brought the car to a standstill beside her and smiled warmly at her.

  Old Edward wouldn't think her such an innocent now, Kit reflected cynically as he studied her. Quite a transformation.

  He looked at her dark red mouth and felt a kick of sensation burst inside him. Sex was like a drug to Kit— the more he had, the more he wanted—and since he had been grounded five days ago for disobeying orders and breaking formation to chase off an enemy plane in a dogfight over the Channel, sex had been the only outlet he had had for the compulsive energy that drove him.

  'Sorry I'm late,' he apologised, jumping out of the car and coming towards her.

  Relief shone in her eyes, making them glitter with the tears which had been about to fall.

  'You look wonderful,' he lied, making her wonder if perhaps after all the other girls had been right and that it was she who had been wrong to have had doubts about her appearance.

  'So wonderful, in fact, that I've simply got to do this…'

  Kit was no fool. No matter how willing the woman, they still liked all the trappings. And this one was more nervous than willing. He felt her tremble as he took her in his arms and felt his body tense with elation. It gave him an extra thrill to know that he would be the first, that no one else had ever touched her or kissed her. Her mouth beneath his betrayed her inexperience. 'No one's ever kissed you before, have they?' he said, crushing her body against his own, revelling in his power over her, her innocence, her gullibility. He placed his hand on her heart and felt its frantic beat. His fingertips were just brushing the underside of her breast, causing her both to tense and to tremble. His tongue snaked over her glossy red lips, making Lizzie shiver frantically again as his touch caressed her already sensitised flesh. She was so responsive to him, so dizzyingly aware of him. They had looked at one another and immediately she had known without words… without explanation—she had known.

  Kit was biting at her mouth now, almost too roughly, but she guessed that it was because he, like her, had been overwhelmed by their love. She felt his tongue press against the closed line of her mouth and obediently parted her lips. She had heard the other girls talking about this kind of kissing, but had never thought that she herself could experience it without intense revulsion. Instead she discovered, as Kit's tongue penetrated the moist intimacy of her mouth, that the slow caressing thrusts he was making were sending her dizzy with the waves of pleasure which seemed to be rolling over her in ever increasing ferocity.

  'I can't make love to you here,' Kit told her thickly. 'My God, you're dynamite, do you know that…? You and I are going to be so good together… so very good.'

  To Lizzie it was a statement of commitment for their future, an avowal of love. Cynically Kit watched the effect his words were having on her, loving her vulnerability to him, his power over her. Fleetingly he wished he had more time to spend with her. There were things he could show her—teach her. His body grew hot and hard, the intensity of his desire for her catching him by surprise.

  'Come on… let's go somewhere more private,' he commanded, picking her up and carrying her over to the car.

  As he held her against his body, Lizzie felt the hardness of his physical arousal, and her senses thrilled to the knowledge that she had done this to him. She knew from the other girls' conversation what that hardness meant; what she hadn't known before was how exciting it would be to know that she could have that effect on the man she loved, nor how much she would want to press her body against his, to take that hardness deep within her own flesh so that she could prolong and intensify the fierce, aching pleasure being close to it brought.

  As he lifted her into the car, either by accident or design, his hands slid up over her body, fleetingly caressing her breasts.

  'Where can we go?' he demanded. 'You know this area better than I do… I'd take you back to where I'm staying but the landlady…'

  Take her back to his room, he meant… She wasn't ready for that yet, Lizzie acknowledged. It smacked too much of what she had always considered to be the rather sordid intimacies of the other girls. She wanted this to be different… It was different, of course. She and Kit were in love with one another, and after the war… She took a deep breath, her heart pounding with the heady excitement of anticipating the future…their future, and then hard on its heels came the sharp new fear experienced by every woman whose man risked his life in the defence of his country. What if Kit should die—what if all they had was here and now? What if there was no future, only these few precious hours? It was a thought she could not bear to contemplate—not now—not ever.

  'There is a place,' she told him huskily. 'It's just inside the hospital grounds, but no one ever goes there. We'll have to walk, though.'

  The place she had in mind was a small, neglected summer-house in an overgrown glade, hidden deep in the tangled undergrowth of the neglected grounds. Even the path to it was overgrown with saplings and brambles. She had discovered it by accident and often went there when she wanted privacy. She had half contemplated taking Edward there, knowing he would enjoy it as she had… She had seen the first primroses flower there on the banks of its quiet pool, followed by wild bluebells, but the difficulties of pushing Edward's chair down the overgrown and soft earth path had made her decide against suggesting such an outing. Now she was fiercely glad, because now it would be their secret place, known to them alone… a sacred temple to their love.

  Kit parked his car at the end of the lane. When he lifted her out of her seat Lizzie clung shyly to him, blushing as he looked down at her mouth. The red lipstick was gone now, but her lips glowed with their own colour, softened and swollen from his earlier kiss.

  'Mm… innocent little thing, aren't you…? Not that I mind.' His hands slid down her back, past her waist and over her buttocks, squeezing them as he lifted her into his own body and moved urgently against her.

  Dizzy with the tumult of sensations inside her, Lizzie could only cling to him, innocently offering herself to him, wanting only to please him.

  When he released her, she felt disorientated and bereft.

  'Which way is it…this place?' Kit was demanding, hoarsely.

  As she pointed in the direction of the glade, Lizzy realised guiltily that Mary's shoes were going to be ruined. They had to cross two fields and then fight their way down the overgrown pathway to get to the glade and Mary's courts were not designed for such stuff.

  Neither, it seemed, were Kit's flannels and blazer. He frowned impatiently when the brambles caught in the fabric, and complained that she might have warned him what to expect. His irritation jarred a little but Lizzie dismissed those feelings.

  The path seemed more overgrown than it had been the last time she had visited the glade a few weeks ago, but at last she could see the glint of sunlight on water through the tangled undergrowth and branches and when at last they broke through into the silence of the sun-dappled clearing she asked breathlessly, 'Will this be all right?'

  'Well, we certainly won't be disturbed,' Kit told her, examining their surroundings, and walking towards the dilapidated summer-house. Personally he would have preferre
d the comfort of a double bed, but beggars couldn't be choosers and the woman running the boarding-house where he was staying had made it plain that she did not allow her guests to bring in 'friends'.

  'Pity you didn't think to bring a rug,' Kit added as he studied their surroundings.

  'But it is private, isn't it?' Lizzie asked him anxiously, suddenly desperate to placate him and win some word of approval, knowing that she was somehow responsible for that frown of displeasure which had banished the warmth of his smile and hating herself for it.

  'Oh, it is private,' Kit agreed, and suddenly he was smiling at her again so that her heart and body were flooded with warmth and love. She went eagerly towards him, feeling as though she had stepped into heaven itself when he took hold of her arm and led her inside the summer-house, and then turned her more fully into his arms.

  Even with familiarity the sensation of his tongue moving erotically within her mouth didn't lose its power to make her body ache and melt, Lizzie recognised, thrilled by the way Kit was moving against her, silently telling her how much he loved and wanted her.

  'You know how much I want you, don't you?' he told her thickly. She trembled, too full of emotion to speak, tremulously eager to show him how much she loved him… how much she needed him. She was still so bemused by it all, still caught up in the miracle of it all, totally blinded to reality by her innocence and her love.

  In the past, a lifetime ago, had she really been a girl who had believed idiotically that the physical aspects of love were its least important, that the physical consummation of love was something unimportant and even faintly sordid, something to be endured rather than enjoyed? If so, she was discovering how ignorant she had been, how blind and unfit to be the recipient of the love of a man like Kit.

  That he needed her and that he was so open and urgent in that need touched her with tenderness that bordered on the maternal. When they were apart he would have these memories of her to bring him safely back to her, and as he kissed her and held her against his body she recognised that what she was experiencing now was a world away from her girlish dreams of what love might be.

  How could it be wrong to experience such pleasure…such joy…to feel her pulses leap as Kit kissed her face and her throat, as his hands caressed her sun-warmed body through her borrowed clothes?

  'You don't need this on, do you?'

  He was already unfastening the cardigan, exposing the V-neckline of her dress and the softness of her skin. She tensed a little suddenly, made nervous by the way he was looking at her and Kit, who had thought himself long beyond ever allowing his reactions to escape his own control, was almost angered by the sensation that coiled through him as the sunlight slanted across her body and he saw quite clearly through the thin cotton the shape and shadowing of her nipples. He had already known that she was naked beneath her dress, but the unexpected glimpse of her body through it was somehow more erotic, more arousing than if he had been looking at her naked body, and, as he removed the bulky cardigan from her stiff body, he was suddenly possessed by a frenzy of need so sharply intense that almost before he had finished his hands were gripping her waist, his head descending so that his mouth could find the dark-fleshed peak and punish it for its temerity in so arousing him.

  Lizzie had never felt a man's hands on her body so intimately, never mind his mouth, and the sensation of Kit's teeth savaging her flesh froze her into immobility, and alarm. It was far too much, far too soon.

  As he felt her tension, her resistance, Kit cursed silently. For a moment he had forgotten her lack of experience, but now her body was forcibly reminding him of it, causing his own flesh to ache with resentment. He was almost tempted to take hold of her and make her body accept his, but she was so small, so delicately made that he could hurt her easily if he did. There had been an innocent young girl once before; a pretty little thing from the village. That had been before he had learned not to play in his own backyard. Her father had complained to his parents. His father had been furious with him. He had been forced to buy her family off. It was a pity that this one happened to know his cousin.

  If she chose to go running to Edward… Not that there was a damn thing that Edward could do about it… Except tell Lillian…

  His mouth had grown still on her body. Relief unlocked her muscles into shaky weakness. She felt sick and tremulous. She had known that men enjoyed touching a woman's breasts, but she had not known… never dreamed…

  Despite the sunshine, and the musty scented warmth of the summer-house, she suddenly felt so cold that her teeth had started to chatter.

  He still wanted her, Kit recognised, and it wasn't too late to retrieve the situation. 'I'm sorry, sweetheart,' he told her, murmuring the words in her ear, so that she wouldn't see the lie for what it was. 'But you know it really was your own fault.'

  When she tensed again, and turned towards him, her eyes dark with confusion, he smiled ruefully at her. 'Coming out dressed like that…tempting me like that…'

  Subtly, cleverly, he shifted the responsibility, the blame, so that Lizzie, who had felt uncomfortable enough about her appearance to start with, now flushed dark red and bit nervously at her bottom lip.

  'I'm sorry if I frightened you,' Kit told her, smiling at her as he saw her reaction. He could perhaps turn the situation to his advantage.

  'I didn't know… I didn't realise,' Lizzie was apologising abjectly. 'I—'

  'I know… I know…' Kit took her back in his arms, stroking her hair. 'The trouble is I want you so very much, and you don't have the experience…'

  Immediately Lizzie tensed again, hearing the reproach in his voice, wincing beneath the implied criticism.

  'Let's try again, shall we?' Kit suggested, and her heart bounded with the relief of knowing that despite her deficiencies he still wanted her.

  Shyly she nodded her head, blushing harder when he added, 'Let's take this off, then, shall we?'

  His fingers were already deftly unfastening the buttons on her dress, freeing her breasts to his eyes and his hands.

  He wasn't going to make the same mistake this time, Kit told himself, and besides, a little holding back now, a little coaxing and persuading, would pay him handsome dividends later. What he had already seen of her body was making him urgently eager to possess her. She felt so small and soft beneath his hands, so vulnerable, her bones so fragile that he could almost believe he could break them. Would she be as small inside as her body seemed to suggest, would she…?

  'Perfect… you're so perfect,' he told her thickly as he caressed her bare breasts with his hands, silencing the hesitant protest he sensed she was about to make by kissing her.

  As he kissed her the memory of her earlier fear faded; there was, Lizzie recognised tremulously, something sharply pleasurable about the way he was touching her, something which, if she allowed it to grow, she sensed would lead her into a whole new world of experiences and feelings. But what she was doing was wrong, she reminded herself… this kind of intimacy…

  As Kit stopped kissing her mouth and started instead to kiss the soft flesh of her throat, her thoughts became muddled and confused, impossible to hold on to in the flood of sensation that swept through her body. This time Kit held his desire in check, caressing her slowly and lingeringly until at last his mouth was once again on her breasts.

  Immediately she froze, but he refused to let her push him away, whispering against her skin, 'Did I hurt you, my sweet? I'm sorry, I didn't mean to. Here, let me kiss it better.'

  She was still too tense, too shocked really to enjoy what he was doing to her, her mind too full of Aunt Vi's teachings and warnings for them to be totally ignored. And yet… and yet, dimly, distantly, she sensed that there was a pleasure to be found in this shockingly intimate exploration of her body, if only her darling Kit had the patience to lead her to it gently and tenderly.

  But tenderness and gentleness, never mind patience, were virtues that were unknown to Kit Danvers—already he was growing impatient, bored with s
uch juvenile caresses. He pushed up her skirt, and put his hand on her thigh, sliding it upwards until he reached her knickers.

  Immediately fresh tension gripped her—her upbringing, Aunt Vi's strictures, warning against the instincts struggling for life inside her.

  Kit was kissing her again, and, untutored though it was, somehow her body recognised the selfishness in his touch, the determination and the greed, and her tension increased.

  'If you loved me you'd let me,' Kit was telling her angrily. 'I thought you and I had something special.'

  If it weren't that the very innocence that was irritating him so much now was also exciting him, arousing him in a way he had not experienced in a very long time, he would already have lost interest in her and abandoned her, but for all her reluctance, her fear, indeed almost because of them, he felt his desire sharpen.

  'I want you, Lizzie… let me show you how much. Let me show you how good it can be,' he coaxed her, kissing her again, ignoring her tension, ignoring the tremors that made her thigh muscles quiver.

  'I'm not going to hurt you,' he told her, 'I only want to show you how good it's going to be between us… You do love me, don't you…?'

  What could she say? Of course she loved him.

  'Yes,' she whispered helplessly.

  'Then let me touch you… let me love you. You're not one of those women who can't please a man, are you?' Kit asked her, abruptly changing tack and making a fresh shiver of fear ice along her spine. Of course she wasn't what he was suggesting… was she? Confused thoughts jumbled in her brain. She did love him, she knew that; so why did she feel this hesitation… this fear? Why, when she had enjoyed his kisses so much, did she feel this apprehension at his more intimate touch?

  She heard the hospital village clock tolling the hour. Four o'clock already, and she was due back on the ward at five.