‘Can you help me with the necklace?’ I asked. ‘It’s not got a proper clasp – the pearls are strung on a thread that ties at the back. I can’t see to untie it.’
I turned around and bent my head. His fingertips at the nape of my neck were hard and gentle. I turned again when he’d finished and held out my hand for the pearls; they slid like running water from his palm into mine.
Again I turned around, and dropped the pearls into the small round wooden cup, cracked and black with age, where I’d first seen them, and they piled up in its dark globe like a little celestial host of moons.
That’s where you belong, I told them silently, and spun on one heel back to Dunbar.
‘Oh, Julie, stop there a moment,’ he begged. ‘You never stop moving. Let me look at you. Just for a moment.’
I did stop. It was startlement – the longing in his voice was so genuine, and unexpected. I froze and I tried to imagine what he saw: Tinker Bell in a cloud of spring-green chiffon, my mouth and eyelids dark with grown-up paint, lamplight glinting on the glossy artificial waves of my hair.
‘Julie,’ he repeated hoarsely.
No, he didn’t see a dusted fairy. He saw clear hazel eyes like Cairngorm amber in the lamplight, and defiant hair like ripe wheat, and smooth skin like new milk. He saw through the coloured powder and the floating silk. He saw a woman.
I took a step backward and found myself trapped against the library table. I grabbed the edge for support; the polished chestnut was slippery beneath my gloves. Here it comes if you want it, I thought, that kiss.
And suddenly I wasn’t sure I did. I wasn’t … well … I didn’t know if I was ready.
But he was more beautiful than ever in the black coat and silver buttons and Black Watch tartan, and I thought, Shame on me if I don’t try.
So I stood still and let him look at me. I had to turn my face aside a little so that the lamp behind him didn’t blind me. After a long, hushed moment he stepped across the space between us. He leaned down towards my face and kissed me very chastely on the lips. Just briefly, but so intimate.
‘You are …’
‘What am I?’ It came out as a whisper, half-caught in my throat.
‘I don’t exactly know,’ he laughed.
And then he took me by the shoulders and suddenly it wasn’t chaste any more; suddenly another kiss came slamming into me like a rolling wave and I was caught in it like an empty shell dashed against shingle.
And I realised I wasn’t ready. It really is that simple.
It wasn’t that I didn’t enjoy it. It was that I knew I was about to lose control. Ellen had let me choose. Even the Water Bailiff had let me choose. Francis Dunbar wasn’t going to.
Our mouths were glued together and I was gripping the edge of the table behind me with both hands. I let go with one hand and reached up to grab him by the back of his neck, trying to dig my nails in to get his attention, trying to hurt him enough that he let go for a moment. The gloves foiled me. My nails were blunted and he mistook my grip for returned passion. I changed my tactic and got my fingers hooked between his collar and his throat, and pulled until he had to come up for air.
‘What?’ he gasped.
‘I lied to you!’ I babbled wildly. ‘I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have, but it was so easy! I’m not eighteen.’
‘It’s not your birthday?’
‘I’m not eighteen!’
Oh, heaven help us, does passion make all men so stupid? He still didn’t understand that I was trying to turn him away.
‘It doesn’t matter, Julie,’ he said. ‘You needn’t lie to me. No matter when. You’re unbelievably lovely –’
‘I’m sixteen,’ I rasped at him. ‘Sixteen today. It’s my sixteenth birthday today.’
He looked baffled for a moment, then showered me with his slow and melting film-star smile. He shifted his grip on my shoulders and murmured enticingly, ‘Many happy returns of the day.’
I heard myself make a sound that could as easily have been a gasp of laughter as a sob of frustration. O God, I was being terribly cack-handed. I didn’t want to hurt his feelings.
He moved his hands across my shoulders. He’d been a soldier and a hunter in India; his touch was firm and experienced, and his fingers were large and strong and restless. They slipped lightly a little down my torso and hesitated, tautening, over my breasts. He explored the lines of my body through the silk. I could tell he was doing it on purpose, touching me. It made me feel entirely naked.
‘Don’t,’ I said sharply. ‘Stop.’
He paused. He was so much taller than me.
‘You vixen,’ he said quietly, moving his hands back up to grip my shoulders, and bent his mouth to mine for another plunging kiss.
I was wholly out of my depth.
I tore my face away from his; it hurt to do it.
‘Mary!’ I screamed desperately, ‘Mary!’
Of course she couldn’t hear me.
But Francis Dunbar could, and he took a baby step backwards, though he was still holding tight to my shoulders.
‘Why, Julie!’
He was shocked, amazed to discover I didn’t want this. No, not amazed – disbelieving. Because he wasn’t toying with me. He was serious. This is how a lad gives a kiss when he means it.
‘I’m not … I’m not ready!’
‘Let me show you.’
‘I know how. I’m not ready for you. It’s not right.’
Oh, if it had been right, he’d have listened to me.
‘Julie,’ he said gently, relentless as a roadroller, ‘it’s easy. Don’t be afraid. You are so beautiful. I won’t hurt you again.’
And it was true – he wasn’t hurting me now. He was … worshipful, almost. But fearfully intimate. Now he’d somehow got his thumbs worked into the low neckline of my frock, and beneath the fabric he rubbed them gently across the bare skin of the sides of my breasts – and … God. It made the fine down stand up on my spine, like a cat’s.
Mary wasn’t going to come. I was on my own. I had to do something to wake him up – something he’d notice, something he’d mind.
I was arched backward now, cringing away from him, but still trapped by the table’s edge. One of my gloved hands slipped again and I thought fleetingly of throwing myself across the table, except it would make chaos of the Murray Collection, just when Sandy had finished sorting most of it out – and worse than that, I’d risk Francis Dunbar throwing his hot and heavy body over mine. He didn’t care about the blinking flint arrowheads and bronze blades.
My hand, sliding backward, stopped abruptly against the baize table cover and knocked over the wooden cup with the necklace in it. I heard the pearls’ watery cascade as they slid out on to the table.
And a jigsaw hole tore open.
‘How do you know there are pearls in the Murray Collection?’ I whispered.
He sucked in air. For a moment he wore his look of bewildered worry, then regained his composure with that foolish, winning smile.
‘I didn’t, till I saw these.’