Scarlet Women by Jessie Keane Page B

yours from the minute I first saw you,’ she said against his cheek.
    ‘Oh?’ Redmond buried his head in her fragrant neck. She wore Shalimar. He loved that too: it was a classic like her, he’d told her.
    ‘In the dining room at Cliveden.’
    ‘You noticed me too?’
    ‘I couldn’t keep my eyes off you. But I had to. Because of William.’
    ‘He’s the past,’ he said, pulling her in tighter so that she could feel his erection. ‘We’re all that matters now.’
    They had christened the new bed in the new flat, and it had been dusk before they were sated, lying together in the warm afterglow.
    ‘I’m so happy,’ she murmured against his chest.
    He was happy too. She was beautiful, polished, exotic—of course he was happy.
    ‘Tell me about yourself,’ he’d said. ‘I want to know everything.’
    He settled down for an erotic treat, and was not disappointed. She reeled out the background he had already imagined her to have. Old family money, pony clubs, private schools, a year at Egglestone being ‘finished’ followed by lavish country-house balls and wild, carefree summer parties at Henley. And then, of course, should have come marriage, babies…
    Suddenly she fell silent.
    Redmond looked at her face. She was crying, silent tears slipping down on to the pillow.
    ‘Hey…’ he murmured, and held her tighter.
    Faltering, she went on talking.
    There had been a pregnancy. Her parents had been ashamed. They had demanded to know who was the father of her child, but she hadn’t told them, she couldn’t tell them that her father’s brother, the beloved uncle who had dandled her on his knee as a child, had impregnated her.
    ‘What happened then?’ he asked her, wiping away her tears.
    ‘They sent me away to my cousin’s for the abortion,’ Mira told him, choking to get the words out through her tears.
    ‘Shh,’ he said, rocking her.
    ‘And after that,’ she said when she could speak again, ‘I never went home again. Never saw my parents again. Couldn’t stand to see the disappointment in their eyes when they looked at me.’
    She sat up, hugging her knees to her chest. He stroked her back, feeling oddly relieved. She was like him after all. She too had gone to forbidden places, and lived to tell the tale.
    ‘You could tell them the truth. It wasn’t your fault. It’s not too late,’ he said.
    She shook her head vehemently.
    ‘Yes it is. My father loves his brother better than anyone in the world, including me. He didn’t believe me then and he wouldn’t believe me now. Neither would my mother. It’s too late. It’s over.’
    ‘I’m sorry,’ he said, understanding completely, utterly. ‘So after that you became…?’
    She shot a glance back at him. A tight smile.
    ‘A whore?’ With a heavy sigh she threw herself back on to the pillows. ‘It wasn’t that difficult a transition. Men flocked around me, wined and dined me, bought me jewels. Men always have. My family was dead to me, I had to make my own way and what was I good for? I’d never had any training. Anything beyond arranging a few flowers and making a perfect Sacher torte was beyond me. Stupid, yes? What a way to raise a girl to face the world.’
    He said nothing.
    ‘These men coveted me, wanted to pay for my company on holidays in the Bahamas and dinners at the best restaurants, in exchange for sexual favours. So I drifted into that life. And you know what’s strange? I never felt anything for any of them, never felt a thing, until I met you.’
    He nodded, pulled her in close against him. He knew that she had instinctively recognized that taint in his soul, the same taint that was in her. That was what had drawn them so swiftly together. It would never leave either of them.
    ‘My poor darling,’ he said against her hair, and pushed her hand down to his cock again, because the tale of what her uncle had done to her had aroused him.

Chapter 9
    Kath, Annie’s cousin, was up in the flat with her three-year-old son,