Chapter 8 #2
“You know, Molly,” he said in a low, sinuous voice, “you should have told me you wanted to visit my bedroom. I would have invited you long ago.”
Quite casually he reached out and took her by the shoulders, drawing her unresisting body towards him.
“It’s amazing that you still have some effect on me.
” His voice was rough, and his mouth covered hers with a sudden force that left her shocked, stunned, paralyzed.
He held her in an unbreakable grip as he caught her chin in his hand and continued to kiss her, with slow, contemptuous deliberation, refusing to allow her to escape, until she was a shaking, trembling mass of confused reactions, reactions she was powerless to control.
And then his mouth softened, and it was no longer punishment but a reward, and she kissed him back, sliding her arms around his waist, pressing up against him with helpless longing she hadn’t quite understood.
She needed to be here. Locked tight against him, his mouth on hers, demanding nothing but complete surrender. She made a quiet little sound in the back of her throat, and surrender it was.
He pulled away, suddenly, moving back from her as if she’d suddenly become contagious. “Damn you,” he said in a low, furious voice. “Get out of hare.”
She stared at him through the twilight room for a moment, shaken, shocked to the very core of her being. And then she ran from the room without a backward glance. Ran from him as she had run before, five weeks earlier, in the same blind panic.
When she reached her room she slammed the door shut behind her and locked it with a loud, satisfying click.
Leaning against the door, she trembled in the aftermath of his touch.
She had surely never been kissed like that before.
She couldn’t have forgotten such a torrent of emotions.
As a matter of fact, she could have sworn that she’d never been kissed at all—the feel of a hot, wet mouth against hers had been a startling revelation.
But that was absurd. She was twenty-three years old, and married. Her mind must be playing even more sadistic tricks on her.
She moved through her darkened room and threw herself onto the bed. She wouldn’t go down to dinner, she promised herself. She couldn’t face him after...that...that.
She would lie there and starve.
“Molly? Molly, dear, open up. Open up right now!” An imperative voice broke through Molly’s sleep-numbed mind, and she sat up dazedly. It took her a moment to remember where she was, and what had happened. Patrick’s mouth on hers, the too-brief moment that had burned into her brain.
Unfortunately nothing else had disrupted her blank memory. She probed, looking for answers, ignoring the incessant pounding at her door. Still nothing.
“Who is it?” she finally called out groggily, switching on the light.
“Your Aunt Ermintrude, of course. Now open the door immediately.”
What a tyrant, she thought. “What can I do for you?” she called out with deliberate calm.
“What do you mean, what can you do for me? Do as I say immediately, Molly, or I shan’t answer for the consequences.” Her deep contralto voice rose to a tiny squeak of rage.
“Then don’t,” Molly answered mildly enough, glad to have an instinct confirmed. She couldn’t stand dear Aunt Ermy. “I’ll open the door when I’m ready to, and not before. Go away and leave me alone.”
There was an outraged silence beyond the oak door, and she could picture a rather Wagnerian lady bristling with indignation.
After a moment or two she heard angry, stomping footsteps walk away and she chuckled, inordinately pleased that she had managed to rout some member of her hostile family at last.
“Molly.” Mrs. Morse’s soft voice broke through her pleased reverie, and she sprang up. The woman darted into the room as soon as Molly unlocked it, with a furtive glance over her shoulder to make sure she was unobserved.
“My, my, you have put your aunt in a taking,” she said with satisfaction. “Sent me up here to find out what in hell was going on with you.”
Molly threw herself back down on the bed, wondering absently whether she looked any different.
Could Mrs. Morse see that Patrick had kissed her?
Probably not—people were kissed all the time.
Everyone had made it clear she’d done a lot more than kissing, and with a number of men besides her husband.
It was hardly the soul-shattering event it seemed to her overwrought imagination.
“I don’t care much for Aunt Ermy,” Molly said in a meditative voice.
“Well, now that’s a new thing, I must say. You and the old battle-ax used to be inseparable buddies, always tearing poor Patrick apart each chance you got.” She sniffed. “I’m glad you’ve seen the error of your ways.”
“We don’t seem to have much in common,” Molly said. “Are you sure?”
“I’m sure,” she said flatly. “I’m just glad that’s over and done with.
I came to find out if you’d be coming down to dinner.
There’ll only be the three of you—Willy, Ermy, and you.
Patrick took off about an hour ago in a towering rage.
Said he wouldn’t be in for dinner. I wondered if you would know anything about that?
” Her curiosity was unabashed, but Molly wasn’t in the mood to satisfy it.
“Can’t imagine.” She scrambled off the bed. “And of course I’ll be down to dinner. Can I give you a hand?”
“It’s all done. Everything to her highness’s liking, you can be sure.” She pursed her thin lips in disgust. “You can come down and keep her off my back, though. She and Willy are having a high old time in the living room, drinking Patrick’s liquor and heaping insults on him in his absence.”
“I’ll see what I can do,” Molly promised, running a brush thought her hair and following Mrs. Morse’s upright figure through the halls.
She paused at the entrance of the living room, just long enough to take stock of its inhabitants.
Aunt Ermy was Wagnerian, all right, with a high-swept pompadour of silver hair and three determined chins, each one more determined than the last. Tiny, piglike eyes, a retroussé snout with a fierce mustache bristling beneath completed the picture, and of her massive body the less said the better: a mountainous bulk on tiny trotters.
She looked as unpleasant as Molly had imagined her to be, and she was mortally glad the relationship was, at best, a distant one.
“Good evening, everyone,” she greeted them airily as she sailed into the room. Aunt Ermy’s tiny eyes took in the jeans, the T-shirt, the lack of makeup, and her face screwed up into a look of pouting disapproval.
“Well,” rite said at length, “I’m pleased to see you finally decided to come down and greet your poor aunt after your long and mysterious absence. Going off like that without a word!”
Molly smiled at her, not a bit disturbed. “Sorry,” she said briefly, helping herself to a large glass of cranberry juice and slipping into the hard-backed chair left—the two relatives having commandeered the most comfortable ones in the room. “Did you enjoy your visit?”
“I might well ask the same of you,” Aunt Ermy said frostily. Molly eyed her with cold-blooded calm, and she immediately changed her domineering attitude. “Molly, dear, couldn’t you have told us where you were going? We were worried about you! ”
Molly shrugged, and Aunt Ermy leaned closer, the air heavy with the expensive but unsuitably girlish scent she had splashed all over her. “And Willy here tells me you’ve lost your memory. Surely you can’t have forgotten your Aunt Ermy? And all the fun things we used to do together?”
“I’m afraid I have,” she said in a brisk voice. “I’m starving. Mrs. Morse should have dinner ready by now—shall we go in?” Molly rose gracefully, and Aunt Ermy stared up at her with increasing annoyance.
“Well, really, Molly, we’ve hardly started on our second drink,” she began, but Molly interrupted her.
“Oh, that’s perfectly all right, you can bring it in with you,” she said, nipping her protests in the bud.
Uncle Willy looked up from his chair, a gleam of amusement and something else fighting through the sodden expression on his face.
He wandered after them into the dining room, bringing not only his glass but the crystal decanter of whiskey with him.
Molly watched Aunt Ermy bear down on the seat at the head of the table like a steamship.
As soon as she pulled out the heavy chair Molly darted into the seat, smiling at her with all the charm she had at her beck and call.
“Thank you, Aunt Ermy,” she said sweetly, pulling out the heavy linen napkin and placing it on her lap.
Ermintrude stood there for a moment in a floundering rage, immovable and furious. She seated herself with awful majesty at Molly’s right, her mountainous form quivering with indignation.
“You used to dress for dinner, my dear,” was all she said in an aggrieved tone, and Molly considered she’d gotten off lightly.
“I prefer to be comfortable, Aunt Ermy,” she replied calmly.
“And where has he gone tonight?” she questioned.
“Do you mean my husband?” Molly asked her politely. Whatever her differences were with the man, she wasn’t about to let this awful old woman insult him. “He had some business to attend to, I believe.”
“Business like la belle dame Canning, if I’m not mistaken,” Willy snorted from the foot of the table.
“Perhaps,” Molly said, undisturbed. “But I don’t think that’s any of your concern.” Her calm statement put a damper on the dinner conversation, but by the time they were back in the living room and well-fortified with additional alcohol Uncle Willy and Aunt Ermy grew quite loquacious once more.
“I’m glad to see you’re drinking your cranberry juice,” Aunt Ermy observed heavily as she accepted another tail glass from Willy’s drink-fumbled hands. “At least you’re following my precepts in that matter.”
Molly immediately tried to refuse the drink, but Willy took no notice, trying to add a shot of vodka to the glass she held firmly out of reach.
“Come on, my girl,” he pouted. “Don’t go all prudish on us. You used to put away quite a bit of this stuff before your transformation into Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm. Patrick’s not here to see you—live a bit,” he bantered clumsily.
Molly shook her head, frowning in annoyance.
“This doesn’t have anything to do with Patrick,” she snapped irritably, remembering the feel of his hot mouth on hers.
She shivered and sipped at the cranberry juice.
She didn’t want to drink. She didn’t like the idea of alcohol, and if she really was pregnant it gave her an even stronger reason to abstain.
She wondered how her two so-called relatives would react to the notion of a pregnancy. With screams of horror, no doubt. She imagined Aunt Ermy would try to drag her off to the nearest abortion clinic if she could.
“Of course it doesn’t have anything to do with Pat,” Aunt Ermy chimed in. “Do you suppose my poor little girl would let herself be browbeaten by that towering bully? I warned him when I saw him tonight—I wouldn’t stand by and let him order you about.”
“And what did he say to that?” Molly asked curiously.
Uncle Willy snorted. “Told her what she could do with her advice, and that he’d order you about as much as he pleased. Ermy didn’t care for that mud, did you, dearie?” He laughed again, and the sound was a high-pitched giggle.
Molly rose suddenly, disgusted by the two of them. “I think I’ll go up to bed,” she said. “It’s been a long day and I still don’t feel recovered from this morning.”
“Oh, yes, Willy was telling me about your accident.” Was there a slight emphasis on the word accident?
Aunt Ermy seemed all solicitude. “You really should be more careful, Molly dear. Certain people could find your death very convenient. Very convenient indeed. If I were you I wouldn’t go out alone.
” She nodded her head meaningfully, and Molly calmly considered hitting her.
“Thank you for your concern, Aunt Ermy,” she said in a deceptively even voice.
“Patrick has already suggested the same thing. I’ll be sure to take very good care of myself.
” She started out of the room, Beastie at her side.
He obviously cared no more for those two than she herself did, Molly thought gratefully.
“Don’t forget your cranberry juice, Molly.” Willy placed the cool glass in her hand.
She took it with her, managing a tight-lipped smile of thanks.