Casualty Of Passion. Sharon Kendrick

in trouble.’

      In trouble ...

      Kelly remembered Jo Grant at school, only fifteen, but now prematurely aged as she pushed the pram up the hill every morning.

      ‘Randall,’ she whispered urgently.

      He lifted his head from her breast, his voice thick with passion. ‘What?’

      ‘You won’t—’

      ‘Oh, I most certainly will, my darling,’ he murmured.

      ‘—make me pregnant, will you?’

      The silence which filled the room was brittle, electric. She felt him tense, heard him stifle some profanity, before he rolled off her, and, with his back to her, the broad set of his shoulders forbidding and stiff with some kind of unbearable tension, began to pull his clothes on.

      Kelly was filled with hurt and confusion. She had meant ... had meant ... that they should ...

      ‘Randall?’ she whispered tentatively, and when he turned, in the act of wincing as he struggled to zip up his trousers, she almost recoiled from the look of frustration on his face, which quickly gave way to one of bored disdain.

      ‘You certainly pick your moments,’ he drawled cuttingly. ‘Couldn’t you have said something earlier?’

      ‘Well, what about you?’ Outraged and indignant, she sat up, her hair tumbling to conceal her breasts, and she saw a nerve begin to work in his cheek. ‘You didn’t seem inclined to discuss it either. Don’t you think that you have some responsibility too?’ she demanded.

      ‘That’s just the trouble, Kelly,’ he said, in a bitter, flat and angry voice. ‘I wasn’t doing any thinking at all.’

      And without another word he slammed his way out of the room, leaving Kelly to spend the most miserable night of her life.

      The next morning she had risen early, hoping to get away before anyone else was up, and yet trying to suppress the foolish and humiliating little hope that he would still want to see her. She quickly packed her few belongings into the suitcase and went silently down the stairs.

      Mary was placing a pile of newspapers on a tray, and looked up, her eyes hardening with disapproval when she saw Kelly.

      ‘Will you be wanting breakfast, miss?’ she asked grudgingly.

      Kelly shook her head. ‘No, thank you. I—I’d like to get away just as soon as possible. Will you please—’ she swallowed. She must be courteous; she still had her pride ‘—thank Randall for his hospitality?’

      ‘Yes, miss. Though I don’t know when I shall be seeing him next.’

      ‘I’m sorry? But he’ll be down for breakfast before he goes back, surely?’

      ‘Oh, no, miss.’

      Kelly’s heart started thundering with the implication behind the cook’s triumphant statement.

      ‘Just that Lord Rousay’s already gone back to London. Left here at dawn, he did. Driving that car of his as though the devil himself was chasing him.’

      ‘Oh, I see,’ said Kelly, in a small, empty little voice, as the fairy-tale disintegrated.

      And she had never set eyes on him again.