Her feet made a sucking noise in the ground which was spongy with autumn rains. He turned towards her and immediately held out his arms.
“My lovely....”
She was enfolded.
His warmth and strength made her think of the earth, and there was a faint scent of earth about him as she hid her face on his breast. There was also that smell of the clean straw of stables which she had noticed when she first met him. She rubbed her cheek childishly and fondly against the roughness of his coat then lifted her mouth for his slow, hard kisses.... “My lovely—oh, my lovely.”
“How long can you stay?” he asked her a few minutes later, when they had huddled down together under the wall of the Mocksteeple, from which came a faint radiation of warmth, as the tar gave out the heat it had absorbed during the day.
“Not very long, I’m afraid, Benjie. There are people coming to dinner tonight, and I’ll have to be back in good time. But we must fix about Monday. I’ve already told them I’m going up to town for a day’s shopping, and I’ve written to a friend to choose me a couple of frocks at Debenham’s and send them down—to make the lie hold water. I’m afraid I’m getting quite a resourceful liar.”
“But you are going shopping, dear.”
“Yes, but I can’t tell them it’s furniture, stupid. Oh, Ben, won’t it be wildly exciting choosing things for Fourhouses! But we mustn’t be extravagant, and you’ve got some lovely bits already.”
“I want you to have the whole house to please you—nothing in it that you don’t like.”
“I like everything except the parlour, and those iron bedsteads they have upstairs. We’ll want some chests too, to use instead of the washstands. Then Fourhouses will be perfect inside and out.”