A deep flush mantled Briony’s cheeks. They had decided to move down to the house Kieron was renting from his friends the day after the wedding took place, and to Briony’s surprise Kieron had raised no objections to her insistence that she and Nicky stayed in her own house until then. However, her poppy-flushed cheeks were the result of a last-minute quixotic impulse this morning before the taxi arrived with Mrs Johnson which had taken her upstairs to the upper flat’s double bedroom, which was still furnished, where she had made the bed up with fresh sheets and placed a clean nightdress conspicuously across it. The moment Mrs Johnson arrived she regretted the foolish gesture. What on earth did it matter what the woman thought of her marriage?—but with her own taxi at the door it had been too late to run upstairs and rectify her mistake.
‘Perhaps Nicky will let you share his bed?’ she suggested with a touch of humour.
‘Or perhaps his mummy will let me share hers?’
‘No!’
‘So vehement,’ Kieron mocked gently. ‘I seem to remember a time when you couldn’t wait for me to share your bed.’
Briony was too chagrined to look at him. How could she survive their marriage if he was constantly going to be throwing the past in her face?
‘Perhaps what you taught me there made me want to ensure that there was never a repeat performance!’ she threw at him to conceal her embarrassment.
The car suddenly screeched to a halt, flinging her hard against the passenger door, the blow knocking the breath from her body. Kieron’s hands were on her shoulders, his eyes glittering with fury as he pulled her towards him.
‘Don’t you ever accuse me of anything like that again!’ he muttered menacingly through gritted teeth. ‘Or I really will give you something to complain about. And while we’re here.…’
His mouth covered hers bruisingly, his hands in her hair, tangling the curls. The kiss robbed her of breath, hard and angry in its demand, and then he released her and thrust her back into her seat.
‘Now you look as though you’ve just got married,’ he grated with satisfaction.
‘I’m sure Mrs Johnson will be most impressed,’ Briony said bitterly. ‘But you needn’t have bothered. Other people’s impressions don’t worry me.’
Briony had done her best to prepare Nicky for their new life. He had been told about the wedding, but had expressed little interest, being far more concerned with when his daddy was actually coming to live with them.
Already he doted on Kieron, and Briony had suffered several pangs of jealousy watching them together. Already, in a few brief days, Nicky seemed to have grown from a baby to a little boy.
He toddled out of the house the moment the car stopped, suffering Briony’s swift hug with impatience before turning to his father and demanding to be carried.
‘I’ll put him to bed,’ she said over her shoulder to Kieron as they entered the house. ‘Why don’t you give Mrs Johnson a lift home?’
‘On your wedding night?’ the latter exclaimed. ‘I wouldn’t dream of it!’
‘How about letting me put Nicky to bed?’ Kieron suggested when she had gone.
‘Can’t you be content with being his father?’ Briony lashed out at him. ‘Must you usurp my role as well?’
‘You mistook my intention,’ Kieron said quietly, his body suddenly tense. He had been putting Nicky on the floor, and as though sensing the anger in the adult voices the little boy whimpered protestingly and clung to Kieron’s legs.
‘You looked tired. The doctor said you weren’t to overdo things. You hardly ate a thing at the reception. I was going to suggest that I put Nicky to bed while you rested, and that then I made us an omelette.’
‘Oh, for God’s sake, Kieron, stop the play-acting!’ All at once her self-control snapped. Was Kieron deliberately trying to make her feel guilty and unreasonable? If so he was succeeding. Even Nicky was looking at her with a frown in his dark blue eyes. ‘I’ll see to Nicky.…’ she began, and then remembering the yet-to-be-attended-to upstairs bedroom, changed her mind and said flatly, ‘Oh, what’s the use? You do it if you must, only don’t bother with an omelette for me. If I had to eat anything I’d choke!’
She let herself out of the flat while Kieron and Nicky were in the bathroom.
Upstairs the evening sun poured into the comfortable double bedroom, shining through the thin cotton nightdress she had placed on the bed. She was just reaching it when the door opened, and Kieron’s exasperated voice said, ‘So there you are! Nicky wants his duck and I.…’
She had her back to him, but she knew the instant he saw the nightdress, because his voice suddenly changed, sharp with disbelief, and it didn’t need his soft, ‘Well, well, it seems as though I am going to have a wedding night after all,’ to warn her what a precarious position she had placed herself in.
‘I put it there because of Mrs Johnson,’ she began defensively,
‘You did? A woman who not two hours ago was telling me that she didn’t give a damn about other people’s impressions? I don’t believe you.’
‘Believe what you damned well like. I wouldn’t sleep with you willingly if you were the last man on earth!’
‘You wouldn’t get the chance,’ Kieron replied brutally, ‘if that shapeless cotton sack is the nearest you can get to wearing something enticing.’ His fingers flicked disparagingly at the garment in question, high-necked and faded from numerous washings, and hurt tears stung Briony’s eyes, although why she should be hurt she could not have said, but as though his contemptuous words had touched a deep buried nerve she quivered with mingled pain and indignation, longing to deliver an equally effective snub back. The nearest she could get to it was to demand breathlessly, ‘I don’t suppose you sleep in anything?’
‘Certainly not,’ he agreed suavely. ‘And I haven’t had any complaints as yet.’