Free Something Dangerous (Spoils of Time 02) by Penny Vincenzi

editor,’ said Kit, picking up the newspaper, ‘so I expect you will be.’ He smiled his seraphic smile. ‘Did you know Dame Ellen Terry has died? That’s sad, I liked listening to her on my wireless.’
    Later after lunch, Sebastian and Barty walked along the river walk; she was quiet and seemed distracted.
    ‘What’s the matter?’ he said.
    ‘Oh – I don’t know.’
    ‘Yes you do. Penny for ’em.’
    ‘It’s well – it’s – you won’t say anything to Aunt Celia, will you?’
    ‘Of course not. I never speak to her these days without full written permission.’ He grinned at her.
    ‘It’s just that I really don’t want to work at Lyttons.’
    ‘You don’t like the idea of publishing?’
    ‘Yes, of course I do. It’s something I’ve thought a lot about actually. But—’
    ‘But not at Lyttons.’
    She nodded soberly.
    ‘Because it would be too easy? Because of what people would say?’
    ‘Well yes. And—’
    ‘And what?’ He put his arm round her shoulders. ‘Come on, you can tell me.’
    ‘It’s just that – well, it means more – more gratitude. More knowing how lucky I am. I’m so tired of it, Sebastian. So terribly tired of it.’
     
    Later that night, safely back in Oxford with Pandora, Sebastian told her of Barty’s problems. She listened intently, her large brown eyes fixed on his; then ‘Poor Barty,’ she said, ‘poor little thing.’
    ‘Not so poor,’ said Sebastian, feeling a rather surprising and disconcerting rush of defensiveness towards the Lyttons, ‘she’s had huge benefits from the arrangement. It wasn’t all bad. Celia adores her and—’
    ‘I fancy being adored by Lady Celia is not an undiluted pleasure,’ said Pandora.
    ‘Of course not. But it’s better than not being adored by her, like poor Giles. And then Barty is extremely clever and her temperament allows her to take full advantage of that. And training as an editor at Lyttons is not exactly a bad way to start a career.’
    ‘Of course not. But – it’s what she said, Sebastian. I can so sympathise with that. About the gratitude. It must be so difficult.’
    ‘Quite difficult. I have had to endure it myself to a small degree. Not now of course, but in the beginning. When Celia first bought Meridian and fought for it so hard, and against Oliver too—’
    ‘Yes, yes. I don’t think I want to hear too much about those days,’ said Pandora. ‘Come along, my darling, let us go to bed. I’ve been missing you rather dreadfully . . .’
     
    Later – much later – Pandora lay in his arms watching him sleep, and thinking how much she loved him.
    The violence of her feelings for him had not only taken her by surprise at the time, they continued to shake and even shock her. A great dynamic force for pleasure of every kind, emotional, intellectual, physical. She was not entirely inexperienced; she had been deeply in love on every level with her fiancé, and during the twelve years since his death had had one or two lovers – ‘Well, two actually,’ she said, laughing to Sebastian when he pressed her for accuracy, but she had been largely frustrated, her energies mostly suppressed. Now the places to which she travelled in Sebastian’s bed, the experiences she shared with him there, were of a splendour and richness she had not imagined possible. Released by him, by his skill and tenderness and a considerable creative sexuality, her responses ran almost out of control at first; then she found she was able to offer him gifts of her own, a tireless sexual energy and curiosity, a clear, uninhibited delight. She could not have enough of him, would fall asleep finally sated and wake him, laughing gently at herself, a few hours later for more.
    ‘I’m an old man, my darling, I need my rest,’ he would say, but in truth was filled with joy and even relief that he could give her such pleasure. Love for her had always been before a finite thing, a part of life, one of its delights; but now what she