Eye of the Needle - Ken Follett [97]
She thought of Henry again, and realized—accepted—the truth: she wanted to make love to him.
It was the kind of wish that, in her scheme of things, afflicted men but not women. A woman might meet a man briefly and find him attractive, want to get to know him better, even begin to fall in love with him; but she did not feel an immediate physical desire, not unless she was…abnormal.
She told herself that this was ridiculous; that what she needed was to make love with her husband, not to copulate with the first eligible man who came along. She told herself she was not that kind.
All the same, it was pleasant to speculate. David and Jo were fast asleep; there was nothing to stop her from getting out of bed, crossing the landing, entering his room, sliding into bed next to him…
Nothing to stop her except character, good breeding and a respectable upbringing.
If she were going to do it with anybody, she would do it with someone like Henry. He would be kind, and gentle and considerate; he would not despise her for offering herself like a Soho streetwalker.
She turned over in the bed, smiling at her own foolishness; how could she possibly know whether he would despise her? She had only known him for a day, and he had spent most of that day asleep.
Still, it would be nice to have him look at her again, his expression of admiration tinged with some kind of amusement. It would be nice to feel his hands, to touch his body, to squeeze against the warmth of his skin.
She realized that her body was responding to the images in her mind. She felt the urge to touch herself, and resisted it, as she had done for four years. At least I haven’t dried up, like an old crone, she thought.
She moved her legs, and sighed as a warm sensation spread through her. This was getting unreasonable. It was time to go to sleep. There was just no way she would make love to Henry, or to anyone else, tonight.
With that thought she got out of bed and went to the door.
FABER HEARD a footfall on the landing, and he reacted automatically.
His mind cleared instantly of the idle, lascivious thoughts it had been occupied with. He swung his legs to the floor and slid out from under the bedclothes in a single fluid movement; then silently crossed the room to stand beside the window in the darkest corner, the stiletto knife in his right hand.
He heard the door open, heard the intruder step inside, heard the door close again. At that point he started to think rather than react. An assassin would have left the door open for a quick escape, and it occurred to him that there were a hundred reasons why it was impossible that an assassin should have found him here.
He ignored the thought—he had survived this long by catering to the one-in-a-thousand chance. The wind dropped momentarily, and he heard an indrawn breath, a faint gasp from beside his bed, enabling him to locate the intruder’s exact position. He moved.
He had her on the bed, face down, with his knife at her throat and his knee in the small of her back before he accepted that the intruder was a woman, and a split-second later acknowledged her identity. He eased his grip, reached out to the bedside table and switched on the light.
Her face was pale in the dim glow of the lamp.
Faber sheathed the knife before she could see it. He took his weight off her body. “I’m very sorry,” he said. “I—”
She turned onto her back and looked up at him in astonishment as he straddled her. It was outrageous, but somehow the man’s sudden reaction had excited her more than ever. She began to giggle.
“I thought you were a burglar,” Faber said, knowing he must sound ridiculous.
“And where would a burglar come from, may I ask?” The color rushed back to her cheeks in a blush.
She was wearing a very loose, old-fashioned flannel nightgown that covered her from her throat to her ankles. Her dark-red hair spread across Faber’s pillow in disarray. Her eyes seemed very large, and her lips were wet.
“You are remarkably beautiful,” Faber said quietly.