I, Richard - Elizabeth George [75]
She scooted over to his side of the bed, closer and closer until her huge bosoms were less than an inch from his face. At this proximity, her cleavage resembled Cheddar Gorge and was just about as appealing a sexual object. God, another go-round? he thought. He'd be dead before he was fifty if they went on like this. And not a step nearer to his objective.
He nuzzled within the suffocating depths of her mammaries, making the kinds of yearning noises that she wanted to hear. He did a bit of sucking and then made much of catching sight of his wristwatch on the bedside table.
“Christ!” He grabbed the watch for a feigned better look. “Jesus, Betsy, it's eleven o'clock. I told those Aussie Ricardians I'd meet them at Bosworth Field at noon. I've got to get rolling.”
Which was what he did, right out of bed before she could protest. As he shrugged into his dressing gown, she struggled to transform his announcement into something comprehensible. Her face screwed up and she said, “Those Ozzirecordians? What the hell's that?” She sat up, her blonde hair matted and snarled and most of her makeup smeared from her face.
“Not Ozzirecordians,” Malcolm said. “Aussie. Australian. Australian Ricardians. I told you about them last week, Betsy.”
“Oh, that.” She pouted. “I thought we could have a picnic lunch today.”
“In this weather?” He headed for the bathroom. It wouldn't do to arrive for the tour reeking of sex and Shalimar. “Where did you fancy having a picnic in January? Can't you hear that wind? It must be ten below outside.”
“A bed picnic,” she said. “With honey and cream. You said that was your fantasy. Or don't you remember?”
He paused in the bedroom doorway. He didn't much like the tone of her question. It made a demand that reminded him of everything he hated about women. Of course he didn't remember what he'd claimed to be his fantasy about honey and cream. He'd said lots of things over the past two years of their liaison. But he'd forgotten most of them once it had become apparent that she was seeing him as he wished to be seen. Still, the only course was to play along. “Honey and cream,” he sighed. “You brought honey and cream? Oh Christ, Bets.…”A quick dash back to the bed. A tonguely examination of her dental work. A frantic clutching between her legs. “God, you're going to drive me mad, woman. I'll be walking round Bosworth with my prong like a poker all day.”
“Serves you right,” she said pertly and reached for his groin. He caught her hand in his.
“You love it,” he said.
“No more'n you.”
He sucked her fingers again. “Later,” he said. “I'll trot those wretched Aussies round the battlefield and if you're still here then… You know what happens next.”
“It'll be too late then. Bernie thinks I've only gone to the butcher.”
Malcolm favoured her with a pained look, the better to show that the thought of her hapless and ignorant husband—his old best friend Bernie—scored his soul. “Then there'll be another time. There'll be hundreds of times. With honey and cream. With caviar. With oysters. Did I ever tell you what I'll do with the oysters?”
“What?” she asked.
He smiled. “Just you wait.”
He retreated to the bathroom, where he turned on the shower. As usual, an inadequate spray of lukewarm water fizzled out of the pipe. Malcolm shed his dressing gown, shivered, and cursed his circumstances. Twenty-five years in the classroom, teaching history to spotty-faced hooligans who had no interest in anything beyond the immediate gratification of their sweaty-palmed needs, and what did he have to show for it? Two up and two down in an ancient terraced house down the street from Gloucester Grammar. An ageing Vauxhall with no spare tyre. A mistress with an agenda for marriage and a taste for kinky sex.
And a passion for a long-dead King that—he was determined— would be the wellspring from which would flow his future. The means were so close, just tantalising centimetres from his eager grasp. And once his reputation was secured, the book contracts, the speaking engagements,