Sean had the philanderer's sure and certain instinct, perhaps he had inherited it from his father. He hadn't really thought about Veronica's mother that way. God! She was as old as his mother.
However, since Clare East he had always had a taste for older women, and Marjorie Weston was slim and athletic from swimming and tennis and meticulously tanned to disguise the crow's feet at the corners of her eyes and the first signs of craping at her throat; and where Veronica was vacuous and simpering, her mother was poised and mature, but with the same mauve-blue eyes that had first attracted him to the daughter and an even more carefully groomed mane of thick tawny hair.
As Sean became aware of her excitement, the flush of blood beneath her tan, the agitated breathing that made her bosom beneath the angora jersey and pearls work like a bellows and the subtle change in her body odour that the average male would not have noticed, but which to Sean was like an invitation on an embossed card, he found his own arousal was spiced by the perversity of the situation.
'A double,' he thought. 'Mother and daughter - now that's something different." He didn't have to plot further, he let his infallible instinct guide him.
'You are much more attractive than your daughters could ever be - the main reason I broke off with Ronny was I couldn't bear being near you without being able to do this --' and he leaned over her and kissed her with an open mouth.
Marjorie had believed herself to be in complete control of the situation right up until the moment she tasted his mouth. Neither of them spoke again until he was kneeling in front of her, holding her knees apart with both hands, and she was sprawled across the sofa with her pleated skirt rucked up around her waist. Then she panted brokenly, 'Oh Christ, I can't believe this is happening - I must be crazy." Now she sat at the foot of the stairs in her satin bathrobe. She was naked under the robe and every few seconds she shivered in a brief spasm. The night was warm, and the house was in darkness. The girls were asleep upstairs and Mark was away on one of his regular business trips. This was the first chance at an assignation there had been in almost two weeks and she was shivering with anticipation.
She had switched off the burglar alarms at nine o'clock as they had arranged - Sean was almost half an hour late. Perhaps something had happened and he wasn't coming after all. She hugged herself and shivered miserably at the thought, then she heard the light tap on the glass of the french windows leading on to the swimming-pool patio, and she leapt to her feet and raced across the darkened room.
She found she was panting as she fumbled with the latch.
Sean stepped into the room and seized her. He was so tall and powerful that she turned to putty in his arms. No man had ever kissed her like this, so masterfully and yet so skilfully. She sometimes wondered who had taught him and then was consumed by jealousy at the thought. Her need of him was so intense that waves of giddy vertigo washed over her and without his arms to support her she was certain she would have sagged to the floor. Then he tugged at the knot that secured the belt of her robe. It came undone and he thrust his hand into the opening. She shifted her weight, setting her feet wider apart so he could reach her more easily, and she gave a stifled gasp as she felt him slip his forefinger into her and she pushed hard against his hand.
'Lovely,' Sean chuckled in her ear. 'Like the Zambezi river in flood." 'Shh,' she whispered. 'You'll wake the girls." Marjorie liked to think of herself as genteel and refined, yet his crude words increased her excitation to a fever. 'Lock the door,' she ordered him, her voice thick and shaking. 'Let's go upstairs." He released her and turned to the door. He pressed it closed until the catch snapped and then turned the key and in the same instant reversed the movement, leaving it unlocked.
'All right." He turned back to Marjorie. 'All set." They kissed again, and she ran her hands frantically down the front of his body, feeling the throbbing hardness through the thin cloth. It was she who broke away at last.
'Oh God, I can't wait any longer." She took his hand and dragged him up the marble staircase. The girls' bedrooms were in the east wing and Marjorie locked the heavy mahogany door that secured the master suite. They were safe from discovery here, and at last she could let herself go completely.
Marjorie We, stan had been married for over twenty years, and she had taken about the same number of lovers in that time. Some of them had merely been mad one-night frolics, others had been longer more permanent liaisons. One had lasted for almost all these twenty years, an erratic on-and-off arrangement, passionate interludes interspersed with long periods of denial. However, none of her other lovers had been able to match this stripling in beauty and performance, in physical endurance and in devilish inventiveness, not even Shasa Courtney who was that other long-term lover. The son had the same intuitive understanding of her needs. He knew when to be rough and cruel and when to be loving and gentle, but in other ways he outstripped his father. She had never been able to exhaust him or even to force him to falter, and he had a streak of genuine brutality and inherent evil in him that could terrify her at times. Added to that was the almost incestuous delight of taking the son after having had the father.
Tonight Sean did not disappoint her. While she was driving hard towards her first climax of the evening he suddenly reached out to the bedside table and lifted the telephone receiver.
'Ring your husband,' he ordered, and thrust the instrument into her hand.
'God, are you mad!" she gasped. 'What would I say to him?" 'Do it!" he said, and she realized that if she refused, he would slap her across the face. He had done that before.
Still holding him between her thighs, she twisted awkwardly and dialled the Carlton Hotel in Johannesburg. When the hotel operator answered, she said, 'I wish to speak to Mr Mark Weston in Suite 1750." 'You are going through,' the operator said, and Mark answered on the third ring.
'Hello darling,' Marjorie said, and above her Sean began to move again. 'I couldn't sleep, so I thought I'd ring you. Sorry if I woke you." It became a contest will Sean trying to force her to gasp or cry out, while she attempted to maintain a casual conversation with Mark. When he succeeded and she gave a little involuntary squeal, Mark asked sharply, 'What was that?" 'I made myself a cup of Milo and it was too hot. I burned my lip." She could see how it was exciting Sean also. His face was no longer beautiful but swollen and flushed so that his features seemed coarsened, and in her she felt him swell and harden, filling her to bursting point, until she could control herself no longer, and she broke off the telephone conversation abruptly. 'Goodnight, Mark, sleep well,' and slammed the receiver down on its cradle, just as the first scream came bursting up her throat.
Afterwards they lay still, both of them regaining their breath, but when he tried to roll off her she tightened the grip of her legs and held him hard. She knew that if she could keep him from sliding out, within minutes he would be ready again.
Outside on the front lawn, the dog barked once. 'Is someone there?" she asked.
'No Prince is just being naughty,' Sean murmured, but he was listening intently, even though he knew that Rufus was too good to be heard, and they had planned every detail with care. Both he and Rufus knew exactly what they were after.
To commemorate the first month of their affair, Marjorie had bought Sean a set of Victorian dress studs and links in platinum and onyx and diamonds. She had invited him up to the house on a Thursday afternoon and led him through to Mark Weston's panelled study on the ground floor. While Sean watched, she checked the combination of the wall safe which was discreetly engraved on the corner of the silver-framed photograph of herself and the girls on Mark's desk, and then she had swung aside the false front of the section of the bookcase that concealed the safe and tumbled the combination of the lock.