Casualty Of Passion

‘It’s rather small, I’m afraid,’ he apologised. ‘But we’ve put some of the boys in the larger rooms, sharing.’

Small? Kelly gulped. It was palatial! She had spent the last fifteen years sharing a shoe-box of a room with a sister whose idea of tidying up was to chuck all the mess into an already overflowing cupboard! ‘It’s lovely,’ she told him, wandering over to the window. ‘And oh—’ her gaze was suddenly arrested by the tantalising glitter of sunlight on water in the distance ‘—is that a lake I can see?’

‘Mmm.’ He came to stand beside her. ‘We have black swans nesting there. Very rare and very beautiful. I’ll show you later if you like.’

‘I’d like that very much.’

He smiled.

She was suddenly very conscious of just how tall he was, how broad his shoulders; aware too of the powerful thrust of his thighs, similarly clad in denim more faded than her own jeans. She wasn’t used to being alone in bedrooms with strange men, she thought, her heart beating hard, but he seemed unconcerned by his surroundings. But then, why should he not be? He was a medical student, and about twenty-four, she guessed. He would not look twice at a seventeen-year-old schoolgirl.

All the same, she felt that it was probably wise to establish a more formal footing.

‘Which medical school are you at?’ she enquired politely.

‘St Jude’s. I’m in my final year. How about you?’

‘Another year of A-levels, then I’m hoping to get a place at St Christopher’s.’

He frowned. ‘So you’re—how old?’

‘Seventeen— just!’ she smiled, disconcerted to see an expression of disquiet pass over his features. ‘There’s nothing wrong, is there?’

He shook his head. ‘I somehow thought that you were older than that. Most of the students here are just about to go up to medical school. Some are even in their first year. You must be very good to be here.’ The grey eyes were questioning.

Kelly smiled, not falling into the trap of false modesty, knowing her own worth and ability as a student. ‘You’ll have to be the judge of that,’ she answered coolly.

Their eyes met, his giving a brief but unmistakably appreciative flash, and she found that she could not look away, that his face seemed to be at the centre of her whole universe right at that moment. She became aware of other things too, things that up until now she had only read about in biology textbooks: the sudden drying of her mouth and the hammering of her heart. The tightening of her breasts, as though they had become heavy and engorged with blood. And the sudden rucking of her nipples—exquisite and painful and highly disturbing.

Kelly wasn’t stupid. She had grown up in a neighbourhood where girls experimented sexually with boys from as early an age as fourteen, and up until now she had always been disapproving and highly critical of such behaviour. Now, for the first time in her life, she acknowledged the dangerous and potent power of sexual attraction.

She turned away, wondering if he had seen the betraying signs of that attraction in her body. ‘I’d better unpack,’ she said awkwardly. ‘Thanks for showing me to my room ...’ She hesitated. ‘I don’t even know your name.’

He paused for a moment before answering. ‘It’s Randall,’ he told her. ‘And yours?’

‘Kelly. Kelly Hartley.’

‘Because your eyes are Kelly-green?’ he hazarded.

She shook her head and laughed. ‘My mother says I was named after Grace Kelly, but my father disagrees. He says it was Ned Kelly—the bandit!’

He laughed too, then stayed her with a light touch of his hand on her forearm as she moved towards the tatty suitcase which looked ridiculously out of place amidst the restrained elegance of the room. ‘Don’t unpack now—there’ll be plenty of time for that later. It’s such a glorious day. Why don’t you let me show you something of the countryside? We could have lunch somewhere. That’s if you’d like to?’

She would like to very much, although the sensible, studious Kelly could think of all kinds of reasons why she shouldn’t go gallivanting off to lunch with someone she had barely met. But something in the soft silver-grey of his eyes was proving to be impossibly enticing. He was not the first man to have asked her out, but he was the first one she had ever said yes to.

She grinned. ‘I’d love to. Do I need to change?’

He shook his head. ‘You look fantastic. Do you have a ribbon or something?’

Kelly nodded. ‘Why?’

‘Bring it, you’ll need it.’

The reason why was a small, gleaming scarlet sports car which was garaged in an area he called the ‘old stables’. Kelly’s eyes widened. Brought up with frugality as her middle name, she said the first thing which came into her head.

‘How on earth can you afford a car like this as a student?’

He seemed surprised by her frankness. ‘It was a twenty-first birthday present,’ he told her as he opened the car door for her. ‘From my parents.’

‘Generous parents,’ commented Kelly wryly, as she climbed into the car.

He moved into the seat next to her, and turned the ignition key. ‘Oh, they’re certainly generous,’ he said, in a voice which sounded strangely bitter. ‘That’s to say, they find it very easy to buy things.’

She stole a glance at him. ‘What’s wrong with them buying things?’

The silver-grey eyes were direct; disburbing. He shrugged. ‘It doesn’t make up for them never having been there, I suppose.’

‘Doesn’t it? I have exactly the opposite problem with my parents,’ answered Kelly, giving a rueful little smile, wondering if anyone was ever contented with their lot.

‘Then I guess we’ll just have to comfort one another, won’t we?’ he said, his voice soft, mocking, having the power to increase her pulse-rate just with its deep, velvety caress.

Suddenly shy, Kelly quickly gathered her thick red hair up in the black velvet ribbon, afraid he might notice that she was blushing like crazy.

He turned on the ignition, and the little car roared off down the drive, spitting out pieces of gravel in its wake, and Kelly sat back in the seat to enjoy the drive.

It was one of those afternoons which stayed in the memory forever—the most perfect afternoon of Kelly’s life. He drove her to a country pub for lunch where they ate crusty bread and great slabs of farmhouse cheese, washed down with local beer. After that, they walked. And talked. They didn’t seem to stop talking. She told him all about the tiny terraced house she had grown up in, about the shared bedroom and the thin walls where the neighbours’ arguments were broadcast so loudly that they might have been in the same room. She told him of her burning ambition to be a surgeon, and his eyes had narrowed.

‘It’s tough enough, anyway,’ he observed. ‘Even tougher for a woman.’

‘I know,’ she said passionately. ‘And I don’t care! I’m going to defeat all the odds, you wait and see!’

He had smiled then, his eyes soft. ‘I can’t wait,’ he murmured.

She blushed again, realising that she had been monopolising the conversation; he was so incredibly easy to talk to. ‘Now tell me about you,’ she urged him.

‘What, everything?’ he teased.

‘Absolutely everything!’

And Randall painted a picture of his own world, so very different from hers. Kelly’s heart turned over when he described being sent away to boarding school at the tender age of eight.

‘Cold showers and cross-country runs,’ he said, and shuddered theatrically.

‘Did you really hate it?’ she asked sympathetically.

‘I loathed it,’ he said with feeling, then grinned. ‘Don’t look so tragic, Kelly—it was a long time ago,’ and he took her hand in his. She didn’t object; her head was spinning, as though he had intoxicated her just with his presence.

The afternoon flew by and it was almost six when they arrived back at the house. There were several cars parked in front of the house, and a woman, small and matronly, stood on the steps, talking to a group of people, most slightly older than Kelly, and whom she assumed were other medical students.