Paula Marshall - Jack Compton's Luck

He could, however, take her hand and stroke it gently. This had the strongest effect on both of them—of which, of course, they could take no advantage.

‘I have to go home tomorrow,’ Jack told her. ‘I can’t imagine when we shall next have a chance to meet.’

Lacey, who had just decided to stroke Jack’s hand for a change, murmured, ‘So soon. Do you realise how short a time we have known one another?’

‘Yes. Odd, isn’t it? I have known some pretty girls for years and have never had the slightest inclination to feel for them what I have begun to feel for you.’

There, it was out. He had said it—and damn the consequences. She, and certainly Aunt Sue, might dub him fortune hunter, but he—and he hoped Lacey—knew that was not true. Had he been a real hunter, roving the plains in the distant long ago, even before Tutankhamen, he would have thrown her over his shoulder and run off with her to some convenient cave!

Which was an impossible dream. They were trapped in the twentieth century in a society which, outwardly at least, imposed the strictest standards on the behaviour of young unmarried people.

‘We could write to one another,’ suggested Lacey, who was feeling a little desperate herself. During their walk around the Exhibition she had discovered that Jack had a fund of knowledge—not academic, unlike her own, but that of a man of intelligence who had read widely. He had spoken of his time in Palestine, and of the problems of the Jews and Arabs there, with sympathy and understanding.

Now she was to lose him to a succession of young men, many of whom were little more intelligent than Bertie Wooster!

‘Would you?’ exclaimed Jack. ‘Would you really?’ He was beginning to believe that Lacey was as entranced by him as he was by her. Of course, nothing could come of it. After all, it was highly unlikely that one of America’s richest heiresses would be allowed to marry poverty-stricken Jack Compton. Aunt Sue’s would not be the only voice raised against it. He was scarcely in the same league as the Amherst heir.

On the other hand, he might as well follow the old Roman motto, Carpe diem, or ‘seize the day’ in plain English, and make hay while the sun shines, as another old saying had it! Such an odd mishmash of ancient advice as he was giving himself made him laugh internally since it was proof positive of the excited state he had been in since he had first seen Lacey dancing the Charleston only one short week ago.

‘Of course. You must give me your address immediately. I can’t be asking you for it in Aunt Sue’s hearing.’ Lacey rummaged in her large handbag and produced a gold propelling pencil and a small notebook, which she opened at the first blank page she found.

‘It’s an easy one to remember,’ Jack told her, writing it down. ‘Compton Place, Sussex, would probably find us, but to be quite safe, I’ll put the long one down.’

He handed the little book back to her. ‘And now we’ve enjoyed the cultural and economic delights of Wembley, how about visiting the Amusement Park and having a go on the Scenic Ride on the roller coaster, or switch-back railway, before we try to find the others?’

‘What could be better?’ exclaimed Lacey enthusiastically. ‘I went on one at Coney Island when I was a little girl. I was frightened to death and screamed all the way down—and up! Promise to hold my hand if I’m frightened again.’

‘Oh, I promise to hold your hand even if you’re not frightened,’ Jack told her gravely.

So they wandered off to the Amusement Park to engage in an activity of which Aunt Sue would undoubtedly deplore! Lacey did scream, but with pleasure, not fear, this time and hung on to Jack after a fashion which made him feel both manly and protective—as well as hopelessly roused.

He took the opportunity to stroke her head gently when she buried it in his chest—which had the effect of rousing him further. He could not stop himself from kissing her neck when she let go of him on one of the less exciting parts of the run—and that did nothing for his composure either.

By the flush on Lacey’s face when she finally sat up and straightened herself, Jack could tell that she had been enjoying his petting of her nearly as much as he had. On the final run in, she murmured to him, ‘Oh, I did like that,’ though whether she was referring to the ride itself or his attentions to her during it he was still not quite sure.

Lacey, however, was quite sure. Oh, she had been stroked and kissed by a man before, but it had never had the powerful affect on her which Jack’s gentle loving had caused. She was experienced enough to know what the shivers of delight which had overcome her during the ride truly meant. They meant that she was ready, nay, needed, more than he had just offered her.

And what did that tell her of her true feelings for him?

She didn’t go quite so far as to say that she wanted to go round again, although had Jack invited her to she would immediately have agreed.

Instead, regretfully, she looked at her watch and exclaimed, ‘We really ought to try to find our party, we’ve almost reached the time when we agreed to return home.’

‘True,’ said Jack, ‘but not before I do this.’ He had already decided that there was safety in numbers and that since he and Lacey were suitably anonymous, lost in a crowd which neither knew nor cared what they did, it would be quite safe to give her a real kiss, not the soft ones he had offered her on their ride. So he saluted her not chastely on the cheek, but nearly chastely on the lips, almost in passing as it were, needing no passionate embrace.

Lacey made no attempt to stop him and it was he who broke away first. ‘Forgive me,’ he said, ‘but I have spent the whole afternoon wanting to do that. If you didn’t like it, I promise not to do it again.’

‘Oh, don’t say that,’ she riposted briskly. ‘I liked it very much. In fact, I wouldn’t object if you did it again—more slowly this time.’

‘In that case,’ said Jack, ‘I will try to oblige you.’

What was preventing him from being a little more urgent with her was that he was hanging on to his self-control by a thread. If Lacey had been surprised by the strength of her reactions to him, Jack was equally surprised by the depths of passion which he was plumbing while he was simply squiring Lacey round an Amusement Park!

This time the kiss was both long and slow. Lacey had her back to the wall of one of the booths, her arms around his neck, and was standing on tiptoe so that she could enjoy as much of him as possible.

The kiss went on and on and became more and more passionate. His wicked tongue parted her lips and danced with hers and when Jack, for very self-preservation, pulled away from her, her swollen face and lips told him that she was as roused as he was.

For a moment, they stared at one another, lost not only to the crowd, but to themselves, almost unable to speak since time and place had disappeared too. When speech returned to them, it was Lacey who spoke first.

‘Much though I am enjoying myself,’ she murmured breathlessly, ‘and would love to prolong it, we really ought to behave ourselves and join the others. Aunt Sue will be thinking that I’ve been kidnapped by White Slavers and that you have been left for dead somewhere.’

‘True,’ said Jack again, slowly returning to the realities of the everyday world, if being in an Amusement Park at the Exhibition could be called the real world! ‘George told us all that if we became lost we should return to the main entrance by five o’clock and I calculate that we have just about time to do that.’

They found most of the party there, waiting for them and several others who had been playing hookey, as Lacey called it when they were on the way back.