Barbara Bradford - A Woman of Substance

He knelt before her. He took off her shoes and kissed her feet, and then he buried his head in her lap. Automatically she ran her hands through his crisp black hair and bent to kiss the crown. She smoothed her fingers over his enormous shoulders and down his sunburned back, and she felt his muscles rippling under her touch.

‘There hasn’t been a day I haven’t thought about you, Emma. A day I haven’t wanted you. Longed for you. Needed you, my love. Never in all these years,’ he cried in a muffled voice. He gripped her thighs, burying his face deeper into her. He finally raised his head and looked up, his eyes brilliant. ‘I’ve never stopped loving you, Emma.’

‘And I’ve never stopped loving you, Paul,’ she said softly, and her eyes grew huge, turned dark, and swam with tears.

He stood up and pressed her back on to the bed. He stretched himself on top of her, encircling her with his arms, kissing her face, her throat, and her shoulders. It seemed to Paul that the rest of their clothes just fell away. They were naked and in each other’s arms again, and he was blinded by his searing passion, the feverishness of his unendurable desire. He could hardly wait to possess her, to become one with her, but he controlled himself rigorously, leading her along as he always had in the past, arousing her as only he could. He covered her entire body with kisses, and caressed every intimate and erotic part of her until she gasped with delight, and her unbridled excitement only served to inflame him more than ever.

She thought: There is only him. He is the only thing that matters in my life. He is the only man I have ever truly loved and desired. If he goes away, and I never see him again as long as 1 live, this moment will have been worth it. It will last me for ever.

He felt her fingers gripping his shoulders. She stiffened and spasmed and then her body was racked by shudders, and she called his name in a low moaning voice and he knew, with the utmost certainty, that only with him had she experienced this special kind of ecstasy and fulfilment. He lifted his head and trailed his lips up over her smooth flat stomach until they reached her breasts. His mouth lingered there a moment and moved on into the hollow of her neck. She sighed and quivered under him, her arms entwining him, her hands sliding voluptuously down his back. He thought he was going to explode. He arched his body over hers, his arms braced on either side of her, and gazed down into her pleasure-filled eyes. Her deepest emotions were explicit on her face, that best-loved face that haunted him always, and he was moved by the wonder of it all, by the wonder of her, and his heart twisted.

And he took her then, his manhood at full flood, thrusting deeply into the very core of her, to touch her heart, and she responded with a rush of enveloping sweet warmth, spontaneously, wildly giving herself with no reserve. And her need for him was as clamouring as his need for her.

Memory became reality. Pain was transmuted into joy. Anger was diffused by passion. They were fused together in desire and exquisite bliss. Having suffered for each other and their love, there was a new awareness between them, an intensity of feelings heightened, a rare poignancy in their breathless consummation. And as perfect as their lovemaking had been in the past, this time it was more stunning than ever before, and they were devastated by the impact of their reunion.

Much later, when they lay clasped in each other’s arms, unable to tear themselves apart, shattered and exhausted, Paul said, ‘I will never leave you again, Emma. Never, as long as I live. I know you’re afraid I will hurt you. But I won’t. You must believe me, my darling.’

‘I’m not afraid, Paul,’ she said against his chest. ‘And I do believe you. I know now you will be with me always.’

He felt her smile. ‘What is it?’

‘Years ago someone called me Doubting Emma. Perhaps I was. Do you remember when you quoted Abelard to me and told me to have faith, before you went back to the front?’

‘Yes, I do, my love.’

‘Well, if I had that faith, when you were absent in Australia in 1919, perhaps all this anguish and torment we have experienced could have been avoided. I’ll never doubt you again.’

He smiled and pulled her closer to him and kissed a strand of her hair. ‘We’ll make up for the lost years,’ he said.

Emma let herself into her house in Roundhay, shivering slightly from the cold December wind. She slipped out of the sable coat, which Paul had bought for her the previous winter when they had been in New York together, and threw it on to a chair. She walked briskly across the hall, thinking of Paul with a rush of tenderness. She must telephone him immediately to let him know she was arriving in London tomorrow.

She went into the library and stopped dead in her tracks on the threshold, astonishment flashing on to her face. ‘Good heavens, Edwina! What are you doing at home? I thought the winter term didn’t end until next week.’

‘It doesn’t,’ Edwina snapped, staring coldly at her mother.

Her daughter’s face was unusually pale, and the girl’s distress instantly communicated itself to her. Upon reaching the sofa Emma made a motion to kiss her, but Edwina swiftly averted her head. Faltering, Emma sat down opposite Edwina. On closer inspection the girl seemed positively ill. Or was it that grey school uniform which drained the colour from her face? Edwina looked almost gaunt in the winter afternoon light.

‘Whatever is it, darling?’ Emma asked with real concern. ‘What are you doing at home? Did something happen to upset you?’

‘No, it didn’t. I came home because I wanted to see you,’ Edwina retorted. ‘To talk to you about this.’ She pulled an envelope out of her pocket and tossed it to Emma.

‘Whatever it is they are teaching you at that expensive boarding school, it certainly isn’t manners,’ Emma remarked softly, and bent to pick up the paper at her feet.

Edwina cried shrilly, ‘You don’t have to bother looking inside. It’s my birth certificate. You wouldn’t give me the original, so I wrote to Somerset House for a copy. You know what’s on it. And now I know why you have hidden it from me all these years.’

The envelope fluttered in Emma’s shaking hand and she stared at it blankly, the blood draining out of her. She looked at Edwina, a feeling of nausea overwhelming her, and her mouth was stiff and white-lipped. She could not speak.

In turn, Edwina regarded Emma fixedly, a scornful expression on her face. ‘Why are you looking so shocked, Mother ?’ she spat. ‘I’m the one who should be shocked. After all, I’m the one who is illegitimate.’ She pronounced the word with such harshness, and her contempt was so evident, Emma flinched.

Edwina now leaned forward and her silver-grey eyes were febrile with hatred. ‘How could you let me go on believing Joe Lowther was my father all these years, when it was Blackie O’Neill?’ She laughed with derision. ‘Blackie O’Neill! Your dearest friend. I’ll bet he is. Hanging around you like a lovesick dog for as long as I can remember, and through two marriages!’ Her eyes narrowed. ‘You disgust me, Mother. I grieved for Joe for years after he was killed, and you let me. How cruel of you!’

Emma managed to pull herself together, but her voice shook as she said, ‘Would my telling you have helped, Edwina? Would it have assuaged your grief, or lessened it? Joe was your father, in the best sense of that word. He loved you as much, if not more than his own child. You loved him, too, and you would still have grieved for him if you had known the truth. Any man can father a child, Edwina. It’s what a man does after the child is born that makes him a real father, a good father. And although you were not of Joe’s flesh and blood he certainly treated you as if you were. And that’s all that counts.’