It was close to 2am when they returned to her room. Harry sat at the dressing table and mechanically began to remove her jewellery.
Dempsey threw his jacket on the bed and came behind her to massage her shoulders. They looked at each other in the mirror. Her eyes, sparkling with life all night, betrayed a deep tiredness. He had seen yet another side to her this evening – the actress extraordinaire. Until the moment they left the party she had been animated and vivacious; laughing engagingly at the most incoherently babbled joke. He was in awe of her ability to let the lunacy wash over her and he remembered her earlier words: 'you never really know a person'.
Most of the guests would be staying at the Hall, in part because of the weather but also due to the sheer amount of alcohol that had been consumed. One couple, the Huntingdon-Fowlers, had insisted on returning home because their nanny was sick and there was no one at home to look after the children. As Archibald bellowed a tuneless rendition of 'The British Grenadiers' as he was helped into his coat, Dempsey could only hope that his wife would persuade him to let her drive.
Midnight came and went, and brandy and coffee were served in the lounge - although several people had to be helped from the table - but before Dempsey could accept a cup, Harry had appeared at his side and suggested they take their leave. He had broken into a genuine grin for the first time that evening.
As soon as they were alone and headed for the stairs, she slumped against him. He steadied her with his arm, feeling the full weight of her exhaustion.
"I'm sorry, James" she murmured. "That must have been excruciating for you."
He opened his mouth to protest, but closed it again. It had been bad. No point denying it.
Now, as he rubbed her shoulders, she let her head fall back against him.
"What a night."
"Sure was. Those guys like a good time." He kept his eyes on the top of her head. It was late; too late to start dissecting the whole thing. Leave it for tomorrow, if at all.
She reached up and squeezed his hand.
"Believe me, this was not what I had in mind when I invited you to stay." Her eyes, big and full of concern, searched his face in the glass. Hell, it was impossible to be annoyed when she looked at him that way – he'd been powerless to resist it the first day he'd met her and now was no different.
"Daddy's dinner parties can be rather wild – I should have warned you. No excuse, but I'd forgotten just how wild… it's been a while since I was last called on to attend one."
"Listen angel. My head's achin' from the wine, that's all. Let's just hit the sack, ok?"
He sat on the edge of the bed. This shirt felt as though it had been on his back forever. Slowly, he began to undo the buttons.
She swivelled around on the stool to face him. She was smiling but beneath the surface, her anxiety was acute.
"Come here," he said.
Gratefully, she moved to sit beside him. They embraced.
"We both need a night's sleep, princess, that's all."
"Help me get this off?"
She turned her back, and fumblingly, he undid the tiny hook at the top of her dress and pulled the zip down to her waist. She stood up and let the sheer black material fall to the floor, then retrieved it and shook it out before she hung it over the chair in the corner of the room.
He pulled his shirt off, and scooted back against the pillows, watching her move around the room. The eroticism of it didn't escape him, but he was bone tired. They had tomorrow.
Harry slipped a cream silk slip over her head and got under the covers; Dempsey forced himself upright and unbuckled his trousers, dropping them beside the bed and shedding his socks before he got in beside her and turned out the light.
She sighed deeply and he moved into the centre of the bed so he could encircle her with his arms.
"You okay angel?"
"Mmmm."
In the darkness, she turned to face him. He could feel her breath against his face.
"There's one thing I can't sleep without saying. My uncle was rude to you. Don't think I didn't notice. I'm sorry."
He laughed shortly. "Yeah. A real charmer, that one. How comes he's like that? Your Dad ain't."
"Giles has always had a chip on his shoulder. Perhaps it's being so much younger than Freddy. And of course, Winfield Hall went to the first-born, although they live in a very nice property too. It's called the Gables – about 30 miles away.
"His wife's quite a looker. She's younger than him, ain't she?"
"Esther's his second wife. The first one died about fifteen years ago –cancer. The Winfield men haven't had much luck, have they? Aunt Jennifer, Mummy. Esther's alright though. I don't know her very well; she and Giles haven't been together longer than five years. She's frightfully into horses, I think. Show ponies, that sort of thing."
She continued sleepily,
"I remember Daddy telling me that Giles had designs on my mother once upon a time. Apparently, he was mad about her but she always felt he was a little too young. Then Mummy and Daddy fell in love, and the rest is history. Giles hit Daddy over it, would you believe? It was all so long ago. I doubt he holds a grudge now …"
She trailed off.
"Wasn't your mother closer to his age though?" he asked, but there was only regular breathing. She was asleep.
For a while, he lay running the evening's events through his head. It must be true what they said about the upper classes behaving disgracefully among their own. Her world was proving to be even more alien to him than he had suspected. And he doubted he would ever tell her how hurt he had been when she introduced him to her uncle only as her 'good friend.' Sure, it was early days with them, but their relationship was so much more than that, wasn't it? To him, it was.
Seeds of doubt and insecurity, planted in the darkness, found fertile ground in Dempsey's tired brain.
He awoke with a raging thirst. Disorientated in the pitch black, it took him a full five seconds to remember where he was. Reaching blindly for the comfort of Harry's sleeping body, he shook his head to clear away feverish dreams in which he was being forced to participate in an indoor grouse shoot at Winfield Hall. Again and again, he had returned to the Great Room, frantically searching for a nameless enemy behind statues and curtains until finally, frightened, he had gone to hide in the cellar. But when he descended the stairs, Mr and Mrs Everton-Smythe were lying naked at the bottom. In a panic, he brandished his gun, but they only smiled. "Come, come and join us…" they called, and he had felt scared and aroused in equal measure.
His digital watch said 5.42am. Swinging his legs onto the floor, he stood unsteadily and began to pick his way across the unfamiliar room. He tripped over one of his discarded shoes and swore. Finally, groping with his hands, he found his trousers and pulled them on.
He reached the door and slipped barefoot into the corridor. A dim light was burning at the end of the hall. He entered the bathroom. Sparse moonlight fell through the un-shaded windows across the floor, illuminating the tub in the centre of the room. Superstition prevented him from turning on the main light: he feared exposure. He padded across the room to the sink.
A glass tooth mug stood on a shelf and he filled it to the brim with water and gulped thirstily. After three cups-full, his throat felt less dry but his head was fuzzy and he knew he would still feel the effects of the wine when daybreak came.
Dempsey relieved himself and then filled the mug a final time, for Harry.
He was just about the open the door again when from outside, he heard a creak.