The Very Thought of You: A Novel by Rosie Alison

Author:Rosie Alison [Alison, Rosie]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Fiction, General, Historical, Literary, Coming of Age, War & Military, C429, Extratorrents, Kat
ISBN: 9781451613971
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Published: 2011-07-05T05:00:00+00:00

Elizabeth and Pawel soon made another visit to york. But this time they spent the afternoon alone together in the royal Station hotel. Elizabeth gave Pawel money to pay for the room in advance, and then slipped upstairs by herself, careful not to be seen.

She had been brooding over Pawel’s shape for weeks, wondering how the hair grew on his chest, his legs, his arms. When he removed his clothes she was amazed by the fact of his body.

They did not hide beneath cold starched sheets but looked at each other. The frankness of her desire moved Pawel; there was nothing stilted or shy in her response to him. Never before had he known such unguarded intimacy.

Afterwards, he held her in his arms, and was touched by her vulnerability. They drifted into sleep together – waking only just in time to return to Ashton for dinner.

“Would you care to try our mint sauce, Pawel? Mint, vinegar and sugar, an english speciality—”

Thomas’s manners that night were, as always, gentle and unforced as he carved the roast lamb from the estate – arare treat. Can I do this? thought Pawel. Is this man encouraging me into the arms of his wife for some private game, or is he ignorant of our glances?

In the months which followed, Astrange triangle of complicity came into play between Pawel and the Ashtons – and all within ahouse dominated by the complicated timetable of schoolchildren. There was never atime without bells ringing for lessons, comings and goings in corridors, and crocodiles of children fling into the dining room. Pawel relished this constant traffc of people passing through their lives, between them, past them, obscuring their affair.

Unexpectedly, Elizabeth’s relationship with her husband began to fourish. Now that she was content with another man, she liked to stroke Thomas’s arm as she passed him, and show him affection in public. Such signs of marital intimacy only fred Pawel further.

Their joyous, reckless communion continued for many weeks, and Pawel’s urgency was like adrug to Elizabeth. Every day, she just wanted to be with him, to lay her head on his chest and stroke his face. To adore him and care for him. To start again – she was only thirty-four. She even dared to dream that if she threw off the shackles of Ashton Park, she might conceive Pawel’s child.

Yet as she grew more confdent with her lover, something began to leak away. Subtly, unacknowledged at first, a canker crept in, an inequality of desire on the part of Pawel.

It happened gradually, this crack of disconnection. Was it the wild devotion in Elizabeth’s face which first distanced him? he began to see her again from the outside, and there was aglint of extremity in her eyes which troubled him.

One night, Thomas was playing the piano inside, his beloved Schubert, and the music fowed through the open French windows to the colonnade. It was after dinner, and Elizabeth was alittle drunk.

“Dance with me,” she said to Pawel, but he was reluctant. She walked over to Thomas.

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