Catriona felt as if she couldn't breathe. She thought, My God, I can't breathe. And in that breathless moment, George took two savage strides forward and gripped her wrist and yanked her arm around behind her back so hard that she screamed. With his free hand, he seized the thin strap of her white cocktail dress and tugged them off her shoulder, tearing her white silk underslip away with it. There was a flash of bare breast, of pink nipple, before Catriona twisted herself around and pulled her wrist free and scrambled onto the black velvet sofa.
George caught her frock, ripping it wide open at the back. Then, with a second lunge, his strong bare forearm was across her throat, and he was heaving her back against him, arching her spine, and forcing her head up.
"You're chok—" she tried to scream, but he clamped his hand over her mouth. She tried to bite at his fingers with her teeth, but he pulled her arm around behind her again, so far up her back that her fingers touched her bobbed hair, and the pain was so sharp that all she could do was squeeze her eyes tight shut and gurgle. The only thought in her mind was: He's killing me. He's killing me. He's killing me!
But then she felt her arm released, and his hand fumble under her skirt and reach up for the elastic of her step-ins. She felt the silk pulled away in three ferocious tugs; and then George forced her face forward into the cushions of the sofa, and tore away the last few shreds of her underthings.
"God!" she screamed, her voice muffled by the suffocating velvet pillows. "God, get off me!"
His penis was so hard it felt as if it had a bone in it. He forced it into her in an unstoppable thrust. He was a big, ugly and powerful man. He went right up inside her until she jumped with the nervous shock of it. She screamed again, but then he leaned heavily on top of her back, and forced his fingers between her teeth again. She bit him this time. She felt his flesh crunch, and she could taste his blood in her mouth. But he stayed on top of her, pushing himself into her in deep, irregular thrusts.
"You bitch," he grunted. "You bitch. You sleazy, immoral bitch."
She could scarcely hear him. There was a metallic singing noise in her ears, and she was choking for air. And all the time, he was bludgeoning her with his thighs, pushing his erection so far into her that she trembled like a storm-shocked racehorse. She thought: He's killing me. I'm going to die.
He shouted something; and then suddenly it was all over. He released her and rolled heavily off the sofa on to the floor, where he sat wheezing and panting, his reddened lust dying away in his lap.
"My God," he said. "Myrtle. Myrtle, my God."
Catriona, sobbing in spite of the fact that she didn't even want to sob, didn't want to show him how much he had hurt her, how humiliated and sullied and filthy she felt, climbed shakily on to her feet. She pulled down the hem of her dress, and then pressed her fingers to her lips, to feel how bruised they were.
She couldn't speak. Her throat felt as if it had been squeezed tight and would never open again.
George reached for his robe and wrapped himself up in it. Then he went across to the table, picked up his drink, and finished it in two swallows.
"You want one?" he asked her. Then, "No, I guess you probably don't."
"I'm going," said Catriona. The voice didn't sound like hers at all. Maybe she had only said it inside her head. She walked towards the door, colliding with a side table as she went. George moved across and barred her way.
"I suppose you expect an apology," he said. His eyes were puffy, and he seemed to be having difficulty focusing on her.
"I just want to get out of here," whispered Catriona.
"And then what?"
"And then I'm going to go to Sir Peregrine Arrowsmith and have you locked up. That's all."
"You realise that if you try to do that, I'll ruin you."
"I think you've already succeeded in doing that."
"Well, now," said George, keeping a firm grip on the door-handle, "don't you think you'd better consider your options carefully before you go rushing out of here?"
Catriona stared at him in disbelief. "You've just raped me!" she shrieked at him. "Now you're talking about choices? Let me get out of here!"
"I can't let you go, Catriona. Not until you promise that what happened is going to stay our secret. You get that? Our own personal secret, just you and me. A little romantic episode that nobody needs to know about."
"Romantic? Romantic! You must be out of your mind. You're a mental case. Now, let me go." She was babbling, half whispering, half screaming. All she could think about was this dark and threatening man blocking her way. This man who had already hurt her more than she could bear to think about, and who now might hurt her again. Even kill her this time.
"I've got to get out," she told him. And then, crying, her mouth turned down in despair and shock, "I've got to get out!"
"I can't let you out, Catriona. Not until you promise. And don't forget our little deal, either. We have a deal going, remember?"
Catriona pressed her hand against her mouth. The ship was rolling beneath her feet and she was sure she was going to be sick.
"I can't let you out," George repeated.
It was then that the door was suddenly pushed open from the outside, with all the momentum given to it by someone who has been striding along a corridor at top speed and opens a door without breaking stride. Miraculously, it was Mark. He took one step into the room and then stared at both George and Catriona in utter blankness. The door banged against the sideboard behind him, and then slowly swung shut again on its rising butts.
"Catriona? What the hell's going on here?" Mark asked her. "George? What's happened?"
Catriona said, "Oh, Mark. Oh, God," and then crumpled.
THIRTY-EIGHT
She dreamed that she was sailing across a strange glassy sea, in an extraordinary woven coracle, with the wind blowing against her face. She could hear singing, high-pitched and distant, and flute-music. She turned and Mark Beeney was standing close behind her, his face slightly inflated as if he had been drowned for a long time.
"The Orange," someone whispered.
She said, "What?" through glutinous lips, but she knew that she was alone.
The Orange. This time the whisper was silent. But suddenly there was a surge of fear; and a feeling that the sea was sliding in through torn-open bulkheads, and a terrible knowledge that the world was going down beneath her feet.
She heard someone arguing. She heard her father's voice, again and again, saying No. No, lad. No. But both she and her father knew that arguing was useless, and that the Orange would sink, however much they protested. Or perhaps he wasn't protesting. Perhaps he was only pretending to protest. Because when she looked across the room, he was smiling in smug satisfaction and swinging his half-hunter as if he were intent on hypnotising her.
THIRTY-NINE
Edgar came to see her in her stateroom after dinner. Dr. Fields had given her a sedative and ordered her to rest for the remainder of the evening. She hadn't told Dr Fields what had really happened, only that she had felt faint after drinking a large gin-and-bitters, and collapsed. Whether Dr. Fields had believed her or not, she couldn't tell. He had sat at her bedside in his grandfatherly coat and gates-ajar collar, looking at her shrewdly, for almost a minute, not saying a word. Then, when he was leaving, he had said, "If there is anything else you need—or anything else you wish to tell me—don't hesitate to call. I shall drop by later tonight and see how you feel."