Score!

But he didn’t have time to finish. Tab had belted across the room, tripping over a still unpacked suitcase into his arms.

‘You’re as verboten as a cream bun in a health farm,’ she gabbled, ‘but I can’t help myself either.’

For a second, he put his hands round her white throat, so slender that he could have snapped it in an instant, telling himself he could still escape. But her breath, which came in little gasps, smelt so sweet and her mouth, shyly testing his, was so soft, that he found himself gently sliding his tongue between her perfect white teeth.

But it was the last gentle thing he did. Sharon must have thought one of the blacksmith’s oaks had landed on her as they collapsed onto the bed. Ripping off Tab’s striped pyjamas, scattering the buttons of his shirt, jamming the zip of his jeans, leaving on just his gypsy earrings to ward off evil, Isa appreciated her true beauty only when he held her naked and quivering in his arms. Kissing, often biting his way downwards, he found a little seahorse tattooed just below her left breast.

‘You’re in for a bumpy ride, fellow,’ he whispered mockingly, as his exploring fingers crept between Tab’s legs.

‘Oh, bliss, you mustn’t, oh, please go on,’ gasped Tab, then, worried that he might be bored by such a wonderful but extended foreplay, ‘Oh, please come inside me.’

As Isa brought her to extremes of pleasure with the same pelvic thrusts that drove winners past the post, she knew exactly why he had been nicknamed the Black Cobra. It was as though constant lightning were being unleashed from his body, and she never seemed to dry up, as if a Cotswold spring was constantly bubbling between her legs. As their breathing grew quicker and the four-poster creaked like an old tree in a high wind, she thought she had never known lovemaking like it.

As he watched them through the two-way mirror, which kept misting up, Rannaldini realized he had never seen anything like it either. Silvered by moonlight, they were so transported by their passion, it was as though Canova’s Cupid and Psyche had sprung to white-hot life: constantly changing positions, they coupled with snakelike frenzy.

Now Isa was kissing one of Tab’s small, amazingly high breasts, biting the nipple until she cried out. Now he was lying sideways his dark head and stabbing tongue buried in her blonde pubic hair as simultaneously her lips and tongue teased and caressed his cock, which Rannaldini was furious to confess looked bigger than his own. At least the little blighter couldn’t hold out much longer.

But, exulting in his control, Isa drew himself out as proudly as Excalibur. Then swivelling round, he plunged inside her once more, his pale murderer’s face triumphant, his hips a juddering blur. Only when Tab arched, went rigid then cried out, did he finally let himself come, kissing in ecstasy her long white throat, her damp forehead, her loving mouth, as for a fleeting moment his defences were down.

Frantically wiping a peephole in the steamed-up mirror, Rannaldini thought he would explode — and did. He must install a video camera so he could gloat for hours over the playback. Reluctantly he had to admit that Isa was as good at riding women as he was horses.

‘I love you,’ mumbled Tabitha, when Isa finally removed his mouth from hers.

‘Thank God you’ve washed off that bloody awful perfume.’

‘It’s Mummy’s. Jolie Madame. She never wore anything else until this summer when she switched to Organza so I thought I’d help her use up the old stuff.’

In horror Isa realized he must have smelt the same scent on his father, when Jake had come upstairs to tuck him in after stolen meetings with Helen.

‘Never wear it again,’ he snapped, and rolled off her on to his back.

‘Buy me something else, then. God, you’re a revelation, I’ve always been soixante-nervous before, but with you it was unbelievable.’

Isa couldn’t believe it had happened. How could he have betrayed his parents like that?

‘I’d better go,’ he said.

Hearing the rusty creak of drawbridges being pulled up, fighting desolation, Tab scooped a drowsy Sharon into the warm place left by his body. Then she caught sight of the bedside clock. ‘It’s October the thirty-first now,’ she said insolently. ‘Happy birthday, Daddy. Sleeping with the enemy is the worst present I could give him.’

Isa glowered down at her, his arms trapping her like the debtor’s chair. ‘Is that why you went to bed with me?’ he hissed.

‘Not entirely,’ said Tab.

For the next week, they devoured each other, making love in the hayloft, on the wet autumn leaves, knowing they were playing with fire but unable to stop themselves. Aware of the difference in their backgrounds and temperaments, Isa was the more detached of the two. But within three weeks Tab was pregnant.