Second Best Wife by Isobel Chace

can't say I thought you would,' he retorted dryly. 'You won't get through my defences as easily another time.'
    'I may not want to hit you again,' she murmured.
    'You will! One little kiss — that's all it takes with you, Georgie Porgie! But I'll tame you in the end. I'll have you eating out of my hand, a reformed character, you see if I don't!'
    She was silent. Back in England she might have argued the point with him, mostly because she was afraid that she already liked the feeling of his hands on the reins far too well, but here it would have seemed strident and out of place to have denied the possibility that there might come a time when she wouldn't want to fight him—if that time wasn't already upon her.
    One little kiss!
    The memory of the brief kiss he had given her the evening before stirred her blood and she found herself speculating on her reactions if he should want more than a few kisses from her. The thought of it made her burn with an emotion she had never experienced before.
    The Moslerruwomen in the village they were passing through covered their heads with the loose folds of their saris, but they too were out in the street doing their shopping and standing in little groups exchanging the day's gossip. She felt very close to them. She felt very close to all women at that moment, for they too, some of them, had been caught up in the tide that held her in its grip for the first time in her life. They too knew what it was like to be submerged in a need for someone else — only why did it have to be William? How much easier life would be for her if she could have gone on hating him in peace!
    'Kandy isn't far now. We'll stop there for lunch and go on to Nuwara Eliya afterwards,' he told her.
    'Is that where you're going to be working?'
    'Fairly near. I'll be able to get back most nights. I was fortunate to be offered the use of this house on one of the tea plantations there. It'll be more comfortable for you and Celine than anything the site will be able to offer.'
    'I don't mind roughing it,' Georgina asserted. 'I don't want any favours from you!'
    'You won't get many, but Celine deserves something better than the dust and grit of a dam in the building. Her father always gave her the best, and so shall I!'
    Which meant that Georgina would be expected to do so too, she thought wryly. Oh well, it wouldn't be new to her to come second to someone else. What else had it ever been with Jennifer?
    'Have you seen the house?' she asked, making conversation because she didn't want to be left to think her own thoughts an instant longer.
    'No. I've only been to Sri Lanka once before and that was on a brief trip from a job I was doing in India. I thought I'd like to spend longer here, so I applied to help build this dam. I was very much interested in the historic aspects of their irrigation systems here. They're absolutely fantastic!— and built long before our modern machinery came along. I want to make a study of how they were done, to see what we can learn from it. It's a pity they were so neglected later on, but the European conquerors weren't interested in rice or the hinterland, they were attracted by the cinnamon and other spices and weren't any too nice in their methods of getting as much of the stuff as possible. The "bunds", as they call the dams here, and the "tanks", or artificial lakes, fell into disrepair and are only being put right now. At one time Ceylon fed twice the population she has now and still had rice over for exporting, now she has to import about a third of what she eats. It's getting better, but they still have a long way to go to catch up with their own history.'
    'But surely nowadays — '
    'Don't underrate the men of old,' he said dryly. 'We have the technology to do wonderful things nowadays, but have we the will? They lacked our machinery, but their deeds survive them to tell of their genius. We haven't yet built any comparable irrigation system in our time.'
    Georgina was impressed. 'Was