Excerpt from Monsoon by Wilbur Smith, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

'Not me only,' she giggled up into his face, 'but Mabel too, and Jill, unless they were both speaking a lie-and half the girls in the village, I've heard tell. It's a ram and a half you are, Master Tom!' She reached down and tugged at the laces of Tom's breeches. At the same time she stood on tiptoe and fastened her mouth on his. Tom shoved her back against the stone coffin. He was trying to say something to his twin, rolling his eyes in Guy's direction, but he was gagged by her soft wet lips and the long cat-like tongue she was thrusting deep into his mouth.

At last he pulled his face free and gasped for air, then grinned at Guy, his chin wet and shining with the girl's saliva. 'Now I'm going to show you the sweetest thing you ever will lay eyes on if you live a hundred year.'

Mary was still leaning back against the stone coffin. Tom stooped and, with practiced fingers, loosed the drawstrings of her skirt to let the garment billow down and drape around her ankles. She wore nothing under it, and her body was very smooth and white. It looked as though it had been moulded from the finest candlewax. All three looked down at it, the twins in awe and Mary with a smirk of pride. After a long minute of silence, broken only by Tom's ragged breathing, Mary lifted her blouse over her head with both hands, and dropped it on the coffin lid behind her. She turned her head and looked into Guy's face. 'You don't want these?' she said, and took one of her own plump white breasts in each hand. 'No?' she mocked him. He was dumb and shaken. Then she ran her fingers slowly down her creamy body, past the deep pit of her navel. She kicked away her skirt and planted her feet apart, still watching Guy's face. 'You've never seen the likes of this little pussy cat, have you now, Master Guy?' she asked him. The curls rustled crisply under her fingers as she stroked herself He made a choking sound, and she laughed triumphantly.

'Too late now, Master Guy!' she taunted him. 'You had your chance. Now you must wait your turn!'

By this time Tom had dropped his breeches to his ankles. Mary placed her hands on his shoulders and, with a little hop, pulled herself up, clinging to him with both her arms tight around his neck and her legs wrapped around his waist. She wore a necklace of cheap glass beads, which caught between them. The string snapped, the shiny beads cascaded down their bodies and scattered over the stone slabs. Neither seemed to notice.

Guy watched with a strange mixture of horror and fascination as his twin pinned the girl against the stone lid of their grandfather's sarcophagus, thrust and pounded against her, grunting, red-faced, while the girl thrust back at him. She began to make little mewing sounds, which rose higher and louder until she was yelping like a puppy.

Guy wanted to look away, but he could not. He stared in dreadful fascination as his brother threw back his head, opened his mouth wide and let out a dreadful, anguished cry.

She's killed him! Guy thought, and then, What are we going to tell Father? Tom's face was bright red and shining with sweat.

'Tom! Are you all right?' The words were out of his mouth before he could stop them.

Tom turned his head and gave him a contorted grin. 'I've never been better.' He let Mary drop to her feet, and stepped back, leaving her leaning once more against the coffin. 'Now it's your turn,' he panted. 'Give her your sixpennyworth, lad!'

Mary was also breathless, but she laughed unsteadily, 'Gi' me a minute to catch my wind, then I'll take you for a gallop you'll not forget in many a year, Master Guy.'

At that moment a sharp double whistle reverberated down the airhole in the roof of the crypt, and Guy jumped back with alarm and relief. There was no mistaking the urgency of the warning.

'Cats!' he exclaimed. 'It's Dorry on the roof. Somebody's coming.'

Reprinted from Monsoon by Wilbur Smith, a St Martin's Press publication, by permission of St Martin's Press. © 1999 by Wilbur Smith