by Penny Jordan
As they walked in amicable female companionship towards Verity’s parked car, Honor allowed herself to relax.
Part one of her plan was working. What would Verity say, she wondered, if she told her that she had recognised her straight away on the day of the accident from a photograph of her she had found in her father’s desk? Her father needed rescuing from Myra and it was high time, Honor had already decided, that she had a mother—one of her own choosing!
She looked sideways at Verity—why had she fibbed about not knowing her father? She was tempted to ask but she decided it might be best not to rush things so much…not yet. Honestly, grown-ups, they were so slow…But it was just as she and her friend Catherine had said earlier this afternoon when she had jubilantly told her all about Verity. Sometimes grown-ups didn’t know where their own best interests lay, so it was just as well that she, Honor, was here to show them.
What she needed to do now was to keep her father and Myra apart, but if her plans worked out as she knew they would that shouldn’t prove too difficult—Catherine had her instructions!
Verity gave her a surprised look as Honor suddenly slipped a small, slightly grubby hand into her own and beamed a huge smile up at her.
‘It’s no good trying to get round me like that,’ Verity warned her severely, adding untruthfully, ‘and, besides, I can’t make cappuccino…’
‘No, but I bet Myra can,’ Honor told her. ‘She was really frothing at the mouth, wasn’t she?’ she observed dispassionately.
‘Honor…’ Verity warned, and then spoiled it by suddenly giving way to an uncontrollable fit of the giggles.
‘Verity…just a moment, please…
Verity’s body tensed in shock as she heard Silas calling out curtly from behind her. She had already unlocked the car for Honor to get inside it and now, as she too saw her father, Honor opened the door.
Silas shook his head and told her crisply, ‘You stay where you are, please, Honor. I want to have a few words with Verity…in private!’
Verity wasn’t sure which of them looked the more wary—herself or Honor. What she was sure of, though, was that she could feel her skin turning a very definite shade of mollified pink as Honor, after one look at her father’s stern ‘I mean business’ expression, quietly closed the passenger door of Verity’s car.
Equally reprehensibly feebly, Verity discovered that she herself was moving several yards away from her car, mirroring the way that Silas was moving out of Honor’s potential earshot. Just to make sure that Silas knew and understood that, unlike his daughter, she was not someone he could talk down to or tell what to do, before he could tell her whatever it was that had brought him hotfoot out of the restaurant and away from Myra’s side, Verity demanded coldly, ‘Please be quick, Silas, I still haven’t eaten my pudding.’
‘Ice cream?’ His mouth took on a mocking twist. ‘As I remember it you were always more of a cheese and biscuits woman and—’
Immediately Verity’s eyes flashed. How dared he remind her of the intimacy they had once shared; of everything they had once been to one another, now when he…?
‘Is that why you came running after us—to remind me because I opted for ice cream over cheese and biscuits? My tastes have changed, Silas…just like yours…’
But sharp though her words were, for some unaccountable reason, as she said them, Verity discovered that she was looking at his mouth and remembering…
A shudder of self-contempt shook her as she acknowledged just what she was remembering, her eyes darkening as she did so.
Did Silas remember that ice cream they had shared so long ago, and, if he did, did he remember too the way he had teased her by offering her the last mouthful of it and then, when she had taken it, kissing her through the icy-cold taste, his lips, his mouth, his tongue, so velvet-hot and sensuous against her lips, and then when the ice cream had melted his kiss becoming so passionate that it had practically melted her?
Her face on fire, Verity made to take a step back from him, but to her consternation Silas immediately reached out to stop her, his hand grasping her upper arm in a grip she knew it would be impossible for her to break.
‘Verity,’ he began, his voice unexpectedly thick and husky as though…
Quickly Verity cast a lash-veiled look at him. Surely his own colour was slightly higher than it should have been?
Because he was angry? It certainly couldn’t be because he was aroused, could it?
Unexpectedly he gave his head a small shake, as though trying to dispel some unwanted thought, and when he spoke again his voice was much crisper.
‘Honor is ten years old…a child…I don’t want her getting hurt…’ he began warningly.
Immediately Verity took umbrage. How dared he suggest that she might hurt Honor?
‘If you’re implying that I might hurt her,’ she told him furiously, ‘then you’re wrong. In fact, if you believe that Honor is being hurt I should look far closer to home for the source if I were you.’
There was a moment’s shocked pause before he demanded in disbelief, ‘Are you trying to say that I might hurt her…?’
Taking advantage of his momentary lapse in concentration, Verity pulled herself free of his grip and started to turn towards the car.
‘Verity, I haven’t finished—’ she heard him saying furiously to her, but Verity had had enough—more than enough if the way her body, her senses, were still responding to the memory of that shared ice cream so long ago was anything to go by.
‘Oh, but I think you have,’ she corrected him through gritted teeth and then stopped abruptly, shocked to discover that for some reason all his attention seemed to be focused on her mouth. Instinctively she raised protective fingers to her lips, her whole body starting to tremble.
‘Verity…’ she heard him saying roughly, but she shook her head, unable to listen to whatever it was he wanted to say, whatever further contemptuous criticism he wanted to hurl at her unprotected heart.
‘Go away, Silas,’ she demanded shakily. ‘Go back to Myra…’
And without waiting to see his reaction she hurried quickly towards her car and opened the door.
‘What did Dad want?’ Honor asked uncertainly several minutes later, once Verity had negotiated their way out of the car park.
‘Er…he wanted to tell me that you weren’t to have too much ice cream,’ Verity fibbed, making up the first excuse she could think of.
‘Not much chance of that. By the time we get back it will all be melted…gone…’ Honor told her in disgust.
Gone…like their love…Verity bit down hard on her bottom lip. Ice cream and Silas’ kisses. Funny how sharply painful the sweetest things could sometimes become!
CHAPTER FIVE
‘IT’S gone ten o’clock,’ Verity told Honor worriedly. ‘I thought your father would have been here by now—you said he wouldn’t want you to be out late.’
‘Mmm…I know.’
Honor seemed far less perturbed about her father’s absence than she was, Verity noticed, which surprised her. She would have thought that, given Honor’s obvious dislike of Myra, she would have become at least a little anxious about the fact that Silas was quite obviously lingering with the woman rather longer than Honor had originally intimated.
Perhaps Myra had prevailed on him to take her home after all, and, once there, no doubt she had insisted that he remain for a nightcap and of course, whilst he was drinking it, she had no doubt put on the video. ‘Just so that he could see a few minutes of it.’ And then, of course, it would be a small step—a very small step for her kind of woman—from that to turning down the lights and refilling Silas’ glass, insisting that there was no need for him to rush and that surely Honor could miss a morning of school for once…
Verity could virtually hear the enticing personal arguments she would purr into his ear as she slipped onto the sofa beside him and placed her hand on his jacket, supposedly to remove a bit of non-existent fluff, before sliding it up onto his shoulde
r and then caressing the back of his neck where his hair curled thick and dark. Verity closed her eyes. She could remember so clearly just how that felt—how she had felt, how just the intimacy simply of touching him like that had made her go weak at the knees, all melting, yielding, wanting womanhood.
‘Verity, are you all right?’
‘What…? Er…’ guiltily Verity opened her eyes ‘…er, yes…’ she fibbed, hot-cheeked, hurriedly getting up so that she could avoid meeting the innocence of Honor’s eyes.
‘Perhaps we should ring the restaurant,’ she began hurriedly. ‘I—’
‘No…No…I don’t think that would be a good idea,’ Honor instantly denied. ‘I mean, Dad was so angry, wasn’t he? And…’ But despite what she had said Verity couldn’t help noticing that Honor herself did keep looking at the silent telephone.
‘Perhaps he’s been delayed…a flat tyre or something like that,’ she offered comfortingly.
‘How long is your hair?’ Honor asked, moving their conversation away from her father’s late arrival.
‘Er…’
‘Take it down now,’ Honor urged her, reaching out to tweak some of the constraining pins from Verity’s hair before she could stop her.
Suspecting that the little girl was more disturbed by her father’s non-appearance than she wanted to admit, Verity gave in.
‘Oh, it’s lovely,’ Honor told her in open and honest admiration when all the pins were finally removed and Verity had quickly pulled the small brush she kept in her handbag through her soft curls.
‘It’s getting too long. I should really have it cut,’ Verity said ruefully.
‘Oh, no, you mustn’t,’ Honor told her, gently stroking her fingers through it.
Verity felt her heart jerk and then almost stop. Once, a long time ago, a lifetime ago it seemed now, Silas had touched her hair just like that and spoken similar words to her.
‘No, don’t ever have it cut,’ he had whispered to her. ‘I love it so much—I love you so much.’
Instinctively she closed her eyes.
‘What’s the matter? You look awfully sad,’ Honor told her.
There was a huge lump in Verity’s throat.
‘I—’ she began, and then stopped as the phone suddenly rang. Honor reached it first but, a little to Verity’s surprise, she waited for her to pick up the receiver.
‘Verity?’
There was no mistaking the crisp tones of Silas’ voice.
‘Yes. Yes, Silas…’
‘Look, I can’t talk now. There’s been an emergency. I’m at the garden centre. The police called me out. Someone reported seeing intruders trying to break in. So far we haven’t found any signs of anyone but it looks as though I could be tied up here for some time. Honor…’
‘Honor’s fine with me, unless you want me to take her to her friend’s,’ Verity assured him as calmly as she could. Why was her heart beating so frantically fast, her pulse racing, her mouth dry, her whole body reacting to the sound of his voice as if…as though…?
‘No. It’s probably best if she stays with you. I don’t know what time I’m going to be through here…’
‘Don’t worry,’ Verity assured him. ‘She’ll be fine here with me. Would you like to speak with her?’
Without waiting for his response, she handed the receiver over to Honor, before walking over to the window and putting her hands to her suddenly hot face.
What on earth was the matter with her? She was reacting like…like a woman in love…A deep shudder ran through her. Impossible. No. No way. Not again. Not a second time.
‘Not a second time what?’ Honor asked her curiously.
Wide-eyed, Verity turned round and looked at her. She hadn’t heard Honor replace the telephone receiver, never mind realised that she had spoken out loud.
‘Er…nothing…Look, it could be some time before your father gets here. If you want to go to bed…’
‘No. Well, yes, perhaps that might be a good idea,’ Honor allowed. ‘I haven’t got anything to wear, though,’ she reminded Verity.
‘That’s okay, you can sleep in your undies for tonight,’ Verity told her practically.
‘I don’t very much like the dark,’ Honor said as they walked upstairs. ‘Will you…will you stay with me until I go to sleep?’
Once again Verity was reminded of the fact that Honor was only a very young girl—a motherless young girl—and Verity herself knew what that meant and all about the private desperate tears cried into one’s pillow at night. Tears for the love and want of a mother’s arms—a mother’s care. Honor had her pride, Verity could see, but she could see as well that she also had her vulnerability, her need to be reassured, her need to be mothered.
‘Yes, of course I will,’ Verity agreed warmly, giving her hand a small squeeze.
‘I’m not very keen on the dark myself,’ she added.
In the end it was another hour before Honor was finally in bed—Verity’s bed, since it was the only one that was made up and since Honor had announced that she liked Verity’s room best of all. ‘Because it smells of you,’ she had so engagingly told Verity.
Who could resist that kind of persuasion? And, for the second time, Verity had been all too intimately reminded of hearing Honor’s father make just such a similar comment, although in a vastly different context—a context far too intimate and personal to even allow herself to think about in the presence of anyone else, never mind Silas’ young daughter.
‘Why not? Why don’t you want me to?’ he had asked her thickly when she had tried to push him away the first time he had bent his head towards the most intimate part of her body.
‘Because…because…’ Awkwardly she had struggled to explain how both shocked and excited she had felt at the thought of being caressed so, so personally by him, of having his lips, his mouth, kiss the most delicate and sensitive part of her body.
‘It just doesn’t seem right,’ she had told him shakily in the end. ‘I mean, it’s…’ Pleadingly she had lifted her gaze to his. ‘Silas, I don’t…it’s…’
‘It’s just another way of showing you how much I love you,’ Silas had told her gently. ‘If you don’t want me to then I won’t, but I want to enjoy the scent and taste of you—the real you—so much, Verity. I know what you’re thinking…how you’re feeling…but I promise you that it will be all right.’
‘It seems so…It makes me feel so…so nervous and afraid and so…excited at the same time,’ she had confessed. ‘All sort of squirmy and…and…’
‘It makes me feel the same,’ Silas had told her in a deep voice. ‘Only even more so. Will you let me, Verity? I promise I’ll stop if you want me to. It’s just…’ He had paused and looked deep into her eyes, making her heart thump against her chest wall in great shuddering thuds.
‘I want to make you mine in every way there is. To know you so completely; to love you so completely.’
And when eventually he had lain her tenderly on the bed and bent his head over her body, when she had felt his tongue tip gently rimming the very centre of her sexual being, Verity hadn’t wanted him to stop at all, not at all, not ever, as she had cried out frantically to him when the racking paroxysms of pleasure had seized hold of her, caught her up and dislodged from her mind any thought she might ever have had about not wanting the pleasure that Silas had been giving her, the intimacy…
‘Verity…’
With a start Verity dragged her mind and her thoughts back to the present.
‘It’s a very big bed, isn’t it?’ Honor told her in a small voice. ‘Do you always sleep in a big bed like this?’
‘M…mostly,’ Verity confirmed.
‘It must feel very lonely. Haven’t you ever wanted to get married, have children?’ Honor asked her.
‘It’s after eleven o’clock,’ Verity warned her, sidestepping the question, knowing that the only honest answer she could give her was no answer to give the ten-year-old daughter of the man whose wife she had hoped to be.
/> ‘Stay with me,’ Honor whispered again, a small hand creeping out from beneath the bedclothes to hold onto Verity’s.
Watching her ten minutes later as she lay next to her, Verity felt a tug of love on her heartstrings so strong that Honor’s small hand might actually have been physically wrapped around them.
‘Stop it,’ she warned herself sternly. ‘Don’t you dare start daydreaming along those lines…Don’t you dare!’
Very gingerly Verity eased her arm from beneath Honor’s sleeping body. It ached slightly and had started to go a little numb. Disconcertingly, though, she discovered as she slid carefully off the bed, she actually missed the warm young weight of Honor’s body.
The knowledge that she would probably never marry and have children of her own had been something she had pushed to the back of her mind in recent years. A child or children that she would have to bring up on her own had never been an option for her—her own childhood had given her extremely strong views about a child’s need to feel secure and, to Verity, the kind of security she had craved so desperately as a child had come all neatly wrapped up with two parents.
In the early years after her breakup with Silas she’d had virtually only to see a young couple out with a small child to feel pierced with misery and envy.
Another woman, a different woman, might, on learning that the man she had loved, the man who had promised always to love her, had married someone else, have hardened her heart against her own emotions and made herself find someone else, built a new life for herself with a new man in it, but Verity had never been able to do that. For one thing the business had meant that she simply hadn’t had the time to form new relationships and for another…For another, for a long time she had felt so hurt and betrayed, so convinced that Silas was the only man she could ever love, that she simply hadn’t tried.
But there had still been that sense of loss, that small, sharp ache of envy for other young women who’d had what she hadn’t: a man to love and their child.
But now she felt she was far too mature to give in to such feelings.
‘What rubbish,’ Charlotte had told her forthrightly recently when she had brought up the matter and Verity had said as much to her.