by Penny Jordan
And so she got up, showered in her own small bathroom, and then dressed in a plain black skirt, a cream shirt, and a thick cardigan, which she took great care to fasten all the way down the front, so that even if her body did choose to betray her a second time no one other than herself would be aware of it.
As she scooped the damp towels and her nightshirt up off the bathroom floor, she made herself a promise that first thing on Monday morning she was going to go out and buy herself something to sleep in far more appropriate for her years. Something sensible and middle-aged. Something heavy and thick. Something that wouldn’t give away the over-stimulated state of her body, no matter how close to her Silas chose to sit.
Which was stupid, because after what had happened this morning bringing her further early morning cups of tea was the last thing he was likely to do. Nor would she want him to do so. In reality it was all his fault anyway. He had no right to invade the privacy of her bedroom. No right at all. Just because he was Katie’s lover, that did not give him the right to walk into her room and perch himself on the end of her bed.
And yet…and yet, she acknowledged mournfully, there had been something luxurious, something very special that made her feel pampered and cosseted about being brought tea in bed by a man. Perhaps, she realised with a faint awareness of some deep inner pain, because no man had ever done that for her before. Just as no man had ever held her breasts in his hands, stroking them, caressing their softness, and then kissing them, teasing the erect nipples, until they were trembling with excitement, until she was trembling with excitement.
Stop that, she warned herself, frantically, stop it right now. She had no right to have such thoughts. No right at all.
When she got downstairs, she discovered that not only was the table set for breakfast, but that the kitchen was permeated by the delicious smell of freshly filtered coffee. Sniffing it appreciatively, she enthused to Katie, who was just opening a cupboard door, ‘You are a love. Thanks for getting breakfast started. I don’t know what happened to me this morning. I overslept, I’m afraid.’
She was praying that her daughter wouldn’t turn round and see the guilt and the misery in her eyes. Silas belonged to Katie, and she was betraying her own daughter in feeling so aware of him, so aroused by him.
‘Don’t thank me,’ Katie told her, reaching up into the cupboard and removing a packet of her favourite cereal. ‘It was Silas’s idea. He’s a real slave-driver, you have no idea. Said I’ve been spoilt for long enough, and that it was time someone spoiled you a little bit.’
Hazel couldn’t help it. She felt her skin flush and her jaw drop as she listened to this announcement.
What on earth was Silas playing at? He hardly seemed the kind of man who would ever be insecure enough with a woman to need to stoop to those sort of ploys, but then a man of his age, who needed to boost his ego with the company of a much younger girl, must have some serious emotional problems.
And yet in other ways he seemed so mature, so…so in control of himself and those around him.
Perhaps that was it. Perhaps he was one of those men who needed to control the emotions of others and could best do so by preying on the very young. With a woman of her years, for instance, he would never be able to do that. Well, at least not with any other woman of her age, because she would have the experience to match his own, the knowledge, the maturity.
‘Er—where is Silas?’ she asked Katie, trying to control her rioting thoughts.
‘Gone down to the village to buy some papers. He’s taken the car though so he shouldn’t be very long.’
‘Mm…are you making toast?’ she asked as Hazel picked up the breadboard and removed a loaf from the bread bin.
‘And I wouldn’t mind some scrambled eggs if there are any going.’
‘Then get up and make yourself some,’ a male voice suggested from the kitchen door. ‘You’ve spoiled this brat, you know,’ Silas told Hazel, as he walked into the kitchen. ‘You sit down,’ he instructed her, removing the bread knife from her hand before she could object.
Numbly Hazel did as she was told. What on earth was going on? Silas was treating Katie as though she were a child and not his lover. She knew it was true that she had tended to spoil Katie a little, but her father had tended to be very demanding, especially when he had had his stroke. He had been the old-fashioned kind who took it for granted that a woman should virtually wait hand and foot on a man, and somehow or other Hazel had got into the habit of doing the same thing for Katie, although she had made sure that her daughter did absorb the rudiments of domesticity and taking care of herself.
‘I’m sorry, Ma,’ Katie said now. ‘Silas is right. You do spoil me. Oh, great—home-made bread,’ she enthused as she saw the loaf Silas was slicing. ‘Marvellous. One thing I do miss about home is your cooking. Ma is a wonderful cook, Silas. In fact she’s wonderful, full stop,’ Katie added, giving her a warm hug and dropping a kiss on the top of her head. ‘By the way, Ma, may I borrow your car? I mean, you won’t need it, will you? Not if you’re going out with Silas, and I could really do with it, if I’m going to see Susie.’
Grimacing at her, Hazel nodded.
‘But just see you treat her with the respect she deserves, and no using all my petrol and leaving me with an empty tank, and—’
‘Put the seat back when you get out,’ Katie chanted in unison with her, adding with a grin, ‘Is it my fault I’ve got long legs? OK, OK… I hear what you’re saying.’
‘You hear it, but will you pay any attention to it?’ Hazel asked her wryly.
‘The answer to that question, if she’s typical of her age-group, is no,’ Silas supplied as he brought over a plate of delicious golden brown toast. ‘I have four teenage nephews,’ he added surprisingly. ‘One of my sisters has twin boys of eighteen and the other has one of fifteen and another of nineteen. I suppose there must have been a time when we were all equally selfish, but somehow as one gets older one fails to remember it; hence maturity’s lamented impatience and exasperation with youth.’
‘Just listen to Grandpa there,’ Katie teased, adding curiously, ‘I didn’t know you had nephews. Have you any other family?’ she asked him, spreading butter generously on her toast and then licking it off her fingers, for all the world like the little girl she sometimes still was.
‘Not really. My parents are dead. I’ve got the usual assortment of second and third cousins and an aunt or so, but that’s all.’
‘It’s odd that you’ve never been married,’ Katie told him, ignoring Hazel’s faint gasp of reproach. Tact, it seemed, wasn’t essential to modern relationships.
It was funny that when she had first realised how much older than Katie Silas was it had been her daughter she had been desperately anxious to protect. Then she would have welcomed this albeit unwitting blow to his ego, but now conversely it was Silas’s feelings she felt the most need to defend and she had to bite down hard on her bottom lip, still sore and swollen from the previous day’s mangling, to prevent herself from objecting to Katie’s tactlessness.
‘Is it? I suppose I’ve just never met the right person, at the right time. When I was young I didn’t want to settle down; there were too many things I wanted to do with my life first, before I committed myself to a wife and a family, and then later… And then later… Well, I suppose it’s true that the older you get the fussier you get, and the more reluctant to settle for anything but the very best.’
A simple statement of fact, or a subtle warning to Katie herself that she must not think in terms of permanency, of commitment, of marriage?
She hated herself for the relief that she felt, and tried to tell herself that it was purely on Katie’s account and had no other significance at all.
* * *
IT WAS mid-morning before they were all eventually ready to leave. Hazel sighed a little as she saw Katie coming downstairs dressed in a multi-hued jumper, a pair of old jeans which clung lovingly to her long slim legs, leg-warmers which clashed vividly with her jumper and a
pair of old trainers, and yet somehow still managing to look stunningly pretty.
At Katie’s age she had not had one tenth of the self-confidence of her daughter. What did she mean, at Katie’s age? she derided herself inwardly—she didn’t have one tenth of Katie’s confidence now. Wryly she compared Katie’s outfit to her own sensible, sombre-hued clothes.
She looked dull and boring, a plain sparrow standing next to a tropically plumaged bird of far more exotic hue.
Was Silas comparing them as well, mentally berating Katie for deserting him and leaving him to accompany her mother? She writhed inwardly at the thought, half inclined to announce that after all she could not go with him, but good manners, the manners instilled in her by her father and Mrs Meadows, prevented her from doing so.
And if Silas was annoyed by Katie’s defection, he was certainly not allowing it to show.
* * *
ALL THE WEATHER signs were that they were going to have an early winter. Certainly, after a dry warm summer, the sudden spate of frosts and cold winds had come as an unwelcome shock at first, but Hazel had always loved autumn. There was something especially invigorating about its cold crisp mornings, its pale blue skies, the pastel colours of its pale sunshine against a landscape washed clean of the warm vibrant colours of summer. Soon the distant hills would be covered in their first falls of snow; soon the last of the leaves would be gone from the trees, leaving them skeletal and bare.
‘Brr…it’s cold,’ Katie complained, shivering as they stepped outside. ‘Roll on summer.’
‘Summer!’ Silas commented, watching as Katie folded herself into Hazel’s small car. ‘Why is it the young have no appreciation of the truly wonderful things in life? Personally I prefer this time of year, when the landscape is stripped back to its bare bones. It gives it an austerity, a pride almost that you never see in summer.’
His words so closely mirrored her own thoughts that Hazel smiled warmly at him, unaware of how much her sudden pleasure changed her whole face, dispelling the tension and control she was always so careful to maintain and instead revealing a much younger, more vulnerable woman, a woman who in so many ways seemed almost younger and more innocent than her own daughter.
Watching her, Silas wondered if she had deliberately chosen to efface herself, to camouflage herself and hide away behind the barriers she had erected against his sex, or if she had simply fallen into the unconscious habit of doing so.
When Katie had first told him about her home and her mother, in her artless, confiding way, he had been very dubious about accepting her invitation to come and see both of them for himself. Now…
He watched as Katie drove off and then turned to study Hazel. She was watching her car disappear with an expression on her face that was almost wistful.
‘You’ll have to direct me, I’m afraid,’ he told her, opening the car door for her. ‘How far is it to Gawsworth?’
‘Only about ten or twelve miles.’
Hazel sighed a little as she sank down into the luxury of the car’s leather upholstery, wondering a little enviously what it must be like to own such a luxurious marque.
‘It’s a beautiful car,’ she commented, as Silas got in beside her and started the engine.
‘Yes. I’m very pleased with it, although they’re vastly over-priced. However, when I’m doing the research on a book, I need a car I can rely on and one I can travel in in relative comfort, so something like this is an essential.’
They were almost at the small crossroads where they would have to turn off for Gawsworth, and Hazel directed him accordingly.
‘What made you decide to set your new book in Cheshire?’ she asked him hesitantly. She had no idea whether he would welcome questions about his work. She had heard that authors could be temperamental over such things, although a show of temperament was somehow the last thing she could associate with Silas. He seemed far too well adjusted, far too quietly self-confident of himself and his goals, but then, as she had reminded herself before, if he was as mature an adult as he had seemed, surely he wouldn’t need to support his male ego by choosing such a very young girlfriend as her daughter?
‘It all started with one of the characters in my last book, a knight by the name of Hugo de Lupus; a fictional character, related to the Earl of Chester—’
‘Yes, I remember him,’ Hazel interrupted him enthusiastically. ‘He was so well drawn, so interesting, that I found myself wanting to know more about him. And now you’re going to base a new book on him? That’s wonderful…’ She broke off suddenly, conscious of the quizzical look he was giving her, her skin flushing with mortification.
‘When Katie told me you read my books, I thought she was flattering me. I see that I was wrong. Yes, I agree with you. I found that Hugo was building into a far more complex and demanding character than I’d ever intended, and, to be quite honest, I hadn’t intended to start work on a new book quite so soon. I’d already committed myself to a series of lectures at the university, and I’ve found that Hugo has rather been getting in the way. Hence the urgency to find somewhere to live while I start my research. I’ve done quite a bit of reading up on the area; now I need to get down to some proper work. I thought of using a house similar to Gawsworth as Hugo’s home base.’
They talked for a few more minutes until Hazel directed him once again and then as though by mutual consent both of them became silent as Hazel settled back in her seat to enjoy the allure of the countryside, and the comfort of the car.
Gawsworth, when they reached it, wasn’t busy. The summer visitors were gone, and they almost seemed to have the house and gardens to themselves.
As they walked in silence from room to room, Hazel enjoying the pleasure of seeing familiar objects and rooms, Silas making their acquaintance for the first time, she was visited as she always was whenever she came here by the house’s very own special aura.
When they had toured the entire upper floors in almost total silence, she said hesitantly to Silas, ‘It isn’t a very grand house; perhaps you had something different in mind. We could—’
‘It’s perfect,’ he told her quietly. ‘And you’re the perfect companion to enjoy it with. So few people have the gift of silence, of allowing places, things to speak for themselves.’
‘Sometimes I think I’m very boring,’ Hazel told him shakily, too bemused by his compliment to hide what she was feeling. ‘I never seem to know what to say to people. Katie says it’s because I’m on my own so much.’ She pulled a wry face. ‘I don’t know so much about that—’
‘You aren’t boring at all,’ Silas interrupted her firmly. ‘The people who are boring are those who chatter endlessly about nothing until they make your eardrums ache.’
They were just about to go downstairs, standing together in the small enclosed space at their head, and, although another couple could have fitted between them with ease, Hazel suddenly felt as though she was standing far, far too close to Silas.
A dangerous sense of expectancy, of excitement, seemed to curl through her veins, gripping her muscles with an unfamiliar tension.
She heard herself saying in a husky, strained voice, ‘I think we’d better go down. We’ve still got the ground floor to see, and then there are the gardens.’
‘Yes.’
Was it her imagination or did Silas’s voice too seem faintly hoarse?
It was the house, she told herself quickly as they went downstairs. It always brought her a very intense awareness of how many, many generations had lived and loved within its walls, how many, many tears and smiles it must have seen, how many joys and how many tragedies. And it always made her feel vulnerable; aware of her own aloneness, her lack of someone with whom to share her life. Just as, for some reason, Silas himself made her sharply aware of what was missing from her life both emotionally and physically…of all that she had missed.
By choice, as well as by necessity, she reminded herself sharply. There had been moments, opportunities which if taken would have led on to inti
macy even if had only been a casual sexual intimacy. But that was not for her. Her body, never having known sexual pleasure or fulfilment, had no craving for it. Something inside her had always made her shrink away from the thought of sex for sex’s sake, perhaps because she simply wasn’t made that way, or perhaps because of Katie’s conception.
But now suddenly she was sharply, almost painfully aware that she was a woman; that she could feel desire, that her body could ache and torment her, that she could look at a man, at his mouth, at his hands, and ache almost feverishly to know what they would feel like against her skin.
That on its own was bad enough, dangerous enough, but when that man was her daughter’s lover… When that man was, as Katie herself had told her, someone very, very special, then there was no justification for what she was feeling, no pardon for allowing herself to continue to have these feelings, no excuse at all for allowing herself the self-indulgence and the danger of being with him.
If she had any sense, any loyalty, any love for Katie she should have refused outright to accompany Silas this morning.
But she did love Katie. Of course she loved her. And as for her being here with Silas… That had been at Katie’s insistence, and, after all what threat did she pose to Katie’s happiness? Silas was hardly likely to look at her with desire. No matter how much he might have implied this morning that he was enjoying her company, no matter how subtly he might have suggested that he enjoyed being with her, he was in all probability only being polite, being pleasant to her because she was Katie’s mother.
Yes, that was what it was: he was simply being pleasant to her for Katie’s sake.
CHAPTER FOUR
‘THANK you for bringing me to Gawsworth.’
They were outside in the gardens, standing at the top of a steep incline admiring the view of the house, where it lay snugly in a hollow below them.
‘I love coming here,’ Hazel responded truthfully. ‘In the summer they have outdoor seasons of Gilbert and Sullivan, plus a small run of plays, using the floodlit house as a backdrop. People come early to picnic on the grass. There’s a wonderful atmosphere.’