by Penny Jordan
‘I should just think you would. I don’t think from what I know of him that Silas would be too pleased at being condemned as the kind of man who needs to bolster his ego with a teenage lover.’
‘No,’ Hazel agreed hollowly.
‘I still can’t imagine why you ever thought that he and I could possibly be lovers in the first place,’ Katie was saying as she shook her head, as though still finding it hard to believe her mother’s folly.
‘You did say he was someone very special,’ Hazel pointed out defensively.
‘Well, yes, but that was because—’ Abruptly Katie stopped speaking.
‘Because what?’ Hazel pressed her.
‘Er—because…because he is special, and because…because I know how much you enjoy his books…’
‘But you didn’t tell me who he was,’ Hazel pointed out.
‘Er—no… I wanted to surprise you.’
‘You certainly did that,’ she agreed grimly, and then added as a fresh thought struck her, ‘But Katie, you know I’d never have agreed to have him staying here if I hadn’t thought that it was important to you. I mean—’
‘What? What difference does it make knowing that he and I aren’t lovers?’
All the difference in the world, Hazel wanted to tell her, but she knew she couldn’t.
She shivered suddenly, wondering what difference it might have made this afternoon if she had known then. But what difference could it have made? Better that things had stopped right where they had. She might have behaved like one, but she wasn’t a complete fool.
A man of sophistication and experience like Silas could never be really interested in a woman like her. Oh, he might flirt with her, kiss her, even have sex with her if he thought she was willing, but that kind of liaison wasn’t for her. She was too vulnerable as it was.
Now that she was over the initial shock of discovering that Katie and Silas were not lovers, the relief she should have felt, the relaxation from tension and self-disgust, were swamped by other new fears and doubts.
She reminded herself that she had often comforted herself in her darkest hours with the thought that nothing ever happened without a purpose…perhaps it had been intentional that she should deceive herself into thinking that Silas was involved with Katie so that she would protect herself from what was undoubtedly a very self-destructive and potentially dangerous attraction to him.
After all, what better barrier could there be between them than that she should believe Silas and Katie were lovers? And now that that barrier had been removed she would be a fool to try to ignore the warnings of her own common sense.
It was obvious that a man like Silas, a man who was of his age and experience, of his standing, must have had many women attracted to him over the years. The fact that he was not married must surely tell its own story. Despite the fact that he was intelligent, mature, and good company, there must be within him a reluctance to truly commit himself to a relationship or a person.
But maybe like her he was simply choosy, had simply never found the one person to whom he wished to commit himself, a treacherous inner voice whispered tormentingly.
Even if that was the case, it was ridiculous to suppose that she might be that person. That she might have that special something that would cause him to…
To what? To fall in love with her? Now she was being ridiculous. And what was more, she was behaving like a fool. What she was feeling for him, what she had experienced this afternoon, was plain old-fashioned lust. It had to be. One simply did not, at thirty-six, fall in love in the space of half a dozen minutes. One met someone, liked them, got to know them and then perhaps…perhaps grew to love and trust them. That was the sensible way to do things.
‘Ma, are you sure you’re all right?’ Katie questioned her worriedly.
‘What? Oh, yes…yes, I’m fine.’
‘Well, you don’t look it,’ Katie told her forthrightly. ‘Oh, and, while we’re on the subject, you’ve made me promise I won’t tell Silas what you thought and I’m going to demand a promise from you in return.’
‘What?’ Hazel looked blindly at her. ‘What promise?’
‘That you won’t go all prim and proper the moment my back’s turned and ask Silas to find somewhere else to stay.’
Hazel stared at her. How on earth had Katie guessed what was running through her mind?
‘You were going to, weren’t you?’ Katie accused. ‘Honestly, Ma, just think how that would make me look. There I am assuring Silas that no, of course my mother won’t object, and that she’d love to have him staying here, that it was her idea, her invitation, in fact. And then you go and ask him to leave.’
‘But Katie—’
‘No. You were happy enough to have him here when you thought that he and I…well, when you thought what you did.’
‘I thought you wanted him to stay here so that I could keep an eye on him for you,’ Hazel admitted helplessly, flushing with mortification when Katie burst out laughing.
She said wickedly, ‘Oh, did you? Well, let me tell you something, my naïve, innocent mama… If I truly wanted to ensure that a man’s eyes didn’t stray then you can be sure that I would not introduce him to you.’
She saw Hazel’s face and laughed again.
‘Oh, come on, surely you must have seen how gaga every boy I’ve ever brought home has gone over you?’
‘Katie, that’s an outrageous thing to say,’ she protested huskily. ‘They were boys…’
‘And Silas is very much a man?’ Katie asked her softly. ‘You’ll be perfectly safe with him, you know. If I thought otherwise…and if it’s gossip that’s worrying you—’
‘Gossip?’ Hazel gave her an outraged indignant glare. ‘Don’t be ridiculous. Who’d want to gossip about me? I am thirty-six years old, Katie.’
‘Even if you don’t even look twenty-six,’ Katie agreed teasingly. ‘Even if you do have half the males for miles around gazing at you like dogs at a juicy bone.’
‘Katie,’ Hazel protested, genuinely startled. ‘That’s not true.’
‘Of course it is,’ Katie contradicted her cheerfully. ‘It’s just that you don’t see it. That you don’t want to see it. Now, come on, I want that promise, otherwise I go right downstairs now and tell Silas—’
‘All right, all right, I promise.’
Perhaps Silas himself would decide to leave now that she had made it so plain to him that she wasn’t…that she wouldn’t… As she recalled exactly what she had said she bit her lip miserably. No wonder he had reacted so angrily to her comments. And thank goodness she had not made any direct reference to his supposed relationship with Katie.
If she had… She swallowed nervously. What had happened this afternoon had been completely out of character for her. She was damn lucky that she had believed he was involved with Katie. The last thing, the very last thing she needed in her life right now was a man who would use her sexually and then leave her once he had grown bored with her—a man who…
A man who what? that treacherous inner voice whispered provocatively. A man who aroused and enticed her, a man whose touch, whose kiss promised a type of pleasure, a type of fulfilment she could only dream of knowing. So what if it was only desire he felt for her, so what if that desire could only be impermanent, so what if once his work, his book was finished, he would walk away from her without a second glance? At least she would have lived, really lived…at least she would have touched the stars and known what it truly meant to be a woman.
Dismayed by such treacherous, such wanton thoughts, she forced herself to try and concentrate on what Katie was saying, reluctantly giving her the promise she had demanded.
Silas had given her a promise this afternoon, a promise that he would not attempt to touch her again. Would he keep that promise or…?
She could feel her body going hot, her stomach tensing.
Of course he would keep it. And of course she wanted him to. Didn’t she?
* * *
DESPIT
E THE FACT that Katie had insisted there was no need for her to do so, Hazel was up at six the following morning to drive her daughter to the nearest station.
‘Honestly, Ma, there was no need for you to do this,’ Katie protested. ‘I don’t know if I’ll be able to make it home again before Christmas.’
‘That’s OK,’ Hazel assured her, adding drily, ‘I’m a big girl now, you know. You don’t need to come running home every other weekend to check up on me.’
That made Katie laugh at her and tease, ‘Oh, yeah?’
Before she drove off, Hazel looked uncertainly towards the house. There was no light on as yet in the room which Silas was occupying.
After she had kissed Katie goodbye and waved her off, Hazel returned to the house.
Today she would have to make some time to turn out her father’s study and bedroom, and to remove some of the junk which had accumulated inside them since her father’s death.
She would also have to do some shopping. Since Katie’s departure for university she had grown used to buying much smaller amounts of food, but now with Silas…
That’s it, she told herself as she walked reluctantly back into the house. Keep your mind occupied with trivia, with mundane household chores; that way you won’t have to think about other things. About Silas himself or what had happened between them.
She made herself a fresh jug of coffee and sat down on a stool, nursing her mug.
It was just as well that she hadn’t started her new commission yet. That would give her time to turn out the study and do her shopping. She also had some gardening to catch up on, and with Christmas not so very far away perhaps it was time to start thinking about beginning her Christmas shopping.
Anything…anything at all which she could think of to do to keep her mind and her hands busy.
Half an hour later, when she was standing in the middle of the study carpet rubbing her back where it ached from pushing and tugging at the heavy old desk, so that she could clear out its drawers, she heard the sound of the shower running upstairs.
When they had first moved into the house, her father had had two new bathrooms installed, one in what had originally been a small box-room adjacent to his own bedroom and the other next to her own bedroom and the room which had originally been Katie’s nursery.
When Katie had been in her teens, a shower and basin had been installed in her room, and partitioned off to provide her with a minute private bathroom of her own.
Silas was still sleeping in the old nursery where she had originally made up a bed for him, which meant that he was using her bathroom.
It gave her an odd sensation in the pit of her stomach to know that he was there, standing under the shower, his body glistening with soap and water, his dark hair plastered to his scalp. She had never been attracted by the thought of overly hirsute men, but suddenly she had a very vivid and erotic mental image of Silas’s body; of a narrow pathway of dark hair arrowing down its centre, across the taut flatness of his belly.
Stop it, she berated herself frantically, stop it at once.
The best way to chase away such dangerous and uncontrollable thoughts was to work so hard that she couldn’t indulge in them, and, clinging determinedly to that belief, she started pushing at the heavy desk again, trying to manoeuvre it into the centre of the room, so that Silas could sit behind it and get the benefit of the light and the view from the window, and at the same time enjoy the heat from the open fire.
After her father’s death, she had gone through his papers, meticulously keeping those which needed to be kept and transferring them to her own desk, throwing away those that were unnecessary, but keeping in carefully marked files those personal things such as old photographs and letters belonging to her father and which she thought in years to come Katie’s children might enjoy having.
The desk had then been pushed back against the wall, and the room filled with an assortment of things, including her father’s favourite chair and footstool, and several other odd pieces of furniture.
The chair and stool could stay, she decided, the bookcases lining the one wall were already filled, but the cupboards beneath them were empty and could be used by Silas to store his own papers.
As she struggled with the heavy, old-fashioned partner’s desk, she wondered if he used a computer or word processor and, if so, whether there would be room on the desk for it.
It was just as well she had taken down the curtains in the spring and had them cleaned. She would have to bring them down from upstairs and rehang them, and…
She had almost got the desk where she wanted it; one final push, that was all it needed, but the wretched thing refused to move, and she ended up banging her hip bone quite painfully on it as she leaned her full weight against it.
The pain made her cry out in irritation and frustration. She had realised that the shower had stopped running, but she hadn’t realised that Silas had come downstairs until he opened the door and demanded tersely, ‘Hazel, what’s wrong? I heard you cry out. Are you all right?’
Hot and flushed, self-consciously aware of how dreadful she must look with her curls all tangled, and her top clinging stickily to her skin, her jeans dusty, and her face free of make-up, Hazel swung round to face him. ‘I’m fine,’ she told him shortly. ‘I didn’t realise you were down. I’ll just get cleaned up and then I’ll come and make your breakfast.’
‘I’m not a child, you know,’ Silas returned coolly. ‘There’s no need for you to wait on me. I’m perfectly capable of making myself a cup of coffee and eating some cereal. What exactly are you doing in here?’
‘Isn’t it obvious?’ Hazel asked him tartly. Her arms were beginning to ache, warning her that she had probably overdone things in her attempt to move the desk. ‘I want to get this room straight so that you can work in here, but this damned desk…’
Silas frowned as he came further into the room.
‘You’ve been trying to move this?’ he demanded shortly. ‘My God, woman, are you crazy? Don’t you realise how easily you could have injured yourself?’ he asked her grittily without waiting for a response. ‘Why on earth didn’t you wait until I—?’
Normally equable and even-tempered, Hazel felt all the confusion, the anguish, the pain of the last few days boil up inside her, until ignited by irritation and misery it exploded.
‘Until what? Until you, Mr Macho Male, could move it for me?’ she demanded aggressively. ‘Well, let me tell you something, I don’t need your help. In fact, I don’t need anything from you at all. I’m perfectly capable of managing by myself.’
Abruptly she realised what she was saying and stopped. Her heart was beating far too fast; she was over-reacting out of all proportion to his comment. She felt torn between bursting into tears and screaming. She hardly recognised herself or her reactions and, although she was unaware of it, some of her confusion and despair showed in her shadowed, stormy eyes.
‘Yes, very capable,’ Silas agreed drily, so drily in fact that her temper subsided and she looked directly at him.
If she hadn’t known better, she might almost have believed that was a touch of wry self-mockery she could hear in his voice.
As though… As though what? As though he was actually acknowledging that her independence, her desire to be self-reliant, rubbed against a streak of male protectiveness within himself which he had not hitherto recognised.
Ridiculous. She must be imagining things, she told herself sternly.
‘Actually what I was going to suggest was that the two of us might have a better chance of shifting it without injury than one of us alone.’
She had the grace to flush a little, but she couldn’t bring herself to offer any kind of verbal apology. She still felt too raw, too vulnerable, too aware of how close she had come yesterday to making an utter fool of herself. She couldn’t bear to think what might have happened if she had actually accused him of being unfaithful to Katie. Would he have been amused, or annoyed? She suspected that it would have been the
latter. He was far too intelligent not to be aware of the opinion of him she had drawn in believing he was romantically involved with Katie, and she doubted that he would have been flattered by it.
‘I’m not sure if this room will be suitable—’ she began to say uncertainly, frowning as she mentally checked the number of power points and the size of the desk, worrying about how he would fit in any electronic equipment he might need to use.
The look he gave her was singularly cynical.
‘In my time, I’ve worked quite successfully in a space less than a quarter the size of this. In fact this is sheer luxury. One of the reasons I’ve sold my London flat and decided to move out into the country somewhere is the lack of space. My rooms at the university are adequate, but barely.
‘Fortunately, I’m not a collector of material possessions, or at least I haven’t been up until now. When I began my career, I worked, lived and slept in a room in my sister’s house which she and her husband generously provided rent free. When I first moved into my flat, although I had thought that I’d enjoy its privacy and solitude, I found that for months I was constantly listening for the sound of feet on the stairs, for the kids’ voices. I missed their company more than I’d ever realised I would.’
Katie frowned at him. Why was he confiding in her like this? What was he trying to tell her? That he was a man who hadn’t put down roots? Well, she knew that already, but she had assumed that that was from choice. Now…
Pushing her hair back off her face, she asked him curiously, ‘If you feel like that, then why—?’
‘Have I never married?’
Her eyes registered her shock. What she had been going to ask him had been why he had not moved closer to his family, but he had not allowed her to complete her question and had obviously totally misunderstood it. She would never have dreamed of asking him something so personal.
‘Initially because I was simply too busy, and too poor, and then latterly… Well, I suppose it’s true that the older you get, the fussier you become. Sexual desire, sexual chemistry, call it what you will, is no longer enough. You want more…much more. You want someone who will be a true partner in all the meanings of the word. Both my sisters are extremely happily married and very much in love with their husbands. I envy them those relationships, and I certainly wouldn’t settle for anything less. They’ve been lucky, and they’ve worked hard at their marriages. But what about you? A young woman on your own with a small child to bring up—there must have been times when you’ve been tempted to marry, if only to provide Katie with a father.’