by Penny Jordan
As he finished, he looked up at her and said lightly, ‘There’s no need to look so worried. I don’t believe they hang dog thieves any more.’
He had meant it as a joke, Kate knew that, but to her horror, instead of responding to him with an equally light-hearted comment, she burst into tears.
‘Kate! Oh, God…Please don’t…I’m sorry.’
The rough note of remorse in his voice did nothing to help her regain her self-control; instead it reminded her of those rare occasions in the past when she had wept and he had taken her in his arms to comfort her.
He did so now, cursing briefly, and then released her.
‘We’re both soaked. I’ve got some spare clothes in the farmhouse and the electricity’s on. We can have a hot drink. Come on.’
She ought to protest that she could just as easily go home, but somehow or other she didn’t.
The kitchen Silas ushered her into was more modern than her mother’s, and she studied its gleaming units and expensive appliances in surprise.
‘Not my idea,’ Silas told her drily. ‘This lot was installed by the previous owner. Personally, I prefer your mother’s kitchen.’
‘This would be all right if you changed these cupboard doors for something more in keeping. Oak…something like that,’ Kate murmured, watching as he filled the kettle and switched it on.
‘I’ve got some towels upstairs. I’ll go and get them. No, you stay here,’ he told her when she made to follow him. ‘One thing the last owner did neglect to do was to repair the staircase, and it’s very unsafe. I doubt if my spare jeans will fit you, but I’ve got a couple of shirts and sweaters up there which should at least prove drier than what you’ve got on.’
He wasn’t gone long, barely long enough for Kate to look round the kitchen, and to mentally change the glossy melamine unit doors for the softer effect of wood, and equip the empty space in the middle of the room with a table similar to her mother’s.
Where her mother had her Aga, this kitchen had a smaller wood-burning stove, and Kate was looking at it when Silas walked back in.
‘Looks good, but doesn’t work very well,’ he commented wryly. ‘This should help, though.’
He was carrying a portable fan heater, which he plugged into a socket, and within seconds Kate was enjoying its very welcome heat.
‘Towel…shirt…sweater and socks,’ Silas told her, passing her a bundle of clothes, and then, his back to her, he began to strip off his own wet things.
Kate couldn’t move, transfixed by the rippling muscles of his back as he pulled off his sweater and removed his shirt. She heard him curse mildly as he struggled with the damp fabric of his jeans, and realised that she was staring at him.
Quickly she took off her jacket, hesitating as she started to unfasten her shirt.
Free of the encumbrance of his jeans, Silas turned round. His briefs were surely no more revealing than many a pair of swimming trunks, but her heart was suddenly thumping frantically, and the heat engulfing her body had nothing to do with that coming from the fan heater.
‘Kate…Kate, are you all right?’
Her mouth had gone so dry, she couldn’t even speak. She nodded and then shivered, caught in a tremor of awareness of how much she loved him.
Silas obviously mistook it for a shiver, and he caught hold of her, frowning chidingly as he touched her wet clothes.
‘You’re frozen,’ he told her accusingly. ‘Come on, let’s get you into something dry and warm.’
And, as though she were Cherry’s age, he flicked open the buttons of her blouse and tugged it off.
Where the rain had soaked through her shirt it had left damp patches on her skin. She wasn’t wearing jeans, but a pleated skirt that was now soaking around the hem, and dutifully she stepped out of it as Silas unfastened the waistband.
It gave her an odd sense of déjà vu to look down at his dark head as he bent over the small task, and her stomach lurched protestingly as she remembered just when she had seen him like this before.
It had been late one evening. They had been out for a meal; she had been drinking rather more wine than usual and it had gone slightly to her head.
She had begged Silas to take her home with him, and once there she had begged him equally insistently to make love to her.
He had undressed her slowly, his hands trembling slightly, just as she was trembling now.
As he moved to stand up, he looked up at her, and saw the blind look of desire in her eyes.
The years rolled back; the way he said her name was so familiar to her ears. She went eagerly into his arms, pressing her semi-naked body the length of his, feeling the muscles beneath his skin bunch as he gathered her to him, his hands in her hair as he held her still while he kissed her.
Her body melted against his with eager compliance, soft and yielding, and yet femininely demanding at the same time.
‘Kate…Kate, we shouldn’t be doing this,’ Silas whispered against her mouth, but Kate didn’t hear him and the sensation of her lips against his skin as she caressed him slowly, kissed her way down the arch of his throat, made him forget all the promises he made himself. She’d reached the curve of his shoulder now, and she was teasing him with little biting kisses—the kind he’d taught her when he showed what it was that gave pleasure to him. Although he tried to beat back the need rising within him, he couldn’t resist lifting his hands to snap open her bra so that he could enjoy the rounded firmness of her breasts pressing against his chest.
Kate swayed dizzily as she felt him touch her, smooth the skin of her back, stroke her so that she arched up against him and then cried out beneath the deliberate friction of his body against hers, which was sensitising the already aroused hardness of her nipples.
She felt Silas move, lean back against the wall, taking her with him, gently easing her between his legs and then sliding his hands down over her back until he reached her hips.
There was very little she didn’t know about his body, but the extent of his arousal startled her a little. In a teenager, eager for sexual experience and not totally at home with his body’s reaction to desire, she could have understood it; but Silas was a man, well into his thirties, a man who, even when they had been lovers, had always appeared controlled.
Now, though…Now there was nothing controlled about him, she recognised, instinctively allowing her body to accommodate the arousal of his, as his hands gripped her hips and he moved roughly against her.
‘Kate…Oh, God, what is it you do to me?’
He looked drawn and tired, like a man fighting with himself, Kate recognised.
‘I want to make love to you. I need to make love to you, dammit,’ he swore, but then, as she reached up to touch his face, he jerked away from her, the fierce thrust of his hips suddenly stilling, even though his body still pulsed hotly against her.
‘Don’t look at me like that. I don’t want your pity.’
‘You weren’t being offered it,’ Kate told him, stung by his abrupt change of mood. Her own body was aching tormentedly now, missing the enflaming movement of his, wanting more than the solid heat of him.
‘No? What was I being offered, then?’
Kate stared at him, and then said shortly, ‘Nothing.’
She tried to pull away from him, but he wouldn’t let her go.
‘Kate…Kate, I’m sorry. That was an idiotic thing to say. Kiss and be friends?’
They were the same words he had said to her more than a lifetime ago, and, although she didn’t want to hear them, she could feel her anger dissolving.
‘All right,’ she agreed weakly. ‘Friends…’
‘And the kiss?’ Silas demanded huskily, and somehow or other his mouth was almost touching hers. Was touching hers, Kate realised in shock as the tender pressure of his lips suddenly became almost bruising, and he crushed her against him so that she could feel every tiny pulse thud of his blood, and almost felt she would drown beneath the flood of need that burst through her.
He kissed her mouth and her throat and her shoulder, and then with a groan picked her up and carried her over to the room’s single chair, sitting down with her in his arms.
Kate wrapped herself around him, aching for his possession, hearing him groan, feeling the savage shudder that racked his body.
His mouth caressed her breasts. First one and then the other, opening over them and tugging on them, not gently as he had done before, but fiercely, so that she arched up helplessly against his mouth, lacing her fingers into his hair while she sobbed his name and felt the tiny pulsing points of pleasure buried deep inside her expand so quickly that she was caught off guard.
She opened her eyes and called out to him, her breath coming pantingly, and immediately his hand was on her body, easing, soothing, satisfying the fierce ache inside her long enough for him to remove the rest of their clothes and ease her down against him.
Her whole body vibrated with quivering anticipation as he entered her, easing himself into her slowly, as though he knew that to thrust too impatiently now would bring on the climax she was trying to hold at bay until she had tasted the pleasure of having him fully within her.
Kate closed her eyes and gave herself over to him, moving obediently to the stroke of his hands, arching her spine so that her nipples rubbed against his chest and she felt the betraying, quickened pulse of his flesh within her own. Already she was shivering with the knowledge of the pleasure to be, already her body was eagerly awaiting the sensations his flesh would unleash.
She felt him deep within her, filling her so completely that every sensitive nerve-ending was aware of him. With a soft groan she melted against him, closing her eyes, but Silas didn’t move.
She waited tensely, and then opened her eyes to look at him.
‘Silas.’ She touched his mouth with her fingertips, her eyes enormous with arousal. ‘I want you. I need you…now.’
‘Show me.’ His voice was rusty and thick, his eyes mirroring the glitter in her own. A tiny thrill shot through her, and wantonly she moved, rotating her hips, holding him, teasing him and then abruptly stopping, as she felt the powerful swell of her own need. Silas felt it too, and she cried out as he moved inside her.
They were lying on the floor, on Silas’s damp clothes, and she felt one of the buttons on his shirt scrape her spine as Silas drove into her.
She cried out with pleasure at the sensation and gripped his sweat-slick back with her hands as her flesh dissolved in wave after wave of exquisite sensation.
When she opened her eyes, she discovered that she was lying several feet away on Silas’s shirt. The rest of his clothes were some distance away and, as he followed the direction of her glance, she blushed furiously.
How had it happened? How had they come to make love so fiercely and passionately after everything she had told herself?
She already knew the answer. Or, at least, part of it. She loved him, and if it hadn’t been for Cherry she would quite happily have abandoned everything else in her life to be with him, no matter how fleeting that time together might be.
But Cherry did exist, and Cherry’s happiness was more important to her than her own. It had to be.
She started to wriggle away and Silas murmured softly, ‘Stay with me…’
‘I can’t. My parents will be wondering where on earth I am.’ She looked at her watch, dismayed to discover it was gone two in the morning. She hoped they’d gone to bed at their normally early time, and that they weren’t worrying about her.
‘Not just tonight…’
She looked at him, aching to reach out and touch him, but knowing that if she did she was lost.
‘For how long, then? Until you go back to Ethiopia?’ She forced herself to sound brisk. ‘No, thanks, Silas.’
* * *
He drove her back to the farm in silence, and, although the dogs barked, no one stirred as she let herself in.
* * *
In the morning, her mother eyed her pale face and asked, ‘What time did you get back last night? That must have been some walk…’
‘I went up to Jessop’s Farm. Silas was there and we got talking.’
Her head bent over her coffee-cup. She hoped her mother wouldn’t see her burning face, but it seemed better to at least include some of the truth rather than lie completely.
CHAPTER TEN
ALMOST a week had gone by without a word from Silas. She had been expecting to hear from him, Kate acknowledged, if only to let her know about the dog.
Why hadn’t he been in touch? Her mind produced all kinds of wild theories, including one that suggested that he might be lying ill at Jessop’s farm, following a return of his fever, but before she could even think about going to check to see if she was right Cherry came looking for her to tell her that she had seen him in the village.
‘He was with two other grown-ups and two boys,’ she told Kate importantly, ‘but he waved to me and said “hello”.’
For someone she had virtually only met once, Cherry had formed a remarkable attachment to him, Kate reflected miserably.
Silas’s companions must be his sister and her family, and Kate comforted herself with the thought that Silas was hardly likely to have time to get in touch with her if he had visitors.
She saw them all driving past the farm, when she went outside to help her mother pick the first of her early raspberries.
‘Wasn’t that Silas who just drove past?’ her mother enquired, lifting her head just in time to see the disappearing Range Rover.
’Yes,’ Kate told her repressively.
Taking the hint, her mother remained silent.
No doubt Silas was taking them to see the farm. She wondered idly who he had found to manage it while he was away, and from there it was only a short mental bridge to wondering how long it would be before he left. She shivered, her fingers stilling as she stared unseeingly into space.
‘You know I won’t be here this afternoon, don’t you?’ her mother asked, dragging her back to reality. It was her WI afternoon again.
‘Yes, and Cherry’s going off with Dad, so it looks like I’m going to be left on my own.’
‘You could always come with me if you want to,’ her mother told her briskly, but Kate shook her head.
‘No, I won’t, if you don’t mind. I want to give Lydia a ring. I promised her I would before we left London, but somehow or other there just hasn’t been the opportunity.’
‘Oh, Kate.’ Looking intensely guilty, her mother put her hand to her face in a gesture of dismay. ‘How could I have forgotten? She rang while you were at the centre. You’ll never guess what…’
‘What?’ Kate asked her curiously.
‘She’s thinking of getting married.’
‘Lydia? But she’s always said that a husband is the last thing she wants or needs.’
‘Well she’s obviously changed her mind. Nothing’s settled yet apparently, but they’re going on holiday together to the Seychelles, and they might even get married while they’re out there. He’s a widower, several years older than her, with a grown-up family. Apparently they’ve known one another in a business capacity for some years.’
‘I wonder who he is?’ Kate murmured, intrigued. ‘How typical of Lydia to say nothing, and then just announce out of the blue that she’s getting married. I must telephone her now…’
‘You can’t. She’ll be in the Seychelles by now. When she rang, she told me they were leaving that afternoon. Oh, how could I have forgotten to tell you. Your father’s right,’ she added ruefully. ‘We are getting old. Oh, Kate, I am sorry…’
‘It doesn’t matter,’ Kate reassured her. ‘Did she say when she’d be back?’
‘Not for at least three weeks.’
Lydia getting married; and after all she’d said about the superiority of the single state! While she was thrilled for her godmother, Kate couldn’t help feeling an odd little pang of self-pity. Everyone, it seemed, had someone to love and be loved by, except herself.
&n
bsp; But at least she had Cherry, who, instead of going out with her grandfather, had to remain at home with Kate, as he had received an urgent summons from a neighbour who was having problems with his flock.
‘Never mind,’ Kate consoled her. ‘There’ll be other market days. Come and help me pick the rest of the raspberries instead.’
‘I wonder if Silas has been for Meg yet,’ Cherry mused as they worked side by side.
‘Probably not yet. I’m not sure how many days he’ll have to wait.’
‘I hope he’ll let me go and see her when she’s up at the farm.’ She paused, her forehead creasing. ‘I wish we could stay here always, Mum. I don’t want to go back to London.’ She broke off as they both heard a car coming up the lane.
‘Odd…I wonder who that can be,’ Kate murmured as they heard it turn into the yard and stop.
They sometimes got the odd tourist stopping to ask if they sold fresh food and eggs, and so, opening the door in the wall, Kate walked out of the garden and into the yard with Cherry at her side.
The woman emerging from the driver’s seat of the small car was vaguely familiar, but it wasn’t until she saw the two gangling teenage boys climbing out of the back that Kate realised why.
Silas’s sister and her sons. Her heart started to thump.
‘Hello, I’m Susie Oxford. Am I right in thinking that you’re Kate Seton?’
‘That’s right,’ Kate agreed. Cherry was standing in front of her and Kate held on to her shoulders, wondering at the grim expression in the other woman’s eyes.
‘So you must be Cherry. Well, Cherry, I wonder if you could keep my sons entertained for a little while, while I talk with your mother.’
‘Well, I suppose I could show them how to train a sheepdog,’ Cherry answered airily, darting away from Kate and running over to join the waiting teenagers.
‘Shall we?’ Susie Oxford invited grimly, taking hold of Kate’s arm and almost marching her into the kitchen.
‘Look, I’ve no idea what you want to talk to me about,’ Kate protested. What on earth had she done to cause the other woman’s obvious antagonism? Unless…her body went cold. Unless Silas had for some reason told his sister what had happened the other night, and she disapproved. But by what right? She and Silas were both adults, and neither of them had commitments to anyone else.