by Penny Jordan
‘How very businesslike you are, but you must have noticed how sexy Silas is,’ she prodded, her smile wide, but her eyes cold and watchful.
‘Not really,’ Hannah fibbed.
The coldness increased, the mouth hardening a fraction.
‘Don’t tell me you’re one of those women who isn’t interested in men,’ she asked unforgivably.
Hannah gave her a withering look and said quietly, ‘It depends in what context. Certainly I have no desire to marry, if that’s what you mean, but neither am I sexually interested in my own sex.’
Behind her she heard Anne Mercer give a tiny shocked gasp, and she smiled thinly. She would die before she gave Fiona the opening she knew she was looking for. One hint to the other woman of her feelings for Silas, and Fiona would use them to destroy and humiliate her. She had no illusions about the older woman, none at all, and it was with a feeling of tremendous relief that she heard the door open and saw that the men had at long last come to join them.
* * *
AT LAST IT WAS time to leave. She stood up with a speed that wasn’t missed by either Silas or Fiona.
‘There’s really no need for you to rush off, Silas. Stay and have another couple of drinks. We can always put you up if you’re worried about driving. In separate rooms, of course!’ She gave a throaty, affected laugh. ‘I can’t understand how Hannah is managing to remain immune to you, Silas, but apparently she is. She assures me that you’re the very last man she would be likely to find attractive.’
Hannah felt her face burn as Silas turned to look at her. What must he be thinking? She hated the way Fiona was reducing her to her own level, interested in nothing more than the appeasement of her own shallow emotions and greedy desires, and yet stupidly when Silas returned in an even voice, ‘Hannah is my personal assistant, a business colleague,’ she didn’t feel in the least mollified. Quite the opposite, in fact.
As Lord Redvers escorted them to the door, Hannah saw Anne Mercer give one despairing, longing look after them. What a silly woman! It was time she stood up to her husband, who was behaving more like a spoilt, bullying child than an adult.
She said as much to Silas as they reached the car, the emotions inside her too explosive to be controlled.
In the light from the windows she saw the cool, considering look he gave her, and winced inwardly, furious with herself for betraying so much emotion.
‘I agree; but she obviously loves him, which makes it hard for her.’
‘A handicap carried by far too many women,’ Hannah said bitterly, ‘and exploited by far too many men.’
He unlocked the car and she got in, waiting until he was seated beside her and starting the engine before saying explosively, ‘I detest men like that.’
‘And women like Fiona?’ Silas asked her drily.
She looked at him, and then decided to throw tact to the winds.
‘The very worst of our sex,’ she said baldly. ‘Avaricious, sexually and materially…cruel, shallow…vindictive.’
‘I agree,’ Silas said promptly, silencing her. ‘But unfortunately Lord Redvers dotes on her, and I’ve come too far with this project to risk it now by getting on the wrong side of her.’
‘Was that why you let her paw you all through dinner?’ Hannah challenged acidly, and then realised what she was saying and to whom. Her face went scarlet, and her fingers curled into hard fists. Without removing his attention from the road, Silas picked up her right hand, his stronger fingers prising hers open. She could hear the warmth in his voice as he apologised, ‘I’m sorry. I can see she’s been giving you a difficult time.’
‘She seemed to find it hard to accept that you and I are merely business associates,’ Hannah excused her tension weakly. To her chagrin her voice trembled, just as her body was starting to tremble. A physical reaction to her release from her earlier tension, she tried to tell herself, but she knew it wasn’t true. It was Silas who was having this effect on her. Silas who was making her shake with physical and emotional yearning for him. Silas who had the power to move her to hitherto unknown depths of feeling simply by speaking to her. By looking at her…by touching her as he was doing now. If he could make her feel like this just by stroking her fingers, what would she feel if…?
He was still holding her hand.
‘Did she? I wonder why.’
Something about the way he said the words made her body shake. Fear and anger mingled inside her, rushing through her. What was Silas trying to imply? That he realised she was attracted to him?
Oh, please, no. She wanted neither his pity nor his participation. Unlike other women in her situation, she had no desire for him to turn to her and see her as a woman…to want her physically and emotionally—to love her.
Everything she had witnessed tonight had only confirmed her deeply held belief that marriage was not for her; she would want too much—total commitment, total sharing. Her parents loved one another very deeply indeed, but how many times had she seen her mother forced to take a back seat to her father’s parishioners, to his duties and responsibilities? Her mother seemed to accept it, but she didn’t think she could. Perhaps all those years of growing up with so many older brothers had left her with too fierce a desire to have herself acknowledged as the equal of any man, as worthy of time, attention and consideration as him, to enable her to accept second place. And children… She had never wanted children, never even thought about wanting them, but when she looked at Silas there was a tiny, curling, weakening sensation there inside her that whispered seductively to her that there would be much joy in having this man’s child.
She was appalled that she could even form such a thought, never mind be forced to acknowledge it, so appalled that she sat bolt upright in her seat, and turned her face away from Silas, saying dismissively, ‘We all make misjudgements. When I saw Fiona in your car with you the other weekend, I assumed from her demeanour toward you that she was already your mistress. However, what she said to me tonight proved that I made a mistake.’
It was that fateful word ‘already’ that gave her away. How bitterly she wished she could recall it when she almost felt the searing look Silas gave her as he braked hard and demanded explosively, ‘Just what exactly are you trying to say? Lord Redvers is very important to my plans for Padley Court, but at no time have I or shall I become his wife’s lover.’
She should have left it there, but she couldn’t, unable to stop herself from saying acidly, ‘Do you think that Fiona will accept that? She struck me as a very determined woman. She told me openly that she believes affairs outside a marriage strengthen it, and she made it equally clear how she feels about you. If she has as much influence with her husband as you say, isn’t it feasible that she could destroy everything that you’ve worked for if you turn her down?’
For a moment Hannah genuinely thought she had gone too far. She was prying into an area of Silas’s life that had nothing to do with her, betrayed by her genuine curiosity about how he might deal with such a situation into asking questions which would better have remained unvoiced.
He was silent for a long time, so long that she thought he meant to ignore her questions, and then at last he said quietly, ‘I can’t deny that what you say is true. However, I believe I can make it plain…indeed, I have made it plain to Fiona, without actually having to reject her, that we aren’t going to have an affair. If she refused to accept the situation, then I shall try to arrange all my future meetings with Lord Redvers not to include her.’
‘Wouldn’t it be simpler and more honest to just tell her the truth?’ Hannah asked him cynically.
She felt him looking at her. ‘Is that how you deal with unwanted advances, Hannah? Bluntly and efficiently?’
‘Women aren’t in the same situation as men,’ she reminded him bitterly. ‘If we don’t give an unequivocal ‘‘no’’ we are accused of teasing, of saying ‘‘no’’ when we mean ‘‘yes’’. I prefer to make my position perfectly clear. In the long run, it’s more honest and m
ore sensible.’
She noticed that they were almost back at the Dower House; her nerves felt as tightly strung as tension wire. She knew it would be hours before she got to sleep, if indeed she managed to sleep at all.
‘So you don’t feel that for the sake of the single parents and children who hopefully will one day benefit from our plans for the place, I should put aside my personal feelings and beliefs and—er—give in to Fiona’s blandishments?’
The implications of his questions, coming so unexpectedly out of the darkness, flooded her mind and body with dark, unfamiliar pain. It came at her like a tidal wave, destructive and dangerous, crashing down through the barriers of her defences, swirling icily through the most private corners of her being, opening her to anguish and reality so that she had to grit her teeth together to stop herself from giving vent to what she was feeling, to buy herself time.
‘No answer? It’s a tricky one, isn’t it?’ he said quietly.
He had turned off the main road now, and the entrance to the drive loomed ahead of them. He turned into it, and in the car’s headlights she saw the familiar bulk of the house. How many thousands of children would this house give pleasure to if Silas’s plans were successful? The greater good…the words beat drearily through her, almost like a dirge.
The car swept round the drive towards the Dower House. Silas switched off the engine.
‘If I were to ask you, what would you advise me to do, I wonder? Fiona is a creature of greedy impulse, soon satiated and bored. A few nights together…the basic mechanics of making love…’
Hannah felt her gorge rise. Unable to stop herself, she pushed open the car door and started to run towards the house. She couldn’t listen to any more without betraying something of what she was going through. The mere thought of him with Fiona in his arms, of that greedy, predatory mouth on his…
He caught her half-way towards the door, spinning her round with such force that she staggered and almost lost her balance.
As he held on to her, he asked grimly, ‘What the hell was that for?’
The easy mood of insouciant sophistication was gone. Her stomach trembled as she looked into his face and saw the tamped down maleness there, the essential predatory masculinity…
‘Nothing,’ she lied. ‘I don’t care what you do. Go and make love to Fiona, if that’s what you want.’
‘But it isn’t what I want.’
How silky his voice sounded, seducing her senses away from her.
‘She isn’t what I want. Ironic, isn’t it? All evening, while I’ve been struggling to hold her at bay, I’ve been wondering what it would be like to hold you like this…’
He had shifted his weight somehow so that she was almost leaning full length against him, her breasts pressed hard and flat against his chest, her body encircled by his arm so that she couldn’t move away. Her thighs against his, the sudden, heart-stopping movement of his free hand along the contour of her hip up over her waist to rest just beneath the fullness of her breasts, made the breath lock in her throat and her body tremble with awareness of his own arousal.
‘Hannah…’ He said her name as though he was tasting it. His mouth touched her jaw and moved over her skin tantalisingly, drawing closer and closer to her lips.
She could feel herself quivering with an anticipation she made no attempt to fight or hide.
When his mouth finally touched hers, she wasn’t sure which of them gave that tiny, betraying sigh of satisfaction, but there was no mistaking the way her body melted into his embrace, the way her breast swelled into his hand, so that he made a husky sound of pleasure deep in his throat and stroked his tongue over her lips, over and over again until the torment of that delicate touch made her cry out softly and tremble, blind to everything but the satisfaction of at least feeling his mouth moving so savagely and eagerly against her own.
She responded to the passion she could sense inside him in full measure, allowing him the access he sought to her body as he moved her within his arms and cursed against her lips at the dress that prevented his lean fingers from doing anything more than merely shaping the round swell of her breasts.
The arousal of his body, her own need, the fierce, tumultuous pleasure of feeling him kiss her with all the intimacy and desire she knew she had craved, for a time obliterated everything else.
But only for a time. As he reached behind her for her zip, sanity crashed through her sensual haze; released from the confinement of his arms, she sprang back from him, panic and self-disgust written plainly on her face for him to see.
Almost loathing herself for her own self-betrayal, she made no attempt to hide her reactions, and Silas, seeing them, said quietly, ‘I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have done that.’
‘No, you shouldn’t,’ Hannah agreed shakily, conveniently forgetting how very little discouragement she had given him. And, also forgetting what he’d said before kissing her, she added unforgivably, ‘I’m not Fiona. There’s nothing to be gained from making love to me.’
There was a long silence, during which she found that she couldn’t meet his eyes; she felt almost ashamed…and not just ashamed, but hurt inside, as though she wanted him to deny what she was saying and take her back in his arms. Instead he said quietly, so quietly that she barely heard him, ‘No. It doesn’t seem as though there is.’
And then, without another word, he walked past her and unlocked the door to the house, holding it open and waiting politely and distantly until she followed him inside.
CHAPTER NINE
AS SHE had already mentally predicted, Hannah got very little sleep. A whole night spent virtually wide awake, with no distraction other than that caused by the ancient grumblings of an old house, was a marvellous way of focusing the mind, Hannah reflected while she dressed.
Although she had tussled with the problem virtually all night, she had known from the outset that there was only once course she could take,
She would have to resign from her job with Silas. Not specifically because he had kissed her, but because of the way she herself had felt.
The most feminine and secret part of her had recognised in his arms an awareness of herself as a desirable woman, which, if allowed to develop, would lead to all manner of problems; not least the fact that, should Silas choose to lay siege to her sexually, she doubted her ability to reject him.
And so she had no alternative. The moment they were back in London she intended to hand him her written resignation. It was better that way, allowing no room for arguments. She ignored the tiny voice that mocked her for being a coward, telling her that she lacked the courage to meet him face to face in the intimacy of his home, and tell him what she planned to do.
What her emotional female inner self termed cowardice, her outer, more rational mind deemed mere caution and common sense. There was no point in deliberately courting danger, in almost actively inviting the very kind of explosive situation she was fighting to avoid.
She tried to imagine what might have happened last night had Silas not stepped back from her when he did…had she been wearing something that had allowed him easier access to her body…had she felt his hands against her skin, while his mouth was still on hers, obliterating all rationality.
She wouldn’t have been able to resist the deep-rooted urge of her own nature, the need she had so desperately fought against ever since they had met. She would have willingly urged him to take her upstairs to the privacy of his bedroom, to strip the clothes from her body and make love to her. She shivered in the morning chill, staring blindly out of her bedroom window and across the mist-enshrouded landscape.
Beyond the mist, in the far distance, the sun was starting to break through the cloud. The storm over, just like the storm within her. She shivered again, acknowledging that hand in hand with her belief that she had made the right, indeed the only decision, went a bleak awareness of all that she was turning her back on.
Fiona hadn’t lied or exaggerated when she had claimed that Silas would be a love
r that few women could resist. Last night Hannah had experienced the full magnetic force of his sensuality. She had felt instinctively, intuitively, that he was one of those rare men who genuinely believed womankind to be his equal, and at the same time retained an essential maleness that allowed him to accept such knowledge with grace and still to treat her sex with tenderness and caring.
He was a man wholly proud and at ease with his masculinity, and yet who appreciated everything that was different about a woman.
Even now, with her decision made and irreversible, there was still a part of her that yearned most dangerously to turn back the clock and relive last night, but to give it a different ending…one that allowed her to spend the night in Silas’s arms, to wake up basking in the warmth of his desire. But she had to quell that weakness, to destroy it, to submerge it in other and more sensible thoughts.
It was time to go down for breakfast.
Silas was already seated at the table. He stood up as she walked in, and gave her a cool, assessing glance, which she withstood with as much calm as she could, proffering a professional, distancing smile as she sat down in the chair he pulled out for her, commenting brightly on the change in the weather, asking what time he planned to return to London.
‘Like you, I feel that I might as well stay on and enjoy the benefits of a weekend in the country. We should have got through the rest of the work here by mid-afternoon. I’ll run you over to your parents then, and we can arrange what time I’ll pick you up on Monday morning.’
Beneath her immaculate silk shirt and thick tweed sweater, Hannah felt her heart start to pound rapidly.
‘That won’t be necessary,’ she told him, softening the baldness of the words with a brief smile. ‘It will be quite easy for me to get the train to London. There’s no point in you coming out of your way.’
She saw the way his whole face darkened, and sensed the anger he was fighting to control, acknowledging with an inward shiver that he could be extremely intimidating.