And yet there was nothing remotely worshipful in the grin Katie had given him as she too registered his curtness.
‘You’ll have to watch him, Ma,’ she warned Hazel teasingly. ‘He’s got a terrible temper, frightens us all to death in class.’
Hazel frowned herself. She didn’t like the idea of Katie being involved in a relationship with a man who was potentially violent, although Katie herself seemed to have no such reservations.
If she was honest with herself, she did not like the idea of Katie being involved with him at all.
* * *
WHILE KATIE chattered her way enthusiastically all through supper, describing her new life as a student, Hazel remained almost silent.
She had so looked forward to this, her daughter’s first visit home, never imagining she would not come alone.
She put down her knife and fork, her meal virtually untouched, causing Katie to chide her warningly, ‘Ma, you don’t eat enough. Men like women with a bit of flesh on their bones, don’t they, Silas?’
Eyeing her daughter’s racehorse-lithe slenderness, Hazel found herself envying her her sleek height and her long elegant bones.
She felt like a dwarf in comparison.
‘No sensible man likes to see a woman starving herself into the kind of hungry, bone-thin brittleness that makes her look as though she’s permanently hungry. Tastes do vary, of course, but I must admit there is something very appealing to the male ego about the kind of petite fragility your mother embodies… Call it chauvinistic, or old-fashioned—which I suppose in all honesty it is—but such women do in general tend to bring out all the old protective male instincts in full force.’
‘But in your books your heroines are almost always positive Valkyries,’ Hazel protested without thinking, and then flushed wildly as she realised that she had made the mistake of looking directly into his eyes, and that he was looking back into hers, with the kind of searching scrutiny that made her long to be able to close them and hide herself away from him.
‘Not always,’ he corrected her. ‘Perhaps I’ve been trying too hard not to betray my own preferences. Certainly I feel it’s healthy for me as a writer to take the harder path, to show that vulnerability need not necessarily always come packed in a seven-stone female of under five feet four.
‘After supper I wonder if you’d mind if I went straight upstairs and made a few notes? I’ve had something itching at the back of my mind for the last couple of hours that I’d like to get down on paper, and besides, I’m sure you and Katie have things you want to discuss.
‘We haven’t mentioned money yet. Naturally I don’t expect you to house me at your own expense. Normally when I do this kind of research, I rent somewhere and hole up in it for six months or so, until I’ve finished my first draft, and I have to admit that when Katie first passed on your invitation for me to stay here I was a little dubious about how it would work. However, you’ve put all my doubts to flight.’
Hazel had no idea what to say. She had to content herself with giving Katie an accusing look, which her daughter resolutely ignored.
Although this less than loverlike request should have pleased her, for some reason she discovered that once he had excused himself and left her and Katie on their own she actually missed his presence and had to stop herself from listening for the sound of his footsteps on the stairs.
However, now, while she had the opportunity, there were issues she had to take up with her daughter, and she did so as firmly as she could, demanding equably, ‘I know I am getting on in years, Katie, but I hadn’t realised I was suffering such severe memory loss that I don’t have the slightest recollection of having extended this invitation Silas has decided to accept.’
Katie grinned unrepentantly at her.
‘Well, I had to stretch the truth a little,’ she admitted cheerfully, pulling a face as she added, ‘Silas can be so punctilious about some things. I suppose it must be his age or something.’
While Hazel was still blinking at this unloverlike comment, Katie continued quickly, ‘The moment he told me that he was setting his new book up here in Cheshire and that he needed a base here to work from, I knew it would be a great idea for him to stay here, but I know what you’re like.’ She pulled another face. ‘You’d never have suggested it to him off your own bat—’
She broke off and looked at her mother in surprise as Hazel told her grimly, ‘You’re right, I most certainly would not have done.’
‘There you are, you see,’ Katie continued blithely, ignoring Hazel’s exasperated frown. ‘And I knew that Silas would never agree to come up here without a formal invite so I—’
‘Lied to him?’ Hazel offered grittily.
Katie’s eyes rounded in injured innocence. ‘Only sort of. You’re going to love having him here, Ma, and I’m going to feel so much happier knowing that you’re not on your own. I mean, the house is rather remote, and you’re here all alone now that I’m away.’
‘So it was all done for my benefit, was it?’ Hazel asked her acerbically. ‘Very altruistic.’ It was on the tip of her tongue to suggest to her daughter that while Silas was staying here with her he was—comparatively, at least—safe from other women, and to tell her daughter that she had no intention of acting as a guard dog for her lover, but weakly she knew that she hadn’t the heart, and, to do Katie justice, she knew that her daughter had been concerned about her living on her own.
‘Well, whatever your motives, I don’t approve of the way you’ve manipulated us both. You’re not God, Katie. You can’t go round interfering in other people’s lives. What if I’d denied extending any such invitation?’
‘Oh, I knew you wouldn’t do that. You’re too loyal. Too soft-hearted. But you’ll like having him here, Ma. He’ll take you out of yourself.’
Hazel stared at her and said crisply, ‘Thanks very much.’
In actual fact she doubted if she would see much of Silas at all. She knew from her own experience that when she was working the last thing she wanted was constant interruptions—which reminded her, she would have to have a talk with her unexpected guest about mealtimes and so forth. She had just accepted a new commission herself, and, while she was quite prepared to invite Silas to join her for his meals if he wished, she had no intention of pandering to any kind of artistic temperament by providing food and beverages on demand. He must either fit in with her routine or make his own arrangements.