‘You mean it was all my fault?’ she demanded furiously. ‘I tempted you? I suppose you’re the kind of man who’d…who’d rape a woman and then claim that it was what she wanted.’
She was too overwrought to know what she was saying, to realise how offensive she was being, until his face changed and he said sharply, ‘Now, just a minute…’ He took a step towards her and when she shrank back, thoroughly frightened of what she saw in his eyes, he seemed to take a deep breath and force back whatever it was he was feeling before saying more calmly, ‘I wasn’t for one second suggesting that you were to blame… that either of us was to blame. I don’t even think it was something that involved an emotion such as blame. I was merely trying to say that when I kissed you I thought…felt that you weren’t averse to what was happening between us, or rather what I thought was happening between us.’
His voice had become faintly hard again, and it hardened still further as he told her unequivocally, ‘And as for your comment about rape, let me assure you that the thought of forcing a woman, any woman to have sex with me is something I find totally barbarous and revolting. I cannot understand what motivates any man to force himself on a woman who doesn’t want him, and, if I’ve given you a different impression, then I must apologise for it.’ His voice had become extremely clipped, the revulsion he was feeling so obvious that Hazel felt a fresh surge of self-dislike rise up inside her.
What she was trying to do was to blame him for something for which she knew she had been at least fifty per cent to blame. She wanted to cry out to him to understand that it was her guilt, her horror at what she had done that had made her react so badly, so childishly, that of course she knew that… That what? That he had been quite right to imply that she had wanted him. Wasn’t that after all the simple unvarnished truth?
It might be the truth, but there was nothing simple about it…nothing at all.
‘If it helps to ease your mind, to assure you that I shan’t make the same mistake a second time, then please let me give you my word that while I’m living under your roof you will be completely safe from any further…misunderstandings of a similar nature.’
What he was saying was that he wouldn’t touch her again, and she ought to be thankful for that, instead of feeling as though a dark cloud had suddenly descended on her. And what did he mean, while he was living under her roof? Surely after what had just happened he must have changed his mind about using her home as a base while he worked in the area?
But it seemed he had not, and she felt too exhausted, too drained, too vulnerable still to challenge him on the subject and to demand that he find somewhere else to live. If she did, who knew what he might say? He might even accuse her of wanting him to leave not so much because she didn’t trust him to keep his word, but because she could not trust herself.
They had almost reached the car when she asked him in a stilted voice, ‘You won’t…you won’t say anything about this to Katie, will you?’
She felt dreadful having to ask him such a question, but she could not bear it if her folly was revealed to her daughter…if Katie were to turn against her because of it.
The look he gave her was compounded of astonishment and, she was sure, contempt.
‘Why on earth should I?’ he demanded in a clipped voice.
There was nothing she could say to that. Why indeed? His response had certainly put her in her place. He was as good as telling her that what had happened between them—the kiss which had had such an intense effect upon her—meant absolutely nothing at all to him.
She ought to have felt comforted, and reassured, but instead she felt achingly empty, bitterly hurt, and more alone than she could remember feeling at any other time in her whole life.
CHAPTER FIVE
WHITE-FACED, her head pounding with tension and anguish, Hazel wondered how on earth she was going to make it through the evening. Katie wasn’t a fool. She must be aware of the grim silence between Silas and herself, even if, please God, she could not realise the cause of it.
They had driven back to the house in that same silence, which had persisted even when Katie had returned full of happy chatter about her own day, and it had gone on through dinner and beyond.
It was not that she was sulking, or in any way trying to punish either herself or Silas, although God knew they both deserved to be punished. It was simply that she could not, dared not speak to him because she was petrified of what she might betray if she did. Just as she was petrified of going to close to him in case her idiotic body did the same thing.
And so she had kept her distance and her silence, responding to those comments he did put to her in monosyllabic words.
Telling herself that it was the least she could do, she announced that she was going to have an early night, ignoring Katie’s plaintive comments that she would be leaving first thing in the morning and that she had barely seen her.
She couldn’t bring herself to make the obvious comment which was that unless she and Silas had made plans for him to visit Katie at university over the weekends it was going to be quite some time before the two of them were likely to be alone again, and that in the circumstances she would have thought that Katie would have welcomed the opportunity to spend some time in private with him.
She was finding it increasingly difficult to force herself to acknowledge that Katie and Silas were lovers, and no wonder, she reflected bleakly as she prepared for bed.
Just what kind of mother was she, she who had always prided herself on putting Katie’s needs first? Was it putting Katie’s needs first to allow Silas, Katie’s boyfriend, to…to…? To what? To kiss her?
She shuddered sickly. She had never felt more confused or unhappy in her whole life. Why on earth was she reacting to Silas like this? Why on earth had her body chosen to show her that it could feel desire, that it could feel yearning and want, that it could be so sexually responsive, that even now…yes, even now, merely to remember Silas’s kiss was to reactivate all the emotions and sensations she had experienced in his arms?
It wasn’t as though she was a teenager or even a young woman any more. It wasn’t as though… As though what? an inner voice demanded rebelliously—as though she was still a woman? Of course she was.
All right, she admitted painfully. So she was still a woman, and a very foolish one at that. But why on earth did she have to want Silas? She knew other men, plenty of them, and she had never reacted to them the way she did to him.
She wandered restlessly round her room, knowing that if she got into bed she would never sleep, and then when she heard someone knock briefly on her bedroom door she tensed, the blood roaring in her ears, her pulses pounding.
Silas! But he couldn’t…wouldn’t…
She didn’t know whether to be relieved or disappointed when the door opened and Katie came in.
‘You OK, Ma?’ she asked with some concern. ‘You look dreadfully pale.’