She had come to look forward to these shared meals, sometimes prepared by her, sometimes prepared by Silas and sometimes, now that she too was working on a new commission, by them both together. It had amazed her at first that a man could be so masculine and yet at the same time be so at home and at ease domestically. One cold evening when she had made a casserole which was one of Katie’s favourites, Silas had enthused over it and asked her for the recipe.
Sometimes he discussed his book with her, outlining to her what he was doing, giving her a fascinating glimpse into the construction based on hard facts that supported the fictional fabric of his work, and then there were other evenings when they barely spoke at all, but when their silences were comfortable and shared.
She had grown too used to having him around in far too short a space of time, she acknowledged one evening when he had telephoned her from Chester to say that he would be staying late at the library, checking up on some reference books he was unable to bring home.
That evening she ate alone and found that she had no appetite for the meal she had prepared; that she was too restless and lonely to settle…that the house felt empty without him in it and that she missed him in a way that she had not even missed Katie when she left for university.
He was becoming too important to her, she acknowledged, shivering a little in the chill of that knowledge.
* * *
AFTER SEVERAL DAYS of blustering winds and rain she woke up one morning to discover that the rain had stopped and that the sun was shining, revealing the untidiness of the garden, and pricking her conscience to do something about it.
Silas announced over breakfast that he intended to spend the day visiting several of the area’s older houses, in order to do some more research.
‘How is your work going?’ he asked her, reaching behind him for the coffee jug and filling both their mugs.
‘Quite well. I’ve finished the preliminary sketches. I sent them off yesterday and now I have to wait for the author’s reaction.’
‘Mm… Well, why don’t you have a day off and come out with me? I could do with a good navigator.’
She ached to be able to say yes. There was nothing she would enjoy more than spending the day in Silas’s company. Unless of course it was spending the night with him… She swallowed tensely. She was constantly having to battle against such wayward thoughts, against her growing desire to extend the intimacy of friendship which was growing between them to that of lovers, but since that one time when he had kissed her Silas had been scrupulous about maintaining a physical distance between them. There was nothing now in his manner towards her that suggested he found her remotely desirable as a woman. And that of course was what she wanted… Or at least it was what she had told herself she wanted.
She was not sure she could cope with several hours alone with him in the intimacy of his car. Her sleep last night had been disturbed by a particularly erotic and vivid dream in which he… She swallowed hard.
‘I’d love to,’ she told him honestly. ‘But I’ve promised myself that I’ll do some work in the garden while it’s dry.’
Silas looked towards the window.
‘The forecast is quite good for the next few days. Why not put it off until the weekend? I should be able to take a break then and we can do the gardening together.’
Together… What a wonderful word that was. She was desperately tempted to give in, to say yes, to ignore all those small warning voices clamouring so urgently inside her. What, after all, did it matter if Silas realised she wanted him?
It mattered a great deal, she told herself severely. He would find her desire for him embarrassing; it would spoil the friendship which was growing between them.
Regretfully she shook her head. ‘No. I really ought to make a start today.’
She waited, telling herself that if he pressed her…already half regretting having refused him, but he simply drank his coffee and said easily, ‘Well, if I can’t persuade you to join me I suppose I’d still better make a move.’
Half an hour later, as he left, he gave her another cheerful smile, leaving her with no idea that his whole purpose in asking her to join him had not been because of any research he wanted to do, but because he had hoped that the intimacy of being completely alone with her might allow him to take their relationship a step further.
Outside, away from the domestic setting of the house, there would have been far more opportunities to begin a subtle physical bonding with her. After all he could hardly put his arm around her to help her walk across the kitchen…at least not at this stage of their relationship.
And now he had condemned himself to spending a whole day away from her, supposedly doing some quite unnecessary research. So much for the table he had surreptitiously booked for lunch. So much for all the plans he had so carefully been laying. Wouldn’t it, he wondered wryly, be far easier and more adult to simply tell her how he felt and to invite her to either accept or reject him?
Easier perhaps, but he was not sure that she would take him seriously. It was true that she had ceased mentioning her age, as though it were some kind of barrier to her either feeling or engendering in someone else sexual desire, but he was still not sure if she would want to accept that he found her physically desirable to such an extent that there were times when it took every ounce of will-power he possessed to stop himself from reaching out and taking hold of her.
* * *
UNENTHUSIASTICALLY, Hazel went upstairs and changed into an old pair of jeans and a thick sweater.
In the kitchen she pulled on her wellingtons and a sleeveless jacket and, picking up her gardening gloves, opened the back door. The sun might be shining but the wind was cold, though digging over the vegetable patch ought to warm her up a bit.
Three hours later, her back aching and her energy flagging, she acknowledged that she had had enough. But it was still only lunchtime and Silas would be gone all day. She felt reluctant to go back into the empty house, but she was certainly not in the mood for any more gardening. Her muscles ached for the comfort of a hot bath, and then perhaps afterwards she could light the sitting-room fire and curl up in a chair there with a book.
Telling herself that what she was contemplating was the grossest self-indulgence, she cleared the clogging mud off her tools and returned them to the shed before walking tiredly towards the house.
Outside she removed her wellingtons and padded across the kitchen floor, stripping off her jeans and top where she stood, to stuff them into the washing machine with a grimace of distaste.