War of Love

'You would have survived as a couple, I'm sure of it,' Silke said with certainty.

'But at what price?' Her mother shook her head.

'And so you ran?' Silke frowned.

Her mother nodded. 'And so I ran,' she confirmed heavily. 'I thought Hal would get over me, that he would find someone—someone more suitable, acceptable, provide a stable home for his nephew-----'

'And instead he has continued to love you. God, that's such a waste, Mummy!' Her expression was pained.

'I was eighteen, Silke. Eighteen!' Her mother looked at her pleadingly. 'I wasn't mature enough, or strong enough, to believe we could weather that legal storm. I thought it fairer to Hal not to put him through-----'

'Mummy, the man has continued to love you for thirty-five years.' Silke was still stunned by the fact.

'And I've loved him too, Silke,' her mother told her quietly. 'Through the same thirty-five years, all the running, I've loved him too.'

She could see that, could see the pain etched into her mother's face at the memory of those lonely years without the man she loved. 'Perhaps—and I'm only saying perhaps—I can understand why you didn't feel able to cope with all of that at eighteen. I'm not sure any eighteen-year-old could,' she frowned. 'But later, why didn't you-----?'

'I thought it would be too late,' her mother groaned. 'I told you, I thought Hal would have found someone else, had children of his own to keep Lyon company.' She shook her head. 'I never for one moment thought he would remain a bachelor.'

'Didn't you even once think of trying to find out?' Silke said incredulously, wondering if, in the same circumstances, she would have been able to do what her mother had done.

Her mother shook her head. 'I didn't dare.' Her voice broke emotionally. 'It was what I had hoped he would do, for his own sake and Lyon's, but to actually know for certain...!' she added with feeling. 'No,' she said dully. 'I never tried to find out, Silke.'

'But if you had-----'

'I would never have had you,' her mother pointed out gently. 'And although I appreciate I haven't been the best mother in the world, I wouldn't have missed that experience for anything.'

Silke gave her a teasing smile. 'I'm glad you didn't! But didn't you realise,' she frowned, 'when you sent me to Buchanan's yesterday morning, that it was the same family?'

'Of course I knew it was the same family.' Her mother nodded. 'But it was a good account; I cer-tainly didn't expect you to meet Lyon Buchanan himself! And if it hadn't been for the mistake over the bunny girl costume-----'

'Could we forget about the bunny girl costume?' Silke cringed at the memory still.

'I wouldn't have met Henry again if it weren't for that costume.' Her mother shook her head.

And she wouldn't have met Lyon! 'You know, Mummy,' Silke said slowly, 'for all that I wouldn't have been born if you had married Henry all those years ago, think what a difference you could have made to Lyon as his "mother"; he's so bitter and twisted it's unbelievable!'

Her mother nodded. 'Hal would be the first to admit he didn't do a very good job of bringing Lyon up on his own. A question of a cynic bringing up a cynic! Hal was very upset after I left.' She grimaced. 'Didn't relish the idea of caring for a small baby, left it to hired staff most of the time. And while Lyon was growing up there were apparently always too many women interested in that vast Winter-Buchanan fortune that he inherited the majority of when he reached twenty-one.'

Silke could easily believe that, and was sure that Lyon had little idea what the 'real world' and 'real people' were like, that his cynicism owed more to the women he had met in his life than to the way Henry had brought him up. He had lived in too rarefied an atmosphere to appreciate that there were women in the world who wouldn't want him for his money and the prestige of being his wife. But she didn't want to be one of those women, didn't want to want him— in any way!

'Hal and Satin?' she prompted teasingly, anxious to put all thoughts of Lyon from her mind now.

Her mother blushed becomingly. 'Hal is obvious, I think. Satin because—well, Hal always said I had skin like satin.' Her blush deepened. 'The years haven't been that kind to me.' She grimaced. 'So he's going to find I'm not quite as-----'

'Mummy, the man loves you,' Silke cut in protest-ingly. 'He isn't going to worry about things like that. And neither should you.'

But Silke had to admit that she was worried; Lyon was going to be in her life for a long time to come. And after her reaction to him this morning, she wasn't sure how she was going to deal with that.

It was like waiting for the sword of Damocles to drop. Three days. Three days since Henry Winter had told Lyon that he was going to marry her mother. Three days in which there had been complete silence from the man himself.

And Silke didn't like it. Not one little bit. Her mother seemed to think she was worrying unnecessarily, that Henry's talk with the younger man had obviously proved fruitful, but Silke's own encounters with the man led her to believe otherwise. She didn't believe for a moment that Lyon was going to accept this situation with the calm indifference he appeared to be.

She was right!

'For someone who "doesn't even work at the agency" you seem to spend an awful lot of time here,' drawled a mockingly derisive voice.

Silke looked up sharply from her seat behind her mother's desk where she had been working, looking across the room at Lyon. As usual he had walked in unannounced. 'Don't you ever knock, Lyon?' she scorned as she closed the file she had been working on, to give him her full attention; she would be a fool to do anything else where this man was concerned!

He closed the door softly behind him, shutting out the hovering Jackie; the other woman looked apologetic at the fact that she had been unable to stop this man doing exactly as he liked. Again. At least, she had looked apologetic, until the door was firmly closed in her face!

'I came to see your mother,' Lyon told Silke dis-missively, brows raised at the fact that she obviously wasn't here.

But Silke was. 'And doesn't she deserve your respect either?' she challenged, unnerved at having him walk in here, even though she had been half expecting to hear from him.

His mouth tightened as he crossed the room. 'Where is she? No—let me guess; playing the loving fiancee at the clinic with Henry?' he scorned.

Silke gave him a pitying look. 'She isn't "playing" anything, Lyon. My mother happens to love your uncle. And, more importantly,' she added as she could see he was about to make a scathing reply, 'your uncle loves her.'

Lyon sat down in the chair opposite her, placing a large brown envelope on the desk in front of him. 'Henry is an old man; he doesn't even-----'

'Don't be so damned patronising!' Silke snapped angrily, getting to her feet, looking very slim in fitted black trousers and a soft green jumper. 'My God, you make him sound ten degrees off being senile!' she accused heatedly, eyes blazing indignantly, having become very fond, during the last three days, of the man who was about to become her stepfather. She certainly had no intention of standing by and listening to Lyon denigrate him.

'At the moment that's exactly how he's behaving!' Lyon rasped back, looking at her coldly between narrowed lids. 'My God, he calmly announces to me that he's about to marry a woman he hasn't even seen for thirty-five years, and I'm supposed to accept that he's completely in control of his faculties!' He shook his head disbelievingly.

Silke glared at him. 'You aren't supposed to accept anything, Lyon,' she told him disgustedly. 'They're two grown adults, with-----'

'Who have suddenly "found each other" again after all these years?' Lyon derided contemptuously. 'Spare me that, Silke,' he scorned. 'Henry may never have married, but he's hardly lived a celibate life the last thirty-five years-----'

'No one is claiming that he has,' she defended, her whole body taut with indignation, her hands clenched at her sides. Just who did this man think he was, talking about her mother and Henry in this way?

'—and your mother's life has hardly been blameless either,' Lyon continued firmly. Pointedly.

She became suddenly still, her expression wary now as she looked at him. 'I beg your pardon?' she prompted softly.

His mouth twisted. 'Your mother's life, over the last thirty-five years, makes interesting reading,' he told her challengingly, dark brows raised.

Silke frowned down at him—before glancing across the desk at the brown envelope he had put down so pointedly on his arrival. He suddenly took on the appearance of a cobra about to strike!

She couldn't believe it. This man, this—this... Words failed her as to describing exactly what he was. How dared he have her mother's past investigated? Because Silke knew, with sickening clarity, that was exactly what Lyon had done, that this was the reason for his silence of the last three days.

'You're despicable!' she finally told him disgustedly. 'Absolutely beneath contempt!'

She could imagine all too clearly how that report on her mother would read, knew how her mother's life would sound written down in black and white, the flitting from job to job, country to country, the finally settling down for two years with Silke's father, seeming barely to give birth to Silke before she was off again, this time dragging her child around with her. There had been relationships with men before Silke was born, other relationships in the years that followed her birth. Once she was old enough to understand, her mother had been completely honest with her about those, and, loving her as she did, Silke had accepted her mother's life.

But baldly written down on paper, without her mother's emotions to back it up, it would all look very irresponsible, probably promiscuous too. Which, looking at Lyon's contemptuous expression, was exactly what it looked like to him. Damn the man! 'Henry has a right to know about the woman he says he wants to marry,' Lyon told her tightly in answer to her accusation.