Part 9 (1/2)

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 more 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, cras.h.i.+ng 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 h.e.l.l 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 s.h.i.+fted his weight somehow so that she was almost leaning full length against him, her b.r.e.a.s.t.s 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 b.r.e.a.s.t.s, 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 antic.i.p.ation 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 pa.s.sion 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 b.r.e.a.s.t.s.

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 s.e.xually, 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 s.h.i.+vered 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 was over, just like the storm within her. She s.h.i.+vered 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 lover 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 s.e.x with tenderness and caring.