looked so young and innocent that I was afraid you might…I was afraid that if I let you see just how much I wanted you, I’d frighten you, terrify the life out of you,’ he had told her rawly, weeks later, as he’d held her in his arms and kissed her over and over again, the way she had secretly wanted him to and equally secretly been afraid that he might that first day in the garden.
Looking back with the maturity she had since gained, she could still see no signs, no warnings of what was to be or the full enormity of how badly she was going to be hurt.
She had believed Silas implicitly when he had told her that he loved her. Why should she not have done? He, after all, had been the one who had pursued her, courted her, laid seige to her heart and her emotions, her life.
That first summer had been a brilliant kaleidoscope of warmth, love and laughter, or so it seemed looking back on it. She had still been talking to Silas hours later when her uncle had returned home, her bags still standing on the drive where the taxi driver had dropped them and her off. She had been blissfully unaware of just how late it had been until she’d seen her uncle draw up.
‘Still here?’ he asked Silas curtly, nodding dismissively to him as he turned to Verity and demanded frowningly, ‘I should have thought you’d have too much studying to do to waste your time out here, Verity…’
Chastened, Verity bade Silas a mumbled ‘goodbye’ and turned to follow her uncle into the house. But when she went to pick up her bags, Silas had got there first, gathering up the two heaviest cases as though they weighed a mere nothing.
To Verity, used as she was to the far more frail frame of her elderly uncle, the sight of so much raw, sexual, male strength was dizzyingly exciting.
Her uncle lectured her over supper about the need for her to allocate time during her summer vacation for working hard at her studies.
‘Of course, you’ll come to the factory with me during the day,’ he informed her, and Verity did not attempt to argue. Every holiday since she had turned sixteen had been spent thus, with her learning every aspect of the business from the factory floor upwards, under her uncle’s critical eye.
But fate, it seemed, had had other plans for her. The following morning when she went downstairs—her uncle always insisted on leaving for the factory well before seven so that he could be there before the first workers arrived at eight—she learned that her uncle had received a telephone call late the previous evening informing him that the firm’s Sales Director had been taken to hospital with acute appendicitis, which meant that her uncle was going to have to step into his shoes and fly to the Middle East to head a sales delegation.
He would, he informed Verity, be gone for almost a month.
‘I shall have to leave you here to your own devices,’ he told her. ‘I can’t have you going into the factory without my supervision. Had this happened a little earlier I could have made arrangements for you to come with me. It would have been excellent experience for you but, unfortunately, it’s far too late now for you to have the necessary inoculations and for me to get a visa for you. Still, you must have brought work home with you from university.’
‘Yes,’ she agreed meekly, eyes downcast, her heart suddenly bounding so frantically fast against her chest wall that she felt positively lightheaded.
Even with her uncle gone she was still unable to acknowledge the real reason for her excitement and sense of freedom, nor for her sudden decision to work in the sitting room which overlooked the part of the garden which Silas had been working on the previous day and to wear a pair of cotton shorts which showed off her long slim legs.
Silas arrived within an hour of her uncle’s departure, and from her strategic position in the sitting room Verity was able to discreetly watch him as he worked. As the day grew hotter he stopped working and stood up, stretching his back before removing his soft cotton tee shirt.
Dry-mouthed, Verity watched him, her body shaking with the most disturbing sensation she had ever experienced.
‘Lust,’ she told herself angrily now as she folded the last few pairs of briefs and put them neatly into one of the wardrobe drawers.
Lust: she had been too naive to know just what that was or how powerful it could be then. All she had known was that, no matter how hard she tried to concentrate on her work and the words on the paper in front of her, all that she could really see was Silas’ image imprinted on her eyeball.
At lunch time she had gone outside to offer him a cold drink and something to eat. Gravely he had accepted, following her into the kitchen, and it had only been later that he had admitted to her that he had brought his own refreshments with him but that the opportunity to spend some time with her had been too much of a temptation for him to resist.
Over the light salad lunch she had quickly and nervously prepared for him—Verity had possessed very few domestic skills in those days; her uncle had considered that learning them was a waste of time when she was going to take over his business and they had a housekeeper who lived in, but who fortuitously was away at that time taking her annual period of leave—Verity had listened wide-eyed whilst Silas had described to her his work and his plans.
‘That’s enough about me,’ he announced gruffly when they had both finished eating. ‘What about you? What do you intend to do with your life?’
‘Me? I’m going to take over my uncle’s business,’ Verity told him gravely. ‘That’s what he’s training me for. I’m the only person he’s got to inherit it, you see. It’s his life’s work and—’
‘His life’s work, but you have your own life and the right to make your own choices, surely?’ Silas interrupted her sharply, before telling her pointedly, ‘My parents originally wanted me to train as a doctor like my father, but they would never impose that kind of decision on me, nor would I allow them to…’
‘I…my uncle…My uncle took me in when my parents were killed,’ Verity explained low-voiced to him. ‘I’ve always known that he expects me…that he wants me…I’m very lucky, really, it’s a wonderful opportunity…’
‘It’s a wonderful opportunity if it’s what you really want,’ Silas agreed, ‘otherwise it’s…Is it what you want, Verity?’
‘I…I…It’s what’s expected of me,’ Verity told him a little unsteadily. It was proving virtually impossible to concentrate on what he was saying with him sitting so close to her—close enough for her to be intensely, embarrassingly aware of his body and its evident physical masculinity, its tantalising male scent. He had asked her permission to ‘clean up’ before sitting down to lunch with her and his discarded shirt was now back on.
Every time she dared to look at him she was swept with such an intense and heightened awareness of him that she could feel her face starting to flush with hot self-consciousness.
‘What’s expected of you? Listen,’ Silas commanded her, reaching out and taking hold of her hand, keeping it between his own with an open easiness which robbed her of the ability to object or protest. ‘No one has the right to expect anything of you. You have the right to choose for yourself what you do with your life. It is your life you’re living you know, and not your uncle’s…’
Verity bit her lip.
‘I…I know,’ she responded uncertainly, ‘but…’
‘I’m
