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‘Mmm, this is yummy…Hi, Dad,’ Honor acknowledged her father, turning her head to give him a wide beam.
‘Would you like to explain to me what the hell you think you’re doing?’ Silas asked Verity in a dangerously quiet voice, totally ignoring his daughter’s sunny greeting.
‘Riccardo gave us the best table, Dad,’ Honor chattered on, apparently oblivious to both Verity’s tension and her father’s fury. ‘Verity said it was because of her suit. It’s Gucci, you know, but I think it was probably because Riccardo fancied her. He likes strawberry blondes,’ she added warmly to Verity. ‘That’s probably why he never gives Myra a good table,’ she told her father, whilst Verity closed her eyes and sent up a mental prayer, not just for her own safe deliverance from Silas’ very evident ire, but Honor’s as well. ‘He doesn’t like brunettes…Dad…’ She paused judiciously before refilling her fork ‘…do you suppose Myra dyes her hair? I think she must because it’s such a very hard shade of dark brown. What do you think, Verity?’
Verity gulped and shook her head, totally incapable of making any kind of logical response. She was torn between giving way to the fit of extremely inappropriate giggles of feminine appreciation of Honor’s masterly undermining of a woman whom Verity could see quite plainly she considered to be a rival for her father’s attention, and a rather more adult awareness of the danger of her own situation and just how little Silas would relish the fact that she was the one to witness his daughter’s artful stratagems.
‘What are you doing here, Honor?’ Silas turned to his daughter to ask with awful calmness.
‘I…I…er…invited her to have dinner with me,’ Verity began, immediately rushing to the little girl’s defence, but Honor, it transpired, didn’t need any defending—rather she seemed positively to enjoy courting her father’s fury, looking him straight in the eye.
‘I invited Verity to have dinner with me,’ she told her father challengingly. ‘It was the least I could do after—’
‘The least you could do?’ Shaking his head, he turned from Honor to Verity and told her acidly, ‘First you damn near kill my daughter with your dangerous driving and then you, God alone knows by what means, persuade her to have dinner with you. What were you intending to do? Trick her into changing her story just in case I did decide to report you to the police? You run her down and then—’
‘No, Dad…It wasn’t like that…’ Honor pushed away her plate and looked quickly from Verity’s white face to her father’s. ‘I…It wasn’t Verity’s fault…I…’ She swallowed and then continued bravely, ‘It was mine…’
‘Yours? But Myra said—’
‘It happened exactly how you’d warned me it would,’ Honor ploughed on doggedly. ‘I did just what you told me not to do. I was on my blades and I didn’t think to stop or look and then I lost control and—’
‘Is this true?’ Silas asked Verity coldly.
For a moment Verity was tempted to lie and take the blame, but before she could do so Honor was speaking again, reaching out to touch her father’s arm.
‘Yes. It is true, Dad,’ she told him quietly. ‘I…I’m sorry…Please don’t be mad. I…I went to see Verity because I want to pay for the damage to her car out of my spending money. It was my idea for us to come out for dinner…’
‘Honor. You know the rules. What on earth…? You were supposed to be going straight to Catherine’s from school and staying there tonight.’
‘I know that, Dad, but today Catherine said that her aunt and uncle were coming to stay and I knew it was going to be a family sort of thing…I didn’t want…’ She hung her head before saying gruffly, ‘I just wouldn’t have felt right being there.’
As she listened to her, Verity’s heart went out to her. Underneath her amazingly streetwise exterior she was still, after all, a very vulnerable little girl at heart. A little girl who had never known the love of her mother; a little girl who quite plainly and understandably was jealously protective of her own place in her father’s life, to the extent that she quite obviously did not like the woman who she had told Verity was angling to become her father’s second wife.
‘I think perhaps we should go, Honor,’ Verity intervened, gently touching the little girl’s arm, summoning the quiet strength of will she had often been forced to use in her boardroom battles. It had never been Verity’s style to assume the manner of a ‘man’—there were other ways of making one’s point and any man, anyone, who thought that she could be bullied or pushed around just because she didn’t hector or argue very quickly discovered just how wrong they had been.
‘I haven’t had my pudding,’ Honor reminded her stoutly, but Verity could see that she was glad of her protective intervention.
‘I’ve got some fruit and ice cream,’ she told her, before turning to Silas and looking him straight in the eye as she said, ‘You’re quite right, I should have checked with you before bringing Honor out—that was my mistake. Yours…’ She paused and reminded herself that with Honor as an interested audience, never mind the maître d’ and the now very obviously fuming Myra, this was not the time nor the place to point out where he had gone wrong or what his misjudgement had been.
‘I’m quite prepared to drive Honor round to her friend’s, but I wonder if she might be permitted to finish her supper with me?’
‘Oh, yes, Dad. And then you could pick me up from Verity’s on the way home,’ Honor interrupted her eagerly. ‘I’d much rather do that than go to Catherine’s.’
‘If your pudding is ordered, then I’ll ask the maître d’ to bring another chair and you can stay with Myra and me. I take it you’ve finished your meal,’ Silas demanded of Verity coldly.
‘No. She hasn’t…She hasn’t had her pudding,’ Honor told him indignantly, adding, ‘Besides, I don’t want to be with you and Myra, you know she doesn’t like me…’
‘Honor,’ Silas began warningly, twin bands of anger beginning to burn high on his cheek-bones, although, as Verity could see, she herself was more alarmed by his fury than Honor.
‘Look, what’s going on? When are we going to eat?’
All three of them looked up as Myra finally grew tired of waiting on the sidelines and came to join battle.
‘I’m sorry,’ Silas apologised, giving her a warm smile. But Myra wasn’t looking at him. Instead, her eyes were flashing warning signs in Verity’s direction, narrowing angrily as she studied Verity’s suit.
‘I was just explaining to Honor that she could finish her meal with us,’ Silas told Myra.
‘What? But you’re coming back with me so that I can show you that video I’ve got of my cousin’s wedding…’ Myra protested, darting a fulminating look at Honor.
