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‘It’s hardly your fault,’ Silas pointed out.
‘Do you plan to stay in town long?’ he asked her politely as he handed her the glass of wine he had poured her.
‘I…I’m not really sure yet.’
Silas frowned. ‘Surely the business—?’ he began, but Verity cut him off, shaking her head.
‘I sold it…It was either that or risk being forcibly taken over. I plan to use the money to establish a charitable trust in my uncle’s name,’ she told him.
Silas fought hard not to let his shock show. What had happened to the woman who had put the business before their love? Verity must have changed dramatically—or perhaps weakened. Quickly he caught himself up. There was no point in allowing his thoughts to travel down that road, or in hoping, wishing—what? That she had had such a change of heart earlier, that their love…that he had been more important to her, that they could have…Stop it, he warned himself.
‘It must have been hard for you, making the decision to sell,’ he commented as unemotionally as he could. ‘After all, it’s been your life…’
Her life. Had he any idea how cruel he was being? Verity wondered. Did he know what it did to her to be told by him, of all people, that her life was so cold and empty and lacking in real emotion? She stiffened her spine and put down her glass.
‘No more than your business has been yours,’ she pointed out quietly.
It wasn’t true, of course—his work had been something that he loved, that he had chosen freely for himself, whilst hers…Not even with him could she be able to discuss how it had felt to finally step out from beneath the heavy burden that the business had always been to her, to feel free, to be her own person for the first time in her life.
Verity drew in her breath with a small hiss of pain.
‘I think I’d like to go to bed,’ she told him shakily. ‘It’s been a long day.’
Meaning, of course, that she didn’t want to spend any time with him, Silas recognised.
‘I’ll take you up,’ he told her curtly.
The guest room, Verity discovered, was more of a small, private suite on the top floor of the house in what must have originally been the attics—a pretty, good-sized bedroom with sloping ceiling and its own bathroom plus a small sitting room.
‘I had this conversion done for Honor,’ Silas informed her. ‘She’s getting to an age where she needs her own space and her own privacy.’
As he turned and walked towards the door Verity had a strong compulsion to run after him and stop him.
‘Silas…’
He stopped and turned round, waiting in silence.
‘Goodnight,’ she told him shakily.
‘Goodnight,’ he returned.
After showering and brushing her hair, Verity crept into bed. It felt so strange being here in Silas’ house. During the years they had been apart she had resisted the temptation to think about Silas and what might have been. She thought she had learnt to live with the pain, but seeing him again had reawakened not just the pain she had felt but all her other emotions as well. She couldn’t possibly still love him. Hadn’t she learned her lesson? Verity could feel the back of her throat beginning to ache with the weight of her suppressed tears as she closed her eyes and willed herself to go to sleep.
CHAPTER EIGHT
SILAS wok
e up abruptly. There was a sour taste in his mouth from the wine he had drunk and his head ached. Swinging his legs out of bed, he stood up and reached for his robe. His weight was much the same now as it had always been but his body was far more heavily muscled than it had been when he was in his twenties—the work he did was responsible for that, of course. Shaking his head, he padded barefoot out onto the landing and into the bathroom. He needed a glass of water.
He was just reaching into the bathroom cabinet for an aspirin when he heard a familiar sound. Putting down the glass of water he had been holding, he walked quickly towards Honor’s door. When she was younger she had often woken in the night in tears, frightened by some bad monster disturbing her dreams, but when he gently opened her bedroom door she was sleeping deeply and peacefully.
Still frowning, he glanced towards the stairs that led to the guest suite.
The noise was clearer now, a soft, heart-tearing sobbing. Verity was crying?
Immediately, taking the stairs two at a time, Silas hurried to her room, pushing open the door.
Like Honor she was asleep, but unlike Honor her sleep wasn’t peaceful. The bedclothes were tangled and the duvet half off the bed, exposing the creamy softness of her skin. As he realised that, like him, she slept in the nude, Silas hastily willed himself to ignore the temptation to let his gaze stray to her body, concentrating instead on her pale, tear-stained face.
