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‘Have you got a dog?’ she asked him curiously.
Blake, following her glance, shook his head, and then told her slightly self-consciously, ‘No… At least not yet… I had thought… pets can be very therapeutic for people going through trauma; they can often express their emotions through animals far more easily than they can through their contact with other human beings. That’s one of the reasons I bought this car. Plenty of room for a family and for a dog as well. Don’t you like animals…?’
‘Yes, as a matter of fact I do, but Andrew never cared for pets, and with the boys at boarding-school…’
Philippa saw the look he was giving her and, correctly interpreting it, told him quietly, ‘It wasn’t my decision. Andrew insisted and…’ She hesitated, searching for the right words, reluctant to betray to him what she perceived as her own weakness. ‘There was family pressure as well…’
‘From your father,’ Blake guessed. His voice was suddenly much harder and colder, Philippa noticed. ‘What did he do?’ he asked her harshly. ‘Tell you that you were being selfish and emotional in wanting to keep them at home, putting your own needs before theirs?’
Startled by his perception, Philippa stared at him.
‘How did you know that…?’ she began, and then fell silent. Blake and her father had never liked one another and habit prevented her from criticising someone to whom she was supposed to be close to someone who wasn’t.
‘Oh… I suppose it’s your training,’ she hazarded. ‘You must…’
‘No… it isn’t my training,’ Blake contradicted her. He sounded angry, she recognised. Male anger had always alarmed her and unnerved her, and she had to fight to suppress the instinctive urge to placate him in the way that she had been taught… in the way that her father and elder brother had demanded and expected.
Those days were gone now; she was not responsible for Blake’s emotions, they were his responsibility, she told herself firmly.
‘It isn’t my training,’ he repeated. ‘Just the fact that I know your father.’
And I know you, he might have added, Philippa acknowledged silently. I know how weak you are.
‘It seemed better to let them go to school rather than keep them at home in a bad atmosphere,’ she said in defence of herself. ‘I didn’t want them growing up like my father, like Robert, like Andrew, to think that being a man means that you have to withdraw from any kind of emotional contact with anyone.
‘As it happens, the fact that they are away at school has meant that it’s been easier for them to come to terms with Andrew’s death. They never really knew him, you see. He never really had time for them…’ Or for me, she could have added, but she didn’t. She was in danger of becoming over-emotional as it was. ‘And thankfully they’re still both young enough not to feel any guilt…’
She stopped speaking. She had already said enough… too much really, but there was something about the quality of Blake’s silence that made it easy to talk to him.
All part of his training, no doubt.
‘You love them very much.’
His statement was as unexpected as the soft roughness in his voice.
‘Yes,’ Philippa agreed chokily.
‘When do they come home for the summer holidays?’
‘Not until the end of the month,’ Philippa told him, grateful for the switch from emotional to practical matters.
‘Three weeks. Good… That should give Anya some time to get settled in first.’
‘Three weeks isn’t very long,’ Philippa said. ‘It’s bound to be difficult for her, and not just because of the trauma of losing her parents. The change from living in a city, in a small flat to living somewhere rural… She’s bound to find it confusing.’
‘Yes, I know. The one good point is that she starts secondary school in September, which means that at least she will be on a par with her peers there.’
‘To some extent,’ Philippa agreed.
‘Having second thoughts?’ Blake asked her lightly.
Why was he asking her that? Was he having second thoughts himself, perhaps judging her too emotional for the role he wanted her to play after hearing her speak about her sons?
‘No,’ Philippa denied. ‘Are you?’
‘No, I’m not.’ He took advantage of a slowing down of the traffic to turn his head and look at her. ‘What makes you think I might?’
His questions made her feel slightly uncomfortable, vulnerable almost.
