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‘She loves you, Philippa, and to be honest I’m not too sure that the Social Services would allow me to bring her up alone. No. The best solution is for me to move out.’
No, she wanted to protest, the best solution is for you to be here where you’re loved and needed. I should be the one to go, to pay the price of loving you, not the other way round.
‘I think it best that for the time being at least we tell the children that it’s only a temporary arrangement…’
‘Lie to them, you mean?’ Philippa asked harshly.
‘I don’t like doing it any more than you do, but this isn’t something we can explain to them, you know that…’
‘You don’t have to go…’
Oh, God, why had she said that? In her own voice she had heard the forlorn cry of a frightened child.
‘We could… I could…’
‘No,’ Blake stopped her. ‘No, Philippa… You see, I couldn’t.’
Tears filled her eyes; fiercely she blinked them away.
Well, she had asked for it, she told herself grittily. It wasn’t Blake’s fault that she had pushed him to the point where he had to be so blunt.
‘When… when will you go…?’ Her voice was a croaky whisper forced past the huge, painful lump in her throat.
‘Tomorrow.’ He ignored her small, shocked protest. ‘There’s no point in delaying things. I’ll tell the children in the morning at breakfast.’
* * *
Tiredly Philippa picked up the cup of tea she had just made for herself and wandered into the sitting-room, switching on the television and then curling up on the sofa.
It was now almost two weeks since Blake had left and if anything she was missing him more rather than less.
Tomorrow was Saturday. He had telephoned her during the week to say that he would be coming home for the weekend and she had determinedly made plans to spend as much time as she could away from the house while he was there. It seemed the only decent thing to do.
The agents had apparently had two separate people showing interest in her own house, or rather the bank’s house, and the bank had informed her that it was optimistic about an early sale.
It seemed there was also a small… a very small possibility that a buyer might be found for the company, but she was not to get her hopes up too high, the bank had told her—any sale would only be for a very modest figure and it was by no means definite that the business would be sold. If it was started up again it would certainly only be with a very much reduced workforce, Neville Wilson had told her in response to her query.
She had gone up to bed over an hour ago, but lying there unable to sleep had brought her down again to make herself a cup of tea. Now, too restless mentally to focus on the television she had switched on, she closed her eyes.
Her body was tired even if her mind wasn’t.
* * *
The house was almost completely in darkness, only a small light showing through the window of Philippa’s sitting-room, Blake saw as he stopped his car and got out.
Originally he had not planned to come home until the morning and he was still not sure why he had been foolish enough to give in to the savage clamouring of the needs which had driven him away in the first place and come back now.
He had never really thought of himself as a masochist, enjoying self-inflicted pain for its own sake.
He unlocked the front door and then stood for a moment in the hallway. From Philippa’s sitting-room he could hear the subdued murmur of the television.
It was hardly surprising that she had not come out to greet him, he reflected with self-contempt, but who could blame her for avoiding him? How arrogant he had been, assuming just because he was over fifteen years older that he was also fifteen years wiser.
But then fifteen years ago his reasons for refusing to give in to temptation had been reinforced by his knowledge of her own youth, his awareness of how limited her real experience of life actually was, his fear that she would be damaged in the inevitable battle between him and her father.
And of course then he had been afflicted with all the arrogance of his own youth, the magnanimity of his own noble rejection of his own needs in favour of hers.
He pushed open the sitting-room door and then stopped.
