How could it have happened that she had become so desperate for his touch that she felt like this? She had grown used to thinking of herself as the kind of woman who scorned such things as passionate embraces in lifts. But now she felt achingly disappointed because Silas was not making any move towards her at all.
Getting into the lift with Tilly instead of using the stairs had been a serious misjudgement, Silas admitted. The small enclosed space meant he was standing close enough to Tilly to be surrounded by the woman-scent of her skin and hair. They drew him to her with the irresistible pull nature had expressly designed them to have. Standing this close to her made him want to stand even closer still, and to do far more than just stand with her. He wanted to take her and lay her down beneath him, so that he could explore and savour every delicious inch of her, starting with the toes he had watched her curl up in sexual reaction to him, and moving all the way up to her mouth.
The lift jolted to a halt, its doors opening. Tilly stepped out into an elegant corridor and waited for Silas to join her.
‘We’re in here,’ he told her, indicating a door to their right and going to open it.
Silas had said he’d booked them a suite, and she had assumed this meant they would have two bedrooms and their own bathroom, Tilly thought as she stood in the middle of the smart sitting room of the suite. She said uncertainly, ‘There’s only one bedroom.’
‘I know, but, as I said, this suite was all they had left. And, after all, it isn’t as though we aren’t already sharing a bed.’ Something about the words ‘already sharing a bed’ had an effect on her emotions Tilly wasn’t sure she was ready for. They made them sound so intimate, so partnered—almost as though they were not just having a relationship but were already a couple.
‘If you aren’t happy with this we could always try the other hotel,’ Silas offered.
Tilly shook her head. ‘That would be silly. We might not get in.’
Ordinarily she would have been thrilled to be staying somewhere so upmarket and elegant. The building in which the hotel was housed was centuries old, but somehow the designers had managed to complement the age of the building by teaming it with the very best in modern design, rather than create a discordant mismatch.
Their suite comprised a sitting room, a bedroom, a state-of-the-art limestone bathroom, and a separate dressing room. While the bedroom overlooked the street, the sitting room overlooked a private courtyard garden to the rear of the hotel, which Tilly guessed would be used as an outdoor dining area in summer but which right now was covered in inches of snow.
‘I just wish I had the clothes with me to do this place justice,’ Tilly admitted ruefully.
At least she was wearing her good winter coat and her equally good leather boots. She’d become a fan of careful investment dressing with her first job in the City, even though her mother frequently complained that her choice of immaculately tailored suits was dull and unsexy. The black coat she was wearing today was cut simply, and her leather boots were neat-fitting and smart, just like the knee-length skirt she had on underneath the coat, and the plain cashmere sweater she was wearing with it. Thank heavens she had decided at the last minute this morning, after mentally reviewing the impression she had gained of the town the day before, not to wear jeans.
‘I really ought to ring my mother and explain what’s happened,’ she told Silas.
‘Why don’t I ring Art instead?’ he suggested.
Tilly looked at him. She had a good idea that he wanted to speak to Art and make his feelings about Cissie-Rose’s behaviour very clear.
‘There’s no point in making a fuss about what’s happened. Cissie-Rose will have calmed down by the time she gets back to the castle, and I don’t want Ma to get herself upset.’
‘You mean you think we should let Cissie-Rose get away with it?’ Silas shook his head. ‘No. When we tolerate that kind of behaviour in others, we allow them to continue with it. She needs to know that what she did is not acceptable.’
‘I know what you’re saying, but it’s obvious that Art adores his daughters.’ And equally obvious—to her at least—that her mother was living in mortal fear that they might somehow persuade their father not to marry her. So, no matter how much she might agree with Silas, her concern for her mother made her want to protect her. ‘I do agree in principle,’ she acknowledged. ‘But since we’re all going to be spending the next week together at the castle, I think on this occasion it makes sense to turn the other cheek, so to speak.’
‘Giving in to Cissie-Rose won’t prevent her from trying to oust your mother from her father’s life, you know.’
Tilly wasn’t quite quick enough to conceal from him how much his awareness of her private thoughts had caught her off-guard.
‘Did you really think I wouldn’t guess why you wanted Cissie-Rose spared the repercussions of her nastiness? It wasn’t hard to work out what you were thinking. After all, Cissie-Rose hasn’t given you any valid reason to want to protect her.’
‘I feel so sorry for her sons. She uses them like…’
‘Bargaining counters?’ Silas supplied astutely.
‘Well, I wouldn’t have put it as directly as that. I meant more that she uses them to highlight and underline her own role as a good mother.’
‘Oh, yes, she does that all right. But you can bet your City bonus that should the need arise she would have no compunction whatsoever about reminding Art where the future lies and who it lies with—and that won’t be your mother.’
‘You don’t think that Art will marry Ma, do you?’ Tilly said.
‘He’d be doing her a favour if he didn’t,’ Silas responded harshly. ‘I assumed at first that your mother was marrying him for the financial status and privileges marriage to him would give her, but it’s obvious that she doesn’t have the—’
‘Careful,’ Tilly warned him. ‘Especially if you were thinking of using words such as intelligence, nous or astuteness.’
‘You’re right. It wouldn’t be fair to use any of them in connection with your mother,’ Silas responded, with such a straight face that it took Tilly several seconds to recognise that he was deliberately teasing her.
‘Oh, you,’ she protested, picking up one of the cushions from the sofa and throwing it at him.
He caught it easily, but when he threw it back down on the sofa he said menacingly, ‘Right…’ and began to walk purposefully towards her.
Tilly did what came naturally, and took to her heels.
Silas, as she had known he would, caught her in seconds and with ease, turning her round in his arms to face him as she laughed and pretended to protest.
This wasn’t what he had allowed for at all, Silas acknowledged as he felt the heavy slam of his heart in his chest wall and the flood of awareness it brought with it. ‘This is completely crazy—you know that, don’t you?’ he heard himself saying thickly.
‘What’s crazy?’ Tilly asked.
‘Us. What’s happening between us. This,’ Silas answered.
Tilly knew that he was going to kiss her, and she knew too how much she wanted him to. So much that she was already standing on tiptoe so that she could wrap her arms around his neck to speed up the process.
Beneath his mouth she gave a soft sound of pleasure when he slid his hands inside her coat and then pulled her top free of her skirt, so that he was touching her bare skin. His hands were warm, their