Silver

And yet, as he realised as clearly as though he could see her that she was toying with her food, he pushed his own plate to one side and said quietly, ‘Well, if you’re sure you don’t want to change your mind, we might as well get it over and done with.’

His words, gruffly delivered, almost stiltedly so—which in itself was out of character because normally he allowed no emotion to cloud the ice-clear coldness of his voice—only increased her tension. He was almost on the brink of feeling sorry for her. Just as so many others had already felt sorry for her. Their pity… his pity were the last things she wanted. She got up jerkily and started to clear the table, saying unevenly, ‘Not yet, if you don’t mind… I haven’t had my coffee.’

He was standing up himself and she half expected him to clear the distance between them and manhandle her out of the kitchen, but instead he shrugged and said calmly, ‘Just as you like. I’ll load the dishwasher, then you can make the coffee.’

As he moved efficiently and quietly between the dining area and the kitchen, Silver had the feeling that his very presence threatened her in some illogical way; that as he carefully loaded the machine and then closed the door he was just as effectively sealing off all her routes of escape from a situation she herself had deliberately engineered; and yet what, after all, was there in the slightest degree dangerous about a blind man who had already made it abundantly clear that the last person he desired was her?

As she stood in a corner of the kitchen with the percolator bubbling behind her, surrounded by the sounds and scents of the most mundane sort, she wondered why she should know instinctively that for the rest of her life she would remember them as a backdrop to the most horrible and all-encompassing sense of terror she had ever experienced.

It began in her stomach like a cold chill that slowly turned to ice and then burned as the chill itself spread through her veins; it made her head feel physically tight with tension, made her throat muscles lock and a thrill of pure fear spiral through her body so that she shuddered visibly.

And yet some stubborn, implacable hereditary awareness within her made her acknowledge that even if she could simply will herself out of this place and into another… if she could simply make Jake disappear in a thin cloud of smoke as one of her ancestresses had been reputed to be able to do, she would not have done it.

This dread… this terror… this acknowledgement that she was voluntarily stepping into a situation in which she was not going to be in control, in which she was going to be acutely vulnerable to both physical and mental abuse and mockery, in which she was voluntarily giving over her most intimate flesh into the possession of another… these were part of the price she had to pay.

Despite her education and her intelligence, Silver had a deeply atavistic awareness of darker forces running beneath the surface of her life… of currents and tides… a knowledge that went far back beyond anything that could be learned from the written word and which owed itself to the Celtic blood that ran through her veins, carrying with it hereditary memories of the magical powers of her race. It was as though that inner knowledge was telling her that this was the sacrifice she must make, this the magic talisman that would buy her success, this a very necessary crossing of her own private river of fate, and that to turn back now would mean that the whole flow of her life would have to be redirected into new channels.

Behind her the coffee still bubbled, but she no longer heard it, and her eyes no longer saw the cheerfulness of the small kitchen.

‘Silver.’

The crispness of Jake’s curt demand brought her back to reality. She turned and focused on him, blinking a little.

For a moment she trembled between advancing or retreating, and then, like a sleep-walker, she heard herself saying emotionlessly, ‘Yes. I’m ready.’

As he listened to her, Jake smothered his own awareness of her fear. What was it that caused that fear? He could only think of the obvious reason, and the panic he had felt emanating from her before she’d brought it under control had been far stronger than that would have merited. Beth had been a virgin and he her first lover, but she had come to him with joy and trust… Beth… He pushed his own emotions aside and said coolly, ‘You haven’t had your coffee.’

Her coffee. Silver had forgotten all about it. She looked at it with a pinched face and haunted eyes, not wanting to think about what she was about to go through.

‘We’re going to be more comfortable upstairs, and since my room has the larger bed I suggest we use that. You go up. I’ll bring the coffee,’ Jake told her.

He had another reason for suggesting they use his room, and it had nothing to do with the size of its bed, but rather its position. His own room was familiar to him, each object as clearly known as though he could actually see it. Every sense he possessed, and some he had never known before that he had, were warning him of impending trauma. His training, his knowledge of himself, everything he had ever learned about the human race warned him that should something go wrong, should something happen for which he was not prepared, he would be better able to deal with it from the relative familiarity of his own room.

However, as he made the coffee and took it upstairs, he told himself firmly that nothing was going to go wrong. This final act between them would be effected quickly and efficiently, and hopefully with sufficient finesse to make it endurable for both of them.

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