Read Online Summer at the Lake by Erica James - Free Book Online Page B

drawer in the kitchen – Adam had been awarded no such treatment, not even a bit of kitchen roll. But then having Miss Silcox here was a bit like having a visit from the Queen. Though what had she been thinking, giving her royal guest such a clunky old mug? It looked like a bucket in Miss Silcox’s small elegant hands – hands that were doubtless more accustomed to delicate teacups made of expensive fine bone china.
    ‘Please don’t think we were gossiping about you,’ Miss Silcox said, meeting Floriana’s gaze over the top of the huge mug, ‘but Adam mentioned that you seemed to think you were at fault for the accident. Surely you can’t really believe that? The car, after all, was going much too fast.’
    ‘I’m afraid I was at fault to a degree,’ Floriana responded. ‘I still can’t actually recall the impact of the car hitting me, but I do remember stepping into the road without looking. I feel rather silly about the whole business. To be honest, I feel a bit sorry for the driver.’
    The old lady’s silver eyebrows rose at that. ‘But he didn’t stop,’ she said, clearly taken aback. ‘He could have left you for dead.’
    ‘I know, but the thing is, there was nothing premeditated about it and I can easily understand that he, or she for that matter, probably panicked and just took off.’
    ‘That’s a very generous attitude on your part, but don’t you think the driver ought to be taught a lesson, if only to stop him, or her , from doing it again?’
    Floriana thought about this and with a truffle held between her thumb and forefinger, she dipped it into her mug of hot chocolate. ‘I agree, in principle,’ she said, ‘but how do we know the driver hasn’t spent the weekend in a frenzy of regret and self-recrimination? Would being sent to jail and punished for an accident they didn’t cause be truly just? I’m not sure I’d want that on my conscience when I know that I’m partly to blame, that were it not for the fact my mind was elsewhere, I would have reached home quite safely. And you know, if the timing had been different, it could have been Adam’s car I stepped out in front of.’
    Miss Silcox pursed her lips. ‘An admirable approach and I applaud you for that. We live in an age when too many people refuse to accept responsibility for their actions and rush pell-mell to blame others for their mistakes. Yet I still hold the view that I’d think better of the driver if he’d had the courage to stop and help. As for Adam knocking you over, had he done so, he would most assuredly have stopped to help you. I barely know him, but he’s a man of integrity, that I’m sure of.’
    Floriana popped the warmed softened truffle into her mouth and let it melt on her tongue. At length, she said, ‘We can never really know how a person will react when faced with a moral dilemma, can we? Likewise, we all make mistakes. Haven’t you done something which you’ve regretted the instant you did it?’
    As she heard herself ask the question, Floriana wondered with a spark of irritation if she wasn’t thinking about something altogether different.
    About Seb.
    About her and Seb.
    She flushed with annoyance, for betraying the depth of her feelings, that Seb was never far from her thoughts. Unwilling to pursue the conversation further, she offered Miss Silcox another truffle.
    ‘No thank you,’ the old lady said, ‘they’re for you. And yes, I’ve done many things I’ve regretted, but just as many I don’t, though perhaps some I ought.’
    In the silence that followed, while Floriana tried to think of something else to talk about, Miss Silcox looked about her. When furnishing the room Floriana had had shabby chic in mind, but even she had to admit she had only achieved the shabby element of the design.
    She watched her guest’s sharp eyes roaming over the packed bookshelves either side of the fireplace, the cast-off television from her parents, the basket of knitting on the floor – she was