Mistress And Mother

‘I believe congratulations are in order,’ she had said laconically. ‘Sholto’s in a meeting. Is he expecting you?’

‘Well, no, but I…I thought we could have lunch.’

‘We’re flying to Paris in a couple of hours. I’m afraid you’ve chosen a bad day to drop in,’ Pandora had drawled with pseudo-sympathy.

At that point, that had been the longest conversation she had ever had with Sholto’s cousin. Pandora’s blue eyes had been as cold as icicles. Only when they had got engaged had Pandora deigned to take notice of her and it had not been the kind of notice Molly found comfortable. As the weeks had passed, she had begun to resent and dislike the woman who seemed to be seamlessly entwined with almost every part of Sholto’s life.

Sholto and Pandora had had the same friends, the same lifestyle, the same wealth, the same tastes. Pandora had walked in and out of Sholto’s house as if she owned it, played hostess whenever he entertained, borrowed his shirts and sweaters and cracked clever jokes which had made Sholto laugh while Molly was still waiting on the punchline. Molly had hovered like a pretender to the throne, outmatched in looks, sparkle and sophistication, but Sholto hadn’t appeared to notice that there was a problem.

More and more she had found herself wondering exactly why Sholto should have asked her to marry him. He hadn’t mentioned love. He had pulled her close and said with the utmost cool and casualness, ‘Let’s get married.’

And she had been stunned, her wildest dreams fulfilled without warning. She had only been seeing him for two months and every time she had gone out with him she had had to fight her way past her stepfather’s grimly humiliating forecast that she was being led up the garden path by a rich and immoral playboy. Sholto’s reputation with women had gone before him and the evening that Sholto had made the very great error of actually correcting the Reverend Mr Gilpin on an obscure point of theology her stepfather’s rigid disapproval had blazed into outright loathing.

Their engagement had shocked everyone. Sholto’s friends hadn’t even bothered to hide the fact. Molly had reacted by trying to change herself into a more socially acceptable person. She had dieted with fervour, cut and tinted her hair first chestnut then red and finally blonde, and had run up a huge overdraft buying horribly expensive and more daring clothes.

She had been jealous of Pandora, had struggled not to be, had not to the bitter end realised that Pandora’s relationship with Sholto was anything other than it appeared to be. The two of them had been so frighteningly, cruelly clever. After all, right up until the wedding, Sholto’s cousin had feverishly dated and ditched one man after another, rarely making an appearance without some besotted male by her side.

‘Miss Bannister?’

Abruptly snatched out of the past, Molly glanced up uncertainly to find the receptionist trying to attract her attention.

‘Mr Cristaldi is ready to see you now. His office is at the foot of the corridor.’

Molly nodded as if she were a first-time visitor. She was grateful not to be recognised. But then who would remember her now, a one-day wonder of a bride, left to sink back into merciful obscurity as soon as some other unfortunate had grabbed the headlines? She smoothed down the pleated skirt of her green wool suit. It was the one she wore to church and was about as exciting as cold porridge. But Sholto hadn’t invited her here to loo

k at her, had he?

She opened one side of the impressive carved double doors jerkily and stepped onto the soft deep carpet beyond with a heart thumping like a mechanical hammer out of control.

‘Full marks for punctuality.’ Sholto straightened from his easy lounging stance against his gleaming glass desk and strode forward with effortless grace. ‘Would you like to sit down?’

With muffled thanks that went awry on her lips, she sat down on the very edge of a leather chair that had a most peculiar shape. Through the tinted windows she might have seen a panoramic view of the city but Sholto occupied her entire attention. He was smiling, which ought to have been encouraging but somehow something in the quality of that smile struck her as rather threatening.

He rested back against his desk again, fluid as a cat and at first glance looking staggeringly conservative in a navy pinstriped suit. But a closer perusal revealed the distinctive hallmarks of smooth Italian designer style accentuated by an exotic gold tie that in some lights probably reflected his eyes, Molly found herself thinking abstractedly. She reddened with fierce guilt and looked at the carpet instead.

‘I really appreciated your call last night,’ she murmured tautly, hoping to heaven she didn’t sound as crawly and servile to him as she did to herself.

‘Perhaps you had better hear what I have to say first.’

Molly nodded, forcing her gaze slowly up again, taking in polished, hand-stitched shoes, the perfect drape of his trousers on his long, powerful legs, the breadth of his chest behind that beautifully cut double-breasted jacket, the strong angle of his faintly blue-shadowed jaw…the perfectly curved lips breaking into a blindingly brilliant and amused smile.

‘Yes, it has been a long time since you saw me yesterday,’ Sholto commented lazily.

He sounded like a big cat purring after a kill. Alarm bells rang like klaxons in Molly’s head. He had sounded like that, all sexy and silkily reassuring, in Freddy’s feather bed and look what had happened to her then!

Unwarily she tipped her head back and met the dark, impenetrable eyes fixed on her. Her colour fluctuated wildly as she waited in that pin-dropping silence for him to speak.

‘Nigel isn’t on my conscience, Molly,’ he stated quietly. ‘I feel I should make that point first. I gave him a golden opportunity and he blew it. I knew he was no business whizkid but my bankers did recommend an excellent accountant. Your brother stopped using his services as soon as the garden centre was built, probably because the accountant was already telling him things he didn’t want to hear.’

Molly said nothing. There was nothing she could say. The internal workings of her brother’s business were a closed book to her.

‘And when Nigel started getting into trouble my bankers wrote to him. At that stage he might still have been pulled back from the edge of his financial abyss. But he ignored their letters. When they visited the garden centre, he told his staff to say he was out. When they went to the house, your sister-in-law refused to open the door.’

Molly licked her dry lips. ‘Your bankers were very menacing.’

‘Dio…what would you expect when they were getting the runaround like that?’ Sholto shot at her in complete exasperation.

Not liking the dangerous turn the conversation had taken, not wishing Sholto to dwell too long on her brother’s undeniable deficiencies, Molly conceded awkwardly, ‘Nigel behaved very foolishly.’