Mistress And Mother

Molly’s chin came up. ‘Say what you like.’

Sholto gazed back at her from the door. ‘When I would have defended myself, you wouldn’t give me the opportunity and I think that the last thing you deserve right now is an explanation.’

Particularly when the challenge of coming up with any remotely viable explanation would have taxed Machiavelli, she completed for herself. The door closed. No way would he ever tell her the truth. He would lie. He would have to lie. He would have no choice. Some things weren’t acceptable even in this day and age. And she knew him well enough to understand exactly how it had happened and exactly why it had happened.

Pandora was the one woman Sholto couldn’t have. And yet in every way she was his perfect match. They had spent little time in each other’s company while they were children. Pandora had been brought up in England, Sholto in Italy. They had been teenagers before they’d become close. Had the attraction been instantaneous or something that crept up on th

em both without warning? Had they known even then that it could never be? Was that why they had been so scrupulously careful not to let others suspect? Was that why both of them had always had other relationships?

She knew she was torturing herself and she snatched in a slow, deep breath, deliberately blanking out her mind and calming herself down. Then she walked forward to the mirror. As she smoothed a slight crease out of the bodice on her dress, she grimaced at the tenderness of her breasts. Of course it was about that time of the month, wasn’t it? She frowned and thirty seconds later she was checking her diary.

So her period was late. That was unusual, very unusual, but then the last weeks had been pretty stressful. A slight chill quivered down her spine, inner anxiety ready to explode. That tummy upset had been a coincidence, that was all. Sholto would never have taken a risk like thaL A male as essentially cool, controlled and logical as he was would not engage in unprotected sex.

Comforted by that staunch conviction, she opened the door and then it occurred to her that no method of contraception was foolproof and that accidents did happen. Please, not me, she thought fearfully, her blood running cold again with panic.

All the way down the stairs Molly attempted to rehearse a casual, artless question which she could hopefully throw in his general direction without sounding either foolish or paranoid.

‘You wouldn’t have been stupid enough to—?’ No, that wouldn’t do.

‘By the way, is there a possibility—?’ No, that gave away too much, underlined the mortifying fact that she had been totally detached from intelligence herself that night.

Sholto was in the vast drawing room chatting to a man and a woman. Molly hovered just inside the door. Sholto crossed the great sea of Aubusson carpet, a social smile skimming his mouth, his compelling dark eyes wintercool. Molly decided without much difficulty to put off the awkward question indefinitely and looked away, simultaneously meeting the astonished but delighted smile of the blonde woman as she turned round. Recognising the couple, Molly moved forward to greet them with genuine pleasure. ‘Natalie…Gerald, how are you?’

‘Thunderstruck to find you here,’ Natalie confided with frank amusement when the men had drifted away again. ‘Sholto only invited us this morning. He said he had a stodgy bunch of business acquaintances dining here tonight but that he had a very special reason for asking us over. Now I feel flattered. You and I always did get on well, didn’t we?’

‘Believe me, I’m grateful to see a familiar face.’ Molly laughed, rather struck by the idea that Sholto had invited Natalie for her benefit. She had been able to relax with the other woman from the first moment they’d met over four years ago.

‘But you must be extremely happy not to see one particular face,’ the blonde remarked meaningfully. ‘Dare I ask if you will be attending the wedding?’

Molly’s facial muscles had stiffened at that apparent allusion to Pandora but now her eyes betrayed her confusion. ‘Sorry… what wedding?’

‘Pandora’s…didn’t you know? She’s getting married this summer.’

In shock, Molly turned pale as milk but she kept her slight smile in place. Natalie was very nice but she was also a notorious gossip. ‘Who’s the lucky man?’

‘A very handsome Brazilian multimillionaire. I understand she’s completely besotted with him. I do find that hard to imagine. It was always the other way round for her. But then we haven’t seen her in years. She disappeared off the scene not very long after you did.’

With an unsteady hand, Molly reached for the drink Ogden extended to her on a silver tray. Pandora was in love and soon to be married. It sounded almost too good to be true. As quickly, Sholto’s renewed interest in Molly herself made the very worst kind of demeaning sense. At her lowest ebb four years ago, she had come to the conclusion that her sole attraction in Sholto’s eyes could only have been the complete impossibility of her ever reminding him of the woman he loved. She would never launch a thousand ships, she thought bitterly, but possibly Sholto found her very ordinariness a soothing contrast.

Sholto curved a light arm round her back and eased her forward to meet the latest arrivals. She smiled and chatted, hadn’t a clue what she said. As they moved on, Sholto angled his dark head down to her. ‘I hope you don’t mind drinking mineral water. You looked so tired earlier, I was afraid alcohol might send you to sleep.’

Molly hadn’t even noticed what she was drinking but now a flush of chagrined remembrance lit her cheeks. She would never, ever forget Sholto accusing her of being drunk on their wedding night. ‘Or maybe you were afraid I would fall into the soup and embarrass you!’

‘Nothing embarrasses me, but since you do not rejoice in that same indifference I suggest that you take a deep breath and control that temper. To be frank, my patience is wearing thin, cara.’

Once, when Sholto had turned to ice it had made her feel crushed and despised. But she was four years older now and tonight she was a stormy sea of violently conflicting emotions. She pictured him earlier, coldly outraged by her abuse of Pandora. She recalled their wedding night, the desperate courage it had taken to try and confront him. But in the end it had been sheer black comedy, she conceded wretchedly. She had been in such a state by the time she finally let him into that bedroom, she had been virtually incoherent with the extremity of her distress. And then the phone had rung. Within thirty seconds he had been striding towards the door.

‘I’m afraid I have to go out,’ Sholto had announced, shooting her a grim backward glance. ‘But then it wouldn’t be much of a party staying home with a hysterical, raving, drunken bride. I’ll tell Ogden to send up some coffee.’

And she had sobbed, screamed, shouted, screeched all the way down to the ground floor in his wake but nothing she had done or said had made the slightest impression on his determination to depart and to do so at all possible speed. With the hindsight of greater maturity, Molly appreciated for the first time that she had really done everything possible to drive him out of that door.

Now, in the magnificent dining room, she found herself seated at the very foot of the table with Sholto sixteen place settings away at the head. It was like being exiled, punished by deprivation. But, secure in the knowledge that they were in the midst of a running battle because she was not doing what he expected and backing down, Molly was determined not to betray her vulnerability.

‘I take it that you’re the mistress of the house,’ the suave young banker seated beside her drawled with a loud chuckle at his own unamusing wit.

‘Gosh, that’s funny!’ Molly giggled like a choking drain, colour staining her cheeks. ‘I haven’t heard anything that funny in ages!’

Her companion did not realise that she was joking. He shifted closer and for the remainder of that interminable meal bored her to death with stories of his greatest moments hunting, shooting and fishing. She hung on his every word because Sholto was watching her. Something Donald had once said to her sprang to mind. ‘He winds you up like a battery toy and then he leaves you flailing…’ With a repressed shiver, she finally fell silent over the coffee-cups, acknowledging that she had been guilty of pathetically childish, attention-seeking behaviour. She all but shrank when the banker pressed his business card into her hand and urged her to contact him when she was ‘free’.