Mistress And Mother

CHAPTER ELEVEN

OUTSIDE the airport terminal building, Molly climbed like a sleepwalker into the limousine waiting for her. Donald had warned her that Sholto was very bitter but Molly had not seen that bitterness until it was too late. She hadn’t seen it, she conceded, because, unlike her, Sholto had been able to put the past behind him and start entirely afresh on their second marriage.

But that had been rather easier for him since he had never been in her position, had never known what it was to believe that she loved someone else. How could he understand how that fearful insecurity about Pandora had haunted her even in the midst of her genuine happiness a

nd contentment?

Yet what had she done today but wreck that happiness? She had deeply offended him with wildly erroneous and unpleasant allegations, the recollection of which still made her cringe and want to die a thousand deaths. And once she had roused Sholto’s anger the whole situation had suddenly exploded into something far more damaging and something she could no longer control.

Since Sholto had very obviously never been in love with Pandora and indeed clearly judged himself to be the injured party of their first marriage, he would have had to have quite inexhaustible patience to tolerate Pandora being raised as a bone of contention between them yet again. And Molly knew that Sholto had many virtues but inexhaustible patience was certainly not one of them.

He had brushed off her assurance that she loved him with complete derision and that had really hurt her. Yet before that he had made her ache with pain by finally telling her how much he had loved her four years ago. Even more aware than she had been that their relationship was in trouble, he had still married her rather than risk losing her. For a male as shrewd, coolly logical and practical as Sholto that had been a very telling choice.

And what about his accusation that she had already had far more reassurance than she deserved this time around? Right into early evening at Templebrooke, Molly paced the floor of the drawing room, disturbed by the maddening manner in which Sholto could, with a few annoyingly well-chosen words, turn her view of their relationship entirely upside down. For in scornfully describing how he had had to make all the major moves which had led to their remarriage he had told her so much.

In her efforts to protect herself and in her conviction that he loved another woman, she had fought him every step of the way. He was angry and bitter because he had felt forced to use first Nigel and then their coming child as pressure first to bring her back into his life and, second, to keep her there. And what did that tell her? Sholto had wanted and hoped for far more from her than a willingness to share his bed…bingo, Molly!

Racing over to the phone like a drowning swimmer who had suddenly been thrown a lifebelt, Molly punched out the phone number of the town house. Ogden answered.

‘I’m afraid Mr Cristaldi’s out, madam.’

‘He’s still at the office, then,’ Molly assumed.

‘No, he went out to dine with Miss Stevenson—’

‘What?’ Molly interrupted, stiffening in shock.

‘Miss Pandora, madam,’ Ogden clarified, in his innocence evidently thinking that she might not have recognised that surname. ‘Would you like the number of the restaurant or would you prefer to leave a message?’

‘Neither…thank you.’ Molly replaced the receiver again.

So Pandora was already back in London. No doubt she’d headed straight for Sholto like a homing pigeon—as she always did in times of trouble. That was a recognised pattern of Pandora’s, Molly conceded thoughtfully. And why was it part of the beautiful blonde’s pattern? Because Pandora loved him. ‘A problem I hadn’t seen developing suddenly created a major crisis,’ Sholto had said of their first wedding day. Had that problem been his belated realisation that his cousin cherished far from platonic feelings for him? And did he feel that admitting that Pandora had loved him or indeed still loved him would be too much of a betrayal of the other woman? Was that why he hadn’t just told her the truth?

She heard a car raking up the gravel beyond the tall windows and wandered abstractedly over to see who it was. It was Sholto’s black Ferrari. Her heart hammered with sudden intense relief as Sholto emerged and then sank in horror all the way down to her toes as a shining blonde head and a pair of long, gorgeous legs appeared out of the passenger side…Pandora!

It took Molly precisely one split second to back away from the window before she could be seen. They were supposed to be out eating somewhere together. Why on earth had he brought Pandora here with him instead? A frown of bewilderment and frank dismay on her face, she heard the harried tap-tap of the housekeeper’s shoes across the hall as the bell shrilled and shrilled with savage impatience. Sholto had run into the barrier of the bolts and chains which were drawn once the daily staff went home at five. There was a mutter of voices and then the drawing-room door opened abruptly and Pandora stood framed on the threshold.

The blonde dealt Molly an uneasy, strained look and then glanced over her shoulder at Sholto. ‘Oh, do go away and leave us alone,’ she said almost pleadingly. ‘I hereby swear and promise that I will not say a single word to upset your wife.’

Closing the door, Pandora moved deeper into the room and settled herself tautly down in an armchair. ‘I don’t know where to begin…’ she confessed. ‘But then I’ve never been that great at acknowledging my mistakes and saying sorry.’

‘Why do you feel you have to say sorry?’ Molly asked uncomfortably.

Pandora grimaced. ‘Because I was a real bitch the whole time you were engaged to Sholto and I knew you were outside that door that day and I didn’t warn him then or even tell him later,’ she admitted ruefully. ‘I wanted you to think that he only married you because you could give him kids… I hated you and I wanted to spoil things for you any way that I could.’

‘You were successful,’ Molly conceded.

Pandora winced but her troubled gaze held steady. ‘I’m not the same person I was in those days. I was all mixed up and terribly unhappy and I’m not like that any more,’ she stated with quiet confidence. ‘Sholto was a major part of my life then. I was very dependent on him and when he got engaged to you I started to panic and feel threatened…’

‘You were in love with him,’ Molly said with wry sympathy.

‘No…not in the sense that you mean.’ Pandora stood up again to walk over to the window, her restive tension unconcealed. ‘Sholto should’ve told you everything and then you might have understood. My problems back then all stemmed from a rather gruesome childhood.’ She glanced back at Molly, blue eyes pained but steady. ‘My father was a violent man. He battered my mother and when she cheated him of that outlet by dying from a heart attack he used his fists on me instead.’

‘Oh, no…’ Molly mumbled in sick disconcertion.

‘He kept me away from school if he marked me too obviously. Often I had to lie and pretend I’d had an accident. Our housekeeper knew what he was doing but she valued her job and just pretended it wasn’t happening… and in any case I was ashamed of it,’ Pandora admitted starkly. ‘I was the golden girl everyone thought had everything and I didn’t want people to know the truth. In a sense I helped my father to keep on doing that to me.’

‘It must have been a nightmare,’ Molly murmured with very real sympathy.