Mistress And Mother

Sholto was already crossing the magnificent hall to meet her, golden eyes brilliant with exasperation. ‘Where have you been all day? You left the house long before Ogden did and he arrived hours ago!’

‘I got on the train and went home to pack,’ Molly admitted grudgingly.

‘Our guests will be arriving within forty minutes.’

Our, she noted—ctearty a slip of the tongue since she hadn’t a clue who he was entertaining and was utterly dreading the incredulity which would be the inevitable result of her sudden reappearance in Sholto’s life.

‘It won’t take me long to get changed…particularly when you made such a point about preferring me not to gild the lily,’ Molly said thinly.

‘I had a selection of clothes sent down from London for you,’ Sholto informed her drily, ignoring the gibe. ‘There was no need for you to go home. Ogden has already made arrangements for professional packers to clear your apartment. Everything would’ve been taken care of for you.’

Molly stiffened and visibly bristled. She had given her landlady a month’s notice, had packed her clothes and contrived to box the remainder of her possessions. She would scarcely have believed it possible to do as much as she had managed to do within the few hours at her disposal. Doing those things for herself had given her a sense of being in control of her life again. But Sholto had just exposed that feeling for the fallacy it was. She was not in control…he was.

‘I’m putting my whole life on hold while I’m with you. Isn’t that enough? Can’t I even be left to sort out the life I’m being forced to leave behind?’ she demanded sharply.

Before she could sidestep him to head for the stairs, Sholto curved a lean hand round her elbow to still her again. ‘How are you feeling?’

Surprised that he hadn’t challenged her angry response, she compressed her lips. ‘I’m feeling fine.’

‘If you’re feeling even slightly unwell, there is no need for you to put in an appearance tonight.’

‘I’m perfectly all right.’

His beautiful mouth tightened, dark eyes narrowing. ‘Dio…I didn’t know where you were… I was worried about you!’

Had he been worried that she had gone for good? Reneged on their business deal? Short-changed him with one brief night? As far as Molly was concerned, he had no rights outside his own bedroom door. He had made the rules and he hadn’t mentioned anything about policing her every movement.

‘And you shouldn’t be raving about the countryside tiring yourself out,’ Sholto continued grimly. ‘You look exhausted.’

‘This is about control, isn’t it?’ Molly accused. ‘I walked out of the town house without saying where I was going. I got on a train instead of getting into one of your cars—’

‘No, this isn’t about control, Molly,’ Sholto drawled softly. ‘It relates to good manners and consideration for others and you behaving like a very stubborn child.’

Mortified by the retaliation, Molly gave him a furious look and whirled away to start up the stairs. But as she climbed her steps grew gradually slower and slower…

All the way up that sweeping staircase, Molly found herself staring at the huge portrait on the landing. It depicted Olivia and her sister, Meriel, as debutantes. Both tall, blonde and classically beautiful. One had to look beyond Sholto’s dramatically dark colouring to see the resemblance but his aristocratic nose, finely modelled mouth and high cheekbones were all undeniably attributes from his mother’s side of the family.

On the other side of the landing hung an equally large and dominating portrait of Sholto’s father, Riccardo Cristaldi. Dark and dynamically attractive, he had been a notoriously unfaithful husband. The artist had captured the element of raw, earthy sexuality which had stamped those hard features. Molly had spent years striving pointlessly to recall those three faces, setting them next to an image of Pandora and Sholto in her mind’s eye…and constantly replaying seemingly quite innocent comments and pieces of information she had picked up during their engagement:

‘They’re touchingly close for cousins, don’t you think?’

‘Pandora might as well be joined to Sholto at the hip…but he doesn’t seem to object’

‘I always believed they would marry—’

‘Never—they behave more like brother and sister.’

‘One wonders, doesn’t one?’ A silence and a long look of shared and malicious amusement.

‘Meriel did make a dead set at Riccardo when they first met…but there was never any doubt about which sister he would marry when Olivia was to inherit Templebrooke.’

‘Riccardo had tremendous charm.’

‘Meriel married that boring little banker, Parker Stevenson, on the rebound…and surely you remember how that business ended? Several years after she died, Parker shot himself and nobody could ever work out why. He was the most devoted father and Pandora was only sixteen. She was completely distraught. She was in Italy with Sholto for months afterwards.’

‘Perhaps Parker found out something that made life seem no longer worth living…’

Those snatches of conversation had haunted Molly ever since she’d made that first appalling leap in comprehen