Mistress And Mother

‘I shall have to see that reunited pair before I leave,’ Ned was saying with determination.

‘Of course.’ Sholto gave the faintest inclination of his dark head and Ogden crossed the room in response to that silent call to receive instructions. Molly watched the smooth little byplay with amusement.

‘How many years have they been apart?’ Ned was asking fondly.

‘Since the night I was born.’ Sholto’s lean, strong face was oddly tense.

‘I expect you don’t even know what we’re talking about, my dear.’ His great-uncle gave Molly an apologetic smile. ‘Sholto’s father and my elder brother played a game of poker that same evening. Riccardo was boasting interminably about the most magnificent pair of oviform Kakiemon vases he had recently purchased at vast expense for the Templebrooke cotlection—’

‘Freddy despised him for buying them merely to show that he could afford them,’ Sholto inserted. ‘My father had no appreciation of the vases as works of art.’

‘My crazy brother wagered everything he possessed against one of the pair,’ Ned continued with an incredulous shake of his head. ‘And he won! Riccardo was appalled and he offered Freddy the most fabulous price in exchange.’

‘But Freddy preferred to take the vase home and enjoy it,’ Sholto completed in a wry undertone.

Molly blinked. They could not possibly be talking about her vase, currently sited on a chest of drawers in her bedroom where she could enjoy it. A lean hand curved round her spine to push her gently out to the hall. ‘Sholto…’ she began with an uncertain frown.

‘Of course we all knew that Freddy would give it back to Sholto in his will.’ Ned chuckled.

‘He didn’t,’ Sholto murmured in a tone of growing weariness. ‘He left it to Molly.’

‘Good heavens!’ the older man ejaculated in complete amazement. ‘He didn’t, did he? Old Freddy! Well, fancy that, contrary to the last… Still, it’s back in the family now, isn’t it?’ He laughed even harder and patted Molly’s shoulder. ‘Quite a dowry you brought with you, young lady. I shouldn’t think Sholto would’ve wanted to fix a value on that particular piece. It has to be priceless.’

Sholto’s bold features were rigid, his mouth compressed. He shot the garrulous older man a rueful glance. When they arrived at the biggest display room the central glass tower was already unlocked. Within it, Molly saw the exact mirror image of Freddy’s vase. The sight transfixed her. Ogden entered the room, cradling its match with splayed and reverent hands, sweat breaking on his concerned brow as he very, very gently set the second vase into the vacant space beside the other.

‘An unforgettable moment!’ Ned carolled, slapping Sholto approvingly on the back and demonstrating his complete inability to sense the explosive tension in the atmosphere. ‘The crowning event of your wedding day, my boy. A too long awaited mconcihation…a reunion…’

There was a lot more in the same sentimental vein but Molly had gone deaf. Numb with incredulity, she surveyed her vase, her pnceless vase, with its three pretty panel pictures of Oriental ladies, gentlemen, birds and cherry blossom picked out in coloured enamels. She was still standing there, pale as parchment, when Sholto returned from seeing his ebullient great-uncle out to his vintage Rolls-Royce.

Her pinched profile turned, green eyes awash with shocked condemnation. ‘How could you not tell me?’

Disturbingly calm dark eyes met hers levelly. ‘Had you auctioned off that vase to save your brother’s skin, it would have been the most appalling betrayal of Freddy’s last wishes.’

CHAPTER NINE

MOLLY flinched from that unapologetic response. She was in total turmoil. ‘How much…just how much is Freddy’s vase worth?’

‘As one of a unique pair, infinitely more to me than to anyone else,’ Sholto admitted with surprising candour. ‘That’s why Freddy left it to you. He was convinced that I would approach you to buy it back—’

‘I’d never have let you buy it!’ Molly interrupted in a sudden eruption of temper. ‘I would have smashed it into a thousand pieces before I would’ve sold it to you!’

‘Freddy was very fond of you. He was extremely upset when we split up. For some reason, he was frantically keen to bring us together again,’ Sholto murmured very quietly, his cool increasing in direct proportion to her fast shredding control.

‘You still haven’t told me what that vase is worth!’

Distaste hardened Sholto’s darkly handsome features. ‘More than half a million on the open market. However, it could fetch considerably more as the only other known example of that date is its partner and it will never be sold.’

‘Half a million pounds plus?’ Molly whispered in ragged disbelief. ‘And you knew that I hadn’t the slightest suspicion!’

She whirled away from him, fighting a desperate battle to control her flailing emotions. She had actually had the means to help her brother without recourse to either Sholto or his wealth. But Sholto hadn’t been prepared to tell her that fact and indeed had relied on her ignorance to persuade her into a devil’s bargain. Molly was devastated by that revelation.

‘All along you knew…’ she mumbled sickly.

‘Nigel didn’t deserve that big a sacrifice, Molly. At the very least, Freddy hoped that his legacy would give you financial security. At best he hoped it would reunite us,’ Sholto said in a flat undertone.

‘Allow me to decide what my brother deserves!’

Sholto surveyed her with cold exasperation. ‘Nigel needs to grow up, stand on his own two feet and accept responsibility. If you’d settled his debts for him, he would have been back in just as much trouble within another two years at most and what would you have done then?’