Lone Wolfe

by Kate Hewitt

  ‘You’re welcome.’ He glanced around the enclosed garden. ‘I don’t think I’ve ever been here before.’

  ‘It’s the Children’s Garden.’

  ‘Is it?’ He continued looking around, as if he’d find a stray child hiding underneath one of the lilac bushes like some kind of fairy or elf.

  ‘I always thought there should be something more childlike about it,’ Mollie admitted ruefully. ‘Like toys.’

  Jacob nodded in the direction of the fountain that reigned as the centre piece of the small space. ‘I suppose that’s where it gets its name from.’

  ‘You’re quick,’ Mollie said with a little laugh. ‘It took me years to suss that.’ She glanced at the fountain of three cherubic youths, each one reaching for a ball that had just rolled out of reach. It was dry and empty now, the basin filled with dead leaves.

  ‘Did you come here as a child?’ Jacob asked, and Mollie nodded.

  ‘My dad took me everywhere. I know these gardens like my own hand, or I did once.’ She gave a small, sad laugh. ‘To tell you the truth, it’s been years since I’ve walked through them properly.’ She lapsed into silence, and when Jacob did not respond, she cleared her throat and attempted to change the subject, at least somewhat. ‘When are you hoping to sell the manor?’ she asked, a bit diffidently, for she wasn’t even sure how she felt about the manor being sold. It had been Jacob Wolfe’s home, but it had encompassed hers as well.

  ‘By the end of the summer. I can’t stay here longer than that.’

  ‘Why not?’ She couldn’t keep the curiosity from her voice; she had no idea what Jacob did or had been doing with his life. Did he have a job? A home? A wife?

  Mollie didn’t know why that last thought had popped into her head, or why it left her with a strange, restless sense of discontent. She shrugged the feeling away.

  ‘I have obligations,’ Jacob replied flatly. He obviously wasn’t going to say any more. ‘Why don’t you come back to the house? We can discuss whatever you need to begin your landscaping, and agree on terms.’

  ‘All right,’ Mollie agreed. She glanced down at the blank page of her notebook, and wondered just how much they would have to discuss. If Jacob wanted to hear her ideas, she didn’t have any yet. The sun was getting warmer as she followed Jacob back to the manor, and while she felt her own hair curl and frizz and sweat break out along her shoulders and back, she noticed a bit resentfully that Jacob looked utterly immaculate, as unruffled as stone, as cold as marble. Nothing affected him. Nothing touched him.

  Was that why he’d been able to walk away? To leave his brothers and sister, his entire family, without so much as a backwards glance?

  And what of his father? Mollie felt a chilly ripple of remembrance. She’d only been eight, but she remembered the furore of the press, the gossip of the village, when Jacob had been arrested for the murder of his father. In the end he’d been let off; everyone agreed it was self-defence. And William Wolfe had been a brute in any case. The entire village had rallied around Jacob, and there had never been any doubt that he’d been simply protecting himself and his sister. Yet walking behind Jacob, Mollie could not keep herself from thinking: he killed a man.

  Almost as if he guessed the nature of her thoughts, Jacob paused on the threshold of the house, turning around to give her the flicker of a cool smile. ‘I realise that as we’re the only two living on the estate, you might feel, at times, vulnerable. I want to assure you that you are completely safe with me.’

  Mollie flushed with shame at the nature of her own thoughts. They were utterly unworthy of either her or Jacob. She might be a bit angry at him, and bitter about all the lost years, but she was not at all afraid. In fact, there was something almost comforting about Jacob’s steady presence, and she realised that despite the fact he’d broken into her cottage last night, she did feel safe with him. Secure. The thought surprised her, even as she acknowledged the rightness of it.

  ‘Thank you for that reassurance,’ she said a bit pertly, desperate to lighten the mood even a little bit, ‘but it’s really not necessary. I know I’m safe.’

  Something flickered in Jacob’s eyes, and his mouth twitched. She might feel safe with him, but Mollie knew she had no idea what he thought. Felt. He gave a brief nod and led the way inside.

  Outside, the manor was covered in scaffolding, and inside, Mollie could see how much work was being done. The floor was draped with drop cloths, and ladders lay propped against different walls; nearly all the furniture was covered in dust sheets. From somewhere in the distance she heard the steady rhythm of a hammer.

  ‘You’re hard at work, I see,’ she said, parroting his words back at him, and was rewarded with a tiny smile, one corner of his mouth flicking gently upwards. It was, Mollie realised, the first time he’d smiled since she’d seen him, and it did something strange to her insides; she felt as if she’d just gulped too much fizzy soda and was filled with bubbles.

  Then he turned away from her and she was left flat.

  Uh-oh. She didn’t want to be feeling like that, didn’t want to have any kind of ephemeral, effervescent reaction to Jacob Wolfe. She knew what that kind of feeling signified, what it meant.

  Attraction.

  Desire.

  No way. Jacob Wolfe was not a man to dally with. Yes, he might exude a steady presence, but that control had a ruthless, unyielding core. He’d walked away from his family and responsibilities without a single explanation, had remained silent for nineteen years, letting his siblings fear and think the worst. She could not, would not, allow herself to be attracted to him even for an instant, even if he was incredibly good-looking, even if she’d always thought he had the same perfectly sculpted look as the prince in her old book of fairy tales, except with dark hair and no smile.

  Even when he was younger he hadn’t smiled much—at least, not that she could remember. He’d always seemed serious, preoccupied, as if the weight of the world rested on those boyish shoulders. Of all the Wolfe children, Jacob had fascinated her the most. Something in his eyes, in his beautiful, unsmiling face, had called out to her. Not that he’d ever noticed.

  He turned back to her again, and she took in the clean, strong lines of his cheek and jaw. She smelled his aftershave, something understated and woodsy.

  ‘Right this way,’ Jacob murmured, and led her into what seemed to be the only room that remained untouched by the renovations. William Wolfe’s study.

  Mollie gazed around the oak-panelled room with its huge partners’ desk and deep leather chairs and a memory flooded over with her such sudden, merciless detail that she felt dizzy. Dizzy and sick.

  She’d been four or five years old, brought here by her father, holding his hand. The office had smelled funny; Mollie remembered it now as stale cigarette smoke and the pungent fumes of alcohol. Of course she hadn’t recognised those scents as a child.

  Jacob must have seen or perhaps just sensed her involuntary recoil as she entered the room, for he turned around with a wry, mocking smile and said, ‘I don’t particularly like this room either.’

  ‘Why do you use it, then?’ Mollie asked. Her voice sounded strange and scratchy.

  Her father had been asking for money, she remembered. He was a proud man, and even at her young age Mollie had known he didn’t like to do it.

  I haven’t been paid in six months, sir.

  William Wolfe had been impatient, bored, scornful. He’d refused at first, and when Henry Parker had doggedly continued, his head lowered in respect, he’d thrown several notes at him and stalked from the room. Still holding her hand, Henry had bent to pick them up. Mollie had seen the sheen of tears in his eyes and known something was terribly wrong. She’d completely forgotten the episode until now, when it came back with the smells and the sights and the churning sense of fear and uncertainty.

  She looked at Jacob now; he was gazing around the room with a dispassionate air of assessment. ‘It’s good for me,’ he said at last, and Mollie wondered what that meant. S
he decided not to ask.

  She moved into the room, stepping gingerly across the thick, faded Turkish carpet, her notebook clasped to her chest as if she were a timid schoolgirl. The memory still reverberated through her, made her realise—a little bit—what Jacob and his siblings had endured from their father. She’d experienced only a moment of it; they’d had a lifetime. Annabelle had never really spoke of her father to Mollie, never wanted to mention the terrible night that had given her the scar she was so self-conscious about.

  Mollie was starting to realise now just how much she didn’t know.

  ‘Here.’ Jacob held out a folded piece of paper. ‘This is yours, I believe.’ Mollie took it automatically, although she had no idea what it could possibly be. Nothing of hers had ever been at the manor. ‘I had the water and electricity turned back on at the cottage,’ Jacob continued. ‘So you should be comfortable there for however long the landscaping takes.’

  Mollie barely heard what he’d said. She had opened the paper he’d given her, and now gaped at it in soundless shock. It was a cheque. For five hundred thousand pounds.

  ‘What …?’ Her mind spun. She could barely get her head around all those noughts.

  ‘Back pay,’ Jacob explained briefly. ‘For your father.’

  Ten years of back pay. Her fingers clenched on the paper. ‘You don’t—’

  ‘Whatever you may think of me, I’m not a thief.’

  Mollie swallowed. How did Jacob know what she thought of him? At that moment, she didn’t even know herself. And she was beginning to wonder if the assumptions and judgements she’d unconsciously made over the years about Jacob Wolfe were true at all. The thought filled her with an uneasy curiosity.

  ‘This is more than he would have earned,’ she finally said. ‘A lot more.’ Jacob shrugged. ‘With interest.’

  ‘That’s not—’

  ‘It’s standard business practice.’ He cut her off, his voice edged with impatience. ‘Trust me, I can afford it. Now shall we discuss the landscaping?’

  What had Jacob been doing, Mollie wondered, that made half a million pounds a negligible amount of money? Stiffly she sat on the edge of the chair in front of the desk. She slipped the cheque into her pocket; she still didn’t know if she ever would cash it.

  ‘Thank you,’ she said, awkwardly, because how did you thank someone for giving you a fortune, especially when it seemed to matter so little to him?

  Jacob shrugged her gratitude aside. ‘So.’ He folded his hands on the desk and levelled her with one dark look. His eyes, Mollie thought, were endlessly black. No silver or gold glints, no warmth or light. Just black. ‘You mentioned there was damage. Besides the obvious?’

  ‘It looks like a virus has claimed most of the bushes in the Rose Garden. There are a lot of dead trees that need to be cleared and cut, and of course all the stonework and masonry need to be repointed.’ Jacob nodded, clearly expecting her to continue. ‘I don’t want to take away from the beauty of the original design,’ Mollie said firmly. ‘The gardens’ designs are at least five hundred years old in some places. So whatever landscaping I do, I’d like to maintain the integrity of the original work.’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘Like you’re doing with the house,’ she added. ‘Aren’t you?’

  There was a tiny pause. ‘Of course,’ he said again. ‘The house is a historic monument. The last thing I want to do is modernise it needlessly.’

  ‘Who is overseeing the renovations?’

  ‘I am.’

  ‘I mean, what company. Did you hire an architect?’

  Another tiny pause. ‘J Design.’

  Mollie sat back, impressed. ‘They’re quite good, aren’t they?’

  Jacob gave her the faintest of smiles. ‘So I’ve heard.’

  She glanced around the room; even with the windows thrown open to the fresh summer day, she thought she could still catch the stale whiff of cigarette smoke, the reek of old alcohol. Or was that just her imagination? She felt claustrophobic, as if the house and its memories were pressing in on her, squeezing the very breath and life out of her. She could only imagine how Jacob felt. He had so many more memories here than she did. ‘When are you hoping to put the manor on the market?’

  Jacob’s face tightened, his mouth thinning to a hard line. ‘As soon as possible.’

  ‘You won’t miss it?’ Mollie asked impulsively. She didn’t know what made her ask the question; perhaps it was the force of her own memories, or maybe the way Jacob looked so hard, so unfeeling. Yet he’d cared enough to give her her father’s back pay and then some. Or was that just out of guilt or perhaps pity? Did the man feel anything at all? Looking at his impassive face, she could hardly credit him with any deep emotion. ‘It was your home,’ she said quietly. ‘Whatever happened here.’

  ‘And it’s time for it to be someone else’s home,’ Jacob replied coolly. Mollie could tell she’d pushed too far, asked too much. He rose from the desk, clearly expecting her to rise as well. ‘Feel free to order whatever you need to begin the landscaping work. You can send the bills to me.’

  The thought was incredible. The greatest commission she’d probably ever receive, with carte blanche to do as she liked. It was like a dream. A fantasy. Yet she still felt uneasy, uncertain … and no more so than when she looked into Jacob’s dark eyes. It was like looking into a deep pit, Mollie thought. An endless well of … sorrow. The word popped into her mind, as unexpected as a bubble—the bubbles she’d felt earlier. Perhaps sorrow was an emotion he felt.

  ‘Thank you,’ she finally said. ‘You’re putting an awful lot of trust in me.’

  Jacob’s face twisted for no more than a second, and something like pain flashed in his eyes. Then his expression ironed out, as blank and implacable as ever. ‘Then earn it,’ he replied brusquely. ‘Starting now.’ He walked out of the study, leaving Mollie no choice but to follow.

  CHAPTER THREE

  MOLLIE threw herself into the work. She wanted to, and it was easier than dealing with the other demands of her life … packing up her father’s things, or thinking about her own future, or wondering about Jacob Wolfe.

  She spent an inordinate amount of time doing the latter. She wanted to ask him where he’d been, what he’d done, why he’d come back. She never got the chance. In the week she’d been back at Wolfe Manor, she’d hardly seen Jacob since she’d walked out of his study.

  Emails from Annabelle didn’t clarify the situation too much. Now that the electricity was working in the cottage, she’d finally managed to check her email. There were at least a dozen from Annabelle, detailing Jacob’s arrival at the manor, warning Mollie that he didn’t know she was at the cottage. Wryly Mollie wished she’d thought to check her email while in Italy. Access had been limited, and frankly she’d been happy to escape the world and all of its demands for a little while.

  It felt good to work hard with her hands all day, to get sweaty and dirty and covered in mud. She came back to the cottage every night to shower and fall into bed, too tired even to dream.

  And yet still, in her spare and unguarded moments, her thoughts returned to Jacob again and again. She wanted to ask him questions. She wanted to know what he’d been doing all these years, and what he was doing now. She wanted to see him again. Just to get some clarity, Mollie told herself. And some closure. Explanations that would justify why he’d left everyone in such a lurch. Nothing more.

  Except even as she told herself that was all, she knew it wasn’t. She thought of the darkness of his eyes, the crisp scent of his aftershave, and knew she wanted to see him again, full stop.

  A week after Jacob gave her the commission Mollie was still removing all the weeds and dead wood in preparation to actually begin the landscaping and give the garden new life. She’d hired a tree surgeon from the neighbouring village to come to the manor and cut some of the larger trees down, yet when he didn’t arrive and the hours ticked on, annoyance gave way to alarm.

  She rung the man’s mobile, on
ly to have him explain without too much apology, ‘Sorry, but I called the manor to check on some details, and was told to cancel.’

  ‘What …?’ Mollie exclaimed in an outraged squeak. ‘Who told you that?’

  ‘I dunno … someone there who picks up the phone, at any rate. Sorry.’

  And Mollie knew who that would be. There were only two of them here after all. And she wasn’t supposed to feel vulnerable. Well, she didn’t. She felt bloody cross. She’d wasted a whole day waiting for someone who had no intention of coming, and Jacob had not even had the courtesy to inform her he’d cancelled her arrangements. She was operating on a tight schedule already, and she certainly didn’t need his interference.

  After rearranging a time with the tree surgeon, she stalked to the manor. If Jacob Wolfe was going to interfere with her job, she wanted to know why. And she’d also tell him to butt out. She looked forward to the sense of vindication. Yet when she knocked on the manor’s front doors so hard her knuckles ached she received no response. She peeked in the windows and rattled the doorknob, uselessly, for the house was locked up. Above her the sky was heavy and dank, and she felt as if its weight were pressing on her. It looked ready to pour, and she was too annoyed and out of sorts to head back to the gardens in this weather.

  Mollie decided to return to the cottage. She’d take the opportunity to start sorting through her father’s things, something she’d put off for far too long already. As she headed down the twisting path through the woods, the first fat drops began to fall.

  An hour later, freshly showered and dressed in comfortable trackie bottoms and a T-shirt, Mollie started through her father’s things. She’d picked the least emotional of his possessions: boxes of old bills and paperwork that had never managed to be filed. Yet even these held their own poignancy; Mollie gazed at her father’s crabbed handwriting on one of the papers. He’d been jotting notes about a new rose hybrid on the back of a warning that the electricity would be turned off if a payment wasn’t made. She thought of the crumpled notes William Wolfe had thrown at her father, and how he’d picked them up. Her heart twisted inside her.