by Kate Hewitt
As if on cue, the lights flickered and then went out, and Mollie was once again left in darkness. She sat there in disbelief, the notice still in her hand. Then anger—unreasonable, unrelenting fury—took over. First the tree surgeon was cancelled. Now the electricity was turned off—again! If Jacob Wolfe had changed his mind about having her stay here, he could have just said.
Without even thinking about what she was doing, Mollie yanked on her wellies. She reached for her torch and her parka and slammed out into the night.
It had been pouring all afternoon, and the deluge from the heavens had not stopped. Despite her rain gear, Mollie was soaked in seconds. She didn’t care. Righteous indignation spurred her onwards, stalking through the trees, all the way up to the manor house steps. She knocked on the door as hard as she could, but the sound was lost in the wind and the rain. She knocked again, and again, sensing, knowing, that Jacob was home, despite the darkened windows. And even if he wasn’t, she refused to slink back to her servant quarters yet again. She wouldn’t be stopped by a closed door. Not this time. With a satisfying loud thwack, Mollie kicked the door.
‘Owl’ The door swung open, and hobbling on one foot, she practically fell into Jacob’s arms.
‘Are you all right?’ Unruffled as ever, he righted her, his hands running down her arms, pausing on her waist and then examining her calves and feet. Even in her outrage and pain, Mollie registered a curious tingle as he touched her, so lightly, so impersonally, yet with obvious concern, his fingers deft and sure. ‘Did you break a bone?’ She thought she detected the tiniest trace of amusement in his voice, yet she had to be mistaken. His touch and his expression were both impersonal, emotionless.
‘No, I just stubbed my toe,’ she snapped. She stepped away from him and those light, capable hands. He reached behind her to close the door.
‘Is something the matter?’ Jacob inquired, and Mollie let out a sharp laugh.
‘I’ll say something’s the matter! Why did you cancel the tree surgeon I’d arranged? He’s booked solid through June, and I only got the appointment by calling in a favour. And if you had to cancel, you could have at least told me—’
‘I’m sorry,’ Jacob replied coolly. ‘I’m afraid it was an oversight. I was in London for the day on business and I had all my calls routed through my office. My assistant must have cancelled the appointment.’
‘Oh.’ Mollie didn’t know what to say after that. She found herself imagining the assistant, some sexy, polished city girl in red lipstick and kitten heels. ‘Well, why did you turn off the electricity?’ she finally demanded, blustering once again. ‘If you’d changed your mind about me, you could just—’
‘I turned off the electricity?’ Now Jacob looked truly amused. ‘I’m afraid I don’t have that much authority. The wind and the waves do not obey me.’ He glanced around the foyer, and suddenly Mollie saw just how dark the manor was. She noticed the torch in Jacob’s hand, and understood, far too late, that the electricity must be off in the manor as well.
It was a storm, for heaven’s sake. Even though she was shivering with cold, her cheeks reddened. She was a complete idiot, coming in here full of fury, and for what? Jacob had a reason for everything.
‘Oh.’ She shifted, and muddy water leaked out of a ripped seam in her boot. She stared at the spreading stain on the rug, and saw that Jacob was looking at it too. ‘I’m sorry,’ she mumbled, feeling both foolish and stupid. ‘I jumped to some awful conclusions.’
‘So it would appear.’ Jacob let the silence tick on rather uncomfortably as he gazed at her for a moment, and Mollie suffered through it. Perhaps this would be her penance. ‘Well, I can hardly send you out in that storm the way you are now,’ he said, sounding resigned. ‘Fortunately the plumbing has already been repaired. Why don’t you dry off upstairs? Have a bath if you like. You can change into something of Annabelle’s.’
Mollie’s eyes widened as an array of images cartwheeled across her brain. ‘I couldn’t—’
‘Why not?’ Jacob challenged blandly. ‘Surely there’s nothing waiting for you back at your cottage? I was just making myself some dinner. I only got back from London an hour ago. You are free to join me.’
Free, not welcome. Mollie was under no illusion that Jacob actually wanted her company. She was an obligation; perhaps she always had been. Perhaps that was what lay behind the cheque she still hadn’t cashed, as well as the commission he’d given her. Just his wretched sense of duty.
Yet he obviously hadn’t felt any sense of duty to his family; why should he feel it for her? Confused by her own thoughts, Mollie found herself nodding.
‘All right, I will. Thank you,’ she said, and heard the challenge in her voice. Maybe now was the time for the clarity and closure she wanted. Maybe now she’d get some answers.
‘Good. You know the way?’
Mollie nodded again, and Jacob turned from here. ‘Take all the time you need. I’ll meet you in the kitchen when you’re done. Don’t forget your torch.’
Without waiting for her to respond, he walked away, swallowed by the darkness.
As he stalked down the hall back to the kitchen, Jacob wondered why he’d just invited Mollie Parker to share his dinner. He wished he hadn’t. He didn’t want any company, and certainly not hers. She gazed at him with an unsettling mix of judgement and compassion, and he needed neither. He refused to explain himself to her, yet he couldn’t stand the thought of her jumping to more asinine conclusions.
She’d assumed he’d turned off the electricity again, just as she assumed he’d walked out on his family to follow his own selfish desires. He saw the condemnation and contempt in her eyes, had heard it in her voice that first night.
You may have run out on Wolfe Manor, but that doesn’t mean the rest of us did.
Jacob closed his mind to the memory. There was no point in thinking of it, of her, because he had enough people to apologise to and enough sins to atone for without adding Mollie Parker to the list. He’d give her dinner and send her on her way.
Yet even as he made that resolution, another thought, treacherous and sly, slipped into his mind.
You invited her here because you want to see her. Want to talk to her. You want her.
He’d avoided her this past week for too many reasons, on too many levels. Yet now her auburn curls and milky skin flashed across his mind; he could almost smell her, damp earth and lilac, and his gut clenched with a helpless spasm of lust. He was annoyed—and angry—with himself for indulging in such pointless, useless thoughts. Desires.
He’d had enough meaningless affairs, engaged in enough no-strings sex, to know when a woman was off-limits. And Mollie Parker, with her pansy eyes and tremulous smile and fearsome fury, had strings all over her. There was no way Jacob would ever get involved with her beyond the barest of business details.
The day he’d left Wolfe Manor, he’d made a vow to himself never to hurt anyone again, never to allow himself the opportunity. It was a vow he intended to keep; he knew his own weakness all too well. And anyone included Mollie Parker.
* * *
It was strange to be in Annabelle’s room. Mollie had only been here a few times, and then not for years, and she now saw that the walls were covered in photographs: artful pictures of a rainy windowpane, a bowl of lilies. And her. Many of the photos were of her; she’d forgotten how Annabelle had asked her to pose. She’d been her first reluctant model. Mollie stepped closer, shining her torch over the photos, now faded and curling at the corners. In half the photos she was posing rather unwillingly, looking both silly and pained. The other half were candids.
Annabelle had caught so many emotions on her face. It was strange, to see yourself so unguarded. There was a photo of her at age thirteen, gangly, awkward, a look of naked longing in her eyes as she stared off into the distance, caught in the snare of her own daydream. Her at sixteen, dressed up for a date—an unusual occurrence—looking proudly pretty. Nineteen, her arm loped around her father’s shoulders
. He was smiling, but there was a vague look in his eyes that Mollie hadn’t seen then. The descent to dementia, unbeknownst to her, had already started.
She turned away from the photos, feeling shaken and exposed. Jacob must have seen all these pictures. He’d glimpsed these moments of her life that she hadn’t even been aware of, and it left her feeling vulnerable and even a little angry. Annabelle should have taken the photos down. Jacob should have.
Pushing the thoughts away, she turned towards the en suite bathroom. She’d intended just to dry off with a towel, but when she saw the huge marble whirlpool tub she gave in to the decadent desire for a long, hot soak. The cottage’s old claw-footed tub and sparing amount of hot water made it especially tempting. She turned the taps on full and within moments was sinking beneath the hot, fragrant bubbles, all thoughts of the photographs and everything they revealed far from her mind.
Half an hour later, swathed in a thick terry towel, a little embarrassed by her own indulgence, she reluctantly riffled through Annabelle’s drawers. Clothes from her teenaged years filled them; making a face, Mollie gazed at styles years out of date and several sizes too small. There was nothing remotely appropriate. Then she saw a T-shirt and a pair of track bottoms, along with a leather belt, laid out on the bed. Jacob’s clothes.
On top of them was a note: In case the others aren’t suitable.
She stared at his strong, slanted handwriting, a strange tingle starting right down in her toes and spreading its warmth upwards. She hadn’t expected him to be so thoughtful.
Yet why shouldn’t she? Mollie asked herself. He’d been thoughtful to the tune of half a million pounds already. Yet somehow his thoughtfulness in the little, hidden things meant even more than a scrawled cheque. She picked up the grey T-shirt, worn to softness, and held it to her face; it smelled like soap. It smelled like Jacob.
He’d been in here, just a few metres away from the bathroom, while she’d been soaking in the tub. Naked. Groaning a little, Mollie buried her face in the T-shirt. Why was she thinking this way? Feeling this way about Jacob Wolfe? He was so inappropriate as boyfriend material it was laughable. She couldn’t even believe she’d mentally put boyfriend and Jacob Wolfe in the same sentence. She did not still have a stupid schoolgirl crush on him, she told herself fiercely. She didn’t even want a boyfriend, or husband, or lover of any kind. Her business was going to take up all of her time and energy, and after five years of caring for her father, her emotional reserves were surely at an all-time low. She didn’t need the complication of caring for another person.
But what about desire?
She couldn’t ignore the fact that Jacob Wolfe was quite possibly the most attractive man she’d ever seen, or that her body responded to him in the most basic, elemental way.
Still, Mollie told herself as she slipped Jacob’s T-shirt over her head, she didn’t have to act on that attraction. She didn’t have to do anything about desire. And she wouldn’t have the opportunity anyway, because as far as she could tell Jacob didn’t even like her very much.
She slipped on the track bottoms, which engulfed her, and rolling up the cuffs, she cinched them at the waist with the belt. She looked ridiculous, she knew, but it was better than wearing clothes that were two sizes too small and a decade out of date.
Taking her torch, Mollie started down the corridor, in search of the kitchen.
There was something a bit creepy about walking through the darkened, dust-shrouded manor on her own. She wondered how Jacob felt living here. Surely a hotel or rented flat would be more comfortable. As she made her way downstairs she peeked into several rooms; some looked as if they’d been cleaned but others were frozen in time, untouched save for dust and cobwebs. She pictured Jacob in the manor, moving about these rooms, haunted by their memories, and suppressed an odd shiver.
She finally found the kitchen in the back of the house, a huge room now flickering with candlelight. Jacob had brought in several old silver candelabra and positioned them in various points around the room so the space danced with shadows.
‘You made it.’ Jacob turned around and in the dim light Mollie thought she saw his teeth flash white in a smile. ‘I hope you didn’t get lost.’
‘Almost.’ She smiled back. ‘Actually, I just had a good long soak in the tub. It felt amazing.’ She gestured to the clothes she wore. ‘Thank you. This was very thoughtful.’
‘I realised Annabelle’s clothes were undoubtedly musty. They haven’t been worn or even aired in years.’
‘It’s strange,’ Mollie murmured, ‘how forgotten everything is. I haven’t been inside the house in years. I didn’t realise how much had been left.’
Jacob stilled, and Mollie could feel his tension. She knew the exact moment when he released it and simply shrugged. ‘Everyone made their own lives away from here.’
‘I know.’
He reached for two plates, sliding her a sideways glance. ‘Yes, you must know better than anyone, Mollie. You watched it all happen. You were the one who was left last of all, weren’t you?’ He spoke quietly, without mockery, and yet his words stung because she knew how true they were. She’d felt it, year after year, labouring alone.
‘Yes,’ she said quietly. ‘I was.’
‘Have you stayed here the whole time?’ Jacob asked. He laid the plates on the breakfast bar in the centre of the kitchen. ‘Did you never go anywhere, except for Italy?’
He made it sound as if she’d just been waiting, a prisoner of time and fate. Even if it had felt that way sometimes, to her own shame, she didn’t like Jacob Wolfe remarking on it.
Yes, I was waiting. Waiting for my father to die.
‘I went to university,’ she told him stiffly. ‘To study horticulture.’
‘Of course. But other than that … you waited. You stayed.’ He glanced at her, his eyes dark and fathomless, revealing nothing, but she felt his words like an accusation. A judgement.
‘Yes,’ she said in little more than a whisper. ‘I stayed.’ Even if I didn’t want to. Even if sometimes … She swallowed and looked away. ‘Something smells delicious,’ she said, trying to keep her voice light and bright and airy. Trying desperately to change the subject.
Jacob opened the oven and removed a foil pan. ‘I’m afraid I’m not much of a cook. It’s just an Indian takeaway, but at least the oven runs on gas so it’s warm still.’
‘Thank you,’ she replied, her voice still stiff. ‘It’s very generous of you to share your meal.’ As Jacob pried off the foil lid from the chicken dish, Mollie realised she was starving. She’d been so involved in going through her father’s things that she’d completely forgotten about dinner.
Jacob ladled the fragrant chicken and rice onto the two plates and then gestured to one of the high bar stools. ‘Come and eat.’
Sliding on a stool opposite of him, Mollie was conscious of how intimate this felt. Was. All around them the kitchen flickered and glimmered with candlelight. The house yawned emptily in several acres in every direction; they were completely alone.
She took a bite of chicken. She knew that now was the time to ask Jacob what he’d been doing all these years, why he’d left, if he’d ever spared a single thought for any of the people he’d left behind—all the questions she wanted answers to, deserved answers to, for that supposed clarity and closure. So she could move on from this place, just as all the Wolfes had, just as Jacob would again.
Yet the words stuck in her throat, in her heart. Did she really have a right to ask—and know—such things? She wasn’t even part of the Wolfe family. She might have spent her whole life on the Wolfe estate, in the family’s shadow, but she’d never been one of them. She knew that, had always known that. She’d been an observer, a silent witness, a peeping Tom. Never part of the family, not even remotely close. Her friendship with Annabelle and her father’s faithful service were the only links to the family whose actions had played such havoc with her own life. Why should she have ever expected the Wolfes to feel any sense of o
bligation or responsibility to her or her father? Annabelle’s offer to let them stay at the cottage had been a kindness, an act of charity that no one else had known about.
And yet Jacob obviously felt responsible; he’d shown her with that cheque. Yet she didn’t want money, even if it was deserved. So just what did she want from Jacob Wolfe?
‘So what have you been doing all this time?’ she asked. Her voice sounded too loud, too bright. Jacob stilled. He was good at that, Mollie thought. She knew she’d caught him off guard only when he became more cautious, more careful, his movements both precise and predatory.
‘Many things.’
‘Such as?’
‘Work.’
‘What kind of work?’
‘This and that.’
Mollie laid down her fork, exasperated by his oblique answers. ‘Why don’t you want to say? Was it something illegal?’
Jacob’s brows snapped together in a dark frown. ‘No, of course not.’
She shrugged. ‘Well, how am I supposed to know? You never sent a letter or left a message. Annabelle waited—’
‘I don’t,’ Jacob told her, his tone turning icy, ‘want to talk about my sister.’
Mollie refused to back down. ‘She’s my friend too.’
‘So I gather from the photographs plastered on her wall.’ Now he sounded mocking, and Mollie flushed. She hated the thought of Jacob seeing those photos, gazing at her in so many awkward and emotional stages.
‘Well, if it’s not something illegal, I don’t know why you can’t tell me,’ she resumed after a second’s pause. Jacob’s eyes flashed blackly.
‘And I don’t know why you’re so curious, Miss Parker,’ he drawled, his tone soft. Yet there was nothing soft about his body or expression; everything was hard. Hard and unrelenting and cold.
Mollie swallowed. Suddenly this had stopped being a conversation. It had become a battle, and one she wasn’t sure she wanted to fight. She had a feeling Jacob would win. She lifted her shoulder in a shrug and lightened her tone. ‘Of course I’m curious. You mentioned yourself how I’m the one who has been here for so many years. How I waited. And I did. I waited and I watched everyone leave, one by one, starting with you. So yes, I’d like to know what started the exodus.’ Somehow, as she’d started speaking, her tone had hardened and darkened. Mollie stopped, her lips still parted in surprise at just how bitter she sounded. She felt a little flicker of shame.