Mistress And Mother

by Lynne Graham

  Molly flushed.

  ‘We’ll get married in the private chapel at Templebrooke. It’s still in occasional use. The Press will tear their hair out but they won’t get a single photo. Nigel and Lena will act as our witnesses. I’ll apply for a special licence. Freddy’s kid brother, Ned, is now a bishop and he will both grant the licence and perform the ceremony.’

  Molly was breathless. ‘You seem to have it all worked out.’

  ‘Wear something bright. Anything even remotely like a wedding dress would rouse unfortunate memories,’ Sholto told her flatly.

  And then he simply changed the subject. He told her about the man whom the police had arrested for arson in Milan. A disaffected former employee with a history of mental problems, made wretched by the discovery that the fire he had set had extracted a human toll.

  ‘You see, it’s most unwise to make snap judgements about people,’ Sholto drawled, shrewd dark eyes curiously intent. ‘People are rarely what they seem to be. But I must say that Donald was rather predictable in his earnest and sincere need to help us both.’

  Molly stiffened. ‘I know that…so what are you saying?’

  Sholto dealt her a slow, steady smile. ‘I fired him up and sent him home to you and it fairly did the trick, didn’t it, cara?’

  As she worked out the ramifications of that amused assurance, Molly’s bosom swelled with outrage. ‘How dare you use Donald like that?’

  ‘Of course, you would’ve fallen off your high horse eventually, but it’s preferable that we should marry quickly, rather than make it blatantly obvious that we’re retying the knot because you’re expecting my child,’ Sholto drawled softly. ‘I always think that a visibly pregnant bride may risk leaving the uncharitable with the impression that the groom was dragged reluctantly to the altar.’

  Lena gaped when she saw Molly’s dress. It was scarlet, off-the-shoulder and swirled to a halt four inches above the knee. There was nothing remotely bridal about that flirty hemline.

  ‘You look temfic in it,’ her sister-in-law finally conceded. ‘Only I would’ve thought Sholto would’ve fancied you in something more…well, traditional.’

  But Sholto didn’t seem to fancy her in anything any more, Molly thought with a dismal sinking sensation inside her. Since his return from Italy, he hadn’t even entered her bedroom. Was that because she was pregnant and somehow no longer sexually attractive to him? Or because he was still angry with her? He had worked such long hours over the past five days that she had barely seen him but she had had plenty of time to reflect on her own errors of judgement.

  She saw now so clearly that she should have stayed and talked at Freddy’s house and definitely shouldn’t have used Nigel’s predicament like a battering ram to hold Sholto at a distance and prevent him from getting personal when he’d come to her office. He had seen that as blackmail and he had acted accordingly by calling her bluff.

  Throughout Sholto had been telling her that what had happened between them was infinitely more important and she had been telling him that he couldn’t have a hearing unless he helped her brother. And what had that been but blackmail? she conceded ruefully now. For, much as she loved her brother, Sholto had had every justification in saying that Nigel was not on his conscience.

  ‘You just don’t know you’re living, Molly.’ Lena wandered slowly around the fabulous bedroom, touching polished wood with reverent fingers, pausing to admire with unconcealed wonder. ‘How could you ever have walked away from all this? And Sholto? He’s so fantastically good-looking and charming…and so what if he made a bit of a hash of things the last time?’

  ‘“A bit of a hash?”’ Molly repeated with dazed disbelief, her head whipping round.

  ‘Well, it’s my bet that cousin of his just threw herself at him…and then you went off the deep end about her on your wedding night. A lot of men couldn’t stick that sort of hassle and abuse.’ Lena sighed ruefully. ‘And if he’d slept with her before it must’ve been even easier for him to do it again. There she was, waiting with open arms, probably telling him how much she loved and appreciated him. Men can act like spoilt little boys on the rampage when you hurt their egos.’

  ‘Sholto’s ego is rock-solid. I can’t imagine what it would take to sink him to the level of a naughty schoolboy!’ Molly objected tautly, pacing the room restively from end to end.

  Lena looked uncomfortable. ‘I just don’t think you should still be holding that night against him, Molly. Maybe that’s what I really wanted to say.’

  ‘I’m not still holding it against him!’ It shook Molly to hear her quiet, shy sister-in-law talking with such surprisingly cynical authority on the subject of the male sex.

  ‘You want to be sure that this is really a fresh start for you both.’

  ‘He doesn’t love me…he loves her,’ Molly whispered tightly. ‘How much of a fresh start is that?’

  ‘If he loved her, he’d have married her after you broke up with him. You’re just looking for trouble,’ Lena said worriedly. ‘That’s all over and done with now.’

  Molly stared sightlessly out of one of the windows, her heart thudding at the base of her dry throat. Was it over and done with? Would it ever really be over? Did that kind of frustrated and impossible love ever die? Lena just didn’t know what she was talking about. But then Molly had never told anyone what she suspected. A secret which bound Sholto and Pandora together in a relationship that could never be what they wanted it to be…

  If Riccardo Cristaldi had had an affair with his wife’s sister, Meriel, and fathered her only child, it meant that Pandora was Sholto’s half-sister. Even if their birth certificates said otherwise, even if nobody could either prove or seriously suspect that truth, Molly knew that Sholto would never have taken advantage of that cover of ignorance to live an incestuous lie.

  Nor could she forget his scorching derision in this same room when he had said that her narrow mind could not comprehend that sex was not the dominating factor in every relationship between a man and a woman. It was.just possible that he had resisted temptation, that he had never actually been physically intimate with Pandora, and that Molly had read too much into the snatch of conversation she had overheard.

  Rather than that exchange signalling a continuing affair, might Sholto simply have been trying to calm Pandora down while comforting her with the promise that in spite of his marriage he would always care for her? Mightn’t he still genuinely have intended to give his mamage a fair chance? But Pandora had been determined not to let Sholto go without a fight and Molly had been too shattered by what she had learnt to do anything but play right into Pandora’s hands.

  For wasn’t that what she had ultimately done? Ranting and raving, refusing to listen to him, walking out on their marriage. She had walled herself up with her grief and bitterness, taking pride in her own stubborn inflexibility. But Sholto had walked out first and he had been with Pandora all night… So if she was to believe that they hadn’t been engaged in a rapturous reunion, what had they been doing?

  For the first time, an arrow of doubt had entered Molly’s mind as to the completeness of Sholto’s guilt. For the first time, she wanted and needed to know what had actually happened that night, no matter how bad that truth might make her feel.

  It was cold in the old stone chapel in the grounds. Gooseflesh rising on her bare arms, Molly was walking down the short aisle when Sholto turned from the altar to watch her. His brilliant dark eyes widened and then flashed gold, raking over her in a lightning-fast appraisal. His beautifully shaped mouth curved into a deeply appreciative and amused smile.

  The simple ceremony was over quickly. Sholto’s great-uncle Ned was not at all like his late brother, Freddy. Large and portly, Ned looked most impressive in his ceremonial vestments but he had a relaxed and cheerful manner and he laughed a lot. Molly’s concentration was nil. Her heart was beating very fast. Don’t romanticise this marriage, she told herself in urgent warning. He’s marrying you because of the baby and nothing has re
ally changed.

  As they vacated the chapel, Sholto slid fluidly out of his jacket and draped it round Molly’s bare shoulders. The silk lining was wonderfully warm from his body heat. She glanced up at him, suddenly shy as she met the dark golden eyes trained on her. ‘I’m afraid I didn’t think about the temperature when I went shopping.’

  ‘You look,’ Sholto savoured in a low, sexy growl, ‘absolutely delicious.’

  Ogden served them with champagne in the drawing room. Molly couldn’t take her eyes off Sholto and he couldn’t seem to take his eyes off her. Nigel and Lena took their leave while Sholto’s great-uncle talked endlessly about Templebrooke’s priceless hoard of English and Oriental pottery and porcelain. In the Brooke tradition, Sholto was a collector too. A steady procession of experts from all over the world came by special appointment to view the magnificent display which was housed in four specially adapted rooms in the west wing.

  ‘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?’

  ‘You’re just trying to justify playing on my ignorance!’ Molly slung at him painfully.

  ‘Molly…that vase was delivered to you by a specialist courier in reams of protective packaging. Nine out of ten people would have worked out for themselves that it was an extremely valuable piece.’

  ‘I had too much else on my mind at the time! And how could I ever have dreamt that it was valuable when Freddy lived as he did? Even his house belonged to your family!’

  ‘Freddy had a very comfortable trust fund but his tastes were simple. He took that vase from my father because he was tired of being treated like a stupid, middle-aged old codger by a domineering, arrogant man who bragged constantly about his possessions.’ Sholto studied her flushed and furious face and his mouth tightened. ‘The vase is yours, Molly. If you wish I will buy it from you—’

  ‘I’d rather break it!’ she swore.

  In coolly contemptuous challenge, Sholto tossed a key down on the top of the nearest display case. ‘Go ahead…but in ten minutes I will still expect you downstairs. We have to leave for the airport.’

  ‘The airport?’ Molly echoed blankly.

  ‘We’re flying out to the Caribbean for our honeymoon.’

  Molly went rigid, throwing him a look of scornful disbelief. ‘After this? You’ve just got to be kidding!’

  Implacable dark eyes struck sparks off her
defiant stare. ‘No, cara, I am not kidding. And if you’re still here staging a sit-in ten minutes from now I have every intention of turning you over my knee. You won’t sit down on that luscious demère for the best part of a week!’

  Face burning with outrage, teeth clenched, Molly arrived in the hall exactly nine and a half minutes later. In explosive silence, she climbed into the car still wearing her flamboyant red dress because she hadn’t given herself time to change.

  As Sholto landed the helicopter on the purpose-built pad to the north of the villa, the little island of Carvalho Cay tilted in a dizzy blue of lush green vegetation silhouetted against a jewelled sea of blue. Not in the mood to be impressed, Molly climbed out into the balmy warmth of early evening, feeling cross and crumpled.

  She had slept or pretended to sleep for most of the flight on Sholto’s private jet and had then enjoyed a shower and a meal, if not a change of clothes. She was so sick of her red dress she was ready to ceremonially burn it. Smoothly assuring her that he liked her just as she was, Sholto had flatly refused to have her luggage brought out of the cargo hold.

  The long, low villa had been designed to merge with the surrounding trees and the setting had all the unspoilt natural beauty of a forest glade. It was breathtaking. For hours on end Molly had only spoken to Sholto when she was forced to do so but curiosity finally overpowered her. ‘You never mentioned this place before.’

  ‘Four years ago, I planned to surprise you. We were to have flown out here the morning after the wedding.’ Sholto stood back for her to precede him into a spacious tiled hall decorated with earthenware urns of fresh white flowers. ‘My father bought Carvalho Cay and built this house but my mother never knew of its existence. This was his hideaway.’

  ‘You mean he brought his women here.’

  ‘You do have a special way with words, cara. You manage to make it sound quite disgusting.’

  ‘He was a married man,’ Molly said uncomfortably.

  ‘My mother gave him me and then opted for a separate bedroom. She considered her duty done.’ Sholto’s tone was dry. ‘He loved her but she only married him because he could afford to restore and maintain Templebrooke. She was a cold woman and he was a very warm-blooded man. I don’t blame him for seeking consolation elsewhere. He did try to be discreet.’