Lynne Graham: Mistress And Mother

‘When you lie, you can’t meet my eyes. I used to think that was incredibly sweet.’ The cynical laugh he used to crown the admission made her squirm.

Molly’s hands shook slightly as she set the tray down on the cluttered Victorian desk that half filled a small room already packed tight with bookshelves and an old swivel chair. Lifting one of the beakers, she turned on her heel.

‘Sit down, Molly.’ Sholto spun out the swivel chair with deliberate purpose.

She hovered. ‘Look, I—’

‘Sit down,’ he said again, innate authority in every measured syllable.

Molly gave an awkward face-saving shrug. ‘OK...fine.’

Sholto braced a lean hip against the edge of the desk and stared down at her, much too close for comfort. ‘How did you find out I was here?’

Molly blinked in confusion. ‘I hadn’t the slightest idea you would be here.’

‘Why drive several hundred miles to collect that vase...indeed, why come at all when the solicitor told you that it could be delivered?’ Sholto enquired very drily.

Molly dropped her head and stared a hole in the worn rug. ‘I wanted to call in at the cemetery and leave some flowers,’ she admitted uncomfortably.

The silence stretched.

‘I don’t believe you, Molly. Your brother has made repeated attempts to contact me. And now, at the eleventh hour, when he is facing repossession, you show up right on my doorstep—’

‘Freddy’s doorstep!’ Chagrin and anger combined in her contradiction as she realised where his suspicions lay. ‘If you must know, I refused to approach you when Nigel asked me to because I knew it wouldn’t do any good and I didn’t see why I should make a fool of myself just for your amusement!’

‘Go home and tell your brother that he is extremely lucky not to be facing fraud charges,’ Sholto delivered with silken emphasis. ‘And, believe it or not, he does owe that generosity in part to my former relationship with you.’

Molly leapt up, coffee slopping out of the beaker she still clutched tightly in one hand. ‘Fraud?’ she repeated incredulously. ‘What on earth are you accusing Nigel of doing?’

Long, sure fingers detached hers from the beaker and set it safely aside. He gazed down at her shocked and angry face and then dense lashes dropped low on his hard, dark eyes.

‘Sholto?’ Her wary gaze clung to his lean, dark features. Cheekbones to die for were bisected by a fine-boned, aristocratic blade of a nose and matched by a mouth as passionate and wilful as sin. Her heart turned over inside her breast and then beat out a helplessly accelerated tattoo. Almost sick with shame at her response to his sheer animal attraction, she dropped her head again.

‘What I’m saying is that when I make a business loan on exceptionally generous terms I don’t expect the recipient to plunge a good percentage of the funds I made available into renovating and extending his house and running a top-of-the-range Mercedes!’

Molly’s expressive face fell by a mile and slowly she sat down again, seeming to have shrunk in stature even as he spoke. ‘But the house is part of the property...and he sold the Merc a couple of months back,’ she muttered tautly, uncertainly. ‘Was using some of the money that way...fraud?’

‘Yes.’ The confirmation was level and unemotional. ‘As a businessman, Nigel’s not a paying proposition and I don’t intend to lose any more money on the enterprise. If I chose not to prosecute, it was more for my own benefit than yours. Prosecuting your brother could only have invited the kind of press attention which I most dislike.’

His inhuman cool made her shiver. Molly bit the inside of her lip, a great weariness engulfing her as her thumb absently toyed with Donald’s ring, rubbing it as if it might yet be a good-luck talisman. She genuinely hadn’t realised that Nigel had misused what was clearly a substantial part of the loan. Nobody had shared that salient and shameful little fact with her.

‘I think he must have got carried away...having all that money,’ she whispered, and then said with greater force, ‘Sholto—?’

‘Don’t embarrass me, Molly. I have no time for anyone who tries to rip me off,’ he informed her flatly. ‘Nigel used that loan as if it was his personal piggybank and still contrived to run up debts everywhere. If his problems had resulted from any other cause, I might have rescheduled the loan, but only a fool throws good money after bad...and I am not a fool.’

Having absorbed that intimidating tone of absolute finality, Molly wouldn’t have been surprised to discover that Sholto had just laid her down and walked over her as if she were a carpet for his arrogant feet; she felt as if he had. Intense mortification filled her. His detachment was somehow horribly humiliating. They might never have had a relationship. He seemed to have wiped it out of his mind as if it had never been.

He had realised their mistake before the ink was dry on the marriage licence. Desperate to hit back in any way she could, she had tried to divorce him for adultery. Instead she had found herself having an annulment forced on her because their marriage had not been consummated. The tabloid newspapers had had an ecstatic field day with that titillating revelation. SHOLTO DITCHES FRIGID BRIDE, had run one unforgettable headline. His lawyers had chewed her up and spat out her self-esteem in so many battered pieces.

‘When did you get engaged?’ Sholto demanded now with startling abruptness.

Like a woman in a dream, Molly glanced down at the tiny solitaire still so new and fresh to her finger. It had belonged to Donald’s mother. ‘See how you like the feel of it,’ Donald had suggested wryly, neither romance nor passion having the slightest thing to do with their friendship. But at this moment, quite unbearably, she was recalling another opulent emerald and diamond engagement ring, the one which Sholto had given her, and the feelings she had had then...her wild excitement, the joy, the sheer floodtide of love. Her stomach lurching sickly at the memory, she stood up.

‘Where do I sleep?’ she asked baldly.

The silence lay as thick and heavy as the blanket of snow outside.

‘Door facing you at the top of the stairs,’ Sholto responded in a voice as polished and smooth as silk.

She reached the door.

‘Who is he, your fiancé?’ he murmured intently.

She didn’t turn her head. ‘You met him once but you probably won’t remember him. Donald Seaton.’

‘Your stepfather’s curate?’ Sholto gritted in a tone of explosive incredulity.

‘I’ve known him a long time and he’s a very special person,’ Molly retorted, stiff with resentment and bitter chagrin. ‘Goodnight, Sholto. I’ll sort out something about the car first thing in the morning. It’s not damaged but I may need a tow to get it back on the road.’

‘Dio...you’re planning to marry a guy you used to call Donald Duck?’

Molly yanked the door shut so fast, it closed with a resounding slam. Donald... He’d been out when she’d tried to ring him earlier. She should phone him to tell him where she was. She glanced round the hall. There was no sign of the telephone she recalled. She checked the sitting room and then hovered uneasily outside the study door again. Taking a deep breath and resisting the temptation to knock, she opened it.

Sholto swung round, shimmering dark eyes alighting on her in a look as shockingly physical as a ringing slap across the face. ‘Dio mio...what now?’

Molly was as taken aback by his temper as by his sudden rudeness. ‘I was looking for the phone.’

‘Freddy had it disconnected when he went into hospital.’

‘Could I use your mobile?’

Sholto expelled his breath in a slow hiss. ‘Who do you have to call?’