Mistress And Mother Read online

  ‘Not if she listens behind doors like the servants,’ Sholto had purred, whipping the door wide to entrap her with burning cheeks and guilty eyes. And he had laughed softly and drawn her forward. ‘Answer for yourself, cara. Have you the courage to take me on?’

  Sholto Cristaldi had been born into one of Italy’s most formidable business dynasties. At eighteen he had come into a vast inheritance. She pictured him now, downstairs, as she ran water into the iron claw-footed bath, her breath misting in the punishingly cold air. Tight black jeans sheathing his long, long legs, a thick cream sweater accentuating his olive-toned skin, luxuriant black hair and magnetic dark eyes. He had the kind of raw physical impact that hit the unwary like a car crash.

  What was he doing here in Freddy’s bare little house? Sholto had staff to do everything, half a dozen luxurious residences scattered across the globe and a jet-set lifestyle that came as naturally to him as breathing. Shivering, she removed her damp clothes and sank down into the warm water.

  Maybe, if she prayed very, very hard, Sholto would be magically gone when she had finished her bath. Cowardice, complete cowardice… But she was terrified of exposing her emotions to a male so frighteningly accomplished at concealing his own. She needed to be polite and distant but what she really wanted to do was scream, ‘Why did you do it? Why did you marry me and then go back to her?’

  But she was afraid that she already knew why. Afterwards… when it had been all over…only then had she begun to recall and suspect the true meaning of the sly whispers and innuendos that had once gone over her innocent head. Appalled comprehension had come too late, much, much too late for her to protect herself from hurt and harm. Little country girl, naive and blindly trusting and head over heels in love.

  With a flying knock, the bathroom door opened and her head jerked round in shock.

  ‘I thought you might appreciate something warm and dry to wear.’ With a graceful hand, Sholto cast a couple of folded garments down on the chair by the door.

  ‘Get out!’ Molly gasped in horror, whipping protective arms over the embarrassing fullness of her breasts and diving lower in the water, feeling fat and ugly, thinking of Pandora in sudden tearing anguish, slim and slender as a willow wand, without a single ounce of superfluous flesh.

  The minute the door closed, Molly scrambled hurriedly out of the bath. Drying herself, she looked in the small mirror above the sink. Tangled hair the colour of autumn leaves fell round her shoulders, framing a heart-shaped face with smudged river-green eyes. Outstandingly ordinary. She was lucky Sholto had recognised her. On their wedding day, she had been rakethin and her hair had been tinted white-blonde and cut very, very short like a boy’s. Living up to Sholto with Pandora’s haunting presence in the background had driven her to strange and increasingly desperate measures.

  His jeans and sweater drowned her five-foot-four-inch frame. After anchoring the jeans to her waist with the belt of her skirt, she rolled up the legs several times. The green sweater fell to her knees. Her shoes were so sodden there was no way she could put them on again. She looked like a refugee from a disaster.

  Downstairs, the sitting room was empty. She draped her damp clothes over a chair-back and set her shoes by the hearth to dry. From the study next door, she heard a faint noise like a drawer closing and she went into the kitchen. A rough board had been wedged into the aperture of the broken window, blocking out the icy blast of the wind. She set the big kettle on the range. She would make coffee. That was civilised. She wouldn’t let the hatred and the pain and the bitterness out. She would match his sublime indifference if it killed her.

  But what about her brother, Nigel, and that wretched loan? Molly grimaced. Four years ago, shortly before their wedding, Sholto had given Nigel a simply huge loan. He had used the money to turn their late grandfather’s small market garden into a modern garden centre. But late last year her brother had got into debt and he had fallen behind with the loan. Sholto’s bankers had refused to allow Nigel any more time in which to make good those missed payments and indeed were now threatening to repossess both his home and his business.

  Until now Molly had been extremely reluctant to make a direct appeal to Sholto on her brother’s behalf. Nigel was grasping at straws in his naive conviction that his sister could somehow work a miracle for him and his family. Molly had had no wish to raise false hopes, or, if she was honest, to lay her pride on the line for nothing, for she was certain that Sholto wouldn’t pay the slightest heed to anything she said. However, having found herself under the same roof as Sholto, she knew she wouldn’t be able to look her brother in the face again if she didn’t at least try to persuade Sholto to listen to her.

  She pressed the study door open. Sholto was standing looking out of the uncurtained window at the snow, an expression of such grim bleakness etched into his bold, sun-bronzed features that she wished she had left him alone. He studied the beakers on the little tin tray. His wide, sensual mouth hardened, tawny eyes cynically raking her flushed face.

  ‘The answer is no,’ he breathed with ice-cold clarity.

  ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’ But Molly was most terribly afraid that she did and that he was an entire step, if not a complete flight of stairs, ahead of her.

  ‘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?’

  ‘Donald.’

  Sholto’s hand froze halfway towards the mobile phone lying on the desk and then, with a soft, oddly chilling laugh, he grabbed it up and tossed it carelessly into her hands. ‘Be my guest,’ he said without any expression at all, and strode out of the room.

  Donald answered the phone only after it had rung a dozen times. Molly told him where she was and what had happened. He made soothing sounds.

  ‘Sholto’s here too!’ The admission exploded out of her with quite unnecessary force.

  ‘I’m glad to hear that you’re not up there alone in this weather,’ Donald admitted after a brief pause for thought. ‘And I imagine a man who’s been up Everest can take some snow in his stride! I expect he’ll help you with your car too.’

  Molly’s teeth clenched. ‘Somehow I don’t see Sholto digging out my car, Donald. Don’t you think you’re being just a little insensitive?’ Her strained voice shook.

  ‘I wish you hadn’t asked that question, Molly. I also wish you didn’t sound so upset.’ Donald sighed. ‘It’s an overreaction after this length of time. You would be far better occupied mending fences with Sholto.’

  ‘Mending fences?’ Molly echoed shrilly.

  ‘Infinitely wiser than continuing to brood and hold spite,’ Donald told her with characteristic candour. ‘Leave the past where it belongs, Molly. You’ll feel a whole lot better if you do, and if you were to make a special effort to forgive Sholto…’

  Molly clamped a hand across her mouth like a gag, not trusting herself to speak.

  ‘I expect the concept fills you with horror but I honestly believe that that act of forgiveness would resolve much of what you’re feeling right now,’ Donald continued with determination. ‘Take that extra step, Molly. Ultimately it will bring you the peace of mind you need.’

  For the first time ever, Donald had let her down. He did not, could not comprehend the torment she was in! To be faced with Sholto again, to be slaughtered by his galling, inhuman indifference—it was ripping her apart. Anger, contempt, hostility she could’ve borne far more easily—but not his lack of response, which suggested she had been a mere inconvenient hiccup in his life, an aberration swiftly forgotten when he had taken her heart, broken it and somehow held the remains ever since. Poor, foolish, pathetic Molly still hopelessly, obsessively hooked on a male who had branded her with a craving and a need that she still fought with every breath that she drew!

  In her flying exit from the study, she almost tripped over Sholto. ‘Here!’ she gasped, shoving the mobile phone at him in feverish rejection and then pounding up the stairs two at a time before he could see the tears of rage and self-loathing in her eyes.

  CHAPTER TWO

  IN A tempest of stormy emotion, Molly switched on the lamp beside the massive Victorian double bed. The bed looked like a ship forcibly squeezed into a too small bottle. The carved mahogany headboard stopped only a foot short of the ceiling and the bed itself was so high, she suspected it enjoyed the benefit of more than one mattress.

  A snug little fire glowed in the cast-iron grate on the facing wall. She frowned in
surprise, only then noticing the suitcase sitting below the window. How very kind of Sholto to give her the room he had clearly planned to occupy himself! So considerate, so incredibly decent all of a sudden!

  Snatching up the case with a shaking hand, she plonked it out on the landing. Forgive him? She tore at the jeans, wrenched at the sweater and then slowly, painfully dug her fingers into the garment, bringing it up to her face and breathing in deep. The elusive scent of him engulfed her like a dangerously addictive drug and, hating herself and hating him for being able to exert that evocative power over her even after so long, she flung the sweater aside, horribly ashamed of her lack of control.

  Naturally Donald was not worried about her being alone here with Sholto. Sholto might have an exceedingly dangerous reputation with women but Donald and indeed the whole world knew that the one woman Sholto Cristaldi had cheerfully contrived to keep his lustful hands off was Molly! Even when she and Sholto had been engaged he had not made one single serious attempt at seduction.

  Deeply humiliated by that awareness, Molly climbed naked into the big bed. She sank into what felt like layer upon layer of feathers. To think that all those years ago she had actually been grateful for what she’d naively seen as Sholto’s respectful restraint! But Sholto simply hadn’t wanted her enough. And it was also possible, although she cringed at the same suspicion, that all the time he had had another far more satisfying outlet for his sexual needs.

  She heard light steps on the stairs, the soft thud of the bathroom door and then she dug her head frantically under the pillow, muffling her ears with two determined hands. Temptation pulled at her and she resisted it. Donald was right. How could she ever go forward if she couldn’t overcome this pitiful fascination with a male who had long since given his heart to another woman? And that woman might not be his wife, she might indeed not even be his lover, but she still held Sholto more securely than any prison bars of steel.