Mistress And Mother

by Lynne Graham

  “You said that no pressure and no price would persuade you to share my bed.”

  About the Author

  Books by Lynne Graham

  Title Page

  Dedication

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Copyright

  “You said that no pressure and no price would persuade you to share my bed.”

  Sholto continued silkily. “I’m calling your bluff. If you move into my house and live with me, I will settle your brother’s debts.”

  For a count of ten paralyzed seconds, Molly gaped at him with startled green eyes and parted lips. “You’re not serious,” she said when she could finally unpeel her tongue from the roof of her mouth.

  “I want you…and you want your brother off the hook. A fair exchange or an abuse of power?” Sholto mused with galling cool. “I shall leave you to decide which.”

  LYNNE GRAHAM was born in Northern Ireland and has been a keen romance reader since her teens. She is very happily married, with an understanding husband who has learned to cook since she started to write. Her three children keep her on her toes. She also has a very large Old English sheepdog, who knocks everything over, and two cats. When time allows, Lynne is a keen gardener.

  Books by Lynne Graham

  HARLEQUIN PRESENTS

  1864—PRISONER OF PASSION

  1875—THE DESERT BRIDE

  1888—SECOND-TIME BRIDE

  1908—THE HEAT OF PASSION

  Don’t miss any of our special offers. Write to us at the following address for information on our newest releases.

  Harlequin Reader Service

  U.S.. 3010 Walden Ave., P O. Box 1325, Buffalo, NY 14269

  Canadian P.O Box 609, Fort Erie, Ont. L2A 5X3

  LYRNE GRAHAM

  Mistress and Mother

  TORONTO • NEW YORK • LONDON

  AMSTERDAM • PARIS • SYDNEY • HAMBURG

  STOCKHOLM • ATHENS • TOKYO • MILAN

  MADRID • WARSAW • BUDAPEST • AUCKLAND

  For my daughter, Rachel, whose love and advice

  are always welcome.

  CHAPTER ONE

  AS THE snow became a blinding white blur, the wipers struggled to keep a wedge of the car windscreen clear. Then, finally, the narrow, twisting road began to climb. Not much further now. Molly cut down another gear, praying that the tyres would keep a grip on the treacherously slippery gradient.

  That petrol-pump attendant had warned her that it would be crazy to attempt the lake road in snow but Molly often flew in the face of sound advice. And her stubborn determination to reach Freddy’s isolated home had its deepest roots in guilt. She hadn’t gone to his funeral. Her fiancé, Donald, had offered to go with her as moral support but she still hadn’t been able to face such an ordeal.

  The small car slid slowly back down the hill again. Molly gritted her teeth and started up it again. She was almost there. The house sat at the top of the hill overlooking the lake. Over four years had passed, but she still remembered that misty view of the moorland running down to the water’s edge. Her face stiffened and shadowed, fingers clenching round the wheel. She also remembered the slavish way she had tried to follow Sholto out of the room when a call had come for him. Freddy had caught her back, his wise old eyes almost pitying as he scanned her anxious, adoring face.

  ‘Don’t cling, my dear. It’ll put wings on his feet. You can’t tame a wild bird and keep it in a cage… Sholto isn’t a domesticated animal. This is all new to him. Hasten slowly.’

  But she hadn’t listened, she conceded sickly, hadn’t seen, hadn’t been able to focus on anything but her own desperate need to be as close to Sholto as his skin. And the more he had stepped back from her, the harder she had pushed, not even knowing then, not even suspecting that Sholto’s heart could never, ever be hers. She wore another man’s ring now but remembrance still cramped her stomach and her tired legs trembled, the foot she had on the accelerator pressing down with sudden involuntary force.

  She cried out in fright as the car slewed violently sideways and then skidded with unnatural, terrifying grace off the road. Her heartbeat thundered in her eardrums as she brought the hatchback to a shuddering halt, headlights gleaming out over the daunting expanse of dark water only yards away. Swallowing hard, she tried to reverse back up onto the road but the tyres spun on the boggy, snow-slick ground and the car stayed where it was.

  Finally, she detached her seatbelt and climbed out into the teeth of the wind. She would walk up the hill. Dear heaven, she might have killed herself! The car might have kept right on going and the lake was deep.

  Grabbing up her shoulder bag, shivering convulsively as the wind blew snow into her face and snatched up her long fall of russet hair to whip it across her eyes and mouth, she pulled up the hood of her light jacket and locked the car. It was well after eight. Freddy’s housekeeper wasn’t even expecting her and now Molly would have to ask her for a bed for the night into the bargain.

  Stupid, stupid, Molly castigated herself as she toiled up the hill. Why avoid the funeral and then drive all the way to the Lake District just to collect the old vase which Freddy had left her and leave a few flowers at the cemetery? Her brother, Nigel, had been stunned when he’d realised she could have gone to the funeral and the scene which had followed that revelation had left Molly feeling sick with irrational guilt.

  ‘The perfect opportunity…and you didn’t take it?’ Nigel had condemned in disbelief. ‘But Sholto would’ve been there! You could’ve talked to him then.’

  ‘Don’t, Nigel…’ his wife, Lena, had begged, her strained eyes swimming with tears. ‘This isn’t Molly’s problem. It’s ours.’

  ‘Will you still feel like that when you and the kids have no roof over your heads?’ Nigel had demanded, the stress of recent months etched in his thin, boyish features. ‘What would it cost Molly to go and eat a bit of humble pie? I’d do it…but I can’t get near him!’

  Now the snow was falling thicker and heavier, crunching over the sides of her shoes and freezing her feet. In no mood to dwell on her brother’s desperate financial problems, Molly dug icy hands into her pockets and plodded on up the hill. The dark, unadorned bulk of the house loomed just where the road dropped down again and she felt quite weak with relief. There were no lights visible but on a bad night like this an elderly woman might already be tucked up warm in her bed.

  The freezing wind slashing with cruel efficiency through her inadequate clothing, Molly rushed to press the old-fashioned doorbell. A couple of endless minutes later, she hit it again, and then more quickly the third and the fourth time, dismay powering her as she stood back and peered up at the black, unrevealing windows in search of an encouraging chink of light.

  She had assumed that the housekeeper would be here for at least another week. But maybe she didn’t live in. As that possibility occurred to Molly for the very first time, she could’ve kicked herself for blithely assuming that Freddy’s housekeeper lived on the premises. If the house was empty, she was in deep trouble. She might freeze to death spending the night in the car. She didn’t even have a travel rug to wrap around herself. When she had left home after lunch it had been a beautiful sunny day and she hadn’t paid the slightest heed to the weather forecast.

  Panic firing her, Molly trudged round to the back of the house. Obviously there was nobody inside. She peered at the snow-covered ground, prowling up and down until she found a suitable stone. Fingers almost numb, she yanked of
f her jacket and wound it round her arm, her hand fiercely gripping the stone as she braced herself in front of the small window beside the back door. Taking a deep breath, she swung her arm up full force and smashed the pane. Stepping back, she breathed out in a rush, shook herself free of broken glass and dragged on her jacket again.

  Reaching inside with great care, she undid the latch and the frame swung out. Planting her chilled hands on the stone sill, she hauled herself up with a groan of effort and crawled on her knees through the open window, slowly feeling her way onto the kitchen worktop. A startled yelp of pain escaped her as a splinter of glass pierced her knee. But even as she stilled in exasperated acknowledgement of her own foolishness she had the terrifying sense of something big moving fast towards her in the darkness.

  As a pair of powerful hands snatched her up into midair, she screamed so hard she hurt her throat. Then she was hitting the stone floor face down, all the breath driven from her body by the impact, hands flailing in wild terror as a suffocating weight dug into her spine. Hard, imprisoning fingers raked down her arms to entrap her frantic hands and then as quickly loosened their grip and freed her again.

  A burst of Italian invective assailed her ears at the same time as the knee braced on her back was removed and the fluorescent light above flickered on. Quivering with stark terror, Molly jerked up and rolled back against the cupboards like a cornered animal bracing itself for another attack. When her glazed eyes focused on the male standing over her, she simply stared, wide-eyed with disbelief.

  ‘Madre di Dio…I could have broken every bone in your body!’ Sholto raked down at her in driving condemnation.

  So deep in shock, she was incapable of response, Molly’s huge green eyes clung to the six-foot-three male towering over her as if he were a terrifying apparition, her cheekbones prominent with stress, her complexion bone-white, her lips bloodlessly compressed.

  With a stifled imprecation, Sholto dropped down into an athletic crouch and ran lean brown hands gently down over her limp arms and thighs. His startlingly handsome features clenched as he saw the blood seeping messily through the torn knee of her black tights. He completed his check for any further injury before he drew back.

  Molly still couldn’t move. Slowly, she closed her eyes, meaning to open them again and see if he was still there but the impersonal touch of his beautifully shaped hands still lingered like the kiss of fire on her frozen flesh, blocking out all rational thought. Four years since she had seen him, not since that fateful night he had walked out on her to go to his cousin, Pandora. Her paralysis gave and she started to shake uncontrollably, the aftermath of choking fear and horror at his appearance combining to threaten a tidal wave of emotion.

  ‘What the hell were you playing at?’ Sholto bent down and scooped her up into his arms as if she weighed no more than a feather. ‘And what are you doing here at this hour of the night?’

  Her teeth bit down on her tongue, releasing the sickly sweet tang of blood into her dry mouth. The pain helped, controlling the great lump blossoming in her throat, the acrid stinging at the back of her eyes. But it was nothing to the pain she remembered. That had been pain like a poisoned knife, slipping in on a cruel, teeth-clenching thrust and then teaching her that there was yet worse to come and that the human mind could suffer as much agony as the human body.

  He was settling her down on a hard chair and abstractedly she recalled Freddy’s eccentric loathing of any form of soft comfort or cosiness. No central heating, wide-open windows even in winter, no clutter and not one single piece of unnecessary furniture. She had felt as if she was stepping back in time when she had first walked into this house all that time ago, Sholto’s fiancée coming to be introduced to Freddy, his elderly great-uncle.

  There was a ripping sound as Sholto widened the tear in her tights to get a better look at her knee. Flinching, her spine pushing into the hard spindles of the chair-back, Molly came alive again, shaken green eyes flying wide on Sholto’s downbent dark head. The overhead light gave his thick black hair the iridescent sheen of silk.

  ‘It will hurt when I take the glass out,’ he informed her bluntly, sliding fluidly upright again and striding out of the bare little sitting room and into the connecting kitchen.

  Molly stared into space, fighting to get a grip on herself again. First things first, that was Sholto. From his aristocratic English mother he had inherited deep reserve, innate practicality and a daunting, chilling selfdiscipline. But the other side of his ancestry, like his spectacular dark good looks, were pure volatile Italian. Below the ice seethed the fire but she had never ignited that fire, nor experienced the heat of its flames. His heart and his beautiful body hadn’t burned for her as she’d burned for him. Rejection, betrayal, unspeakable humiliation… she had experienced them all at his hands.

  A long tremor ran through her. He returned with a bowl of disinfectant, the sharp scent stirring her over-sensitive stomach. He crossed the room, dominating it with his sheer size and presence, his every movement inherently graceful. The silence didn’t appear to be bothering him. If her descent had shocked him, he had yet to betray the fact…and how deeply ironic it was that she had cravenly stayed away from Freddy’s funeral to avoid Sholto only to end up plunging into a far more embarrassing and intimate meeting with him.

  In the blink of an eye he had extracted the glass, cleaned away the blood and fixed a plaster to her cut. A male who had made pioneering, death-defying trips into some of the world’s most dangerous places would not find a cut knee much of a challenge. Or the unexpected arrival of an ex-wife. Molly chewed at her wobbling lower lip, still white as parchment. But then she had never been Sholto’s wife, not his real wife; within a day of the wedding he had made her a laughing stock in the world press.

  As he sprang upright again, his impassive tawny eyes, fringed by luxuriant ebony lashes, rested on her. ‘I thought you were a burglar. I’m sorry I gave you a fright…but do you really have to look at me as if I’m a cobra about to strike?’

  Her lashes fluttered down, delicate colour staining her cheekbones as her fingers tightened on the chair-arms. In the background she heard the clink of glass. A tumbler was held in front of her. Lifting an unsteady hand, she snatched at it. The brandy hit her aching throat and burned a fiery trail deep into her chilled flesh. Shock; she was still in shock.

  ‘Do you realise that you still haven’t uttered a single word?’ Sholto drawled with controlled impatience.

  The tip of her tongue snaked out to moisten her taut lower lip. ‘You rather took my breath away…’ And as soon as the careless words left her lips her skin flared with such cringing embarrassment, she wanted to sink through the floor. Those had been the exact words she’d used when she’d first told him how much she loved him, rushing to confess what he himself could never have confessed even after he had asked her to marry him. Sholto didn’t tell lies but he was a master craftsman at evasion.

  ‘How did you get here? I was asleep but a car pulling in would certainly have awakened me.’

  She gulped more of the brandy, trying to be cool about her desperate need for something to settle her jangling nerves. ‘My car skidded off the road at the foot of the hill. I walked the rest of the way. I thought Freddy’s housekeeper lived in—’

  ‘Dio…are you kidding? For thirty-odd years Mrs Mac rode out here every morning on her trusty bicycle. Freddy couldn’t have stood anything else. He was fanatical about his privacy. She ate in the kitchen. He ate in here. They only spoke when they had to.’

  It was a fuller response than she had expected. She caught the faint roughening of pain in Sholto’s deep, dark voice, the Italian accent which thickened only in times of stress, the only barometer she had ever had to what went on deep down inside him. She bowed her head, knowing that aside of Pandora Stevenson the only human being alive who had ever got close to Sholto had been Freddy.

  ‘I rang the doorbell—’

  ‘It hasn’t worked for years.’

  ‘I couldn�
��t see a light.’

  ‘There wasn’t one on. I assume you’ve come up here to collect your legacy in person.’

  ‘I told the solicitor I’d come before this but…but something came up.’ She stared down at the tattered remnants of her tights, at her exposed knee with its childish plaster, feeling foolish, and awkward, the way she so often had in Sholto’s radius, and still not quite believing that she was actually here with him. Worse, taking part in a ludicrously inane conversation for two people who had parted in the most violent acrimony and never met face to face again.

  ‘I’m afraid you’ve had a wasted journey,’ Sholto delivered softly, and her head shot up. ‘The vase isn’t here. It’s being delivered to you by courier.’

  Colour flooded her cheeks and then receded again, all that went unsaid in that assurance filling her with intense discomfiture. She hadn’t come when she had said she would, hadn’t bothered to ring in advance, had simply set off from home on an emotion-driven impulse because she had an uneasy conscience.

  ‘You look like death warmed up. I suggest that you take a hot bath,’ Sholto murmured.

  Molly took the pointed invitation to escape with alacrity and rose in a rush. ‘Yes…I’m pretty cold and wet. The bathroom’s upstairs, isn’t it?’

  She staggered slightly and then lurched past him like a fleeing fawn before the hands he put out to steady her could make contact.

  ‘Can you make it up there on your own?’ he enquired in her wake as he switched on the hall light, illuminating the stark narrow staircase with its worn runner.

  ‘Yes…thanks,’ she mumbled, and fled.

  First left at the top of the stairs. She remembered that, teeth now free to chatter with cold and reaction. She also remembered, before she was married, creeping downstairs and standing outside the door of Freddy’s study, hearing the old man sigh worriedly and say, ‘She’s as sweet and innocent as a Labrador puppy, Sholto. A country girl with the bloom still on her cheeks. I can see the attraction. But does she have the slightest idea what she’s getting into and have you got the patience to stay the course?’