Authors: Kate Hewitt
After
rearranging a time with the tree surgeon, she stalked to the manor. If Jacob
Wolfe was going to interfere with her job, she wanted to know why. And she’d
also tell him to butt out. She looked forward to the sense of vindication. Yet
when she knocked on the manor’s front doors so hard her knuckles ached she
received no response. She peeked in the windows and rattled the doorknob,
uselessly, for the house was locked up. Above her the sky was heavy and dank,
and she felt as if its weight were pressing on her. It looked ready to pour,
and she was too annoyed and out of sorts to head back to the gardens in this
weather.
Mollie
decided to return to the cottage. She’d take the opportunity to start sorting
through her father’s things, something she’d put off for far too long already.
As she headed down the twisting path through the woods, the first fat drops
began to fall.
An
hour later, freshly showered and dressed in comfortable trackie bottoms and a
T-shirt, Mollie started through her father’s things. She’d picked the least
emotional of his possessions: boxes of old bills and paperwork that had never
managed to be filed. Yet even these held their own poignancy; Mollie gazed at
her father’s crabbed handwriting on one of the papers. He’d been jotting notes
about a new rose hybrid on the back of a warning that the electricity would be
turned off if a payment wasn’t made. She thought of the crumpled notes William
Wolfe had thrown at her father, and how he’d picked them up. Her heart twisted
inside her.
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.