Sholto gazed back at her, golden eyes ablaze with challenge. He was quite unashamed of the primitive sentiments he had just expressed. And that was yet another revelation to Molly. Four years ago, she had married an unprincipled savage without knowing it, indeed had fondly believed that Sholto was the very last word in laid-back cool and control.
As the door closed she stared into the smouldering heart of the fire, conscious of the shadows now gathering in the corners. The flames had died down like the counterfeit passion and soon there would be nothing left but ashes. Sholto was a prince of deception and he had run rings round her with his sexual charisma. He had done it in the name of revenge and suddenly Molly was desperately grateful that she did not love Donald and that he did not love her.
Donald would be disappointed but not hurt when she returned his ring. He had only proposed at the weekend and he had urged her to think very, very carefully before she gave him her final answer. She had lain awake last night and then had put on the ring when she got up, resolving to tell Donald of her decision when she returned from this trip. But that now seemed a lifetime ago and Sholto had just smashed what she might have had with Donald. She was deeply ashamed of her own physical weakness. A woman who could so easily and foolishly succumb to the sexual allure of one man had no business at all even considering a serious relationship with another.
A cheap one-night stand. That was what she had made of herself. He had even dared to censure her for what Pandora had suffered! But then, albeit unwittingly, she had attacked and hurt the woman he loved. Indeed, tonight Sholto had taught her what real hatred was and it was not the weak illusion that she had hidden behind to conserve her own pride. But she still found it incredible that Sholto could blame her for their broken marriage, could question her loyalty and trust. For, hysterical or not on their wedding night, she had made her feelings quite clear...
‘If you go to her, I won’t be here when you come back!’ she had told him, shooting the last bolt on her pride with that ultimatum because she had not been able to credit, had not been able to believe until he’d actually walked out the door that any male would leave a sobbing and already distraught bride to go to another woman on his wedding night.
And Sholto had made his choice. Indeed, Sholto had made his choice without hesitation. If he had come in search of her afterwards...well, it had already been too late. When Molly had seen that photo of him emerging from Pandora’s apartment block at dawn, had been faced with the humiliating public proof that he had spent the whole night with his cousin, she had never wanted to set eyes on Sholto again. The agony of that betrayal had been too immense.
And yet they had started out with such apparent promise, she conceded painfully, struggling not to let the memories flood back, for the last thing she needed now was to wallow in the distant past. But somehow the temptation to recall a happier time was irresistible.
She had first met Sholto on one of those hot, still summer afternoons when anything physical felt like an outrageous effort. She had been coasting her bike down the hill, her basket full of eggs from the village shop, when a black sports car had suddenly shot out of a leafy lane in front of her. Her frantic evasive manoeuvres had sent her flying head first into the hedge. When the world had righted itself again, Sholto had got out of the car and was helping her disentangle herself from the brambles, exclaiming about the scratches on her bare arms and apologising.
A languid female voice had drifted from the sports car. ‘Ask her where the Hendersons live...’
Sholto had stridden back to the car and wrenched open the driver’s door. After a terse exchange, a tall, beautiful blonde with a sullen mouth had reluctantly emerged. ‘I’m sorry you came off your bike but you really should’ve been looking where you were going—’
‘You were driving like a bat out of hell,’ Sholto interposed, looking at the blonde with icy reproof.
For an instant Sholto and Pandora stood side by side, and together, as Molly got her first really good look at them, they took her breath away. One so dark and one so fair and both of them possessed of that compelling kind of physical beauty which turned heads and fascinated. Never had Molly been more horribly conscious of a face bare of make-up, hair tangled by the breeze and a faded summer dress that had seen better days.
‘The Hendersons,’ Pandora repeated impatiently.
‘You’ll have to excuse my cousin. Pandora. She’s not very good with strangers,’ Sholto murmured wryly as he extended a lean hand to Molly. ‘Sholto Cristaldi. Where were you heading when we interrupted your journey?’
‘Home.’ Her uncertain gaze collided with shimmering dark golden eyes as she clasped his hand. And he didn’t let go again. He kept on holding her hand, a faint frown-line etched between his aristocratic brows as he stared intently down at her until a deep flush of self-consciousness coloured her cheeks and she tugged her own fingers clumsily free.
‘Sholto, we’re late!’ Pandora snapped.
‘What’s your name?’ Sholto asked, as if his cousin had neither spoken nor even existed.
‘Molly...Molly Bannister.’
‘Molly,’ he repeated softly, his slow, utterly devastating smile flashing out to leave her weak at the knees. While he crouched down over her bike, examining the bent wheel and the messy debris of broken eggs, she just stared down at him in complete fascination, feverishly, childishly wishing that she had legs that ran all the way up to her armpits, smaller breasts, slimmer hips and last but not least a face that would launch a thousand ships.
In short she would’ve sold her soul at that moment to have the looks to attract a male of Sholto’s calibre. But she had no expectation of such a miracle taking place. Sholto, with his lazy, well-bred drawl, supreme sophistication and exquisitely cut casual clothes, had all the glamour of a film star and seemed just as unattainable.
‘I think the first thing we need to do is replace the eggs,’ Sholto stated with deadly seriousness as he sprang lithely upright again.
‘Give her some money for them, for heaven’s sake!’ Pandora urged incredulously.
‘You don’t need to replace them,’ Molly said hurriedly. ‘And I certainly don’t want any money—’
‘And then we need to take you and your bike home,’ Sholto continued smoothly, as good at ignoring Molly’s objections as he apparently was at blocking out the increasingly angry interruptions coming from his cousin. ‘Where do the Hendersons live?’
‘You go up the hill, through the village and about a hundred yards further on there’s a big set of gates on the left—’
‘We’ll drop my cousin off first...since she’s in such a hurry,’ Sholto murmured softly. ‘But I’m afraid you’ll find it a frightful squeeze in what passes for a back seat in this car.’
‘I don’t need a lift... I wouldn’t dream of it. I can walk home from here!’ she gabbled in a rush, hideously conscious of Pandora’s outraged stare at the idea of her even getting into their car.
But Sholto won out. Taking charge of the steering wheel, he dropped his cousin off at the Hendersons’ Edwardian mansion and ushered Molly into the passenger seat in her stead.
‘Explain that we had an accident and offer my apologies,’ he instructed a frozenly furious Pandora.
Then he drove Molly back to the village shop, replaced the eggs, parked the car beside her damaged bike and proceeded to walk her and the bike home to the vicarage. It was a mile-long walk and
