hearth. She glanced at the cosy glow she’d created moments before; all that was left was smoking ash.
Her mind spun in dizzying circles. It was all too much to process: coming back home, seeing her father’s things, meeting Jacob Wolfe again and now this commission… . The past and the present had come together with an almighty crash.
Sighing wearily, Mollie pushed her tumbled thoughts to the back of her already disordered mind and, after closing the door—Jacob had as good as vanished into the night—she retrieved her torch and headed upstairs. It didn’t matter that there was no light, or water, or even food in the non-working refrigerator. There were sheets on the bed, only a little musty and damp, and she was exhausted.
Kicking off her Italian leather boots, shedding the clothes that she’d never truly felt comfortable in, Mollie tumbled into bed and then gratefully, blissfully, into sleep.
She woke to bright summer sunlight streaming in through the diamond-paned windows of her bedroom. She blinked, groggily, yet within seconds it all came crashing back: the cottage, the job, Jacob.
She leaned back against her pillow and closed her eyes, yet the image of Jacob danced before her closed lids. He’d looked so much older, so much more rugged and weary somehow. What had he been doing for the past nineteen years? Why had he come back now? Was he in need of a little cash? Was that why he was selling Wolfe Manor?
Mollie told herself not to rush to conclusions. She’d thrown enough accusations at Jacob last night. She’d tried and judged him years ago, even when Annabelle, who as his younger sister had far more cause, had not. Annabelle, when she’d talked of her family, which had been rarely, had always seemed willing to forgive Jacob, to assume the best.
Last night Mollie had assumed the worst.
Had Annabelle seen Jacob? Did she know he was back? Did any of the Wolfe siblings know? So many questions. So few answers. And, Mollie acknowledged, sighing, none of it really concerned her anyway. She’d always danced on the farthest fringes of the Wolfe family, watching as Jacob and Lucas took their younger siblings out for a picnic, or played hide-and-seek amidst the vast grounds. No one had ever known she existed, until Jacob had left and Annabelle, scarred both inside and out, had retreated to the manor, refusing to show her face in public again. Then Mollie had been a friend, because she didn’t have any others.
But the other Wolfes—Jacob included—had never so much as looked in her direction. And they’d never considered what it would mean to her or her father to let Wolfe Manor fall into such desperate disrepair.
Shrugging these thoughts away, Mollie got out of bed. Now was the time to think of the future, not the past. Jacob Wolfe wanted some landscaping designs by the end of today, and she’d give them to him. Mollie didn’t know when she’d decided to accept the commission; but when she’d awakened in the morning she realised she already knew. This was too important to throw away in a moment of pique or pride, and there was something redemptive, something right, about restoring Wolfe Manor’s gardens to their former glory. She wasn’t doing it for Jacob, or even for herself. She was doing it for her dad.
She pulled on her old gardening clothes—jeans and a worn button-down shirt of her father’s—and tied her hair up in a careless knot. No point impressing Jacob Wolfe with her stylish new clothes. He hadn’t looked impressed last night, and the effort would be useless considering without water she couldn’t even have a shower or so much as brush her teeth. Armed with her notebook and a couple of pencils, Mollie put on her wellies and headed outside.
It was one of those freshly minted days of early summer, when the trees, impossibly green, glinted with sunlight, and every furled flower was spangled with diamond dewdrops. Mollie took several deep breaths, filling her lungs with the fresh, damp morning air. She felt a rush of feelings: happiness, homesickness, sorrow and hope. Excitement too, as she left the cottage’s little garden for the unkempt acres beyond.
Over the years, as her father’s condition had worsened and he’d been unable to tend to his duties—few as they were—on the estate, Mollie had taken over what she could. She’d kept up the small garden surrounding the cottage, enabling her father to exist in his own little make-believe world where the manor was lived in and the gardens were glorious, the roses in full bloom even in the middle of winter. Meanwhile, all around them, the estate gardens had fallen into ruin along with the house.
Now she walked down a cracked stone path, the once-pristine flower beds choked with weeds. Sighing, she noticed the trees in desperate need of pruning; for many, pruning wouldn’t even help. There was enough dead wood to keep the manor stocked with logs for its fires for a year.
The manor’s rose garden was a particular disappointment. It had once been the pride of the estate—and her father—designed nearly five hundred years ago, laid out in an octagonal shape with a different variety of rose in each section. Henry Parker had tended each of these beds with love and care, so often absorbed in nurturing the rare hybrids that bloomed there.
Mollie’s heart fell as she saw what had befallen her father’s precious plants: as she stooped to inspect one, she saw the telltale yellow mottling on the leaves that signalled the mosaic virus. Once a rose bush had the infection, there was little to be done, and most of the bushes in the garden looked to have contracted it.
She straightened, her heart heavy. So much loss. So much waste. Yet there were still pockets of hope and growth amidst all the decay and disease: the acacia borders were bursting with shrub roses and peonies; the wildflower meadow was a sea of colour; the wisteria climbed all over the kitchen garden’s stone walls, spreading its violet, vibrant blooms.
She found a bench tucked away underneath a lilac bush in the Children’s Garden. Her father had known all the names of the formally landscaped plots, and he’d told them to Mollie. The Rose Garden, the Children’s Garden, the Water Garden, the Bluebell Wood. Like chapters in a book of fairy tales. And she’d loved them all.
Now she laid her notebook on her knees and took out a pencil, intending to jot down some ideas, but in truth she didn’t know where to begin. All she could see in her mind’s eye was the weeds and waste … and her father’s lined face, concern etching his faded features as he worried about whether Master William, long dead, would be disappointed to see the beds hadn’t been weeded.
Perhaps landscaping the Wolfe estate gardens was too big a job for her. She had so little practice, so little experience, and the thought of ploughing under even an inch of her father’s beloved flowers and trees made her heart ache. Yet clearly this couldn’t just be a patch-up job; the Rose Garden alone would have to be nearly completely replaced.
Leaning her head back against the stone wall, Mollie closed her eyes and let the sun warm her face, the sweet scent of lilacs drifting on the breeze. She felt incredibly weary, both emotionally and physically. Too tired even to think. She didn’t know how long she sat there, her mind blank, her eyes closed, but when she heard the dark, mocking tones that could belong to only one man her eyes flew open and she nearly jumped from the bench.
‘Hard at work, I see.’
Jacob Wolfe stood in the entrance to the garden, his hands in the pockets of his trousers. He wore a steel-grey business suit, his cobalt tie the only splash of colour. He looked coolly remote and arrogantly self-assured as he arched an eyebrow in sardonic amusement.
‘You can’t rush the creative process,’ Mollie replied a bit tartly, although her mouth curled up in a smile anyway. It was rather ridiculous, having Jacob catching her practically taking a nap. She straightened, aware that unruly wisps were falling from her untidy bun and her clothes were sloppy and old. Jacob, on the other hand, looked
