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 Clothes from her teenaged years filled them; making a face, Mollie gazed at styles years out of date and several sizes too small.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.
Yet why shouldn’t she? Mollie asked herself. He’d been thoughtful to the tune of half a million pounds already. Yet somehow his thoughtfulness in the little, hidden things meant even more than a scrawled cheque. She picked up the grey T-shirt, worn to softness, and held it to her face; it smelled like soap. It smelled like Jacob.
He’d been in here, just a few metres away from the bathroom, while she’d been soaking in the tub. Naked. Groaning a little, Mollie buried her face in the T-shirt. Why was she thinking this way? Feeling this way about Jacob Wolfe? He was so inappropriate as boyfriend material it was laughable. She couldn’t even believe she’d mentally put boyfriend and Jacob Wolfe in the same sentence. She did not still have a stupid schoolgirl crush on him, she told herself fiercely. She didn’t even want a boyfriend, or husband, or lover of any kind. Her business was going to take up all of her time and energy, and after five years of caring for her father, her emotional reserves were surely at an all-time low. She didn’t need the complication of caring for another person.
But what about desire?
She couldn’t ignore the fact that Jacob Wolfe was quite possibly the most attractive man she’d ever seen, or that her body responded to him in the most basic, elemental way.
Still, Mollie told herself as she slipped Jacob’s T-shirt over her head, she didn’t have to act on that attraction. She didn’t have to do anything about desire. And she wouldn’t have the opportunity anyway, because as far as she could tell Jacob didn’t even like her very much.
She slipped on the track bottoms, which engulfed her, and rolling up the cuffs, she cinched them at the waist with the belt. She looked ridiculous, she knew, but it was better than wearing clothes that were two sizes too small and a decade out of date.
Taking her torch, Mollie started down the corridor, in search of the kitchen.
There was something a bit creepy about walking through the darkened, dust-shrouded manor on her own. She wondered how Jacob felt living here. Surely a hotel or rented flat would be more comfortable. As she made her way downstairs she peeked into several rooms; some looked as if they’d been cleaned but others were frozen in time, untouched save for dust and cobwebs. She pictured Jacob in the manor, moving about these rooms, haunted by their memories, and suppressed an odd shiver.
She finally found the kitchen in the back of the house, a huge room now flickering with candlelight. Jacob had brought in several old silver candelabra and positioned them in various points around the room so the space danced with shadows.
‘You made it.’ Jacob turned around and in the dim light Mollie thought she saw his teeth flash white in a smile. ‘I hope you didn’t get lost.’
‘Almost.’ She smiled back. ‘Actually, I just had a good long soak in the tub. It felt amazing.’ She gestured to the clothes she wore. ‘Thank you. This was very thoughtful.’
‘I realised Annabelle’s clothes were undoubtedly musty. They haven’t been worn or even aired in years.’
‘It’s strange,’ Mollie murmured, ‘how forgotten everything is. I haven’t been inside the house in years. I didn’t realise how much had been left.’
Jacob stilled, and Mollie could feel his tension. She knew the exact moment when he released it and simply shrugged. ‘Everyone made their own lives away from here.’
‘I know.’
He reached for two plates, sliding her a sideways glance. ‘Yes, you must know better than anyone, Mollie. You watched it all happen. You were the one who was left last of all, weren’t you?’ He spoke quietly, without mockery, and yet his words stung because she knew how true they were. She’d felt it, year after year, labouring alone.
‘Yes,’ she said quietly. ‘I was.’
‘Have you stayed here the whole time?’ Jacob asked. He laid the plates on the breakfast bar in the centre of the kitchen. ‘Did you never go anywhere, except for Italy?’
He made it sound as if she’d just been waiting, a prisoner of time and fate. Even if it had felt that way sometimes, to her own shame, she didn’t like Jacob Wolfe remarking on it.
Yes, I was waiting. Waiting for my father to die.
‘I went to university,’ she told him stiffly. ‘To study horticulture.’
‘Of course. But other than that … you waited. You stayed.’ He glanced at her, his eyes dark and fathomless, revealing nothing, but she felt his words like an accusation. A judgement.
‘Yes,’ she said in little more than a whisper. ‘I stayed.’ Even if I didn’t want to. Even if sometimes … She swallowed and looked away. ‘Something smells delicious,’ she said, trying to keep her voice light and bright and airy. Trying desperately to change the subject.
Jacob opened the oven and removed a foil pan. ‘I’m afraid I’m not much of a cook. It’s just an Indian takeaway, but at least the oven runs on gas so it’s warm still.’
‘Thank you,’ she replied, her voice still stiff. ‘It’s very generous of you to share your meal.’ As Jacob pried off the foil lid from the chicken dish, Mollie realised she was starving. She’d been so involved in going through her father’s things that she’d completely forgotten about dinner.
Jacob ladled the fragrant chicken and rice onto the two plates and then gestured to one of the high bar stools. ‘Come and eat.’
Sliding on a stool opposite of him, Mollie was conscious of how intimate this felt. Was. All around them the kitchen flickered and glimmered with candlelight. The house yawned emptily in several acres in every direction; they were completely alone.
She took a bite of chicken. She knew that now was the time to ask Jacob what he’d been doing all these years, why he’d left, if he’d ever spared a single thought for any of the people he’d left behind—all the questions she wanted answers to, deserved answers to, for that supposed clarity and closure. So she could move on from this place, just as all the Wolfes had, just as Jacob would again.
Yet the words stuck in her throat, in her heart. Did she really have a right to ask—and know—such things? She wasn’t even part of the Wolfe family. She might have spent her whole life on the Wolfe estate, in the family’s shadow, but she’d never been one of them. She knew that, had always known that. She’d been an observer, a silent witness, a peeping Tom. Never part of the family, not even remotely close. Her friendship with Annabelle and her father’s faithful service were the only links to the family whose actions had played such havoc with her own life. Why should she have ever expected the Wolfes to feel any sense of obligation or responsibility to her or her father? Annabelle’s offer to let them stay at the cottage