Mistress And Mother

is one of Mills & Boon’s most popular and bestselling novelists. Her writing was an instant success with readers worldwide. Since her first book, Bittersweet Passion, was published in 1987, she has gone from strength to strength and now has over ninety titles, which have sold more than thirty-five million copies, to her name.

In this special collection, we offer readers a chance to revisit favourite books or enjoy that rare treasure—a book by a favourite writer—they may have missed. In every case, seduction and passion with a gorgeous, irresistible man are guaranteed!

LYNNE GRAHAM was born in Northern Ireland and has been a keen Mills & Boon^>® reader since her teens. She is very happily married, with an understanding husband who has learned to cook since she started to write! Her five children keep her on her toes. She has a very large dog, which knocks everything over, a very small terrier, which barks a lot, and two cats. When time allows, Lynne is a keen gardener.

Mistress and Mother

Lynne Graham

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!’