“Fine,” he said brusquely. “She sends you her love.” And, taking his cup with him, he left the room.
Cursing herself for a fool, Molly rose from her seat and began puttering around the kitchen. She discovered a cache of day-old muffins and proceeded to heat them in the oven. Placing than daintily on one of the old Spode plates and adding butter and homemade jam, she carried than into Patrick’s office.
He looked up from the paper he was staring at, and frowned. “A peace offering,” she stated, before he could open his mouth to order her from the room. “I’m sorry for what I said in the kitchen. It was uncalled for.” She didn’t honestly believe that, but she expected Patrick wouldn’t agree. “Would you like some more coffee?”
“I’ll get it,” he said, but she took the cup from him in a peremptory fashion.
“You eat your muffins,” she said grandly, sailing from the room. In a moment she was back, with two cups. She sat down opposite him and watched him out of demurely lowered eyelids, letting her gaze trail along the lean, smooth lines of his body, the tired planes of his tanned face.
“All right,” he said abruptly. “You want togetherness, we’ll have togetherness. Why don’t you answer a few questions, dear wife? Think you can do that?”
“I doubt it. I don’t have any memories.”
“The convenient amnesia. I guess it must be catching—I keep forgetting that you lost your memory.”
He was in a foul mood, she thought. Obviously the wrong moment for improving their relationship. She rose, but his hand shot out, clamping around her wrist, and she slopped her mug of coffee. He didn’t release her, and she refused to sit. She stood there, staring down at him, wishing it gave her even the slightest advantage. It didn’t.
“So tell me, Molly dear. Are you still insisting someone pushed you down the cellar hole?” he asked in a silken voice. Despite the firmness of his grip, his thumb was absently stroking the tender inside of her wrist.
“It was the truth.”
“And you’re such a great expert on the truth, aren’t you? What happened the night you left here?”
Damn him, she thought, wishing she could break free. She knew if she tugged again it would just end up in an undignified struggle. “I don’t remember,” she said stubbornly.
“And you expect me to believe this miraculous case of amnesia? This incredibly convenient memory loss that lets you off the hook, as usual.”
“Actually, I expect nothing from you,” she said in a cool voice.
“That’s wise. Because that’s what you’re likely to get.”
“How nice that we’ve got that settled. Would you like to let me go?” She asked in her most matter-of-fact tone. It still took on the subtext of a cosmic question. Would he let her go? When?
“Don’t you have any questions you want to ask me?” he said lazily. “Since you’ve been so extraordinarily frank this morning, why don’t I return the favor?”
“What would you do if I was pregnant?”
It worked. He dropped her wrist as if burned, and the winter blue of his eyes turned to ice.
“I wouldn’t give a damn,” he said after a moment. “Unless you tried to pass it off as mine. You wouldn’t get very far with that, so I suggest you don’t even try. Are you?”
“Am I what? Pregnant? Or trying to pass the child off as yours?”
“Either one.”
“Neither one,” she said pertly. Not a complete lie. She didn’t know that she was pregnant—she was just guessing. “I was just daydreaming.”
“More like a nightmare if you ask me,” he snapped.
“You don’t like children?”
“I like children. I don’t like you.”
To her horror she could feel tears start in her eyes. And it seemed to horrify him just as much, for he rose, suddenly contrite. “Molly, I...”
Before he could finish she had run from the room, anywhere to keep him from seeing her appalling weakness. She couldn’t even curse him for a thoughtless bastard; his final softening had precluded that.
Perhaps it was all a lost cause, she told herself tearfully when she reached the haven of her room. She would be much better off if she did keep out of his way. He had told her to, time and time again, and she hadn’t listened, stubbornly seeking him out. I voicing for something. A faint sign of approval, or even affection?
