Chapter Eleven #2
They arrived a couple of hours later at Jago’s London townhouse in Bloomsbury.
As they entered the beautifully appointed house, a host of memories assailed Mollie.
She remembered the first time he had brought her here.
The first time they had made love. The first time they had cooked a meal together.
His proposal and her eagerness in accepting, even though he hadn’t told her he loved her.
She had hoped he would do so in the weeks leading up to the wedding, but he hadn’t.
In spite of the evil meddling of Jago’s grandfather, sometimes she wondered if Jago would have ever said those three little words that no one had ever said to her before.
Jago shrugged off his light jacket and hung it inside a cloak room near the entrance. ‘I’ll bring our bags in while you go and freshen up. Do you still know your way around? Not much has changed since you were last here.’
But everything had changed, not in terms of decor or layout, but Mollie had changed. She wasn’t the same woman Jago had brought here two years ago. She was stronger now, more resilient and, ironically, more in love with Jago than ever.
Mollie used the downstairs bathroom rather than go upstairs where she knew so many poignant memories would be evoked.
But Jago seemed to be taking a long time to bring in their bags, so she wandered around the house, trying not to think of all the times she had been here in the past as his real fiancée, not his fake one.
She looked at the ring on her left hand and wondered how anyone could tell it wasn’t real.
It looked as real as the diamond-and-sapphire earrings and pendant she wore.
On her way upstairs, Mollie looked out one of the windows and saw Jago was speaking on the phone near the car.
He was leaning against his car and pinching the bridge of his nose as if the conversation was not a pleasant one.
Was he filling Jack in on what had happened?
Or Jonas? But she didn’t sense he was particularly close to either of his brothers.
It occurred to her that Jago was as isolated as she was, having no one to lean on in good times or bad.
She sighed and continued up the stairs until she came to his bedroom.
She pushed back the door and went in, sweeping her gaze around the room.
Not much had changed. The walls were still white, the bed linen of the highest quality, the bedside table lamps crystal and brass.
The carpet was deep and plush, and the ensuite as luxurious as ever with a walk-in shower with a rainwater showerhead and twin basins and mirrors along the other wall.
There were no feminine items on the second sink, only Jago’s shaving kit and cologne on the first. Had anyone shared this space with him in the two years they had been apart?
He had said he hadn’t dated anyone for the first year.
What did that mean? Did it mean he’d still cared for her?
Missed her more than he wanted to admit?
Or was she being a fool for still hoping he’d loved her when he had never articulated it?
There were times both in the past and now where he acted like a man in love.
Was it enough to rely on his behaviour instead of a verbal acknowledgement of his feelings?
She longed for him to be the first person to say those words to her.
Was it foolish of her to hope a second time around that he would?
Mollie left his bedroom and opened the door of the spare room, her eyes widening in shock when she was confronted by a wedding cake— her wedding cake—standing on a table out of direct sunlight.
The four-tiered cake was still intact, although the frosting looked cracked in places, like old bone china.
The marzipan bride and groom embracing on the top of the cake were startling lookalikes of her and Jago, which was an indication of the expertise of the wedding cake designer Tessa Macclesfield.
Mollie moved closer to the cake, staring at it like it was a ghost or an apparition, a conjuring of her own imagination.
She reached out a hand and touched the delicate lacework icing that bordered the top and bottom of every tier.
A tiny piece came away and dropped on the table with a soft plink that made a shiver scuttle down her spine.
Jago had kept the cake.
Mollie couldn’t stop looking at the cake, wondering what had motivated him to keep it.
Given the circumstances, wouldn’t he have got the servants at Wildewood Manor to destroy it?
What else had he kept? She hadn’t until this moment wondered what had happened to her wedding dress.
The wedding was to have taken place in the lush gardens at Wildewood, so when she left in such a hurry, she hadn’t had time to take anything but the most basic items with her.
Her eyes were drawn to the wall-to-wall built-in cupboards and she moved towards them like a robot, her hand reaching for the crystal knob on the left-hand door.
It opened with a soft squeak, and she gasped at her wedding dress and veil hanging there.
Her heart was working its way up her throat, pounding, punching, pummelling until she could barely take a breath.
She reached out her hand and touched the silk and lace and trailed it through her fingers.
There was a sound behind her, and she swung around with a gasp, putting a hand up to her throat to see Jago standing there with an inscrutable expression.
‘You kept the cake and dress?’ Her voice came out in a thin thread.
He walked farther into the room to stand near her but without touching. He waved his hand towards the cake and the dress. ‘I know it probably confirms my grandfather’s opinion of my obsession with you, but I needed these as a reminder never to propose to anyone again.’
Mollie moistened her lips that felt as dry as the cracked fondant on the cake. ‘Is that your only reason?’
Jago’s eyes were shuttered, but the line of his lips was thin. ‘I was furious when you jilted me. I had never allowed anyone as close as I allowed you, but you left and I let my anger fester for the last two years.’
‘ Close? You held back so much from me,’ Mollie said.
‘At least I introduced you to my family,’ Jago threw back with a frown. ‘You didn’t even tell me you had a brother, nor did you tell me the truth about your upbringing.’
Mollie shut the cupboard door, blocking the vision of her unworn wedding dress.
It seemed to mock her, so too the wedding cake, both of them a reminder of what she had been so close to having, only to have it snatched away at the last moment.
‘I told you I loved you, so I think I was much more emotionally available than you. You’ve only recently told me a little about your childhood, how it was to lose your parents so tragically.
It’s not healthy to lock that stuff away and never express your grief.
Believe me, I know because I’ve been doing the same. ’
Jago wandered over to the wedding cake, poking it with his finger, a deep frown between his hooded eyes.
‘I remember everything about that day, even though I was only five years old.’ He drew in a ragged breath and turned to look at her.
‘My world, my safe and happy life was snatched away when the police arrived to tell my grandparents about the plane crash. I will never forget the sound of my grandmother’s wailing.
It went on and on and on like a siren. No one could comfort her.
Jack and I did what we could, but Jonas was only three.
He was too young to understand how everything had changed in the blink of an eye. ’
‘Oh, Jago, I’m so sorry. It must have been so dreadful, so painful…’
He made a gruff sound that was dismissive of his suffering, but she could see the shadows of pain in his dark blue gaze.
Wounded eyes. Eyes that hid a world of agony behind a shield of arrogance and pride.
‘My grandfather was never an emotionally available man, and losing his only child, his only son, made him even more avoidant.’ He let out a raspy sigh and continued in a tone laced with sadness.
‘Looking back, I suspect he sent Jack and me to boarding school within a month or two of our parents’ deaths because he didn’t want to be reminded of his loss.
Jonas, of course, was too young, but he went to yet another boarding school when he was six. ’
‘That was so cruel. What about your poor grandmother? Surely having her grandchildren around would have helped her work through her grief?’
He gave her a grim look. ‘Not according to my grandfather. We were forbidden to talk about our parents in case it upset our grandmother. All the photos of our parents were locked away so they didn’t trigger our grandmother’s grief.’
‘Do you have any photos of your parents?’
‘In my study.’
‘May I see them?’
He hesitated for a moment, and Mollie wondered if she had pushed him too far. But then he blinked a couple of times and indicated for her to follow him downstairs.
A short time later, Jago unlocked a drawer of his desk and leaned down to take out a photo album.
He placed it on the desk and pushed it towards her, the desk acting as a barrier between them.
‘I managed to find these during one of my visits during the school holidays. We didn’t often go to Wildewood during term breaks, as our grandfather mostly sent us to various camps and holiday programs to ease the burden of child care on our grandmother. ’
Mollie opened the album to the first page where there was a wedding photo of a bride and groom, presumably Jago’s parents. The couple looked at each other with such tenderness and love it brought the sting of tears to her eyes. She blinked them away and said, ‘They look so in love, so happy.’