Molly's Millions by Victoria Connelly Read Free Book Online

hot chocolate into brown waves.
    ‘She did, did she?’
    Flora nodded. ‘Yes.’
    ‘What else did Mummy say?’
    Flora looked pensive. ‘She said you’re always on about not seeing enough of me, and that you can bloody well see plenty of me this summer.’
    Tom frowned. ‘Watch your language!’
    ‘But that’s what she said.’
    ‘I believe you.’
    Flora cupped her hands round the teddy bear mug Tom kept in his cupboard for her. It hadn’t occurred to him that it was the summer holidays. This wasn’t going to be easy.
    ‘The thing is, Flora, I have to work. Surely Mummy knows that?’
    Flora gazed into her mug. ‘She told me she’s going away. She says she’ll be away all summer.’
    ‘ All summer?’
    Flora nodded. ‘She’s leaving tomorrow.’
    ‘And I suppose she’s going with Jean-Philippe?’ Tomgritted his teeth as he realised how bitter he sounded. It wasn’t a nice trait in a father, especially at the breakfast table.
    ‘Don’t you or Mummy want me?’ Flora suddenly said.
    ‘Of course we do.’ Tom felt his heart swell. What on earth was he thinking of? He was probably laying the foundations for years of very expensive therapy. ‘I’d do any thing for you!’ He gave her little body a huge hug and kissed her cheek with a resounding smack. ‘The only problem is, I’m going away too.’
    ‘Where?’
    ‘Well, I don’t really know yet. But I’m not sure you’d want to come. It’s a long way, you see.’
    ‘I don’t mind long ways,’ she said enthusiastically, as if she were aware that she had to promote herself.
    Tom sat down opposite her. ‘It’s a long way, it won’t be much fun, and I’ll be working. I’ll be staying in horribly cheap hotels, getting up at the crack of dawn, eating on the hoof, and I’ll probably be in a constant foul mood.’
    ‘So what’s new?’
    Tom laughed. ‘You sound just like your mother sometimes.’
    Flora smiled back at him. ‘So when do we leave?’
     
    How did the Romans put up with the intense cold of Northumberland? Molly wondered, winding her window up. And how did they manage it in tunics and sandals when she was shivering in jumper and jeans? They must have been awfully homesick. It was a lonely kind of countryside too and, in a way, it was beginning to depress her. Maybe it was time to head south.
    She’d done a lot of thinking over the last few hours. Hertrip to the Roman fort of Housesteads had provided her with the opportunity to just sit and think. She shook her head as she remembered how she’d felt sitting on an uncomfortable piece of Roman wall. Surely there was no lonelier place than Housesteads? It was such a strange, sparse landscape occupied by triangular hills and conspiring copses – the sort MacDuff’s army might have moved behind – and the great stretches of Hadrian’s Wall dominated the landscape. Other than those features, there was little else except the wind. It had been the perfect place for contemplation; for thinking about her journey and what lay ahead. She’d even gone as far as getting her notepad out but had only succeeded in doodling a little picture of Fizz.
    Had she really wanted to make a plan? Probably not. Surely that would have taken all the fun out of things. For a moment, she weighed up the pros and cons of planning; thinking, inevitably, of her mother and father.
    She remembered when she’d first noticed the difference between them. At their family home, her father had always been in charge of the front garden and it was the picture of neatness: a narrow brick path leading in a regimentally straight line to the door; the grass permanently mown to billiard table baldness, and two conifers that didn’t dare to grow out of alignment for fear of the shears. The back garden had belonged to her mother. Molly had once asked her how she arranged the flowers and her mother had looked at her as if she was quite mad. ‘Arrange flowers?’ Cynthia had laughed her musical laugh. ‘Molly, my darling ,