Passionate Nights: The Mistress Assignment / Mistress of Convenience / Mistress to Her Husband

CHAPTER FOUR

KELLY looked up as she heard the shop doorbell go. She was expecting Dee. They had spoken on the phone earlier when Dee had announced that she intended to come round to collect the ballgown accessories which had, in fact, been hired from an exclusive dress shop and to discuss what had happened at the ball.

Kelly had had a pleasingly busy morning with several customers. She hoped that Beth was going to be able to source a supplier of high-quality glass in the Czech Republic as this morning alone she had promised three potentially interested customers that they were hopefully going to be able to provide them with the sets of stemware they wanted.

‘Something different … something pretty … something not too expensive …’ had been the heartfelt pleas of their potential customers. Fingers crossed that if Beth’s quest was successful they would be able to meet all three requirements.

‘Right,’ Dee commanded briskly as she walked up to the counter. ‘How did the ball go? Tell me everything …’

‘Julian was there with his new girlfriend,’ Kelly began, pausing before she added quietly, ‘I felt so sorry for her, Dee. She’s plainly very much in love with him and so young and naive … I hate the thought of doing anything that might hurt her …’

‘She’ll be hurt much, much more if Julian succeeds in persuading her to marry him, which he’s going to go all out to do. His finances are in a complete mess and getting worse by the day. He’s desperately in need of money. She’s quite wealthy in her own right and then, when you add on the financial benefits which could accrue to him through her brother … But from what Harry has told me Julian was making a very definite play for you …’

‘Yes, he was,’ Kelly agreed, tracing an abstract design with the tip of her finger on the polished glass counter before saying hesitantly, ‘Dee, I’m not sure if I can go on with what we planned. I don’t like Julian, and, whilst I like even less what he’s done to Beth and what he’s doing to Eve Frobisher, I …’

‘Would it help if I gave you my solemn promise that on no account and on no occasion would I ever allow a situation to arise where you would have to be on your own with him?’ Dee asked her.

Kelly stared at her. How on earth had Dee guessed what was troubling her?

‘You’re quite right,’ Dee told her, answering the question Kelly still had to ask. ‘I wouldn’t want to be on my own with him either, especially if I thought that there was any risk that he might guess what we’re up to … Harry is quite aggrieved with me, you know,’ she added with a chuckle. ‘He not only feels that as your friend and landlady I ought to put you wise to Julian’s real character, he also shares your concern on behalf of Eve Frobisher.

‘In fact,’ she told Kelly ruefully, ‘I’m afraid he’s rather taken me to task over the whole thing.’

‘Does he now know what we’re doing, then?’ Kelly asked her in some surprise. Instinctively she had felt that Dee was a woman who exercised her own judgement, made her own decisions and played her cards very close to her chest.

‘Not entirely,’ Dee admitted, confirming Kelly’s private thoughts. ‘Harry is a sweetie, as solid and dependable as they come. He wouldn’t recognise a lie if he met one walking down the street; subterfuge and everything that goes with it is very much alien territory to him, which does have its advantages, of course. He’s wonderful potential husband and father material …’ She cocked a thoughtful eye at Kelly. ‘He’s comfortably off, and I know for a fact that his mother is dying for him to settle down and produce children. If you were interested …’

‘He’s a honey,’ Kelly told her hastily, ‘but not, I’m afraid, my type.’

Nor, she suspected, was she his, but she rather thought she knew someone who might be. She hadn’t missed the anxious and protective looks Harry had been giving Eve over dinner the previous night.

‘Mmm … Pity … Look, I’ve got to dash,’ Dee told her. ‘When Julian rings you—which he will—I want to know about it …’

‘Dee,’ Kelly said, but it was too late; the other woman was already heading for the door, ignoring her half-panicky protests.

What was Dee saying? Julian wouldn’t ring her. He wouldn’t dare. Flirting with her last night was one thing, but …

In her heart of hearts Kelly knew that despite her desire to do the right thing by Beth and the rest of her sex she was secretly reluctant to have anything more to do with Julian. Not because she feared him. She didn’t. No. Contempt, dislike, anger … those were the emotions he aroused within her.

Admit it, she told herself sternly ten minutes later as she locked the shop and disappeared into the small back room to have her lunch, ‘you just hate the thought of anyone thinking you could possibly be attracted to him. Anyone … or a specific someone … a very specific someone.

Pushing aside her half-eaten sandwich, Kelly started to frown. Don’t start that again, she warned herself. He’s not much better than Julian … Look at the way he treated you. Kissing you like that.

Kissing her … Abruptly she sat down, her insides starting to melt and then ache.

Watch it, she warned herself, deriding herself fiercely. It isn’t just your insides he’s turning to mush, it’s your brain as well.

Her frown deepened as she heard someone ringing the shop doorbell. Couldn’t they read? They were closed. The ringing persisted. Irritably Kelly got up. There was no way she could finish her lunch with that row going on.

Opening the communicating door, she marched into the shop and then stopped abruptly as she saw Brough Frobisher standing on the other side of the plate-glass window.

Her hand went to her throat in an instinctive gesture of shock as she breathed in disbelief, ‘You.’

Shakily she went to unlock the shop door. Brough was frowning as he stepped inside.

‘I’m looking for Kay Harris,’ he told her abruptly. The sense of shock that hit her was so strong that for a moment Kelly was unable to reply.

‘She does work here, doesn’t she?’ Brough was demanding curtly, looking at her, Kelly realised, as though he doubted her ability to answer him competently.

‘Yes. Yes, she does … I do … It’s Kelly, not Kay,’ Kelly corrected him shakily. ‘K is just my initial.’

‘You!’

Sensing his reluctance to believe her, Kelly drew herself up to her full height and told him in her most businesslike voice, ‘My partner and I run this shop.’

‘You paint china?’ His disbelief was palpable and insulting.

Kelly could feel her temper starting to ignite. There were many things she was not, and she had her fair share of human faults and frailties, but there was one thing that she was sure of and that was that she was extremely good at her chosen work—and that wasn’t merely her own opinion.

‘Yes, I do. Perhaps you’d like to see my credentials?’ she suggested bitingly.

‘I thought I just did—last night.’ The long, slow, arrogantly male look he gave her made her face burn and her temper heat to simmering point.

‘What is it exactly that you want?’ she demanded angrily, adding before she could stop herself, ‘If it’s simply because you’re some sort of weirdo who gets off on insulting women, I should have thought your behaviour towards me last night would have more than satisfied you.’

Kelly knew that she had overstepped the mark. She could hardly believe what she had just heard herself say, but it was too late to withdraw her remarks. Retaliation couldn’t be long in coming, she recognised, and she was right.

‘If you’re referring to the fact that I kissed you …’ he began silkily, and then paused whilst he looked straight into her eyes. ‘Allow me to say that you have a rather … unusual … way of expressing your … displeasure …’

He didn’t say anything more—he didn’t need to, Kelly acknowledged; the expression in his eyes and the tone of his voice along with the masterly understatement of his silky words was more than enough to leave her covered in confusion and angry, self-inflicted humiliation.

‘I … You … It was a mistake,’ was all she could think of to say.

‘Oh, yes,’ he agreed dulcetly. ‘It certainly was. Now, I’m afraid that I am rather short of time. I have a commission I would like to discuss with you.’

Kelly blinked. All that and he still wanted to talk business with her.

Her thoughts must have shown in her face because he explained gently, ‘You’re my last resort. You have, or so I am told, a very particular and rare skill. It will soon be my grandmother’s eightieth birthday. She has a Rockingham-style teaset, a much cherished family heirloom, but some pieces are missing, broken many years ago. The set has no particular material value; its value to her is in the fact that it was a wedding gift from her grandparents. I have managed to find out that Hartwell China bought out the original manufacturers many, many years ago and, whilst they still produce china in the same shape, they no longer produce the same pattern.

‘To have one of their own artists copy such an intricate floral design would, they say, prove far too costly—the work would have to be done by one of the top workers, which would mean taking him or her off work they already have in hand. They recommended that I got in touch with you. Apparently there is no one else they would allow, never mind recommend, to do such work.’

‘I … I worked for them whilst I was at university,’ Kelly explained huskily. ‘That was when I discovered that I had some talent for … for china-painting. I would have to see the design … It wouldn’t be easy … or cheap …’ she warned him.

Against her will she had been touched by the story he had told her, but she knew, even if he didn’t, just how intricate and time-consuming the kind of work he was describing could be.

‘I’ve managed to cadge one of the tea plates from Nan, and Hartwell have very kindly said that I can use their archive records.’

‘Do you have the plate with you?’ Kelly asked him.

He shook his head, unexpectedly looking oddly boyish as he admitted, ‘I’m terrified of breaking it. I’ve got it at home. I was wondering if it would be possible for you to call there to see it.’

Kelly wanted to refuse, but her professional pride and curiosity proved too strong for her.

‘I could,’ she agreed cautiously, ‘but it would have to be when the shop is closed. My partner, Beth, is away at the moment.’

‘Could you manage this evening?’

‘I …’

‘I don’t have very much time left. Nan’s birthday isn’t very far away,’ he told her.

Kelly sighed. There was no reason why she shouldn’t look at the plate this evening.

‘I suppose so,’ she agreed reluctantly. ‘Where do you live? I—’ She broke off as the phone began to ring, automatically going to answer it, saying, ‘Excuse me a moment …’ as she picked up the receiver.

‘Hi, Kelly, it’s Julian. How are you, you delicious, hot, sexy thing …?’

Kelly almost dropped the receiver as Julian’s loud voice seemed to fill the shop. Her face burning with embarrassment, she turned her back on Brough even though she knew that he could well have heard what Julian had said.

‘Julian. I … I’m busy …’ she protested. ‘I …’

‘I understand, babe. What you and I have to say to one another needs to be said in private, right?’ Julian responded. ‘God, but you turned me on last night, doll … I can’t wait for us to get together …’

‘Julian.’ Kelly closed her eyes, as revolted by Julian’s conversation as she was by his person. ‘Julian, please—’ she began. But he wouldn’t let her finish, interrupting her to say thickly, ‘I’ll ring you later at the flat. I’ve still got the number …’

He had hung up before Kelly could object or protest, leaving her pink cheeked both with anger and chagrin—anger because of Julian’s assumption that she, or any other woman for that matter, would be willing to see him when he was supposedly already involved with someone else, and chagrin because Brough could have overheard some of the conversation.

It was to be expected, of course, that he wouldn’t let the matter go without comment, especially when the girl whom Julian was supposed to be on the point of becoming engaged to was his own sister.

‘I appreciate that custom has it that there’s supposedly safety in numbers, but don’t you think you could be interpreting its validity just a little too generously?’ he asked her smoothly.

‘Julian is an old friend,’ Kelly reminded him.

The look he gave her could have stopped Linford Christie in his tracks, Kelly felt sure.

‘Really? Then I feel extremely sorry for you, not only in your unfortunate choice of friends but your misplaced and, no doubt, regularly abused loyalty.’

‘Julian is dating your sister,’ Kelly felt compelled to remind him defensively.

He had turned to walk towards the door, but now, abruptly, he stopped and turned back to Kelly, and said quietly but with grim force, ‘Yes, he is, isn’t he?’ And then, almost without pausing, he added coolly, ‘Shall we say eight tonight? This is the address …’

Kelly was still looking bemusedly at the business card he had placed down on the counter as he closed the shop door behind him.

Why on earth hadn’t she said something, objected to his high-handed assumption that she would not merely be free this evening but that, additionally, she would fall in with his plans, agree to his request, especially in view of the way he had spoken to her?

Reluctantly she picked up the card. Kelly had a vague idea where the house was since it was on the same road as a customer who had ordered a special commission from her.

Ten minutes before she was due to re-open the shop, the phone rang again. This time the caller was Beth, ringing from Prague.

‘Hi … How are things going?’ Kelly asked her eagerly.

‘Not too bad, in fact really quite promisingly. I’ve been given several contact numbers, and I’m due to drive out of the city tomorrow to visit a crystal factory.’

‘And you’re managing okay, despite the language barrier?’ Kelly asked her. This had been one of Beth’s main concerns about her trip and Kelly was anxious to know how her friend was coping.

‘Oh, I’ve got an interpreter,’ Beth told her.

Kelly frowned. The offhand tone of Beth’s voice was both unfamiliar and slightly worrying.

‘And she’s helping you, visiting factories with you …?’

‘She is a he,’ Beth told her shortly. ‘And as for helping me …’ There was a small pause. ‘Honestly, Kelly, men. I’m totally off all of them. Just because a person has a fancy degree and a whole string of letters after his name, that does not give him the right to try to tell me what to do. And as for trying to force me to visit factories that he’s chosen, with tales of theft and gypsies—’

‘Beth.’ Kelly interrupted her in bewilderment. ‘I’m sorry, but I don’t understand.’

‘Oh, it’s all right, I’m just letting off steam. It’s Alex, the interpreter. He’s half-English, as it turns out, and his grandparents left Prague for political asylum in the west when his mother was a child. Alex returned after the revolution to search for his family and he’s stayed on here.’

‘Sounds like he’s been confiding rather a lot of personal history to you for someone you don’t get on with,’ Kelly told her wryly.

‘Oh, he tells me what he wants me to know. He’s insisting that I visit a glass factory run by his cousins, but I’m not inclined to go. He obviously has a vested interest in anything I might buy. I’ve managed to track down somewhere that produces this most wonderful design I’ve seen, and he’s acting all high and mighty and trying to tell me that it’s all a con and that the stallholder saw me coming a mile off. He says there isn’t any factory where they’ve told me to go and the glass I wanted to buy couldn’t have been genuine. He says it’s a well-known ploy to get hold of foreign currency that is often worked against naive people like me …

‘Oh, but Kelly, you should have seen this glass. It was wonderful, pure Venetian baroque, you know the kind of thing, and it would lend itself beautifully to being gilded for the Christmas market. I even thought that if the price was reasonable enough we could commission some special sets, hand-painted and gilded for special celebrations—weddings, anniversarie’s … you know the kind of thing …’

Kelly laughed as she listened to her friend’s excited enthusiasm. It was wonderful to hear that note back in Beth’s voice again, and even more wonderful that she hadn’t even asked once about Julian Cox.

‘Anyway,’ Beth was continuing determinedly, ‘somehow I’m going out to this factory by myself. I’m planning to give my guide, and for that you can read jailer, the slip. It’s obvious what he’s up to,’ she told Kelly scornfully. ‘He just wants to secure our business for his cousins. He claims that their factory could probably reproduce the glass if they had a copy of it …’

‘Mmm … Well, if that’s the case, it might be worthwhile sketching the glass and seeing if they can reproduce it.’

‘Never,’ Beth asserted fiercely. ‘There’s no way I’m going to have Alex dictating to me … No. I’ve seen the glass I want and I know where to get it, and I’m determined to get an exclusive supply of it and at the right price. After all, if we did commission Alex’s cousins, what’s to stop them selling our design elsewhere, putting up the price to us because they know we want it? Look, I must go; Alex is picking me up in half an hour. He’s insisting on making me walk over the Charles Bridge, and since it’s raining today he says it should be relatively free of other tourists.’

‘Sounds fun,’ Kelly teased her, smiling as she said goodbye and hung up. The others would be so pleased to hear that Beth seemed to be getting over Julian Cox.

CHAPTER FIVE

AS HE let himself into the hallway of their rented house and blinked at the teeth-jarring hard yellow paint of the room, Brough reflected that he would be glad when they could finally move into the large Georgian farmhouse he had bought several miles outside the town and which was presently undergoing some much needed renovation work. It had been empty for three years before Brough had managed to persuade the trustees of the estate of the late owner that there was no way anyone was ever going to pay the exorbitant price they were asking for it.

‘If they don’t sell it soon, they’ll be lucky to have anything there worth selling,’ he had told the agent crisply. ‘It’s already been empty and unheated for three winters, and if the government gives the go-ahead for the new bypass the area will be swarming with protestors just looking for an empty house to take over and make themselves comfortable in.’

Buying the house, though, had simply been the beginning of a whole spate of difficult negotiations. The property was listed, and every detail of his planning applications had to be scanned by what had felt like a never-ending chain of committees, but now at last the approved builder had started work on the property, and, with any luck, he should be able to move into it within the year, the builder had assured him cheerfully on his last site inspection.