by Penny Jordan
‘Beth, you’re going to hate me for this...’ Kelly paused. ‘Brough is having to go to Singapore on business and he wants me to go with him. It could mean us being away for over a month—he says that since we would be almost halfway there anyway we might as well also fly on to Australia and spend a couple of weeks with my cousin and her family.
‘I know what you must be thinking. We’re coming up for our busiest time and I’ve only been working a couple of days a week lately anyway. If you’d rather I didn’t go I’ll understand... After all, the business...’
Beth thought quickly. It was true that she would find it hard to manage for what sounded as though it was going to be close on five or six weeks without her partner, but if Kelly was away then at least it meant that Beth wouldn’t have to tell her about the stemware. Cravenly Beth admitted to herself that, given the opportunity to do so, she would much rather sort out everything discreetly and privately without involving anyone else—even if that meant getting someone in part-time to help with the shop whilst Kelly was away.
‘Beth? Are you still there?’ she heard Kelly asking her anxiously.
‘Yes. Yes, I’m here,’ Beth confirmed.
Taking a deep breath, she told her friend and partner as cheerfully as she could, ‘Of course you must go, Kelly. It would be silly to miss out on that kind of opportunity.’
‘Mmm...and I would miss Brough dreadfully. But I do feel guilty about leaving you, Beth, especially at this time of the year. I know how busy you’re going to be, what with the new stemware... Oh...did it arrive? Is it as wonderful as you remembered? Perhaps I could come down...?’
‘No. No...there’s no need for that,’ Beth assured her quickly.
‘Well, if you really don’t mind,’ Kelly said gratefully. ‘Brough did say that we could drive over to Farrow today. I’ve been given the address of someone who works there who makes the most wonderful traditional hand-crafted furniture. He’s got one of those purpose-built workshops in the Old Hall Stables there. It’s been turned into a small craft village. But if you need me at the shop...’
‘No. I’m fine,’ Beth assured her.
‘When are you putting the new stemware stuff out?’ Kelly asked enthusiastically. ‘I’m dying to see it...’
Beth tensed.
‘Er...I haven’t decided yet...’
‘Oh. I thought you said you were going to do it as soon as it arrived,’ Kelly protested, plainly confused.
‘Yes. I was. But...but I want to get a few more ideas yet; we’ve still got nearly a fortnight before the town’s Christmas lights and decorations are in place, and I thought it would be a good idea to time the window to fit in with that...’
‘Oh, yes, that’s a wonderful idea,’ Kelly enthused. ‘We could even have a small wine and nibbles do for our customers...perhaps have the food and the drinks the same colour as the glass...’
‘Er...yes. Yes...that would be wonderful,’ Beth agreed, hoping that her voice didn’t sound as lacking in enthusiasm to her friend as it did to herself.
‘Oh, but I’ve just realised; we’ll be leaving at the end of the week so I shall miss it,’ Kelly complained. ‘Still, we’ll definitely be back for Christmas; that’s something I have insisted on to Brough, and fortunately he agrees with me that our first Christmas should be spent here at home...together... Which reminds me. Please save me a set of those wonderful glasses, Beth.’
‘Er, yes, I shall,’ Beth confirmed.
With luck, she would be able to get the mistake in her order reversed and the correct stemware sent out to her whilst Kelly was away. Whilst Kelly was away, yes, but would she get it in time for the all-important Christmas market? When selecting the pieces for her order she had deliberately focused on the colours she deemed to be the most saleable for the Christmas season; deep red, rich blue, fir-tree green, all in the lavishly baroque style and decorated with gold leaf. Beautiful though the pieces were, she doubted that they would have the same sales appeal in the spring and summer months.
* * *
One hour and five unanswered telephone calls after she had finished speaking with Kelly, Beth sat back on her heels and stared helplessly around her chaotic storeroom.
The horror and the anger she had initially felt at having received the wrong order were giving way even more to frantic unease and suspicion.
The factory she had visited had been a large one, and the sales director she had spoken with suave and business-suited. The cabinets which had lined the walls of his plush office had been filled with the almost mouth-wateringly beautiful stemware from which he had invited Beth to take her choice for her order.
His secretary’s office, which she had glimpsed through an open door as he had escorted her from the reception foyer and into his own office, had been crammed with the most up-to-the-minute modern technology, and it was just not feasible that such an organisation would not, during office hours, have its telephone system fully manned and its faxes working.
But every time Beth had punched the numbers into her own telephone she had been met with a blank silence, an emptiness humming along the wire. Even if the factory had been closed for the Czech Republic version of a Bank Holiday, the telephone would still have rung.
The most horrible suspicion, the most awful possibility, was beginning to edge its way into Beth’s thoughts.
‘Don’t be taken in by what you’ve been shown,’ Alex Andrews had warned her. ‘Some gypsies are thought to be used as pawns in organised crime. Their aim is to sell non-existent goods to gullible foreign tourists in order to bring into the organisation foreign currency.’
‘I don’t believe you. You’re just trying to frighten me,’ Beth had told him furiously. ‘To frighten me and to make sure that I give my order to your cousins,’ she had added sharply. ‘That’s what all this is really about, isn’t it? Telling me you’ve fallen in love with me...claiming to care about me... I would be gullible if I had fallen for your lies, Alex...’
Beth didn’t want to remember Alex’s reaction to her accusations. She didn’t want to remember anything about Alex Andrews at all. She wasn’t going to allow herself to remember anything about him.
No? Then how come she had dreamed about him virtually every night since her return from the Czech Republic? a small inner voice taunted her.
She had dreamed about him simply out of the relief of knowing she had stood by her own promises to herself and not fallen for his lies, his claims to love her, Beth told her unwanted internal critic crossly.
She looked at her watch. It was almost four o’clock. No point in trying the Czech suppliers again today. Instead she would repack her incorrect order.
Dee, their landlady for the shop and the comfortable accommodation that went with it, who had now become a good friend, had invited her over for supper this evening.
Dispiritedly she started to repack the stemware, shuddering a little as she did so. The crystal was more suitable for jam jars than stemware, Beth decided with a grimace of distaste.
‘Haven’t I heard,’ Dee had queried gently a few weeks ago, ‘that some of the processes through which their china and glassware are made are a little crude when compared to ours...?’
‘At the lower end of the market perhaps they are,’ Beth had defended. ‘But this factory I found originally actually made things for the Royal House of Russia. The sales director showed me the most exquisite pieces of a dinner service they’d had made for one of the Romanian Princes. It reminded me very much of a Sèvres service, and the translucency of the china was quite breathtaking. The Czech people are very proud of their tradition of making high-quality crystal,’ Beth had added.
She had Alex Andrews to thank for that little piece of information. It had been something he had thrown furiously at her when she had accused him of trying to persuade her to buy his cousins’ goods, and the cause of yet
another quarrel between them.
Beth had never met anyone who infuriated her as much as he had done. He had brought out in her a streak of anger and passion she had never previously known she possessed.
Anger and passion. Two very dangerous emotions.
Quickly Beth got back to repacking the open crates. Remember, she told herself sternly, you aren’t going to think about him. Or about what...what happened...
To her chagrin, Beth could feel her face starting to heat and then burn.
‘God, but you’re wonderful. So sweet and gentle on the outside and so hot and wild in private, so very hot and wild...’
Furious with herself, Beth jumped up.
‘You weren’t going to think about him,’ she told herself fiercely. ‘You aren’t going to think about him.’
CHAPTER TWO
‘MORE COFFEE, BETH...?’
‘Mmm...’
‘You seem rather preoccupied. Is anything wrong?’ Dee asked Beth in concern as she put down the coffee pot she had been holding.
They had finished eating and were now sitting in Dee’s sitting room, where several furnishing and decorating catalogues were spread open around them. Dee was planning to redecorate the room, and had been asking Beth for her opinion of the choices she had made.
‘No. No...I like the cream brocade very much,’ Beth told Dee quickly. ‘And if you opt for the cream carpet as well, that will allow you to bring in some richer, stronger colours in the form of cushions and throws...’
‘Yes, that was what I was thinking. I’ve seen a wonderful fabric that I’ve really fallen for, and I’ve managed to track down the manufacturer, but it’s a very small company. They’ve told me that they can only accept my order if I pay for it up front, and of course I’m reluctant to do that, just in case they can’t or don’t deliver.
‘I’ve asked my bank to run a financial check on them and let me have the results. It will be a pity if the report isn’t favourable. The fabric is wonderful, and I’ve really set my heart on it. But of course one has to be cautious in these matters, as no doubt you know.
‘You must have really been keeping your fingers crossed in Prague whilst you waited for your bank to verify that the Czech company was financially sound enough for you to do business with.’
‘Er...yes. Yes, I was...’
Beth took a quick gulp of her coffee.
What would Dee say if Beth were to admit to her that she had done no such thing, that she had quite simply been so excited at the thought of selling the wonderful stemware she had seen that every principle of financial caution she had ever learnt had flown right out of her head?
‘Kelly rang me today. She was telling me that she and Brough are hoping to make an extended trip to Singapore and Australia...’
‘Mmm...they are,’ Beth agreed.
She ought to have asked her bank to make proper enquiries over the Czech factory. She knew that, of course. Not just to ensure that they were financially sound, but also to find out how good they were at meeting their order dates. She could even remember her bank manager advising that she do so when she had telephoned him to ask him for extra credit facilities. And no doubt if he hadn’t been on the point of departing for his annual leave on the very afternoon she had rung he would have made sure that she had done so.
But he had and she hadn’t and the small, nagging little seed of doubt planted earlier by her inability to make telephone or fax contact with the factory was now throwing out shoots and roots of increasingly strong suspicion and dread with frightening speed.
‘How will you manage whilst Kelly’s away? You’ll have to get someone in part-time to help you...’
‘Yes. Yes, I shall,’ Beth agreed distractedly, wondering half hysterically what on earth Dee would say if she admitted to her that, if her worst fears were confirmed and her incorrect order had not been a mistake but a deliberate and cynical ploy to take advantage of her there was no way she would need any extra sales staff because, quite simply, there would be virtually nothing in the shop to sell.
Another fear sprang into Beth’s thoughts. If she had nothing to sell then how was she going to pay her rent on the shop and the living accommodation above it?
She had absolutely nothing to fall back on, not now that she had over-extended herself so dangerously to purchase the Czech glass.
Her parents would always help her out, she knew that, and so, too, she suspected, would Anna, her godmother. But how could she go to any of them and admit how foolish she had been?
No, she had got herself into this mess, and somehow she would get herself out of it.
And her first step in doing that was to locate her supplier and insist that the factory take back her incorrect order and supply her with the goods she had actually ordered.
‘Beth, are you sure you’re all right...?’
Guiltily she realised that Dee had been speaking to her and that she hadn’t registered a single word that the older woman had been saying.
‘Er...yes...I’m fine...’
‘Well, if it would be any help I could always come and relieve you at the shop for the odd half-day.’
‘You!’ Beth stared at Dee in astonishment, surprised to see that Dee was actually flushing.
‘You needn’t sound quite so surprised,’ Dee told Beth slightly defensively. ‘I did actually work in a shop while I was at university.’
Had she hurt Dee’s feelings? Beth tried not to show her surprise. Dee always seemed so armoured and self-contained, but there was quite definitely a decidedly hurt look in her eyes.
‘If I sounded surprised it was just because I know how busy you already are,’ Beth assured her truthfully.
Dee’s late father had had an extensive business empire which Dee had taken over following his death, managing not only the large amounts of money her father had built up through shrewd investment but also administering the various charity accounts he had set up to help those in need in the town.
Dee’s father had been the old-fashioned kind of philanthropist, very much in the Victorian vein, wanting to benefit his neighbours and fellow townspeople.
He had been a traditionalist in many other ways as well, from what Beth had heard about him—a regular churchgoer throughout his life and a loving father who had brought Dee up on his own after his wife’s premature death.
Dee was passionately devoted to preserving her father’s memory, and whenever anyone praised her for the good work she did via the charities she helped to fund she was always quick to point out that she was simply acting as her father’s representative.
When Beth and Kelly had first moved to the town they had wondered curiously why Dee had never married. She had to be about thirty, and surprisingly for such a businesslike and shrewd woman she had a very strong maternal streak. She was also very attractive.
‘Perhaps she just hasn’t found the right man,’ Beth had suggested to Kelly. That had been in the days when she herself had believed that she had very much found the right man, in the shape of Julian Cox, and had therefore been disposed to feel extremely sorry for anyone who was not so similarly blessed.
‘Mmm...or maybe no man can compare in her eyes to her father,’ Kelly had guessed, more shrewdly.
Whatever the truth, one thing was certain: Dee was simply not the kind of person whose private life one could pry into uninvited. And yet tonight she seemed unfamiliarly vulnerable; she even looked softer, and somehow younger as well, Beth noticed. Perhaps because she had left her hair down out of its normal stylish coil.
Certainly it would be impossible to overlook her, even in a crowd. She had the kind of looks, the kind of manner that immediately commanded other people’s attention—unlike her, Beth decided with wry self-disdain.
Her soft mousy-blonde hair would never attract a second look, not even wh
en the sun had left it, as it had done last summer, with these lighter delicate streaks in it.
As a teenager she had passionately longed to grow taller. At five feet four she was undeniably short... ‘Petite’, Julian had once infamously called her. Petite and as prettily delicate as a fragile porcelain doll. And she had thought he was complimenting her. Yuck. She was short. But she was very slender, and she did have a softness about her, an air which had once unforgettably and almost unforgivably led Kelly to say that she could almost have modelled for the book Little Women’s Beth.
On impulse, before going to Prague, she had had her long hair shaped and cut. The chopped, blunt-edged bob suited her, even if sometimes she did find it irritating, and had to tuck the stray ends behind her ears to stop them from falling over her face when she was working.
‘You are beautiful,’ Alex Andrews had told her extravagantly when he had held her in his arms. ‘The most beautiful woman in the whole world.’
She had known that he was lying, of course, and why, and she hadn’t been deceived—no, not for one minute—despite the sharp, twisting knife-like pain she had felt as she had listened to him in the full knowledge of his duplicity.
Why would he possibly think she was beautiful? After all, he was a man who any woman could see was quite extraordinarily handsome in a way that was far more classical Greek god than modern-day film star. Tall, with a body that possessed a steely whipcord-fit muscular strength, he’d seemed to radiate a fierce and very high-charged air of sensual magnetism that had almost been like some kind of personal force field. Impossible to ignore it—or him. Beth had felt at times as though he was draining the will-power out of her, as though he was somehow subtly overpowering her with the intensity of his sexual aura.
He also had the most remarkably hypnotic silver-grey eyes. She could see them now, feel their heat burning her. She could...
‘Beth...?’
‘I’m sorry Dee,’ she apologised guiltily.
‘It’s all right,’ Dee assured her, with her unexpectedly wide and warm smile. ‘Kelly told me that you’d collected your stemware from the airport and that you were unpacking it. I must say that I’m looking forward to seeing it. I’ve got some spare time tomorrow. Perhaps if I called round...?’