by Penny Jordan
Beth could feel herself starting to panic.
‘Er...I don’t want anyone to see it until the town’s Christmas lights go on officially,’ she told Dee quickly. ‘I haven’t got it on the shelves yet, and—’
‘You want to surprise everyone by making a wonderful display with it,’ Dee guessed, her smile broadening.
‘Well, whatever you decide to do with it, to display it, I know it’s going to look wonderful. You really do have a very creative and artistic eye,’ she complimented Beth truthfully, adding ruefully, ‘And I most certainly do not. Which is why I needed your advice on the refurbishment of my sitting room.’
‘Your eye is actually very good,’ Beth assured her. ‘It’s just when it comes to those extra details that you need a bit of help. That crimson damask trimmed with the dull gold fringing would make a wonderful throw...’
‘It’ll be very rich,’ Dee commented doubtfully.
‘Yes, it will,’ Beth agreed. ‘Perfect for winter, and then for spring and summer you could switch to something softer. Your sitting room French windows open out onto the garden, and a throw which picks up the colours in that bed you’ve got within view of the window would be a perfect way to bring the garden and the sitting room into harmony with one another.’
Beth glanced at her watch and stood up. It was time for her to leave.
‘Don’t forget,’ Dee urged her, ‘if you do need some help in the shop, let me know. I realise that Anna sometimes stands in, when either you or Kelly aren’t available, but...’
She stopped as Beth was already shaking her head.
‘There’s no way that Ward will allow Anna to spend several hours on her feet right now. Anna says that you’d think no woman had ever had a baby before. Apparently it doesn’t matter how often she tells him that being pregnant is a perfectly natural state, that she’s happy and there’s absolutely nothing for him to worry about; he still treats her as though she’s too fragile to draw breath.’
Dee laughed ruefully.
‘He’s certainly very protective of her. He was most disapproving the other day when he found out she and I’d been to the garden centre and that I’d let her carry a box of plants. But then I suspect he still hasn’t completely forgiven me for sending him away when he came to look for Anna before they were married.’
‘You were only trying to protect her,’ Beth protested. She liked Ward, and was pleased that her godmother had found happiness with him after being widowed for so long, but she could well understand how two such strong characters as Dee and Ward would clash occasionally.
Only a very, very fine line separated a strong, determined man from being a bossy, domineering one, as she had good cause to know. Ward, fortunately, knew which side of the line to be on; Alex Andrews did not.
Alex Andrews.
He would certainly have enjoyed her present predicament, and he would have enjoyed even more saying ‘I told you so’ to her.
Alex Andrews!
Beth parked her small car outside the shop and let herself into the separate rear door which led upstairs to the living accommodation she had originally shared with Kelly.
Alex Andrews!
She was still thinking about him as she made herself a cup of tea and headed for her bedroom.
Alex Andrews—or, more correctly, Alex Charles Andrews.
‘I was named for this bridge,’ he had told her quietly the day they had stood together on Prague’s fabled Charles Bridge. ‘A reminder, my grandfather always used to say, of the fact that I was half Czech.’
‘Is that why you’re here?’ Beth had asked him, curious despite her determination to remain aloof from him—aloof from him and suspicious of him.
‘Yes,’ he acknowledged simply. ‘My parents came here in the early days after the Velvet Revolution in 1993.’ His eyes had grown sombre. ‘Unfortunately my grandfather died too soon to see the city he had always loved freed.
‘He left Prague in 1946 with my grandmother and my mother, who was a child of two at the time. She can barely remember anything at all about living here, but my grandfather...’ He stopped and shook his head, and Beth felt her own throat close up as she saw the glitter of tears in his eyes.
‘He longed to come back here so much. It was his home, after all, and no matter how well he had settled in England, how glad he was to be able to bring up his daughter, my mother, in freedom, Prague always remained the home of his heart.
‘I remember once when I was at Cambridge he came to see me and I took him punting on the Cam. “It’s beautiful,” he told me. “But it isn’t anywhere near as beautiful as the river which flows through Prague. Not until you have stood on the Charles Bridge and seen it for yourself will you understand what I mean...”’
‘And did you?’ Beth asked him softly. ‘Did you understand what he meant?’
‘Yes,’ Alex told her quietly. ‘Until I came here I had thought of myself as wholly British. I knew of my Czech heritage of course, but only in the form of the stories my grandfather had told me.
‘They had no substance, no reality for me other than as stories. The tales he told me of the castle his family had once owned and the land that went with it, the beautiful treasures and the fine furniture...’ Alex gave a small shrug. ‘I felt no sense of personal loss. How could I? And neither did I feel any personal sense of missing a part of myself. But once I came here—then...then...yes... I knew that there was a piece of me missing. Then I knew that subconsciously I had been searching for that missing piece of myself.’
‘Will you stay here?’ Beth asked him, drawn into the emotional intensity of what he was telling her in spite of herself.
‘No,’ Alex told her. ‘I can’t—not now.’
It was then that the heavens well and truly opened, causing him to grab her by the arm and run with her to the shelter of a small, dangerously private alcove tucked into a span of the bridge. And then that he had declared his love for her.
Immediately Beth panicked—it was too much, too soon, too impossible to believe. He must have some ulterior motive for saying such a thing to her. How could he be in love with her? Why should he be?
‘No! No, that’s not possible. I don’t want to hear this, Alex,’ she told him shortly, pulling away from him and out of the shelter of the alcove, leaving him to follow her.
* * *
Beth had first come across Alex at her hotel. The staff there, when she had asked for the services of an interpreter, had prevaricated and then informed Beth that, due to the fact that the city was currently hosting several large business conventions, all the reputable agencies were fully booked for days ahead. Beth’s heart had sunk. There was no way she could do what she had come to the Czech Republic to do without the services of an interpreter, and she had said as much to the young man behind the hotel’s reception desk.
‘I am so very sorry,’ the man apologised, spreading his hands helplessly. ‘But there are no interpreters.’
No interpreters. Beth was perilously close to tears; her emotions, still raw in the aftermath of discovering how badly Julian Cox had deceived her, were inclined to fluctuate from the easy weepiness of someone still in shock to a numb blankness which, if anything, was even more frightening. Today was a weepy day, and as Beth fought to blink away her unwanted emotions through the watery haze of her tears she saw the man who had been standing several feet away from her at the counter turn towards her.
‘I couldn’t help overhearing what you were just saying,’ he told Beth as she turned to walk away from the desk. ‘And, although I know it’s rather unorthodox, I was wondering if I could possibly be of any help to you...’
His English was so fluent that Beth knew immediately that it had to be his first language.
‘You’re English, aren’t you?’ she challenged him dubiously.
‘By birth,’
he agreed immediately, giving her a smile which could have disarmed a nuclear warhead.
Beth, though, as she firmly reminded herself, was made of sterner stuff. There was no way she was going to let any man, never mind one who possessed enough charisma to make him worthy of having a ‘danger’ sign posted across his forehead, wheedle his way into her life.
‘I speak English myself,’ Beth told him pleasantly and, of course, unnecessarily.
‘Indeed, and with just a hint of a very pretty Cornish accent, if I may say so,’ he astounded Beth by commenting with a grin. ‘However,’ he added, before she could fire back, ‘it seems that you do not speak Czech, whereas I do...’
‘Really?’ Beth gave him a coolly dismissive smile and began to walk away from him. She had been warned about the dangers of employing one of the self-proclaimed guides and interpreters who offered their services on Prague’s streets, approaching tourists and offering to help them.
‘Mmm...I learned it from my grandfather. He came originally from Prague.’
Beth tensed as he fell into step beside her.
‘Ah, I see what it is. You don’t trust me. Very wise,’ he approved, with astounding aplomb. ‘A beautiful young woman like you, on her own in a strange city, should always be suspicious of men who approach her.’
Beth glowered at him. Just how gullible did he think she was?
‘I am not...’ Beautiful, she had been about to say, but, recognising her danger, she quickly changed it. ‘I am not interested.’
‘No? But you told the receptionist that you were desperately in need of an interpreter,’ he reminded her softly. ‘The hotel manager will, I am sure, vouch for me...’
Beth paused.
He was right about one thing: she was desperately in need of an interpreter. She had come to Prague partially to recover from the damage inflicted on her emotions by Julian Cox and, more importantly in her eyes at least, in order to buy some good-quality Czech stemware for her shop.
Via Dee she had obtained from their local Board of Trade some addresses and contacts, but she had been told that the best way to find what she was looking for was to make her own enquiries once she was in Prague, and there was no way she was going to be able to do that without some help. It wasn’t just an interpreter she needed, she acknowledged; she needed a guide as well. Someone who could drive her to the various factories she needed to visit as well as translating for her once she was there.
‘Why should you offer to help me?’ she asked suspiciously.
‘Perhaps I simply don’t have any choice,’ he responded with an enigmatic smile.
The smile Beth dismissed. As for his comment—perhaps he hoped to make her feel sorry for him by insinuating that he was short of money.
Whilst she was still wondering just what she ought to do a very elegant dark-haired woman in her early fifties came hurrying down the corridor towards them.
‘Ah, Alex, there you are!’ she exclaimed, addressing Beth’s companion. ‘If you’re ready to leave, the car’s here...’
She gave Beth a coolly assessing look which made Beth feel acutely conscious of her own casual clothes and the older woman’s immaculate elegance. She had the chicness of a Parisian, from the tips of her immaculately manicured fingernails to the top of her shiningly groomed chignon. Pearls, large enough to have been fake but which Beth felt pretty sure were anything but, were clipped to her ears, and the gold necklace she was wearing looked equally expensive.
Whoever she was, the woman was obviously very wealthy. If this man was acting as an interpreter for her he must be trustworthy, Beth acknowledged, because one look at the older woman’s face made it abundantly clear that she was not the sort of person to be duped by anyone—no matter how handsome their face or how sexy their body.
‘You don’t have to make up your mind right now,’ the man was telling Beth calmly. ‘Here is my name and a number where you can reach me.’ Reaching into his jacket, he removed a pen and a piece of paper on which he quickly wrote something before handing it to Beth. ‘I shall be here in the hotel tomorrow morning. You can let me know your decision then.’
She wasn’t going to accept his offer, of course, Beth assured herself once he and his companion had gone. Even if he had been an accredited interpreter provided by a reputable agency she would still have had her doubts.
Because he’s too sexy...too...too disturbingly male, and you’re too vulnerable, an inner voice taunted her. I thought you were supposed to be immune to men like him now. You said that Julian Cox had cured you of ever falling in love again.
No. That will never happen, she answered her sharp-tongued inner critic swiftly. There’s no way I could ever be in danger of falling for a man like him, a man who’s far too good-looking for his own good. Heavens, he must have women swarming all over him. Why on earth should he be interested in someone like me?
Perhaps for the same reason that Julian Cox was interested in you, her inner critic taunted. To him you probably seem to be an easy meal ticket. A woman on her own, vulnerable. Remember what you were told before you left home.
Beth was determined not to accept Alex’s offer, but in the morning, when she presented herself at the hotel’s reception desk again, insisting that she desperately needed an accredited interpreter, the man behind the counter shook his head regretfully, repeating what Beth had been told the previous day.
‘I am sorry, but we simply cannot. There are conventions,’ he told Beth.
It crossed Beth’s mind that she might have to abandon her plans to make this a business trip and simply do some sightseeing instead. But that would mean going home, having to admit to another failure... She had come to Prague to look for crystal, and she was not going to go home until she had found some.
Even if that meant accepting the services of a man like Alex Andrews?
Even if it meant accepting that—yes! Beth told herself sternly.
She had eaten her breakfast alone in her room; the hotel was busy, and, despite all the stern admonishments she had made to herself, she still didn’t feel confident enough to eat in the dining room—alone. Now she ordered herself a coffee and removed the guidebook she had bought on her arrival in Prague from her handbag. For all she knew Alex Andrews might not even turn up. Well, if he didn’t there were plenty of other foreign students looking for work, she reminded herself stoically.
She went and sat down in a corner of the hotel lobby, not exactly hiding herself away out of sight, but certainly not making herself very obvious either, she recognised with a small stab of irritated despair. Why was she so lacking in confidence, so insecure, so...so vulnerable? It was not as though she had any reason to be. She was part of a very loving and closely knit family; she had parents who had always supported and protected her. Perhaps that was what it was. Perhaps they had protected her a little too much, she decided ruefully. Certainly Kelly, her friend, seemed to think so.
‘The waiter couldn’t remember what you’d ordered, so I’ve brought you a cappuccino...’
Beth nearly jumped out of her skin as she heard Alex’s husky, sensual voice.
How had he found her here in this quiet corner? And, more importantly, how had he known she’d ordered coffee in the first place? And then, as he placed the tray he was carrying down on the table in front of her, Beth guessed what he had done. There were two cups of coffee on it and a croissant. No doubt all of them charged to her room!
‘I actually ordered my coffee black,’ she told him curtly, and not quite truthfully.
‘Oh.’ He gave her an oblique, smiling look. ‘That’s odd; I could have sworn you were a cappuccino girl. In fact I can almost see you with just a hint of a creamy chocolatey moustache.’
Beth stared at him in angry disbelief. He was taking far too many liberties, behaving far too personally. She gave him a ferociously frosty look and informed him arct
ically, ‘As a woman, I hardly find that a flattering allusion. Men have moustaches.’
‘Not the kind I mean,’ he returned promptly as he sat down beside her, a wicked smile dancing in his eyes as he leaned forward. His lips were so close to her ear that she could actually feel the warmth of his breath as he whispered provocatively, ‘The kind I meant is kissed off, not shaved...’
Beth’s eyes widened in outraged fury.
He was actually pretending to flirt with her, pretending to find her attractive.
She started to get up, too furious to even bother telling him that she was not going to need his services, when, out of the corner of her eye, she caught sight of the beautiful crystal lustres the salesgirl was placing on the display shelves of the hotel’s gift shop. Beth caught her breath. They were just so beautiful. The lustres moved gently, catching the light, their delicacy and beauty so immediately covetable that Beth ached to buy them.
A friend of her mother’s had some antique Venetian ones which she had inherited from her grandmother, and Beth had always loved them.
‘What is it?’ she heard Alex asking her curiously at her side.
‘The lustres...the wall-lights,’ Beth explained. ‘They’re so beautiful.’
‘Very beautiful and I’m afraid very expensive,’ Alex told her. ‘Were you thinking of buying them as a gift, or for yourself?’
‘For my shop,’ Beth told him absently, her attention concentrated on the lustres.
‘You own a shop? Where? What kind?’ His voice was less soft now, sharp with interest and something which Beth told herself was almost avaricious—too avaricious to be mere polite curiosity.
‘Yes. I do...in a small town you won’t have heard of. It’s called Rye-on-Averton. I...we sell good-quality china and pottery ornaments and glassware. That’s why I’ve come to Prague. I’m looking for new suppliers here, but the quality has to be right, and the price...’