by Penny Jordan
‘Come and sit down,’ Beth advised her godmother affectionately as she saw the way Anna was rubbing her side. She and Ward were expecting their first baby and Beth looked a little enviously at her, noting how well pregnancy suited her. Of course, it helped having a husband who idolised and adored you, and who thought you were the cleverest person in the whole world simply because you were carrying his child.
‘That’s what happens when you get to be first-time parents at our age,’ Anna laughed whenever people remarked on how thrilled Ward was about their coming baby.
‘Of course I’m pleased,’ Ward had announced promptly once in Beth’s hearing when someone had raised the subject. ‘But no matter how much I shall love our daughter or our son, once he or she arrives, I couldn’t possibly love them anywhere near as much as I do Anna...’
For a normally slightly dour man it had been an extremely open and emotional thing to say, and at the time she had heard it Beth hadn’t been able to help reflecting on how wonderful it must be to know that one was so deeply and sincerely loved. She had gone home that night and had wept a little in the lonely secrecy of her bed, still denying to herself that Alex had meant anything to her.
‘Your order has arrived, then,’ Anna commented, and then caught her breath on a sharp exclamation of pleasure as she saw the glass that Beth had already unpacked.
‘Oh, Beth, it’s beautiful,’ she half whispered in awe. ‘I must confess when you told us about it I couldn’t imagine...I didn’t imagine just how wonderful it would actually be. This is exquisite...’
‘Exquisite, expensive and not actually my order,’ Beth told her ruefully.
‘Oh?’
‘It’s a long story,’ Beth protested, shaking her head a little in denial of the questioning look she could see in her godmother’s eyes.
‘I’ve got time—plenty of time,’ Anna assured her.
It would be a relief to tell someone exactly what had happened, Beth admitted, especially if that someone was her loving, gently non-judgemental godmother.
‘Well, it’s like this...’ she began.
* * *
‘And so you see,’ Beth concluded, when she had finished explaining to Anna just what had happened, ‘there’s no way I can keep the glass, nor accept such an expensive present...’
‘Not even from the man you love?’ Anna suggested gently.
Beth flushed, shaking her head.
‘Especially not from the man I love,’ she objected. ‘I just don’t know what I’m going to do, Anna, how I’m going to explain...’
‘Well, I can’t give you any advice other than to tell you to follow your heart, to listen with your heart and your emotions.’
‘But I can’t just tell him that I love him. I can’t say that I lied...that I want him...that I...’
‘Why not?’ Anna asked her mildly. ‘You’ve told me!’
CHAPTER TEN
WHY NOT INDEED?
Beth gnawed on her bottom lip. Anna had gone and she was on her own; the shop was locked and she had made herself a meal which she had been totally unable to eat. It was now just gone seven o’clock. She had Alex’s address and his telephone number because they were written on the delivery note that came with the glass. All she had to do was pick up the phone and dial.
And then what? Tell him, I love you, Alex. I was wrong about you, about everything, and now I can tell you that I’ve loved you all the time. Now I can allow myself to admit that I love you? Would he believe her? And even if he did how would he feel about the paucity of her gesture, her love, when compared with the rich generosity of his? It wasn’t that she loved him any less than he did her; that was impossible. Her love was just as deep, just as committed...just as intense. It was just that her previous experience had made her wary of giving too much too soon, and meeting him had in one sense come too soon on top of her realisation of Julian’s perfidy.
At least Alex would never be able to accuse her of using him as...
She started to dial his number and then stopped. Perhaps tomorrow, after she had had time to think properly, to rehearse what she needed to say...or maybe... She had taken the gift-wrapped box his aunt had given her upstairs, and her attention was caught by it. She went over to it and picked it up. It was heavy. ‘You will open it with Alex...when you are together,’ she had told Beth.
Suddenly a very daring and dangerous plan occurred to her. Without giving herself time to change her mind, Beth picked up the box and grabbed her coat and her car keys.
Lexminster wasn’t that far away—a two-hour drive, maybe even less at this time of night.
* * *
Alex picked up some papers he had brought home to work on. His mother had telephoned earlier, inviting him over for dinner.
‘Your aunt will be here, but only for the one night; she’s flying on to New York tomorrow...’
Alex had been tempted, but he had already endured one very stern lecture from her on his foolhardiness and stubborn persistence in persuading her to give priority to his order for Beth. When would she receive it? he wondered. His aunt had promised, albeit reluctantly, that she would have it in time for the Christmas market.
He wasn’t quite sure how Beth would react when she did receive it. It wasn’t entirely impossible that she would send it back to him in a million broken pieces, but he suspected that it might be that she couldn’t bring herself to destroy something which he knew already she would find irresistibly beautiful.
He had made himself a meal earlier but had not really felt like eating it. God, but he ached for Beth. Somehow, and he didn’t know quite how yet, he was going to find a way to convince her that he loved her, that he was genuine and that she loved him—because Alex was convinced that she did. She might claim that all they had shared had been sex, but Alex knew her, and she simply wasn’t that kind of woman. Her emotions ran too deep and too strong for her to divorce herself from them like that. She could not have responded to him the way she had without feeling something for him. He was convinced of it.
He frowned as he heard his doorbell ring. He wasn’t really in the mood for company. He got up and walked from his living room into the hallway and opened the front door.
‘Beth!’
Beth stood nervously in the doorway, her nervousness increased by the shock she could see in Alex’s eyes and hear in his voice.
‘I...’ She took a step backwards and looked wildly over her shoulder, as though about to flee.
Immediately Alex reached for her wrist, drawing her gently but firmly inside and closing the door behind her.
Beneath his grasp her wrist-bones felt heart-wrenchingly fragile. Under her free arm she was clutching a large rectangular parcel against her body.
‘A present...for me...?’ he asked teasingly, trying to lighten her tension.
‘No, actually it’s for me...from your aunt,’ Beth told him in a disjointed, almost staccato little burst of speech. ‘She said you would have one too and that we had to open them together. Alex, why did you do...why did you send me the glass? You must know that I can’t accept it...’
To her own consternation her eyes filled with tears. Whilst she was talking Alex had been urging her along his hallway and was now ushering her into a beautifully proportioned room which, in some obscure way, reminded her of the drawing room in the castle. Her face started to burn, her heart thumping at the memories she was evoking.
‘Come and sit down and we’ll talk about it,’ Alex suggested, relieving her of her coat and guiding her towards a softly upholstered and very deep sofa.
A little unsteadily Beth sank into it. In addition to relieving her of her coat Alex had also relieved her of the cumbersome parcel.
When he returned he was carrying two glasses.
‘It’s brandy,’ he told her. ‘Drink it; it will help you
to relax a bit...’
Dutifully Beth took a sip and then pulled a face.
‘I’ve already had champagne with your aunt,’ she told him as she put her glass down. ‘Perhaps the two don’t mix. Alex...I can’t accept your gift. It’s wonderful...the glass is beautiful, even more beautiful than I could have imagined, but why...why did you do it?’ she asked him, abandoning the reasoned, rational argument she had prepared and doing instead what Anna had urged her to do and responding only to her emotions.
‘Didn’t my aunt tell you?’ Alex asked her ruefully. He hadn’t thought that his aunt would hand Beth’s glass over to her in person, but then realistically he should perhaps have guessed that it was the kind of thing she would do. She was extremely picky about whom she allowed to have her precious glass, and, of course, Alex’s own admissions to her had aroused her curiosity about Beth to an even greater intensity.
Beth hesitated, unable to look at him.
‘She said...she said it was because you loved me,’ she told him huskily. She could feel Alex looking at her, and her own gaze was drawn to his, her face flushing as she saw the look in his eyes.
‘And did you believe her?’ he asked her quietly.
Beth bit her lip.
‘I...’ She felt as though she was drowning, losing control, fighting to prevent herself from being swept under by the force of her own emotions, afraid of their power—and yet at the same time a part of her was longing to give in, to give up, to let someone else carry the burden of her loving for her.
‘I...I wanted to,’ she admitted truthfully.
‘Why...because you wanted to have more sex with me?’ Alex couldn’t resist probing, a little unkindly.
Beth reacted as though he had actually physically hurt her, her breath leaking from her lungs, her face draining of colour, even her hand going out as though to ward off an actual blow.
‘Oh, Beth...my love, my precious, precious love, I’m sorry,’ Alex apologised remorsefully. ‘I didn’t mean—’
‘No. No...it’s all right. I know I deserved it,’ Beth interrupted him jerkily. ‘I shouldn’t have come here.’ She tried to get up, desperate to escape before she completed her own humiliation by bursting into tears. She had got it all wrong. Alex didn’t love her at all. His aunt had got it all wrong.
‘What you deserve is to be cherished and loved, adored, worshipped,’ Alex was telling her extravagantly.
‘Alex,’ she protested.
‘How could you possibly think I didn’t mean it?’ Alex overrode her protest tenderly. ‘Have you any idea how much I’ve missed you, how many times I’ve been tempted to come and find you, capture you, kidnap you, bear you off with me to my lair as one of my ancestors might have done?’
‘I can’t imagine you ever displaying such caveman-like tactics,’ Beth told him ruefully. ‘You...’
‘No? Watch me,’ Alex mock-threatened her, and then, before she could speak, he was reaching for her, wrapping her in his arms, kissing her with a passion that broke through all her resistance.
She tried to speak, to protest...plead for time and explanations, but her words were lost, silenced beneath the hungry pressure of his mouth that only relaxed when she made a tiny sound. Whilst he was kissing her he dropped his arms to his sides, sliding his fingers between hers so that they were standing body to body, arm to arm, only their heads, their lips moving. Her own body was trembling with increasing intensity as she reacted to his closeness. Her body was betraying her far more than any words, Beth knew.
‘“Just sex” could never feel like this,’ Alex whispered thickly against her mouth. ‘“Just sex” could never make me want you the way I do, and it could never make you respond to me the way you are.’
‘Alex, I got it all wrong,’ Beth told him guiltily. ‘I totally misjudged you and I misjudged my own feelings as well, totally and wilfully. I thought—’
‘I know what you thought,’ Alex interrupted her. ‘But what is more interesting right now is what you felt...what you are feeling... Or shall I discover for myself?’
She was wearing a soft buttoned cardigan, and as Alex started to trace the vee of flesh it exposed Beth’s whole body began to quiver. Her desire for him drenched her, flooded her, melted her; she was reaching eagerly for him long before he had finished unbuttoning her cardigan, and touching him long, long before his hands had started to cup her naked breasts, stroking them, his fingers plucking delicately at her tight nipples.
‘Tell me you love me,’ he demanded thickly against her breast as he slid to his knees in front of her.
‘I love you... I love you... I... Oh, Alex, Alex,’ Beth gasped, torn between shock and fierce arousal as he pulled off her skirt and slid his hands up under her briefs to cup the rounded shape of her buttocks whilst his tongue-tip rimmed her navel. She knew what would happen next, what she wanted to happen next. Just thinking about how it had felt to have his breath, his mouth, his tongue against that part of her body made her shudder from head to foot in explosive yearning.
They made love quickly and fiercely, like two starving people attacking a banquet, their appetites too hungry to be easily sated and yet their stomachs too shrunken by deprivation for the endurance required to eat their leisurely fill.
All they could manage was a taste here, a mouthful there, a gulp of love’s rich, raw wine before they were both crying out in their need for completion. It came swiftly, hotly, rawly almost, Beth acknowledged as she lay panting and light-headed in Alex’s arms.
Later, when he carried her to bed, she protested, ‘I can’t...I’ve got to go home. It’s late—the shop...’
‘You can. I am now your home. The shop can wait...we can’t...’
This time they did their personal sensual banquet full justice, eating appreciatively of every course, true connoisseurs of what was set before them.
‘What do you suppose is in the parcel?’ Beth asked Alex drowsily just before she finally fell asleep in his arms.
‘We shall have to wait and see. Remember we can’t open them until I have mine.’
‘Mmm... Alex, have I told you how much I love you?’
‘Many times,’ Alex assured her gently, knowing just why she asked.
‘I never really loved Julian Cox, you know,’ Beth assured him. ‘It was just... I wanted to be in love with him...I wanted to believe him...’
‘Forget him. He doesn’t matter to us,’ Alex told her.
Beth gave a soft sigh of contented pleasure. She loved it that Alex felt so secure with her, that he could accept her honest admission that she had made a mistake.
‘I always knew you were plotting to make me have your aunt’s glass,’ she teased him lovingly as she reached out to trace the shape of his mouth with her fingertip.
As he nipped and nibbled at her probing finger Alex replied. ‘No, you’re wrong,’ he denied, and then he said softly, ‘What I’ve been plotting ever since I first saw you is to get you so that I can do this...’
As he rolled her over on top of him Beth protested, torn between excitement and laughter.
‘Alex, we can’t...not again...’
‘Oh, yes, we can,’ he assured her. ‘Oh, yes, we can!’
EPILOGUE
‘WELL, SHALL WE open them, then?’ Alex asked Beth provocatively.
It was Christmas Eve and they were in Alex’s apartment. They were due to spend Christmas Day with Alex’s parents and Boxing Day with her own. Tonight, though, they were spending on their own. On her ring finger was the flawlessly cut diamond Alex had just given her. They had chosen it together the previous week and now, as she reached out her hands towards him to take the mysterious parcel his aunt had left with her, it caught the light, flooding the space around them with prisms of colour.
They were going to get married in the spring, here in England, and th
en they were going to fly to Prague for a very special family celebration which would be held at the castle.
‘Another family tradition?’ Beth had teased Alex when he had first mentioned it to her.
‘Not exactly, but I know it would mean a lot to the family...’
‘And to me,’ Beth had told him seriously, her eyes full of love.
Now, as they both unwrapped their parcels, she couldn’t help reflecting how very, very lucky she was. It chilled her blood to think how easily she might not have met Alex at all.
Inside the wrapping paper was a cardboard box. Quickly she unfastened it and reached inside, and then waited. Alex was watching her, his own box still unopened.
‘We have to open them together,’ she reminded him sternly, and then, as she saw his face, she accused him, ‘You know what it is, don’t you?’
‘It’s a family tradition,’ Alex replied, his expression mock-injured.
‘Oh, you,’ Beth protested, reaching inside her box, the laughter in her eyes stilled as she removed its contents.
It was a lustre, just like the one she had first seen in the hotel gift shop but even more beautiful.
‘Oh, Alex,’ she whispered as she studied it. ‘Oh, Alex, it’s beautiful...’
‘They are beautiful,’ Alex corrected her, removing his own from its packaging and putting it next to hers. ‘A perfect pair...like us,’ he added as he bent his head to kiss her.
‘A perfect pair...’ Beth sighed in blissful happiness. ‘Oh, Alex,’ she whispered.
‘Oh, Beth,’ Alex whispered back, and then added engagingly, ‘Do you think we might just check that it isn’t just sex...one more time...?’
‘It’s only eight o’clock. Far too early for bed yet,’ Beth protested, but her eyes were shining and there was no reluctance whatsoever in her expression as she clung lovingly to him...quite the opposite.
A perfect pair. Oh, yes, indeed... Oh, yes... Yes... Yes...