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‘Tomorrow? No, I’m afraid I can’t,’ Kelly told her. ‘I’m going to Staffordshire.’
‘Staffordshire?’ Dee queried sharply. ‘On a buying trip? But I thought …’
‘No, not that. Actually I’m going with Brough; he’s asked me to undertake a private commission for him.’
‘And you’ve agreed?’ Dee asked her. ‘Be very careful, Kelly. Don’t forget his sister is dating Julian and hopes to marry him and he’s bound to be extremely suspicious of your role in Julian’s life. You haven’t told him the truth, have you?’ Dee demanded.
‘No, of course I haven’t,’ Kelly reassured her immediately.
‘Well, you mustn’t. It would ruin everything.’
‘I’m not a complete fool, you know, Dee,’ Kelly informed her a little irritably. She liked Dee, but sometimes her autocratic attitude irritated her a bit. She wasn’t like Beth, who accepted Dee’s slight bossiness with placid gentleness even whilst she accepted that the older girl’s heart was in the right place and her motives good.
‘No, not a complete fool,’ Dee agreed dryly, ‘but certainly foolish enough to agree to go to Staffordshire with Brough. I understand he’s a very attractive man,’ she added slyly.
‘Not so far as I’m concerned,’ Kelly responded immediately, ‘but the china he wants me to copy certainly is and, not only that, it’s extremely rare and may even be unique. It’s a wonderful opportunity, Dee,’ she added, warming to her theme, her enthusiasm for the project colouring her voice. ‘An almost once-in-a-lifetime chance to work on something very different and very special.
‘Oh, Beth rang, by the way,’ Kelly informed Dee. ‘She’s having problems with her interpreter, apparently, but she never said a word about Julian, thank goodness.’
‘That is good news,’ Dee agreed.
‘I do feel worried for Eve Frobisher,’ Kelly told her.
‘You must concentrate on the business in hand,’ Dee advised her. ‘Eve Frobisher has her brother to protect her interests. Has he said anything about Julian to you, by the way?’
‘He’s certainly made it plain that he doesn’t approve of my relationship with him,’ Kelly informed her.
‘Mmm … You know, I’ve been thinking … It could work to our advantage if you let him think that he might be able to persuade you to have second thoughts about Julian. Men love that—feeling that they’re taking charge, doling out advice to some poor, helpless little female. It feeds their egos, and it wouldn’t do any harm to get Brough Frobisher on our side.’
‘He isn’t going to fall for any ‘‘helpless little me’ act from me, Dee,’ Kelly informed her.
‘You don’t know until you try it,’ Dee told her persuasively. ‘There’s no saying what helpful information we could pick up about Julian’s business affairs via him if he—’
‘I don’t know, because there’s no way I am going to try it.’ Kelly cut across her comment swiftly. ‘Tricking Julian into believing I find him attractive is one thing, lying to Brough is quite another …’
‘It is? Why?’ Dee asked her interestedly.
‘Because I don’t like lying to anyone,’ Kelly told her sharply. ‘The only reason I’ve agreed to deceive Julian is because of what he did to Beth and to stop him from doing it to anyone else. Persuading Brough to believe that I’m some kind of helpless little creature who needs protecting and rescuing from her own emotions, who can’t take responsibility for her own life or her own actions, is just so gross that there’s no way I would even contemplate it. Besides, he wouldn’t believe me. He’d see through what I was trying to do immediately.’
‘He knows you that well after spending … how long … a few hours or so with you, does he?’ Dee mused. ‘Amazing …’
‘He believes that I’m intent on trying to take Julian away from his sister. Let’s just leave it at that whilst we’re ahead of the game, shall we?’ Kelly told her curtly, ignoring her gentle jibe.
‘Okay,’ Dee soothed her, adding, ‘Look, I need to have a word with Anna about her making contact with Julian to offer to lend him the money he needs for this new venture. Now that Brough has turned him down he’s going to be too urgently in need of financial backing to question Anna’s motivation too deeply, which suits us very nicely. Brough has unwittingly done us a very big favour in turning Julian down.’
‘I’m sure he’d be delighted to hear that,’ Kelly told her sotto voce.
‘Oh, by the way, Harry sends his best love,’ Dee told her teasingly. Kelly grimaced into the receiver.
‘He does?’ she questioned, unable to resist the temptation to tell Dee dryly, ‘That’s odd; he seemed far more interested in Eve at the ball than he was in me. Now there’s a match. The pair of them are so well suited they might have been made for one another.’
‘Eve loves Julian,’ Dee pointed out to her.
‘No, what she loves is the man she believes that Julian is,’ Kelly corrected her soberly. ‘Poor girl, he’s going to break her heart.’
‘Well, if you’re right, Harry will be more than willing to help her to mend it,’ Dee told her practically. ‘Remember, Kelly, you’ve got to convince Julian that you want him; that way when you drop him as publicly as he dropped Beth he’ll never even guess what’s going to happen until it does and …’
‘I’m not sure that he’ll leave Eve for me,’ Kelly warned her. ‘Eve believes that he’s going to marry her …’
‘So did Beth and look what happened to her,’ Dee pointed out. ‘He’s going to be furious when he finds out how we’ve tricked him, furious and totally and completely humiliated,’ she said cheerfully. ‘And it couldn’t happen to a more deserving man.’
‘You really hate him, don’t you?’ Kelly recognised.
‘Yes. I really hate him,’ Dee agreed, and she put the receiver down. Kelly thought she heard her saying, But nowhere near as much as I hate myself, but she couldn’t be sure, and anyway it was too late to question Dee any further since she had hung up.
Wednesday morning came round too soon. Kelly was awake early—too early, she decided as she watched the sun rise.
It still wasn’t too late to refuse to go to Staffordshire but what excuse could she realistically give?
Impossible to tell Brough the truth—that she was afraid of going with him, afraid of what she might say, of what he might guess … of what she might feel … But if she didn’t go …
Julian had rung her again last night. Reluctantly she had agreed to meet him for a drink at a local wine bar this evening.
‘Julian, you’re dating someone else,’ she had reminded him coldly, ‘and so am I …’
‘Harry,’ he had scoffed. ‘He’s no match, no man for a woman like you, Kelly.’
‘And I suppose that you are,’ she had taunted him, holding her breath at the recklessness of what she was doing.
‘Try me,’ he had told her, sniggering suggestively. ‘I promise you, you won’t be disappointed.’
Kelly had been glad that the telephone meant he couldn’t see the shudder of revulsion she gave.
‘You and I are two of a kind, Kelly,’ he had told her thickly. ‘We take what we want from life. We’re both adventurers, exciting … passionate … I knew that the first time I saw you. I knew then how good we’d be together …’
‘When you were dating Beth, you mean,’ Kelly had reminded him coldly.
‘Beth is history,’ he’d told her dismissively. ‘But you and I … you and I are now, Kelly …’
‘You and I are nothing,’ she had told him.
‘Tomorrow night,’ Julian had countered. ‘Be there, Kelly … You know you want me and I sure as hell want you …’
Want him? Completely revolted both by his conversation and his tone of voice, Kelly had replaced the receiver.
She could just imagine what Brough would have to say.
Brough.
Now why on earth was she thinking about him? she asked herself pointedly as her alarm started to ring. He was almost as bad as Julian Cox, although in a completely different way, of course. He had, after all, misjudged her just as badly.
Eve smiled tentatively at Kelly as Kelly opened the door to her and Brough and they stepped into the shop.
‘I’ll just run through a few things with you before we leave,’ Kelly told her reassuringly. ‘Wednesday isn’t normally a very busy day so you should be okay, but if you do have any problems—’
‘You’ve got my mobile number, haven’t you, Eve?’ Brough interrupted Kelly. ‘Any problems and you can get in touch with Kelly on that.’
‘Thank you, but I have my own mobile, Brough,’ Kelly told him frostily.
‘What I was going to say, Eve, is that I’ve left you the number of our landlady, Dee. She knows that you’ll be working here and she may very well call in to check if everything’s okay. She can be a bit daunting, but she’s really very kind … She’s Harry’s cousin,’ she added, and then stopped as Eve suddenly went bright red.
‘I … I saw him—Harry—the other day when I was walking along the river,’ Eve blurted out. ‘I … I don’t know if he mentioned it, but …’
‘No. No, he didn’t,’ Kelly told her, before adding gently, ‘But then, there’s really no reason why he should …’
‘No. No, of course not,’ Eve told her quickly. ‘I just meant … Well, I just thought …’
‘We really ought to leave,’ Brough informed Kelly, frowning slightly as he glanced at his watch. ‘The motorway is bound to be busy.’
‘I think it’s wonderful what you’re doing,’ Eve told Kelly admiringly. ‘I’d love to have that kind of talent,’ she added wistfully.
‘It’s more of a learned skill than a natural talent,’ Kelly told her wryly. ‘I was just lucky enough to be in the right place to learn it at the right time, and besides, I haven’t actually done anything yet.’
‘No, but Brough says …’ Eve stopped and glanced anxiously at her brother.
What had Brough said? Kelly wondered curiously ten minutes later as he opened the passenger door of his car for her and helped her inside.
She could always ask him, of course. Perhaps later on she would.
The Potteries where the factory was based wasn’t too far up the motorway, but Kelly was still feeling extremely apprehensive about the journey. What if Brough used it as an opportunity to take her to task about her relationship with Julian? If he did, then she would just have to remind him—again—that it was none of his business, she told herself firmly as she leaned back in her seat and very deliberately closed her eyes, hoping that he would correctly interpret this as a sign that she didn’t wish to talk.
Unfortunately, though, the subtleties of her body language appeared to be lost on him because almost immediately he asked her, ‘Tired? I’m sorry we had to have such an early start. We should be able to stop for a short break and a cup of coffee before too long, though.’
He made it sound as though he was taking his ancient maiden aunt out for a Sunday drive, Kelly decided wrathfully, immediately sitting bolt upright in her seat and denying fiercely, ‘No, I am not tired, and neither am I unable to travel a distance of less than a couple of hundred miles without the necessity of a comfort stop.’
She used the American phrase very deliberately and pointedly, underlining her comment by adding, ‘I’m twenty-four, not seventy-four …’
‘I, on the other hand, am thirty-four,’ he told her gently, ‘and I prefer to take life at a reasonably relaxed pace.’
Kelly gave him a surprised look. This was not the sort of comment she expected to hear from a man who had built up a business as successful as Brough’s was.
‘My parents died in their late thirties,’ he told her tersely. ‘They were killed in a plane crash. My father had been trying to get to Switzerland for an urgent business meeting and, being unable to get a scheduled flight in time, he’d hired a private plane. They got caught in a bad storm—and that was that.
‘Afterwards, I made a vow to myself, a promise that I’d never forget that there was far more to life than meetings, deadlines, and making money. I was nineteen when they were killed, just an adult. Eve was six.’
Only nineteen. Kelly swallowed hard on the large knot of compassion which had lodged in her throat.
‘What about you? Do you have any family?’ he asked her.
‘A brother who lives in South Africa with his wife and their three children. My father took early retirement and my parents normally spend the winter months in South Africa with Jamie and his family and summer at home in Scotland.’
‘You’re not from Rye-on-Averton? What brought you there?’
‘Beth, my partner. Her godmother lives in the town and she suggested to Beth that there was an excellent business opportunity for us there. She was quite right. The shop is beginning to pick up well, and I’ve had several commissions, but, best of all, the way we divide things between us leaves me enough time to work on my own designs and to accept freelance stuff as well.’
‘All in all, a good partnership.’
‘Yes, it is,’ Kelly agreed tersely. She didn’t want Brough to start asking her too many questions about Beth. She had no idea whether or not he knew that Julian had been on the point of getting engaged to Beth when Eve had come into his life, and she could well imagine just what kind of assumptions Brough would make.
Unnervingly, though, he seemed to follow the direction of her thoughts because he suddenly said, ‘You’ve said that Cox is an old friend of yours, but I get the impression from what you’ve just told me that your business hasn’t been established very long.’
‘Our accountant told us when we first started that it took three years to establish whether or not a business was going to succeed,’ Kelly responded cagily.
She hated having to behave like this, she admitted. According to her family, one of her faults was that she was, at times, almost painfully honest. Prevarication of any kind was anathema to her. So why on earth had she ever allowed Dee to persuade her to adopt a role which even one minute’s reflection would have told her was going to be so alien to her that it would be almost impossible to sustain? Because Dee had caught her at a weak and emotional moment, that was why.
Dee, as Kelly was fast coming to appreciate, possessed the dual gift of a very shrewd insight into people’s weak points plus an ability to turn them to her own advantage. Not that she could help liking the other woman. She was, intrinsically, a very nice person. Kelly was well aware of the fact that the rent they were being charged was far less than the going amount Dee could have asked for for such a prime site, and then there had been all those little extras she had thrown in. Her concern for them had been almost sisterly and protective in many ways, and Kelly knew that they would never have made the progress they had made without Dee’s help, both overt and covert. She had lost count, for instance, of the number of people who had come into the shop commenting that Dee had recommended it to them.
But that still didn’t absolve her from the fact that she had deliberately used a moment of weakness to persuade Kelly into a deceit which was becoming, hourly, more stressful to maintain.
Desperate to change the subject, she asked Brough, ‘Do you manage to see much of your grandmother?’
‘Not as much as I’d like,’ Brough admitted. ‘Either Eve or I try to get down to see her at least once a month. As it happens, we’re going down the weekend after next; if you’d care to come with us you’d be more than welcome. In fact, it might actually be a good idea; that way you could see the teaset in situ, so to speak.’
Go with them … on a family visit … to see his grandmother?
Kelly opened her mouth and then closed it again.
‘Oh, I couldn’t,’ she protested finally. ‘There’s …’
‘The shop; I know,’ Brough responded for her.
Had she imagined it or had that really been a note of almost cynical irony in his voice as he shot her a brief sideways glance?
It was impossible … Anna would always stand in for you … Hurriedly she closed her mind to the tempting little voice that was reminding her that Anna had made a point of telling her that she was more than willing to take charge of the shop during Beth’s absence should Kelly want some time off.
And Brough was right in saying that it would be helpful for her to see the whole of the teaset—when she would already have had the benefit of the archivist’s records.
No. No. It was completely impossible, and besides, Brough was quite obviously relieved that she hadn’t accepted his invitation, because he had made no attempt to press the matter or persuade her to re-think her decision.
‘The last time I drove up here I found a decent pub in a village just off the motorway at the next turn-off. Unlike you, I’m afraid I do need the odd ‘‘comfort stop’’,’ he informed her dryly as he swung the car over from the fast lane of the motorway.
Rural Warwickshire was a part of the country with which Kelly was relatively unfamiliar, and she couldn’t quite suppress a small gasp of pleasure as they left the motorway access roundabout and Brough took an exit onto a pretty country road. Farmland stretched to either side of them, and in the distance Kelly could see the gleam of water where a river made its way between tree-lined banks.
The village, which lay concealed just beyond the brow of the hill, was reached via a meandering road which wound down to a cluster of cottages, some of which were thatched, set around a tranquil duck pond.
‘Good heavens,’ Kelly marvelled as Brough drove in under an archway to the rear of a pub which could quite easily have featured in a film set for a Dickens novel. ‘Why on earth isn’t this place swamped with tourists? It’s almost too perfect …’
‘It’s an estate village,’ Brough explained. ‘Originally all the houses, like the land, were owned by the same family, but apparently when the last Earl died the new one, his grandson, decided to sell off the houses, but only to tenants who had family connections with the village.’
