Passionate Nights: The Mistress Assignment / Mistress of Convenience / Mistress to Her Husband. PENNY JORDAN
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have been more helpful. But, as he says, there really isn’t any substitute for seeing the rest of the teaset at first hand for ensuring that I get the colour matches right.’
‘It isn’t too late to change your mind about coming with us on our next visit,’ Brough said.
‘I … I’ll have to think about it …’ Kelly told him.
The evening was already turning to dusk. They had left Staffordshire just before eight o’clock. Frank Bowers had insisted on taking them out to dinner and Brough had taken her to one side after Frank had delivered his half-hesitant invitation, to say quietly to her, ‘If it doesn’t conflict with any other plans you may have made, I think we should accept. He’s plainly enjoyed the opportunity to talk about his work—and I know we did talk about stopping off at the Lion and Swan for a meal and a walk along the river on the way back, but I should hate to disappoint Frank …’
‘I agree,’ Kelly had responded instantly, and they’d both returned to where Frank was putting away the company records.
‘Yes, I understand you’ll need to think about the weekend visit,’ Brough was telling her cordially now as he swung the car out into the fast lane of the motorway. ‘I should hate to interfere with any private plans you might have.’
It was the emphasis on the word ‘private’ that made Kelly glance warily at him. Was he trying to insinuate that he suspected her of hesitating in accepting the invitation to visit his grandmother because she was either planning to see Julian Cox or hoping to see him? It seemed that, with their return to Rye-on-Averton imminent, the cessation of hostilities between them was over.
Very well, if that was the way he wanted things, she decided hardly, suppressing the unwanted quiver of disappointment that sharpened almost to an actual pang of pain.
‘I’m not sure just what you’re trying to suggest,’ she told him frostily, ‘but the main reason I can’t give you a yes or a no at this stage is because I need to find someone to take charge of the shop for me. You may be able to walk away from your business commitments for a whole weekend—I’m afraid that I can’t.’
‘I’m sorry,’ Brough returned equally formally and coolly. ‘Forgive me, but I had assumed that since this commission was business …’
Immediately hot colour burned a mortified flush up her throat and over her face.
‘I realise that,’ she retorted stiffly, and of course she did, even if very briefly earlier in the day she had momentarily forgotten.
But, in truth, hadn’t there been a few brief but oh, so telling occasions during the day when the sharp line that in the past had always divided her professional life from her personal one had become dangerously blurred—when she had looked at Brough, compelled to do so by something he had said, only to find that it was not the client she was seeing but the man?
And what a man!
Kelly groaned in dismay, lashed by a delicate shiver of sexual awareness. This wasn’t what she wanted, what she needed in her life right now.
Her reaction to Brough would have unnerved her even without the added complication of the situation with Julian Cox. When she added to that the already highly combustible mixture of anger and attraction she felt towards Brough, the dangerous extra ingredient of emotional awareness and longing she was confronted with became a potentially lethal cocktail which she knew could destroy her if she wasn’t careful. After all, put together all those ingredients and the result was as dangerous as some magical, mystical sorcerer’s potion, because the result was quite simply love. And Brough was the last person she could ever allow herself to love. He didn’t like her now, so what on earth was he going to feel about her when he discovered—as discover he surely must—that she was deliberately trying to take Julian away from his sister?
She could try telling him, of course, that her motives were truly altruistic, but somehow she doubted that he would believe her, that he would even want to believe her.
‘Tired?’
The unexpected concern in his voice brought a small, anguished lump to her throat. Unable to reply without betraying her emotion, she shook her head.
‘It’s been a long day,’ Brough told her, adding ruefully, ‘I must admit I had no idea of the complexity of the task I was asking you to take on when I first approached you.’
‘It will be a challenge,’ Kelly admitted, relieved to be back on a safer subject. ‘But I am looking forward to it. My biggest worry is that your grandmother is going to be disappointed. The teaset must mean so much to her … When Frank showed us those jugs this afternoon, which had been in the same family for six generations, and he told us how much each generation had to reinsure them at, it really brought it home to me that it isn’t the material value that means so much but the fact that they represent a part of a family no longer there in person, a piece of very personal history … memories …’
‘Yes,’ Brough agreed soberly. ‘I can see from the look in Nan’s eyes when she touches her teaset that it’s Gramps she’s thinking about.’
A little enviously Kelly wondered what it must be like to have experienced such love, and to still be able to warm oneself by its embers.
What was Brough’s grandmother like? What had his grandfather been like? Brough? Her heart gave a small, uneven thump. In thirty years from now Brough could be a grandfather himself. Her heart gave another, even more uneven thud, and then a series of short, frantic, accelerating mini-beats as she contemplated her own future. In thirty years from now how would she feel when she looked back on today? Would the sharp ache of newly discovered love for Brough she had recognised today have dulled to nothing more than a dim memory, or would she be looking back in sadness and regret for what had never been?
They were almost home now, the lights of the town shining in the valley ahead of them as Brough turned off the motorway. Kelly sat in silence beside him as he drove through the quiet streets towards the shop. Rye-on-Averton was a genteel town, its residents either middle-aged or retired in the main. Its wine bars and restaurants, though, were well patronised, as were the shows put on by the excellent local amateur dramatic and operatic societies.
‘I’ll come up with you,’ Kelly heard Brough saying as he parked his car outside the shop.
Immediately she shook her head, but Brough was already climbing out of the car.
‘It really isn’t necessary,’ she said as he opened her car door for her.
The flat had its own entrance, and she had already removed the keys in readiness from her bag and was holding them in her hand, but to her chagrin Brough quietly removed them from her grasp.
‘I know this is a relatively crime-free and safe area, but I’m afraid my grandmother’s influence means that I would feel I had failed in my male duty if I didn’t see you safely inside.’
So he was only acting out of duty. What had she imagined? she derided herself as she walked silently towards the rear entrance of the flat. That he was insisting on seeing her inside because he wanted to delay the moment when he parted from her for as long as he could? How utterly ridiculous. He probably couldn’t wait to see the back of her.
‘It’s this way,’ she told him unnecessarily, indicating the rear ground-floor door.
Stepping past her, Brough inserted the key in the lock and then opened the door for her.
‘Thank you …’ Kelly started to say as she stepped past him, but it seemed he still did not consider his duty to be fully done, because he shook his head and stepped into the small hallway with her, glancing towards the stairs as he did so.
‘Would you like me to come up with you and look around?’ he asked her politely.
Immediately, Kelly shook her head.
In the hallway on a small console table was one of the first pieces of china she had painted. She saw Brough looking at it.
‘One