The Bejewelled Bride. Lee Wilkinson
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As she glanced around, wondering if there was a phone she could borrow, he added lightly, ‘And knowing we’re marooned together with just one bed, might give him a sleepless night.’
‘He wouldn’t be worried.’ But, remembering his attempts at seduction, she found her colour rising. The intimacy that ‘marooned together with just one bed’ implied, and thinking a strange man might succeed where he’d failed would make him furious.
Watching her companion note that blush, she added hastily, ‘Tony’s my boss.’
‘I see,’ Joel said in a way that showed he didn’t see at all.
‘I—I mean he’s not my boyfriend.’
‘Well, either way, if he has any sense he won’t be expecting you back on a night like this.’
He was no doubt right, Bethany thought, and abandoning any idea of phoning, dropped the mobile back into her bag.
Stretching long legs towards the fire, Joel asked idly, ‘What kind of business are you in?’
‘Antiques,’ she answered quietly, still a little overawed by his presence.
‘Your own business?’
She shook her head and her hair, listened in the candlelight. ‘No. Tony, my boss, owns Feldon Antiques.’
‘Of course,’ Joel murmured.
‘But I am picking up small, affordable pieces that Feldon Antiques wouldn’t touch, with a view to one day starting my own business.’
‘You’re the buyer?’
She hesitated. Respecting her judgement and knowledge of antiques, a year before his death James had made her the firm’s buyer, trusting her to buy at a keen but fair price.
Since Tony had taken over, however, though he relied on her to seek out and identify the rarer items they dealt in—items they sold on to collectors worldwide—he hadn’t allowed her to put a price on them.
But she was still the official buyer, she reminded herself, and answered firmly, ‘Yes.’
‘Does the job involve much travelling?’
‘An occasional visit to Europe or the States.’
He raised an eyebrow and questioned, ‘So what do you think of The Big Apple?’
‘I think New York’s wonderful. I remember first falling in love with it when as a young girl I saw Breakfast at Tiffany’s.’ Bethany smiled at the memory.
He grinned. ‘And I remember falling in love with Audrey Hepburn.’
For a little while they discussed their favourite old films, then he harked back to query, ‘Presumably with your job you put in long hours?’
‘Yes, but then I get time off in lieu. This week I’ll be in the shop on Wednesday, then I’ve got until Monday off.’
‘What sort of things do you look out for when you’re on your travels?’
She thought for a moment then replied, ‘Silver and porcelain mainly, but really anything that’s rare and valuable.’
‘Like this pretty bauble, for instance?’ He touched the bracelet she wore, an intricate gold hoop set with deep red stones.
Her heart beating faster, she looked down at his hand, a strong, well-shaped hand with long lean fingers and neatly trimmed nails.
‘How did you come by it?’ There was a strange note in his voice, an undercurrent of…what? Anger? Condemnation?
But when she looked up the only emotion his face was showing was polite interest, and she knew she must have imagined it.
‘Someone brought it into the shop. Though I originally intended it for my collection I loved it on sight, so I decided to keep it.’
‘I’m a complete ignoramus when it comes to things like this,’ he remarked, turning it round on her wrist. ‘I’ve no real idea how old it is—my guess would be Victorian?’
Only too aware of his touch, she strove to sound cool and unmoved as she told him, ‘It dates from the early eighteen hundreds.’
A shade breathlessly, she added, ‘Often that kind of bracelet was accompanied by a matching necklace and earrings, which would have made it a lot more valuable. I would have loved a set, but unfortunately it was sold as a single item.’
‘May I ask what kind of price a thing like this would fetch?’
She told him what she’d paid for it.
A muscle jumped in his jaw as if he’d clenched his teeth, but his voice was even as he remarked, ‘I would have thought—as it’s gold and rubies—that it was worth a great deal more than that.’
She shook her head. ‘Had it been gold and rubies it would have been, but the stones are garnets.’
‘They look like rubies. I always understood that garnets were transparent?’ he pursued.
‘They are. It’s the way these stones are set that makes them look like rubies. Even the seller thought they were.’
‘I see.’ His expression relaxed.
There was a short silence before he changed the subject by saying, ‘I suppose you must meet some interesting people in your line of business?’
Noting how his thick, healthy-looking hair had now dried to its natural ripe-corn colour and longing to touch it, she answered distractedly, ‘Yes, you could say that.’
When he waited expectantly, she added, ‘The old lady I went to see this morning looked as if she’d stepped out of the pages of some period novel.
‘She was dressed all in black, with jet earrings, and was still talking to her husband, who’d been dead for over five years.’
Joel smiled, then, his voice casual, queried, ‘She had some antiques she wanted to sell?’
‘An attic full,’ Bethany said drily.
‘Did you find anything worth having?’
She shook her head. She had been hoping to discover something rare and valuable, both for the old lady’s sake and—needing to appease Tony’s anger—her own. But the ‘antiques’ had turned out to be, at the best, collectibles, at the worst, junk.
‘No valuable silver or porcelain?’
Wondering why he was displaying such interest, she answered, ‘The only thing we might have considered buying was a Hochst group of porcelain figures. But unfortunately it had been damaged and mended so badly that it’s virtually worthless.’
Leaving his chair to pile more logs on the fire, he remarked, ‘So it was a fruitless journey.’
‘I’m afraid so.’
In reality it had been anything but. She was with Joel at last and they had the whole of the night in which to get to know one another.
Watching his broad back, noticing how the fine material of his dark sweater stretched across the mature width of his shoulders, she felt a fluttery excitement in her stomach.
The fire blazing to his satisfaction, he gathered up the crockery and put it on the draining board before washing his hands.
While they talked, almost imperceptibly the light from the lamp had got dimmer, and beyond the glow from the fire shadows were gathering.
Picking up the lamp, Joel moved it from side to side gently. ‘I’m afraid we’re almost out of oil.’
After a quick search through the cupboards he said, ‘There doesn’t appear to be any more, so it’s a good thing it’s almost bedtime.’
He filled the kettle and put it on the stove, remarking,