A Little Seduction Omnibus (12 page)

She saw him look at the crude unsaleable items of her order which she had already unpacked, and then, for the first time, he looked directly at her, with an expression in his eyes which she immediately interpreted as a mixture of distaste and pity.

Immediately her hackles rose defensively. Immediately she knew exactly what he was doing, that he had come to crow over her, to mock and taunt her, to tell her ‘I told you so’. The fact that her thought processes might be a little illogical didn’t occur to her; her emotions were far too aroused and overwrought for any kind of analytical thought.

‘You
knew
, didn’t you? Didn’t you?’ she challenged him bitterly. ‘You’ve come to laugh at me...to
gloat
...’

‘Beth, you’re wrong...’

‘Yes, I am,’ she agreed emotionally. ‘I’m always wrong. Always... I was wrong about Julian. I thought
he
loved me. I was wrong about you. I thought...I thought that at least you’d have the decency not to...’ She stopped and swallowed, and then added wretchedly, ‘And I was wrong about the glass as well.’ Her head lifted proudly.

‘Well, then, go ahead, say it... “I told you so...”’ Her mouth twisted in a pitiful facsimile of a smile. ‘At least I won’t be making the same mistake a second time...’

Somehow she managed to force back the tears she could feel threatening her composure.

One look at the semi-unpacked crates and what they contained had confirmed Alex’s very worst fears. The order she had received was wholly worthless, totally unsaleable. He ached for her as he compared what she had received to the glass produced by his cousins: fine, first-quality, beautiful stemware that richly echoed all the tradition and purity of the antique designs they still faithfully adhered to. Copies, yes, but beautiful ones, expensive ones, Alex acknowledged, as he remembered how awed his mother had been the first time she had visited Prague and the family business.

‘They sell their glassware all over the world. Japan, America, the Gulf States. It is beautiful, Alex, but, oh, it’s so expensive. Your cousins gave me these,’ she had added reverently, unpacking the set of a dozen wine glasses which had been the family’s gift to her.

‘Are you insured against...this kind of risk?’ Alex asked Beth gently, but he already knew the answer and didn’t need the brief shake of her head to tell him that she wasn’t. Compassion and love filled his eyes. He looked away from her.

‘The Czech authorities have tracked down the criminals who organised this. Ultimately there will be a court case...perhaps there may even be some form of compensation for...for you...’ he suggested.

Beth looked briefly at him.

‘Don’t treat me like a child, Alex. Of course there won’t be any compensation. Why should I be compensated for being a fool? And even if there was...it would be too little too late,’ she added hollowly.

‘What do you mean?’ Alex pounced.

‘I...I don’t mean anything,’ Beth denied quickly, but she could tell that he didn’t believe her.

‘Beth, are you there?’

Beth tensed as she heard Dee’s voice.

‘I thought I’d come down. You didn’t sound very happy when I spoke to you on the phone. If there’s a problem with this glass... Oh!’

Dee stopped speaking as she walked into the storeroom and realised that Beth wasn’t alone—and then she saw the glass.

Beth winced as she saw Dee’s horrified expression.

‘What on earth...?’ Dee began, and then stopped. ‘I’m sorry, Beth,’ she apologised, ‘but...’

Alex acted quickly. His mind had been working overtime and he had come to an impulsive and probably very unwise decision but he simply couldn’t bear to see the shame and pain in his darling Beth’s eyes.

‘Yes, you’re quite right,’ he told Beth, as much to her confusion as Dee’s. ‘The order will have to be replaced.’

‘It most certainly will,’ Dee agreed swiftly, turning to Alex with, ‘And in time for the Christmas market.’

‘Dee...’ Beth began, knowing that she would have to tell Dee the truth—that not only was Alex not responsible for her order, but also that there was no way he could correct the mistake she herself had made. Not in time for the Christmas market and, in fact, not ever. She would also have to tell Dee that she was going to have to terminate her lease, but that was something that would have to wait until after she had spoken to Kelly—and the bank.

Right now, what she wanted more than anything else was to close her eyes and transport herself back to a time before she had gone to Prague, before she had ever met Alex, before she had ever known Julian...before...

‘If you’ll excuse us,’ Alex was saying affably but firmly to Dee, ‘I think this is something Beth and I need to discuss in private.’

‘Beth?’ Dee began questioningly, and Beth nodded. What other option did she really have?

‘Er...yes...it’s all right... I’ll be fine,’ she reassured Dee, knowing what the other woman was thinking.

Just as soon as Beth had heard the shop door close behind Dee she turned on Alex and demanded tiredly, ‘What did you say that for, about the order being replaced? You know it isn’t true.’

Her voice cracked as the real emotion generating her anger surfaced and betrayed her.

‘Beth. Beth, please don’t,’ Alex begged her, feeling her pain as though it was his own and aching to make things right for her. ‘Look, is there somewhere we can go to talk in private?’ he asked her.

‘I don’t want to talk to you. There isn’t anything more you can say,’ Beth told him bitterly. ‘You’ve done what you came to do...had your gloat. You should be satisfied with that.’

But Alex shook his head.

‘You’ve got it wrong. That isn’t why I’m here. Look, why don’t I close the shop and we can talk in here and...?’

‘No, not here,’ Beth denied, shivering slightly as she looked round at the packing cases. She couldn’t bear to spend another minute in here with them, with the evidence of her stupidity.

‘I live upstairs...it’s this way...’

‘Let’s lock the shop door first,’ Alex suggested gently. Beth’s face burned. She should have been the one to think of that. Where was her sense of responsibility, her maturity, her...? She tensed as Alex came back.

‘I’ve put the “closed” sign up and locked the door,’ he told her.

Silently Beth led the way to the rear door; just as silently Alex followed her.

Why had Alex said that to Dee about the glassware being replaced when they both knew that was impossible? What on earth was Dee going to think when Beth had to tell her that Alex had lied and that she had let him?

Once they were in her sitting room Beth stood defensively behind one of the chairs, indicating to Alex that he should take a seat in the other one.

‘Beth, I promise you that I didn’t come here to gloat,’ he told her, ignoring the chair and coming instead to stand in front of her.

‘Then why did you come?’ Beth demanded. He was standing far too close to her, the chair between them no defence at all to the way her body was reacting to him, and certainly no defence against the emotional bombardment his presence was inflicting on her senses.

Even without closing her eyes she was sharply, shockingly aware of just how he would look without his clothes, of just how he would feel...smell...be...

A small keening noise bubbled in her throat. Frantically she fought to suppress it.

‘I came because...because...I wanted to warn you just in case you hadn’t actually paid for the glass already,’ Alex prevaricated. It was, after all, partially true. That was certainly what had urged him into action, even if the real reasons for what he had done were far more complex and personal.

‘How...how did you know, anyway...about...about the glass?’

She was, Beth discovered, finding it very difficult to concentrate on what she was trying to say. Alex’s proximity was distracting and dizzying her. It would be so easy just to reach out and touch him. All she had to do was to lean forward a little and raise her hand and then she would...she could... Despairingly she moistened her dry lips with the tip of her tongue.

Hurriedly Alex looked away from her. If she kept on touching her mouth like that there was no way he was going to be able to stop himself from taking hold of her.

He tried to concentrate on what she was asking him.

‘I...er...my mother told me. The glass you were originally shown was stolen from my cousins. The thieves were using it to lure unsuspecting buyers into placing orders for what they believed would be good-quality reproduction glassware like the items they had been shown—items which were, in fact, genuine antiques—and I—’

‘So it wasn’t just me...I wasn’t the only...?’

‘The only one? No, not by a long chalk,’ Alex reassured her.

‘The only fool,’ Beth had been about to say, and she was sure that was what Alex must privately consider her to be. Now that he had told her she couldn’t understand how she had ever believed the glassware she had been shown was modern. Perhaps she had believed it because she had
wanted
to believe it.

‘Your cousins must be pleased to have recovered their antiques,’ Beth told Alex tonelessly.

‘Yes, especially my aunt. She felt the most responsible because she was the one who had resisted installing a new alarm system.’

‘Did the night-watchman recover from his injuries?’ Beth asked Alex suddenly, remembering how he had told her about the burglary the day he had taken her to see the castle.

‘Yes. Yes, he did,’ Alex confirmed, looking surprised that she had remembered such a small detail of their conversation. Beth looked away from him. She could recall virtually everything he had ever said to her, and everything he had ever done.

‘Are you...are you back in England permanently now?’

‘Yes...yes, I had my year out and now I’ve accepted a Chair at Lexminster, lecturing in Modern History.’

Beth stared at him white-faced. There was no mistaking the reality of what he was telling her, nor its truth. She might have doubted him originally when he had told her he was a university lecturer, but now, listening to the calm way he was discussing his career, she knew he had spoken the truth. She was the one who had been guilty of deceit, not him—she had wilfully deceived herself about her real feelings for him, her real reason for feeling those feelings. A sharp pain twisted through her heart. She could just imagine how attractive his female students would find him, how easily they would probably fall in love with him...as easily as she herself had done.

‘Beth, about this glass. Let me speak to my family,’ he began, but Beth shook her head quickly.

‘I know what you’re trying to do but it’s no good,’ she informed him tersely. ‘I just don’t have the money to place another order, Alex—not with your cousins, not with anyone. In fact—’ she lifted her head and looked proudly at him ‘—when you arrived I was just about to get in touch with my partner to tell her that we’re going to have to close the business down. I owe the bank too much to continue.

‘Why aren’t you telling me that it serves me right, that I should have listened to you in the first place?’ Beth asked him painfully in the silence that followed her disclosure.

‘Oh, Beth...’

Tenderly Alex closed the distance between them, reaching past the chair to take her in his arms and cradle her against his body, whispering soft words of endearment in her ear, kissing the top of her head and then her closed eyelids, her cheekbones, the tip of her nose...her lips...

‘Alex... No...no...’

Frantically Beth tore herself out of his arms.

‘I want you to go. I want you to go
now,
’ she told him shakily.

‘Beth,’ Alex protested, but Beth didn’t dare allow herself to listen to him.

‘Very well. If you won’t leave then I shall have to,’ she told him, starting to hurry towards the door.

‘Beth, Beth, it’s all right. I’ll go. I’m going,’ Alex told her soothingly.

Beth didn’t look at him as she heard him walking past her towards the door. It hurt so much more to know he was leaving her life this time. Before, in Prague, she had been so angry that that had protected her to some extent from the reality of her pain. The knowledge of how she really felt about him had only come later, after the heat of her anger had died. But now she had no anger to protect her. Now there was no barrier between her and the pain.

Impulsively she hurried to her sitting-room window. Alex was just getting into his car, and Beth’s eyes widened as she realised how expensive and up-market it was. Oddly, despite his casual clothes, the car seemed to suit him. In fact, Beth recognised, on a fresh stab of pain, Alex was carrying about him a very distinctive air of authority. Even in Prague she had been aware that he was quite a bit older and more mature than the majority of the young students taking their gap year out between finishing university and finding a job, but now, seeing him on her own home ground, she was struck by how easily he would fit into the same mould as Kelly’s Brough and Anna’s even more formidably successful husband Ward.

Alex was starting his car. Beth leaned closer to the window, yearning for one last glimpse of him. As though he sensed that she was watching him he looked back towards the window where she was standing. Immediately Beth drew away from it, pain drowning out all the voices of rationality that tried to tell her that she had done the right thing, that all he had really come for had been to taunt her and gloat over her, that he had lied to her when he had claimed to be concerned.

Half an hour later Beth was just on her way back down to the shop when she caught sight of the wedding invitation she had placed on the sitting-room mantelpiece. Dee’s cousin Harry was marrying Brough’s sister Eve the week before Christmas, and Beth had been invited to the ceremony.

A wedding. The celebration of two people’s love for one another.

Betrayingly Beth’s eyes filled with acidly hot tears.

‘I fell in love with you the first time I saw you,’ Alex had told her, but of course he hadn’t meant it. Of course he had lied to her.

She had known that then. She knew it now. So why was she crying?

CHAPTER NINE

B
ETH
SAT
STARING
into space, nursing a mug of coffee. She had just closed the shop for the day. It was almost a week since she had received her Czech order, and five days since she had seen Alex. Five days, three hours and...she glanced at the kitchen clock...eighteen minutes.

Kelly was away now with Brough, and Beth wanted to wait until after she had returned home before she told her the bad news about the business. She still had to speak with the bank manager as well. She got up wearily.

She was tired of explaining to eager customers that there had been a mistake with the Czech order and that the glass hadn’t arrived. She had repacked the cases, but of course there was no point in trying to return them to an empty factory.

A car boot sale might be her best chance of getting rid of them—provided she was prepared to pay people to take the stuff, she decided with grimly bitter humour.

After washing her mug she went back downstairs to the shop. Some of the Christmas novelties she had ordered earlier in the year at a trade fair had arrived and had to be unpacked. Although pretty enough in their way, they could not possibly compare with what she had hoped to be displaying.

She had
some
good stock to sell—items she had bought prior to her visit to Prague. Ordinarily Beth had a good eye for colour, and a very definite flair for the placement of things. In the window she had a display of fluted iridescent pinky-gold fine glass candle-holders and stemmed dishes, on one of which she had piled high shimmering pastel glass sweets. It looked very effective, and she had seen several people stop for a closer look.

Admiring it as she walked past their small cubbyhole of an office, she could hear the fax clattering. She grimaced to herself as she went to see what was happening. It was probably a message from her mother. Beth was going home to spend Christmas with her family and her mother was constantly sending her shopping lists of things she wanted Beth to buy on her behalf.

Absently Beth glanced at the machine, and then tensed, quickly re-reading the message it was printing.

The Glass Factory, Prague, to Ms Bethany Russell.

Re your order.

We have pleasure to confirm that your order for four dozen each of our special Venetian cut-glass stemware in colours ruby, madonna, emerald and gold is now completed and will be despatched immediately, air freight, to arrive Manchester, England...

Beth ripped the paper out of the machine, her hands shaking. What was going on? She hadn’t ordered any glass. How could she? She couldn’t afford to.

She reached for the fax machine, her eyes on the number printed on the message she had just received, and then she stopped.

‘Beth...?’

She hurried out of the office as she heard Dee’s voice, the fax still in her hand.

‘Have you heard anything about your glass yet?’ Dee asked her, and then, glancing at the fax message, added, ‘Oh, yes, I can see you have...they’re sending you a fresh order. Well, I should think so too. When will it arrive? I’ll come with you to the airport to collect it, if you like.’

‘Dee, I haven’t—’

‘You’re going to need to get it unpacked and on display as soon as it arrives. I’ll come and give you a hand.

‘Oh, and by the way, you know that man who was here when I came in the other day? Why didn’t you tell me who he was...’

‘Who he was...?’ Beth repeated dully. ‘I...’

‘Mmm...I had to go over to Lexminster at the weekend—an old friend of my father’s lives there, and of course I was at university there myself. He used to be a professor at the university and still attends some of the functions. He insisted on my accompanying him to a drinks party at one of the colleges and your friend was there.’

‘Alex?’ Beth questioned her. ‘Alex was there?’

‘Mmm...he was explaining to me about his family connections with Prague, and he did say, too, that he had told them how imperative it was that you got your order just as quickly as possible.’

‘Dee, please...’ Beth began. She would have to tell Dee the truth.

‘I can’t stay, I’m afraid.’ Dee overrode her. ‘I only popped in to see how you were. I’ve got a meeting in less than an hour. We’ll go out for supper next week, but remember to ring me as soon as your order arrives...’

* * *

As she got in her car to drive away Dee was conscious of an unfamiliar heat burning her face. She glanced in her driving mirror, anxious to see if she looked as uncomfortably self-conscious as she felt. As a young teenager she had endured the misery of a particularly painful blush which it had taken her a lot of effort to learn to control.

In fact, those who knew her now would no doubt be surprised to learn just how shy and awkward she had felt as a young girl.

All that was behind her now. Her father’s death had propelled her into adulthood with a speed and a force that had left its mark on her almost as much as losing him had. The pain and anguish of those dark days still sometimes haunted her, no matter how hard she tried not to let them.

Going back to her old university hadn’t helped, and the relief she had experienced at seeing even a vaguely familiar face at the cocktail party she had so reluctantly agreed to attend had negated her normal sense of curiosity, so that she hadn’t really asked very many questions of Alex Andrews, although she had noted how keen he had been to talk about Beth.

It had been her father’s old friend who had brought up the subject of Julian Cox, though, asking, ‘Do you see anything of that Cox fellow these days?’ and then shaking his head before opining, ‘He was a bad lot, if you ask me. Your father...’

Anxious not to reactivate painful memories for either of them, Dee had quickly tried to change the subject, but Alex Andrews, who had been standing with them at the time, had frowned and joined the conversation, asking her, ‘Julian Cox? That would be the man who Beth...?’

‘Yes. Yes...’ Dee had confirmed quickly. If she had to talk about Julian, she would much rather the conversation centred on Beth’s relationship with him rather than her own or her father’s. She knew that people thought of her as being cool and controlled. Outwardly maybe she was. But inside—no one knew just how difficult she found it sometimes not to give way to her emotions, not to betray her real feelings.

‘He hurt her very badly,’ Alex had said curtly.

‘Yes, he did,’ Dee had agreed. ‘We...her friends...thought at one point that...’ She’d paused and shaken her head. ‘That was one of the reasons we encouraged her to go to Prague. We thought it might help to take her mind off Julian. As it happens, though, her feelings weren’t as deeply involved as either we or she had feared. I think once Beth realised just what kind of man he was she recognised how worthless he was, and how impossible it was for her to really care about him.

‘She obviously spoke to you about him,’ she had added curiously.

‘She told me that because of him she found it impossible to trust any man...not in those words, perhaps, but that was certainly the message she wanted to give me.’

‘Julian is an expert at destroying people’s trust,’ Dee had told him, looking away as she did so so that he wouldn’t see the shadow darkening her eyes.

They had gone their separate ways shortly after that. There had been several old colleagues her father’s friend had wanted to talk with, and Dee had good-naturedly accompanied him, joining in their conversations even though there hadn’t been one of them under seventy years of age and the people and events they were discussing had had little relevance for her.

Mind you, in many ways it was just as well that she hadn’t needed to concentrate too hard on what was being said. That had left her free to keep a weather eye on the room, strategically placing herself so that she had a clear view of the entrance. She hadn’t wanted to be caught off guard by the arrival of...of...anyone—Sternly now, Dee reminded herself that she had an important meeting to attend, and that she needed to keep her wits about her if she was to keep the two warring factions on her action committee from falling out with one another.

A little ruefully she reflected on how something so therapeutic and ‘green’ as planting a new grove of English trees on a piece of land recently bought in a joint enterprise between the local council and one of her charities could arouse such warrior-like feelings amongst her committee members. Her father would have known exactly how to handle the situation, of course, and it was at times like these that she missed him the most. Chatting with his contemporaries, she had been so sharply aware of her loss, and not just of the father she had loved so much. Had he lived, what might she have been now? A wife...a mother...?

Dee swallowed quickly. She could still become a mother if that was her ambition. These days one did not even need to have a lover to achieve the ambition, never mind a partner. But she had been brought up by a sole parent herself, and, much as she had loved her father, much as he had loved her, she had missed not having a mother.

How often as a young girl had she dreamed of being part of a large family of brothers and sisters, and two parents? She had had her aunts and uncles and her cousins, it was true, but...

Her agents had still not been able to find out what had happened to Julian after he had disappeared to Singapore.

Dee moved uncomfortably in her seat. The cocktail party had reawakened old memories, old heartache and pain, old wounds which had healed with a dangerously thin and fragile new skin.

* * *

Alex smiled warmly as he heard his aunt’s voice on the other end of the telephone line.

‘How are you?’

‘Tired,’ his aunt told him wryly. ‘It’s meant hard work, getting this important order together for you.’

* * *

Beth was just about to close up the shop for the night when she saw the delivery van pull up outside, followed by a highly polished chauffeur-driven black Mercedes.

It had been raining during the afternoon and the pavements were wet, glistening under the light from the Christmas decorations which the Corporation’s workmen had been putting up and which they were currently testing, prior to the formal switching-on ceremony the following weekend.

On the counter in front of her Beth had a list of customers she intended to ring during the evening. They were the customers who had expressed an interest in the new glass. She had not, as yet, told them that it wasn’t going to be available.

The van driver was heading towards her door. Uncertainly Beth watched him, her uncertainty turning to shock as she saw the woman climbing out of the rear of the elegant Mercedes and recognised her instantly.

It was Alex’s aunt, the woman she had seen him with in Prague, looking, if anything, even more soignée and elegant now than she had done then. The exquisite tailoring of her charcoal-grey suit made Beth sigh in soft envy. If she had only added a picture hat and a small toy dog on a lead she could have posed for a Dior advertisement of the fifties. Very few women of her own generation could boast of having such a lovely neat waist, Beth acknowledged as Alex’s aunt waited for the van driver to open the shop door and then stand back, allowing Alex’s aunt to sweep through.

‘This is very good,’ she told Beth without preamble. ‘Alex told me that you had a good eye and I can see that he is right. That is a very pretty display of pieces you have in your window, although perhaps you might just redirect the spotlight on them a little. If you have some ladders I could perhaps show you...’

Beth was too bemused to feel affronted, and besides, she had come to very much the same decision herself only this afternoon.

‘I have brought you your glass,’ she added, and then said more severely, ‘I hope you understand that we do this only as the very greatest favour because it is for family. It has been very expensive to pay the workpeople to work extra and push your order through. I have a rich—a very rich—oil sheikh who right at this moment has had to be told that his chandelier is not quite ready. This is not something I would normally like to do, but Alex was most insistent, and when a man is so much in love...’

She gave a graceful shrug of her shoulders.

‘I have come here with it myself since we do not normally sell our glassware to enterprises such as yours. We sell, normally, by personal recommendation, direct to our customers. That is our...our speciality. We do not...how would you say?...make so much that it can be sold as in a supermarket.’ She gave another dismissive shrug. ‘That is not our way. We are unique and...exclusive.’

‘Yes, you may put them here,’ she instructed the van driver, who was wheeling in a large container. ‘But carefully, carefully...

‘Oh, yes, I thank you. I nearly forgot...’ She thanked the chauffeur as he followed the van driver in and handed her a large rectangular gift-wrapped package.

‘This is for you,’ she told Beth, to Beth’s astonishment. ‘You will not open it yet. That is not permitted. You will open it with Alex—he will have one too—when you are together. It is a gift of betrothal—a tradition in our family.’

Betrothal!

Beth stared at her. Alex’s aunt was so very much larger than life, so totally compelling that Beth felt completely overwhelmed by her. By rights she ought to be telling her that there was no way she could accept the order she had just brought. She just couldn’t afford it. And she should also tell her that she resented Alex’s high-handed attitude in giving his family an order on her behalf without consulting her in the first place. And as for his aunt’s comment about a betrothal...

‘It is also very much a tradition that the men of our family fall in love at first sight. My husband, who was also my second cousin, fell in love with me just by seeing my photograph. One glimpse, that was all it took, and then he was on his way to my parents’ home to beg me to be his wife. We were together as man and wife for just two years and then he was killed...murdered...’

Beth gave a small convulsive shiver as she saw the look in the older woman’s eyes.

‘I still feel the pain of his loss today. It has been my life’s work to do with the factory what he would have wished to be done. One of my greatest sorrows is that he did not live to see our family reunited. Alex is very much like him. He loves you. You are very lucky to have the love of such a man,’ she told Beth firmly.