The Mistress Assignment

by Jordan, Penny

  ‘You still have to tell Cox,’ Harry reminded her quietly.

  ‘I know,’ Eve responded, ‘but he frightens me a little, Harry... He keeps on telling me that he wants us to get engaged and he gets very angry when I tell him that Brough won’t agree. He says it doesn’t matter whether Brough agrees or not... I think he’s more interested in my money than me,’ Eve admitted in a small voice.

  Privately, Harry thought so as well, and Cox was a fool, in his opinion. He always had been, and not just a fool either, Harry reflected, his forehead creasing as he recalled certain things...certain old items of gossip he had picked up at home. But Harry was not the kind of person to pry into another person’s personal life, and if Dee, his cousin, chose to place an embargo on certain events in her life, then he, for one, was quite happy to abide by it

  ‘Would you like me to tell him for you?’ Harry suggested.

  Immediately Eve’s face lit up.

  ‘Oh, Harry, would you...?’

  Standing on tiptoe, she kissed him happily and then gave a small feminine gasp as he drew her closer and kissed her back, but much more deeply.

  They were going to be so happy together, she and her Harry... She couldn’t wait for the babies they were going to have, filling the old farmhouse with their presence and the love they would all share. All houses needed love and she certainly had plenty to give. She had already briefly met Harry’s family, not officially as his intended bride because although she and Harry knew how strongly they felt about each other it had only been a very short time since they had first met, but she had seen from the looks his parents had exchanged that they had guessed how they felt about one another, and she had known straight away that she would get on well with them. Harry’s mother was, in many ways, a younger version of her own grandmother, a plump, motherly woman who would draw her daughter-in-law safely beneath her maternal wing and keep her secure there.

  ‘I’ll go and see Cox first thing in the morning,’ Harry promised her as he reluctantly released her.

  ‘You could stay here tonight if you want,’ Eve suggested daringly. ‘Brough won’t be coming back and...’

  She stopped as she saw the stern look Harry was giving her.

  ‘We agreed that we’d wait until we’re married,’ he reminded her.

  Eve pouted and smiled.

  ‘I know, but I love you so much and... Don’t you want me, Harry...?’

  The passion in the kiss he gave her was the only answer she needed.

  ‘If I stay now, I’ll have to make love to you, and if I do that... The Lawsons have a family tradition that the first child is born nine months virtually to the day of the wedding...I don’t want our child to arrive ahead of that day,’ he told her simply.

  He had such pride, such moral fibre, such strength, Eve decided adoringly as she snuggled closer to him and whispered blissfully, ‘Yes, Harry...’

  Kelly came out of the darkness of a very deep sleep so abruptly that for a few seconds she was totally disorientated. Why was she alone in bed? Why...?

  Frantically she sat up, searching the darkness of the room, and then the dim memory of Brough saying something to her about having to go came filtering back, clouded and fuzzy from the combined effects of the shock- and brandy-induced depth of her sleep.

  Shakily she went to get herself a drink of water. Her throat felt dry and her eyes were scratchy and sore. In the cold pre-dawn chill of the kitchen she shivered a little as she stared into the darkness.

  Had she and Brough really made love so intensely, so passionately, so poignantly? Had they really exchanged vows of love and commitment, told each other of the depth of their love for one another, or was it all simply a self-created fantasy...a dream? But no, she could feel the difference in her body, and knew that the words reverberating through her mind and her heart had been said...exchanged... Oh, Brough... A little weepily she started to tremble. Where on earth had he gone and why? If only she knew. Why hadn’t he woken her up properly and spoken to her? Had he really meant what he had said to her, or...?

  There was still so much they didn’t really know about one another, despite the intimacy they had shared. So much he didn’t know about her. She had tried to tell him about Julian...to explain...but her explanations had been swept away by the passion of the moment. What had he thought when he had walked in and discovered Julian with her like that?

  Her thoughts began to chase one another around inside her head until she felt sick and dizzy with the weight of them, clasping her head in her hands as she protested aloud, ‘No... No... Stop...’

  It was too early for her to get up, and yet she knew if she went back to bed she wouldn’t be able to sleep. After walking around her bedroom, touching the pillow where Brough’s head had lain and then lifting it to her face to breathe in the scent of him and press the comfort of it close to her hot face, she reminded herself that she was a mature adult woman and that this type of fevered, frantic behaviour belonged more properly to early adolescence. Wearily she walked back into the sitting room, and then frowned as the things she had brought back from the Hartwell factory caught her eye.

  Half an hour later she was blessedly engrossed in the records she was studying.

  Now, the prospect of painting the new pieces for Brough’s grandmother didn’t just appeal to her artistically but emotionally as well. How typical of Brough, her Brough, that he should think of doing this, and typical too that he should search so assiduously to find someone, the right someone, to do the work for him.

  How fitting... romantic even... that it should have been his quest to replace the missing pieces of a teaset which had originally been a wedding present for his grandmother that had brought them together, Kelly decided dreamily, determinedly ignoring the small, unwanted voice that insisted on reminding her that they had first met because of Julian Cox. That might have been their first meeting, but their first mutual realisation of their feelings for one another had been brought about by the Hartwell china, and when she told their grandchildren about it it would be that day together she would tell them about.

  Their grandchildren.

  A tiny shiver struck her. Was she taking too much for granted, reading too much into what Brough had said, the way he had held her...touched her...? When he had spoken of love had he merely been speaking of an emotion, a desire of the moment, and not meant it as she had done—that his feelings were so profound and deep that they were a commitment for life?

  Suddenly her small doubts, tiny minnows nibbling at the sure structure of her belief in his love for her, had become a swarming shoal of destructive piranha eating greedily into and devouring her confidence.

  Where was Brough? Why had he gone like that? She had a vague memory of him bending over her and speaking to her, but now, when it was crucially important to do so, she just couldn’t remember what exactly it was he had said. Something about having to go...but why? Because once the immediate passion of the moment had been spent he had had second thoughts about loving her? Or had, perhaps, her declaration of love for him come too soon and, even worse, been unwanted? Had she assumed too much...loved too much?

  Outside dawn was lightening the sky. Sternly she told herself that there was no point in allowing herself to think so destructively. Only Brough knew the answers to her questions. Only Brough could assuage her doubts. But where was he? She had his home telephone number, she could always ring him.

  She looked at the telephone, her fingers itching to pick up the receiver and dial his number, but it was still only six o’clock in the morning. What if her worst fears were correct? What if he had regretted the intimacy they had shared? How would he react when he heard her voice, an unwanted intrusion into his privacy, and an even more unwanted reminder of something he might prefer to forget? And how would she feel, knowing that he didn’t want to speak to her?

  Give it time...give him time, she urged herself.

  Six o‘clock. Brough stretched and grimaced as he turned over in the small bed in his grand
mother’s spare bedroom. It was far too early to ring Kelly and too soon to leave for home. He wanted to check with the specialist that his grandmother was truly on the way to recovery before he did that, and they had told him at the hospital last night that he couldn’t see the specialist until ten o’clock in the morning.

  He would ring Kelly before he left the hospital to come home, he comforted himself. God, but he missed her...wanted her. He frowned as he remembered the look of fear and revulsion on her face as Julian Cox held her. There was something that just didn’t jell, that just didn’t ring true to her character about her whole relationship with Cox—something he could sense without being able to analyse properly. It was obvious that she loathed him, but at the ball she had been actively flirting with him.

  Brough frowned.

  ‘We’re old friends,’ she had told him dismissively when he had challenged her, her whole attitude towards him almost aggressive. In a way that an animal was aggressive when it tried to cover up its fear?

  Brough knew with a gut-deep instinct that there was no way Kelly, his Kelly, could ever have done anything so directly opposed to her open, straightforward nature as to be deceitful. It simply wasn’t her. And neither would he have thought it would have been her ever to be even remotely attracted to a man like Julian Cox. It wasn’t his own male ego or vanity that made him think that. He simply knew that she was too sensitive, too aware, too intelligent to be attracted by a man who held her sex in such obvious contempt.

  But maybe, just maybe, it was possible that a much younger and more impressionable and vulnerable Kelly might have been unable to see through the façade that Cox was so adept at throwing around himself. His own sister, after all, had fallen for it, but that didn’t explain why Kelly had been flirting so heavily with Cox on the night of the ball.

  Wide awake now, Brough closed his eyes and tried to collect his thoughts. What was he domg? Whatever may or may not have happened in Kelly’s past, it was her past. She had no need to make any explanations or apologies for it to him. He loved her as she was and for what she was, and if she had made an error of judgement...

  An error of judgement? By allowing Cox to be her lover? The vicious kick of emotion he could feel in his stomach was an all-male gut reaction, but just as immediate and even more powerful was an instinctive awareness that there was no way Kelly would ever have shared that kind of intimacy with Julian Cox. Brough had no idea how he knew that...he just knew it. And, knowing it, he owed it to her and to their love to allow her privacy over the whole issue of just what role Julian Cox had played in her life prior to their meeting.

  Whatever it may or may not have been, there was one thing Brough was one hundred per cent sure of: it most certainly didn’t give Cox the right to behave towards her in the way he had been doing, half frightening the life out of her, bullying her.

  Suddenly Brough was even more anxious to get back to her. Half past six... He was sorely tempted to ring her, but the things he wanted to say to her were so intensely personal that they simply could not be said over the phone.

  Eve had told him that she and Harry wanted a Christmas wedding. Well, they could most certainly have it, but his own marriage to Kelly was going to take place first. Well, so far as he was concerned it was. Kelly, he suspected, might take a bit of persuading. She took her responsibilities to her partner, Beth, very seriously; that much was obvious.

  Six forty-five. Brough groaned, quickly calculating how long it was going to be before he could get back to Rye-on-Averton and to Kelly.

  ‘Are you awake?’ Eve whispered softly to Harry.

  Sternly he sat up in bed and looked at her. She might have been able to persuade him that he should stay overnight with her, but he had been very firmly determined that they would sleep in separate rooms, and they had. Eve was so sweetly naive that she had no idea of just what she was doing to his self-control, curling up at the bottom of his bed like that in her soft white nightdress, her long hair flowing down her back.

  ‘What are you doing in here?’ he demanded.

  ‘I came to talk to you...I couldn’t sleep,’ she answered, whispering excitedly, ‘Oh, Harry, I’m so happy...’ Her face suddenly clouded. ‘When are you going to see Julian?’

  ‘Nine o’clock,’ Harry responded promptly, ‘and then you and I are going out to celebrate.’

  As she looked down at her bare left hand he followed her line of thought and told her gruffly, ‘I’ve got my grandmother’s ring... I’d like you to have it, but if you don’t like it...’

  ‘Oh, I’m sure I shall,’ Eve breathed, pink-cheeked ‘Oh, Harry,’ she repeated, flinging herself into his arms, ‘I’m so excited. I still can’t quite believe what’s happening...’

  Seven o’clock. Dee pushed back the duvet and padded over to her bedroom window. Beyond it she could see the soft rolling countryside, the fertile acres which had been tended by her ancestors for so many generations.

  Once, those ancestors had been as fertile as the fields they tilled, but she and Harry were the only descendants in their generation, a poor crop yield indeed. Harry would marry, of course, and hopefully would produce sons and daughters to continue the family tradition. She would never marry nor have children since through her own experience as a motherless girl she had formed very strong views on the need of a child to have the loving support of both its parents. An old-fashioned view in this day and age, perhaps, but it was hers and she had the right to have it—just as she had the right to choose whether or not to yield to the demand of her own fast-ticking biological clock.

  Yes, the future of their family was solely dependent on Harry. It needn’t have been that way. There had once been a time when... But what was the point in dwelling on that now? Unbidden she had a sharp mental image of Julian Cox. Her whole body stiffened as a surge of pain gripped her.

  She had waited for such a long time for the chance to punish Julian Cox for what he had done... to punish him in a way which would ensure that he suffered just as she had suffered...but once again it seemed that he was evading that justice, escaping it. There was no point in her being angry with Kelly. Love was a powerfully potent force. No one knew that better than she, but it wasn’t over yet; there was still Anna’s role to be played. Julian still needed money and he needed it desperately now. Brough had already refused to invest any money with him, thus closing down that avenue of escape to him. But Julian could still marry Eve and thereby gain access to her money.

  But Brough was his sister’s trustee, and once Kelly told him what Julian had done to Beth it was Dee’s guess that Brough would never allow Julian to marry his sister. Julian was in debt up to his neck and sinking fast... very fast...

  So maybe everything wasn’t lost after all. Julian might have been clever enough technically not to break the law, but he had certainly come very close to doing so. Through the people she had hired, Dee had discovered a vast hidden tangle of false names and hideaway companies, all of which could be linked to him if, like her, you used a little creative thinking. He might deceive others but he couldn’t deceive her. There were the aliases with the same initials as his, the clever use of his mother’s maiden name and the names of people now dead.

  No, legally he might be able to laugh in the faces of his victims as he challenged them to claim restitution from him, but morally—But what did Julian know of morals? What did he care about the good name of others, about their pride in it, their shame at losing it? Nothing.

  A bitter smile curled her mouth as her eyes closed on a wave of sharp pain.

  Her father had been such a proud man. Distant and old-fashioned towards her in many ways, perhaps, but always, always scrupulously honest in everything he did...everything. But he was dead now, and it was pointless to dwell on how much closer they might have become once they had been able to meet as adults. That chance was gone, destroyed...like her option to marry and have children; stolen from her...

  Stop it, you’re getting maudlin, she warned herself sharply. It was time
for her to get up. She had work to do. The markets in Hong Kong would soon be closing. She had investments there she needed to check on.

  Julian enjoyed gambling on the futures market. Or at least he had done until recently, when he had begun to sustain such heavy losses, outsmarted and outbid, out-bought and outsold by a shadowy rival who seemed to second-guess his every thought. Poor Julian!

  When he woke up this morning it would be to find that his investments had sunk without trace, that the profit he had been so in need of making had become a loss.

  Suddenly Dee began to feel better.

  CHAPTER TEN

  WHITE-FACED, Julian stared at the screen of his computer, a sick feeling of shock and disbelief coagulating his blood.

  He had woken up two hours ago, his tongue thick with yesterday’s alcohol and his head throbbing. That bitch Kelly thought she was so clever; leading him on and then dropping him, but he’d get even with her. But first that hot tip he had picked up yesterday from his informer had sounded such a sure thing. He had bought heavily into it, using all his last reserves, but this morning when he had gone to check the market he had hardly been able to believe his eyes. The stock was gone, wiped out, finished, and with it everything he owned. Everything.

  He pushed the computer screen off his desk with such violence that it hit the floor. He picked up the keyboard and flung it against the wall of his office in an attempt to relieve his panic and fury. What the hell was he going to do? He had to have money by the end of this month. He had to. And it wasn’t just a matter of the banks calling in his loans and stopping him trading.

  A long time ago Julian had hit on and discovered how easy it was to persuade gullible and often naively managed small private charities to accept his offer of free investment advice. Eagerly they had accepted, co-opting him onto their boards, offering him access to their monies, only too glad to have him remove from their shoulders the burden of managing their investments. Just so long as he provided them with an income which increased from year to year they were happy and didn’t enquire about their capital...