The Mistress Assignment

by Jordan, Penny

  Kelly made a small, tortured whimper of protest but both men seemed to be ignoring her.

  ‘Well, you saw for yourself at the ball how it was,’ Julian continued tauntingly. He was beginning to enjoy himself now. The effects of the drink he had consumed earlier were beginning to wear off, sharpening his instincts. Kelly looked white and sick. Oh, yes, he really was enjoying this.

  ‘Of course, Kelly and I are old mates. She and I had a little thing going when I was dating her partner, Beth. Kelly’s like that. She prefers a man who belongs to another woman, don’t you, my pet? She says it adds to the enjoyment...gives it an extra kick of excitement for her...and she certainly likes her excitement, does our Kelly. Has she...?’ He used a phrase which horrified Kelly and made her face burn with shame. She couldn’t bring herself to look at Brough. How could she defend herself against Julian’s charges without going into lengthy explanations? And besides, what was the point? She already knew that Brough didn’t want her, didn’t love her as she did him.

  Not returning her love was one thing, she reminded herself in anguish, but having him receive this kind of information about her, knowing how it must affect his judgement of her and his future memories of her, was quite another.

  ‘It’s okay, though,’ Julian continued laconically. ‘I’ve put her in the picture about Eve and she knows that you were just using her to draw... All you really wanted was to get her out of my life... Is...she in, by the way? I promised her I’d take her out this morning to choose an engagement ring.’

  As he spoke Julian stepped determinedly past Kelly, almost knocking her over.

  ‘I agree with what you said about her,’ he commented loudly to Brough. ‘She’s really just a good one-night lay.’

  Suddenly, as Julian looked into Brough’s eyes, the drunken fumes momentarily cleared from his brain. He had, he recognised sickly, made a bad mistake—a dangerous error of judgement. But it was too late for him to have second thoughts now, he realised as the contempt in Brough’s eyes became a seething fury.

  Kelly couldn’t bear to hear any more. Without turning to look at Brough she started to walk and then to run desperately away, ignoring the concerned stares of passers-by as she ran, head down, along the street, back in the direction she had come.

  Brough watched her like someone turned to stone.

  ‘I need to see Eve, Brough,’ Julian started to plead whiningly.

  Cold-eyed, Brough turned to look at him. ‘Eve is marrying Harry,’ he told him. ‘You’re not wanted here, Cox, and if I find you anywhere near my sister for any reason...’

  ‘Are you threatening me?’ Julian began to bluster as he knew he had gone too far in venting his rage against Kelly.

  ‘No. I’m telling you,’ Brough said softly. ‘And, by the way, you’ve wasted your time coming here. Eve isn’t here; she’s gone to visit her in-laws-to-be. Now, if you’ll excuse me I—’

  ‘I wouldn’t waste your time going after Kelly,’ Julian interrupted him, grinning. ‘Everything I said about her was true. But you must have found out what she’s like for yourself by now. She doesn’t make a man waste time; I’ll give her that. Pretty energetic in bed, isn’t she? Pity she’s not been a bit more exclusive about how she hands it out...’

  Julian never saw the blow that hit him, he certainly felt it, though, as he dropped to the floor, trying to stern the blood pouring from his nose. He started to curse but Brough had already gone.

  Instinctively Kelly headed for the river path and its protective seclusion.

  She couldn’t go back to the shop, not just yet, and there was nowhere else, no one else, she could go to—not like this...

  Oh, but it had hurt, hurt more than anything else in her life, knowing what Brough must be thinking about her. None of Julian’s crude accusations were true, of course—at least not in the way he had said them.

  Apart from a brief, immature adolescent relationship with the boy who had been her first lover, there had been no one else in her life other than Brough, and certainly no one else in her bed. But how on earth could she prove that to Brough?

  He might not love her but at least he had liked her, respected her, and she couldn’t bear to think of him now carrying an image of her that Julian had painted for him. But even if she could bring herself to face him and explain, why should he believe her?

  The river path was empty of other walkers, and Kelly’s fast pace had slowed as the thoughts started to tumble around in her head.

  ‘Kelly!’

  The shock of hearing Brough’s voice behind her made her stumble, but immediately he was beside her, catching her up in his arms.

  ‘Why did you run off like that?’ he demanded as her body stiffened defensively in his hold.

  Agitatedly Kelly shook her head. The shock of him suddenly appearing, never mind what being held so close to him was doing to her nervous system, was too much for her to cope with.

  ‘Those things that Julian said—it wasn’t...I never... You have been the only one—’ Kelly stopped, unable to go on.

  She could feel Brough’s tension, and when he lifted his hand to raise her chin so that she was forced to look into his eyes Kelly felt as though she would die from the pain of what she was expecting him to say, but to her shock what she saw in his eyes wasn’t contempt and rejection, but love and tenderness and, along with it, anxiety.

  ‘Kelly, I don’t understand. You surely don’t think I could possibly place any credence on what Cox was saying?’

  Kelly stared at him.

  ‘You didn’t... you don’t believe him?’ she whispered.

  ‘Of course not. How could I? What kind of man do you think I am?’ he demanded, his expression changing, darkening. ‘I certainly don’t need a man like Cox to tell me anything about the woman I love. I can learn about her for myself, and what I have learned...’

  The woman he loved. Kelly felt as though her heart was going to burst with joy.

  ‘You love me?’ she asked him huskily.

  He was still frowning.

  ‘Of course I do. You know that. I told you... Kelly... Kelly, darling, please don’t cry,’ he begged her as he drew her closer. ‘Please, please don’t cry, my love...’

  ‘You left me,’ Kelly wept, more out of relief and joy than unhappiness; after all, what possible reason was there for her to be unhappy now, with Brough’s arms around her, Brough’s words of love ringing so sweetly in her ears, Brough’s lips so close to hers?

  ‘I had to,’ Brough told her. ‘I’d had a phone call to say that my grandmother had been taken into hospital. You were so deeply asleep I couldn’t bear to waken you...’

  ‘Your grandmother,’ Kelly repeated, instantly asking anxiously, ‘Oh, Brough, what...? How...?’

  ‘She’s fine... She had a fall followed by pneumonia but she’s well on the way to recovery now and very much looking forward to meeting you.’

  ‘You’ve told her about me?’ Kelly asked him shyly. ‘Oh, what...?’

  ‘I told her you were interested in seeing her teaset,’ Brough teased her, relenting when he saw the uncertainty still clouding her eyes.

  ‘I told her I love you and that I want you to be my wife,’ he told her huskily. ‘She can’t wait to meet you and I’ve promised that I’ll do my best to persuade you to come with me when I drive down to see her tomorrow...’

  ‘Oh, Brough...’

  ‘You’re crying again,’ he chided her.

  ‘It’s because I’m so happy,’ Kelly assured him. ‘Say that again...’

  ‘What, that you’re crying?’

  ‘No... what you said about loving me and wanting to marry me,’ Kelly told him softly.

  ‘I love you and I want you to marry me,’ Brough repeated dutifully, but before Kelly could respond to him he was cupping her face and kissing her tenderly and slowly, and then not tenderly at all as her emotions caught fire and she clung passionately to him, returning the demanding pressure of his mouth, her whole body singing with joy as it recogn
ised just how much he truly loved and wanted her.

  ‘Brough, about Julian...’ Kelly began slowly when she had finally managed to persuade him to stop kissing her.

  ‘What about him? He means nothing to us; he has no place in our lives, our future,’ Brough pointed out.

  ‘No. But, yes, he does have a place...sort of...in my past,’ Kelly told him carefully, adding hastily, ‘Oh, no, it’s not that we were ever lovers.’ She gave a small shudder. ‘I couldn’t...he’s loathsome...and I... Well, as a matter of fact, you’ve been the only...that is... There was a boy when... Brough, how can I explain about Julian if you keep on kissing me?’ she protested shakily.

  ‘You don’t have to tell me anything about your past,’ Brough told her quietly.

  ‘You are the person you are, Kelly, and that includes everything and everyone in your past that has gone to make up that person, that Kelly—my Kelly. Without those experiences you wouldn’t be the Kelly I love so much... You didn’t really think I’d place any credence on those ridiculous lies that Cox was telling, did you?’ he asked her, obviously pained that she might have done.

  ‘I... I...I thought, after the way you left me, that you’d had second thoughts about...about us. And then, when I got your telephone message, I thought you wanted to see me to tell me that...that it was...that I was...that there wasn’t any future for us...’

  Kelly bit her lip as she heard the incredulous sound he made, but she was determined to finish what she had to say.

  ‘I...’ She raised her head and looked him firmly in the eye. ‘When you and I met at that ball, I was flirting with Julian, and it was because of that that I thought you might think...’

  ‘What I thought that night was that even though I knew nothing at all about you there was something odd about your behaviour, something that somehow didn’t ring quite true, something alien and quite patently uncomfortable for you in your behaviour towards Cox.’

  ‘You felt all that but...but you kissed me as though—’ Kelly began, but Brough stopped her.

  ‘That was an experiment,’ he told her boldly. ‘I was curious about you, about the... er... discrepancies in your behaviour and the person I sensed you were, and I was curious about... I felt that if I kissed you I would immediately be able to tell—’

  ‘You’re fibbing,’ Kelly interrupted him. ‘How could you tell anything from just one kiss?’

  ‘I could tell that I was falling in love with you,’ Brough told her wryly, silencing her before continuing, ‘It did puzzle me that you should be acting in a way that was quite plainly out of character for you,’ he admitted quietly. ‘But I decided that whatever your reasons for doing so, they were your reasons. You are a woman, adult, mature, perfectly capable of making your own decisions and doing whatever you decide is right for you. I have no right nor reason to question those decisions, nor would I want to do so,’ he told her gravely. ‘As I’ve already told you, Kelly, I love the person you are, and whatever you choose to do or not to do...’

  ‘I did it for Beth,’ Kelly told him quickly. ‘It was Dee’s idea...’

  Briefly she explained what they had planned to do.

  ‘Beth... So that was the girl Cox was seeing before he met Eve. Cox told Eve that she was obsessed with him and that—’

  ‘No way...’ Kelly told him indignantly. ‘He was on the verge of getting engaged to Beth when he met Eve and then he told poor Beth that she had imagined everything... that he had never said he wanted to many her. But Beth’s not like that. She’s gentle and sweet, a passive, loving...’

  ‘Rather like my sister, in fact,’ Brough concluded grimly.

  ‘A little like that,’ Kelly agreed. ‘But of course Beth didn’t have any money...’ She sighed. ‘I’m sorry if I sounded unkind...’

  ‘No, you’re only corroborating my own thoughts,’ Brough told her. ‘However, fortunately that’s not a problem we need to worry about any more, since Eve has informed me that she is in love with Harry and that they intend to get married at Christmas. Christmas, apparently, is a perfect time for a marriage in the farming community...’

  ‘Harry...? I knew he was attracted to her,’ Kelly admitted. ‘He’s Dee’s cousin. That was why he was escorting me at the ball.

  ‘Brough, what are you doing?’ she demanded as Brough turned her round and, tucking her into his side, proceeded to walk briskly back in the direction they had just come.

  ‘I’m taking you home with me,’ he told her firmly, and then added huskily, ‘Do you realise it’s almost twenty-four hours since I made love with you?’

  ‘Brough,’ Kelly protested as he took her back in his arms and proceeded to show her just how long a time he felt those hours had been.

  ‘Kelly...’ he teased her softly as he nibbled at her bottom lip and felt the sweet response of her body and herself to his caresses.

  ‘I’ve got to go back and re-open the shop,’ she told him.

  ‘Why?’ Brough demanded. ‘There’s no point; all its stock has just been sold.’

  ‘What... what are you talking about?’ Kelly demanded in bemusement. ‘Who...? What...?’

  ‘I’m talking about the fact that if the only way I can get you to myself is to buy every piece of stock in your precious shop, then that’s exactly what I shall do,’ Brough told her rawly.

  ‘You can’t do that,’ Kelly protested. ‘It will cost you a fortune...’

  ‘Yes, I can. I’m a very rich man,’ Brough assured her sweetly, adding huskily, ‘The richest and happiest man in the world now I’ve got you, my love, my precious only one true love.

  ‘My grandmother’s already nagging me about a white wedding.’

  ‘Cream...’ Kelly murmured, nuzzling closer to the promising intoxication of his mouth. ‘Cream suits me better...’

  ‘Mmm... Well, there’s no way I intend to wait until Eve gets married...’

  Kelly’s heart gave a funny little jump.

  ‘It takes at least three weeks for the banns to be read, and my family will have to come back from South Africa...’

  ‘Mmm... Well, that certainly won’t take three weeks, but I hear what you’re saying. How about we make it the same time as Nan’s wedding anniversary, which is several weeks away? I know it would mean a lot to her if you and I chose the same wedding day...’

  ‘It sounds perfect,’ Kelly told him happily.

  ‘It is perfect...like you...perfect in every way...and don’t you ever forget it,’ Brough told her huskily as he drew her even more deeply into his arms.

  EPILOGUE

  ‘TRY not to feel too bad that things didn’t work out,’ Anna tried to console Dee gently. ‘We may not have been able to reveal Julian in his true colours, but at least Beth seems to be getting over him. She never mentioned him once the last time she rang me, and in fact she seemed far more concerned about the problems this interpreter’s causing her than her broken engagement And just think, if it hadn’t been for you, Kelly and Brough might never have met...’

  Dee gave her a rueful look.

  They were sitting in the pretty conservatory at the back of Anna’s house, Anna’s cat purring loudly on her knee whilst her little dog begged hopefully for crumbs of the home-made biscuit Dee was eating.

  ‘I wish I could be more like you, Anna,’ Dee told her in a rare admission of self-criticism. ‘You have such a peaceful acceptance of life...’

  ‘Maybe now,’ Anna agreed with her gentle smile, ‘but not always. When I first lost Ralph, my husband...’ She paused and shook her head. ‘But that’s all in the past now.’ She looked thoughtfully at Dee before continuing quietly, ‘Have you ever thought, Dee, that it might be time for you to put Julian and whatever...?’ She stopped and bit her lip as she saw the storm clouds beginning to darken Dee’s magnificent eyes.

  ‘No. Never. There’s no way I can put Julian in the past until—’

  Abruptly Dee stopped. Close though she had become to both Kelly and Anna these last few weeks, there were still some things
she just couldn’t bring herself to discuss with them, some confidences she couldn’t even make to gentle, understanding Anna.

  ‘It isn’t over yet,’ she said fiercely instead, reminding Anna, ‘At least he’s taking the bait in our trap.’

  Their trap? Wisely Anna said nothing. Something that went far, far deeper into Dee’s past than her relatively recent friendship with her own goddaughter, Beth, was motivating Dee in her need to see Julian get his just deserts.

  ‘Julian’s already made overtures to you, hinting that he could put you in the way of a highly profitable investment opportunity, hasn’t he?’

  ‘Yes, he has,’ Anna agreed.

  ‘Excellent. We’ll get him yet, and when we do...’

  ‘When we do, what?’ Anna pressed her gently.

  Dee turned to her, her eyes bleak with an anguished pain that touched Anna’s tender heart as she told her grimly, ‘When we do, we’ll expose him for the liar and the cheat that he is! The liar, the cheat and the murderer,’ Dee emphasised.

  The murderer? Anna was too shocked to say anything, and Dee was already getting up, pausing only to give the waiting dog the titbit she had saved for him before turning to hug Anna and tell her, ‘I’ll be in touch. There are a few arrangements I need to make to ensure that you’ll have sufficient cash available to properly tempt Julian. I think probably that fifty thousand pounds should do it...’

  ‘Fifty thousand pounds!’ Anna gasped in protest. ‘Oh, Dee, so much. But...’

  ‘It’s nothing,’ Dee told her quietly. ‘Nothing compared with the cost of a man’s life.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ she reassured Anna as she saw her anxious face. ‘You won’t be in any danger.’

  No, maybe she wouldn’t, Anna acknowledged as she watched Dee drive away ten minutes later, but what about Dee? Ridiculous though she knew other people would find it, in view of Dee’s uncompromisingly self-assured attitude, Anna actually felt very protective towards her. No one could look into those tortoiseshell-coloured eyes and see, as she, Anna, had so briefly seen, the pain and anger that sometimes lurked there, without doing so.