as lacking in enthusiasm to her friend as it did to herself.
‘Oh, but I’ve just realised; we’ll be leaving at the end of the week so I shall miss it,’ Kelly complained. ‘Still, we’ll definitely be back for Christmas; that’s something I have insisted on to Brough, and fortunately he agrees with me that our first Christmas should be spent here at home…together…Which reminds me. Please save me a set of those wonderful glasses, Beth.’
‘Er, yes, I shall,’ Beth confirmed.
With luck, she would be able to get the mistake in her order reversed and the correct stemware sent out to her whilst Kelly was away. Whilst Kelly was away, yes, but would she get it in time for the all-important Christmas market? When selecting the pieces for her order she had deliberately focused on the colours she deemed to be the most saleable for the Christmas season; deep red, rich blue, fir-tree green, all in the lavishly baroque style and decorated with gold leaf. Beautiful though the pieces were, she doubted that they would have the same sales appeal in the spring and summer months.
One hour and five unanswered telephone calls after she had finished speaking with Kelly, Beth sat back on her heels and stared helplessly around her chaotic storeroom.
The horror and the anger she had initially felt at having received the wrong order were giving way even more to frantic unease and suspicion.
The factory she had visited had been a large one, and the sales director she had spoken with suave and business-suited. The cabinets which had lined the walls of his plush office had been filled with the almost mouth-wateringly beautiful stemware from which he had invited Beth to take her choice for her order.
His secretary’s office, which she had glimpsed through an open door as he had escorted her from the reception foyer and into his own office, had been crammed with the most up-to-the-minute modern technology, and it was just not feasible that such an organisation would not, during office hours, have its telephone system fully manned and its faxes working.
But every time Beth had punched the numbers into her own telephone she had been met with a blank silence, an emptiness humming along the wire. Even if the factory had been closed for the Czech Republic version of a Bank Holiday, the telephone would still have rung.
The most horrible suspicion, the most awful possibility, was beginning to edge its way into Beth’s thoughts.
‘Don’t be taken in by what you’ve been shown,’ Alex Andrews had warned her. ‘Some gypsies are thought to be used as pawns in organised crime. Their aim is to sell non-existent goods to gullible foreign tourists in order to bring into the organisation foreign currency.’
‘I don’t believe you. You’re just trying to frighten me,’ Beth had told him furiously. ‘To frighten me and to make sure that I give my order to your cousins,’ she had added sharply. ‘That’s what all this is really about, isn’t it? Telling me you’ve fallen in love with me…claiming to care about me…I would be gullible if I had fallen for your lies, Alex…’
Beth didn’t want to remember Alex’s reaction to her accusations. She didn’t want to remember anything about Alex Andrews at all. She wasn’t going to allow herself to remember anything about him.
No? Then how come she had dreamed about him virtually every night since her return from the Czech Republic? a small inner voice taunted her.
She had dreamed about him simply out of the relief of knowing she had stood by her own promises to herself and not fallen for his lies, his claims to love her, Beth told her unwanted internal critic crossly.
She looked at her watch. It was almost four o’clock. No point in trying the Czech suppliers again today. Instead she would repack her incorrect order.
Dee, their landlady for the shop and the comfortable accommodation that went with it, who had now become a good friend, had invited her over for supper this evening.
Dispiritedly she started to repack the stemware, shuddering a little as she did so. The crystal was more suitable for jam jars than stemware, Beth decided with a grimace of distaste.
‘Haven’t I heard,’ Dee had queried gently a few weeks ago, ‘that some of the processes through which their china and glassware are made are a little crude when compared to ours…?’
‘At the lower end of the market perhaps they are,’ Beth had defended. ‘But this factory I found originally actually made things for the Royal House of Russia. The sales director showed me the most exquisite pieces of a dinner service they’d had made for one of the Romanian Princes. It reminded me very much of a Sèvres service, and the translucency of the china was quite breathtaking. The Czech people are very proud of their tradition of making high-quality crystal,’ Beth had added.
She had Alex Andrews to thank for that little piece of information. It had been something he had thrown furiously at her when she had accused him of trying to persuade her to buy his cousins’ goods, and the cause of yet another quarrel between them.
Beth had never met anyone who infuriated her as much as he had done. He had brought out in her a streak of anger and passion she had never previously known she possessed.
Anger and passion. Two very dangerous emotions.
Quickly Beth got back to repacking the open crates. Remember, she told herself sternly, you aren’t going to think about him. Or about what…what happened…
To her chagrin, Beth could feel her face starting to heat and then burn.
‘God, but you’re wonderful. So sweet and gentle on the outside and so hot and wild in private, so very hot and wild…’
Furious with herself, Beth jumped up.
‘You weren’t going to think about him,’ she told herself fiercely. ‘You aren’t going to think about him.’
CHAPTER TWO
‘MORE coffee, Beth…?’
‘Mmm…’
‘You seem rather preoccupied. Is anything wrong?’ Dee asked Beth in concern as she put down the coffee pot she had been holding.
They had finished eating and were now sitting in Dee’s sitting room, where several furnishing and decorating catalogues were spread open around them. Dee was planning to redecorate the room, and had been asking Beth for her opinion of the choices she had made.
‘No. No…I like the cream brocade very much,’ Beth told Dee quickly. ‘And if you opt for the cream carpet as well, that will allow you to bring in some richer, stronger colours in the form of cushions and throws…’
‘Yes, that was what I was thinking. I’ve seen a wonderful fabric that I’ve really fallen for, and I’ve managed to track down the manufacturer, but it’s a very small company. They’ve told me that they can only accept my order if I pay for it up front, and of course I’m reluctant to do that, just in case they can’t or don’t deliver.
‘I’ve asked my bank to run a financial check on them and let me have the results. It will be a pity if the report isn’t favourable. The fabric is wonderful, and I’ve really set my heart on it. But of course one has to be cautious in these matters, as no doubt you know.
‘You must have really been keeping
