‘If you want to see for yourself I’ll show you afterwards …’ Brough started to say, and then stopped to study Kelly’s bright pink face with interest.
‘Now there’s an interesting conundrum,’ he mused sardonically. ‘Why should a woman who openly admits that she is sleeping with another woman’s boyfriend blush at the mere mention of a completely altruistic visit to another man’s bedroom? It was my bedroom I was suggesting you view,’ he added gently, ‘not my bed …’
‘I was not blushing,’ Kelly protested. ‘It’s just … it’s just … it’s very warm in here …’
‘Is it?’ Brough asked, adding, ‘Then what, may I ask, are these?’
Before she could stop him he was running a hard fingertip down the full length of her bare arm, right over the rash of goose bumps which had lifted beneath her skin when they’d entered the room’s unheated atmosphere. And what made it worse was that the brief and totally sexless stroke of his finger had made the goose bumps even more prominent—and not just her goose bumps, she acknowledged, mortified by the unwanted discovery that her nipples were inexplicably pressing very hard, tightly aroused, against the constraining fabric of her bra.
Instinctively she turned away from him, lifting her arm in what she hoped was a natural and subtle gesture which he wouldn’t guess was designed to conceal the evidence of her body’s extraordinary behaviour from him.
He had seen it, though, seen it and been both disgusted and angered by it, she recognised, if the look she could see in his eyes was anything to go by.
My God, but she had got it badly if even the mere fact of talking about Cox could arouse her body like that, Brough fumed as Kelly turned her flushed face and aroused breasts out of his eye-line.
It had been bad enough when he had simply wanted to protect and rescue his sister from the man, but now …
‘The plate’s over here,’ he told Kelly curtly.
Silently she followed him, keeping her distance from him as he unlocked the small corner cupboard and removed the plate, but as he walked over to her and she saw it she couldn’t resist giving a small cry of pleasure, closing the distance between them so that she could take the plate from him and study it more closely.
‘Oh, it’s beautiful,’ she enthused as she traced the design lovingly with her fingertip. ‘Almost Sèvres in style and execution …’
‘Yes, that’s what they said at the factory. They suspect that the whole set might have been a showpiece set made by a particularly gifted apprentice. Apparently, when they finished their time in apprenticeship the artists were often given the opportunity to do something to act as a showcase for their skills.’
‘Yes, I know,’ Kelly agreed absently, barely able to take her glance off the plate. ‘Oh, it’s lovely—so detailed and intricate.’
She stopped and shook her head.
‘What’s wrong? Don’t you think you can copy it?’ Brough asked her.
Kelly paused.
‘I don’t know,’ she admitted. ‘It’s very complex, and the gold leaf work alone would be so expensive in materials … I … Can’t Hartwell recommend anyone else to do it for you, someone more experienced?’
Brough gave her a level look.
‘According to them there isn’t anyone more experienced,’ he told her quietly.
To her annoyance Kelly knew that she was blushing again.
‘I … I … It’s very kind of them to say so, but …’
‘They also told me that you turned down a very lucrative and secure contract with them to go into business by yourself.’
‘I … I like being my own boss,’ Kelly told him quietly.
‘Even though it doesn’t pay you anything like as well as working for them would have done …?’
‘Money isn’t that important to me,’ Kelly admitted after a small pause. There followed a very stiff, very pregnant silence during which Kelly recognised that she had said something wrong, but was not sure what.
‘I suppose you don’t agree with that kind of outlook at all,’ she challenged him when the silence had made her skin start to prickle. ‘I expect you feel that when a person doesn’t exploit their … talents to the best possible financial advantage, then—’
‘On the contrary,’ Brough interrupted her firmly. ‘I feel extremely sorry for anyone who feels obliged to accept a way of life, a means of living, that doesn’t make them happy.’
‘But you can’t believe that earning money isn’t of prime importance to me,’ Kelly insisted.
‘What I can’t believe is that a woman holding the views you’ve just expressed would in any way consider a man like Julian Cox to be a good partner for her,’ Brough corrected her.
‘I … I didn’t come here to discuss my relationship with Julian,’ Kelly told him tautly, handing the plate back to him as she did so, giving it a last lingering look of regret. There was nothing she would have loved more than to copy the design and replace the missing pieces of the teaset, especially under the circumstances Brough had outlined to her. But she couldn’t do anything that would bring her into closer contact with him. There was too much risk involved in far too many different ways.
But before she could vocalise her decision, Brough himself was speaking, telling her coolly, ‘We don’t have much time left before my grandmother’s birthday, so I’ve arranged for us to visit the factory on Wednesday. They told me when I was there that you’d need to collect the unpainted china from them and get supplies of paint.’
‘Wednesday? But it’s Monday today; I can’t possibly …’ Kelly began.
But he was already overruling her, telling her, ‘I know what you’re going to say and I’ve asked Eve if she will stand in at the shop for you for the day. She’s agreed. And before you say anything you needn’t worry—she did a stint at Harvey Nicks during her last year at school.’
‘Harvey Nicks?’ Kelly exploded, adding pointedly, ‘This isn’t Knightsbridge …’
‘No, it isn’t,’ he agreed. ‘We’ll need to get a pretty early start, so if I pick you up at, say, eight I can drop Eve off at the same time.’
‘Just a minute,’ Kelly objected. ‘I haven’t agreed that I’m going—’
‘What’s wrong? Are you afraid that Cox might object to you spending the day with me?’
‘This has nothing to do with Julian,’ Kelly told him angrily.
‘Good. So I’ll pick you up at eight on Wednesday, then,’ Brough repeated cordially as he walked over to the door and held it open for her.
There was no way she was going to be able to make him understand that she wasn’t going to Staffordshire with him, Kelly recognised, irritably
