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have you?’ Dee demanded.
‘No, of course I haven’t,’ Kelly reassured her immediately.
‘Well, you mustn’t. It would ruin everything.’
‘I’m not a complete fool, you know, Dee,’ Kelly informed her a little irritably. She liked Dee, but sometimes her autocratic attitude irritated her a bit. She wasn’t like Beth, who accepted Dee’s slight bossiness with placid gentleness even whilst she accepted that the older girl’s heart was in the right place and her motives good.
‘No, not a complete fool,’ Dee agreed dryly, ‘but certainly foolish enough to agree to go to Staffordshire with Brough. I understand he’s a very attractive man,’ she added slyly.
‘Not so far as I’m concerned,’ Kelly responded immediately, ‘but the china he wants me to copy certainly is and, not only that, it’s extremely rare and may even be unique. It’s a wonderful opportunity, Dee,’ she added, warming to her theme, her enthusiasm for the project colouring her voice. ‘An almost once-in-a-lifetime chance to work on something very different and very special.
‘Oh, Beth rang, by the way,’ Kelly informed Dee. ‘She’s having problems with her interpreter, apparently, but she never said a word about Julian, thank goodness.’
‘That is good news,’ Dee agreed.
‘I do feel worried for Eve Frobisher,’ Kelly told her.
‘You must concentrate on the business in hand,’ Dee advised her. ‘Eve Frobisher has her brother to protect her interests. Has he said anything about Julian to you, by the way?’
‘He’s certainly made it plain that he doesn’t approve of my relationship with him,’ Kelly informed her.
‘Mmm … You know, I’ve been thinking … It could work to our advantage if you let him think that he might be able to persuade you to have second thoughts about Julian. Men love that—feeling that they’re taking charge, doling out advice to some poor, helpless little female. It feeds their egos, and it wouldn’t do any harm to get Brough Frobisher on our side.’
‘He isn’t going to fall for any ‘‘helpless little me’ act from me, Dee,’ Kelly informed her.
‘You don’t know until you try it,’ Dee told her persuasively. ‘There’s no saying what helpful information we could pick up about Julian’s business affairs via him if he—’
‘I don’t know, because there’s no way I am going to try it.’ Kelly cut across her comment swiftly. ‘Tricking Julian into believing I find him attractive is one thing, lying to Brough is quite another …’
‘It is? Why?’ Dee asked her interestedly.
‘Because I don’t like lying to anyone,’ Kelly told her sharply. ‘The only reason I’ve agreed to deceive Julian is because of what he did to Beth and to stop him from doing it to anyone else. Persuading Brough to believe that I’m some kind of helpless little creature who needs protecting and rescuing from her own emotions, who can’t take responsibility for her own life or her own actions, is just so gross that there’s no way I would even contemplate it. Besides, he wouldn’t believe me. He’d see through what I was trying to do immediately.’
‘He knows you that well after spending … how long … a few hours or so with you, does he?’ Dee mused. ‘Amazing …’
‘He believes that I’m intent on trying to take Julian away from his sister. Let’s just leave it at that whilst we’re ahead of the game, shall we?’ Kelly told her curtly, ignoring her gentle jibe.
‘Okay,’ Dee soothed her, adding, ‘Look, I need to have a word with Anna about her making contact with Julian to offer to lend him the money he needs for this new venture. Now that Brough has turned him down he’s going to be too urgently in need of financial backing to question Anna’s motivation too deeply, which suits us very nicely. Brough has unwittingly done us a very big favour in turning Julian down.’
‘I’m sure he’d be delighted to hear that,’ Kelly told her sotto voce.
‘Oh, by the way, Harry sends his best love,’ Dee told her teasingly. Kelly grimaced into the receiver.
‘He does?’ she questioned, unable to resist the temptation to tell Dee dryly, ‘That’s odd; he seemed far more interested in Eve at the ball than he was in me. Now there’s a match. The pair of them are so well suited they might have been made for one another.’
‘Eve loves Julian,’ Dee pointed out to her.
‘No, what she loves is the man she believes that Julian is,’ Kelly corrected her soberly. ‘Poor girl, he’s going to break her heart.’
‘Well, if you’re right, Harry will be more than willing to help her to mend it,’ Dee told her practically. ‘Remember, Kelly, you’ve got to convince Julian that you want him; that way when you drop him as publicly as he dropped Beth he’ll never even guess what’s going to happen until it does and …’
‘I’m not sure that he’ll leave Eve for me,’ Kelly warned her. ‘Eve believes that he’s going to marry her …’
‘So did Beth and look what happened to her,’ Dee pointed out. ‘He’s going to be furious when he finds out how we’ve tricked him, furious and totally and completely humiliated,’ she said cheerfully. ‘And it couldn’t happen to a more deserving man.’
‘You really hate him, don’t you?’ Kelly recognised.
‘Yes. I really hate him,’ Dee agreed, and she put the receiver down. Kelly thought she heard her saying, But nowhere near as much as I hate myself, but she couldn’t be sure, and anyway it was too late to question Dee any further since she had hung up.
Wednesday morning came round too soon. Kelly was awake early—too early, she decided as she watched the sun rise.
It still wasn’t too late to refuse to go to Staffordshire but what excuse could she realistically give?
Impossible to tell Brough the truth—that she was afraid of going with him, afraid of what she might say, of what he might guess … of what she might feel … But if she didn’t go …
Julian had rung her again last night. Reluctantly she had agreed to meet him for a drink at a local wine bar this evening.
‘Julian, you’re dating someone else,’ she had reminded him coldly, ‘and so am I …’
‘Harry,’ he had scoffed. ‘He’s no match, no man for a woman like you, Kelly.’
‘And I suppose that you are,’ she had taunted him, holding her breath at the recklessness of what she was doing.
‘Try me,’ he had told her, sniggering suggestively. ‘I promise you, you won’t be disappointed.’
Kelly had been glad that the telephone meant he couldn’t see the shudder of revulsion she gave.
‘You and I are two of a kind, Kelly,’ he had told her thickly. ‘We take what we want from life. We’re both adventurers, exciting … passionate … I knew that the first time I saw you. I knew then how good we’d be together …’
‘When you were dating Beth, you mean,’ Kelly had reminded him coldly.
‘Beth is history,’ he’d told her dismissively. ‘But you and I … you and I are now, Kelly …’
‘You and I are nothing,’ she had told him.
‘Tomorrow night,’ Julian had countered. ‘Be there, Kelly … You know you want me and I sure as hell want you …’
Want him? Completely revolted both by his conversation and his tone of voice, Kelly had replaced the receiver.
She could just imagine what Brough would have to say.
Brough.