The Mistress Assignment

Instinctively she glanced down at her own wedding ring finger. It was slightly thinner than its fellows as if once...? Then determinedly she looked away.

In the rear of the car her two fellow conspirators were succumbing to the effects of the extremely potent red wine she had deliberately fed them, their eyes closing.

She knew she ought to feel guilty about what she was doing—they were both so innocent and unaware, so unsuspicious...

CHAPTER TWO

KELLY woke up with an aching head and a dry mouth. Groaning, she rolled over and looked at the alarm clock on the bedside table.

Ten o’clock. She must have slept right through the alarm. Thank heavens it was Sunday and the shop didn’t open until later than usual.

Swinging her legs out of bed, she winced as the ache in her head became a thunderous nausea-induced pounding.

It was all Dee’s fault, insisting that they finish that bottle of red wine.

Dee...

Kelly froze in mid-step and then collapsed back onto the bed, groaning. What on earth had she done? She would have to telephone Dee straight away and tell her that she had changed her mind, that there was totally, absolutely, completely and utterly no way she could go through with the ludicrous plan she had agreed to last night.

Tottering towards the phone, still clasping her head, Kelly saw the answering machine light was flashing. Obediently she pressed the reply button.

‘Kelly,’ she heard. ‘This is Dee. I’m just calling to confirm the plans we made last night. I’ve discovered that Julian and his new girlfriend will be attending a charity bash at Ulston House this evening. I’ve managed to get you a ticket and an escort—just as a bit of extra insurance. Julian is going to find you even more of an irresistible challenge if he thinks you’re with someone else. Remember, all you have to do is egg him on whilst playing just that little bit hard to get. I know how close you and Beth are and I know that you wouldn’t dream of reneging on our plan or letting her down.

‘Harry, your escort, will call for you at seven-thirty. He’s my cousin, by the way, and completely to be trusted, although, of course, he knows nothing of our special plan. He thinks you just need a date for the evening because you’re attending the do for business reasons. That could be the truth, incidentally—an awful lot of influential local people will be attending the dinner and the ball afterwards. Bye for now...’

What on earth did Dee think she was doing? Kelly wondered as she stared at the phone like someone in shock. And how on earth had she managed to get two tickets for that ball at such short notice? Kelly knew all about it. Those tickets were like gold dust. Not that she intended for one minute to go. Dee was taking far too much for granted and Kelly intended to tell her so. Where on earth had they put her telephone number?

Kelly winced as pain throbbed through her head. Last night’s red wine had an awful lot to answer for—oh, an awful, awful lot!

Dee’s number had to be somewhere and she certainly had to speak with her. Ah, there it was; she had missed it the first time in the address book. Breathing out noisily in relief, Kelly punched in Dee’s telephone number.

The tell-tale delay before the call was answered warned her what was going to happen even before she heard the familiar sound of Dee’s voice on the answering machine message.

‘I’m sorry, I shan’t be able to take your call today. Please leave your number and I’ll call you back tomorrow,’ Dee was announcing. Thoroughly exasperated, Kelly hung up.

Perhaps she could drive over to Dee’s and persuade her that they ought to change their minds and their plans. What had seemed a reasonable plan last night, this morning seemed more like a totally implausible, not to say highly dangerous thing to do. For one thing, it went totally against all her own principles and, for another, how on earth was she supposed to give Julian Cox the impression that she found him attractive and desirable enough to want to break up his relationship with someone else when the truth was that she found him loathsome, reptilian and repulsive?

Yes, physically he was an attractive enough looking man, if you went for his boyish brand of fair-haired good looks, but looks alone had never been enough to attract Kelly, and there had been something about him, something about his attitude not just towards Beth but towards her as well, which had set alarm bells ringing in Kelly’s head virtually from the first moment she had seen him. She had made a point of keeping out of the way whenever he was around and when they had had to meet she had kept a very cool and formal distance from him.

So how on earth was she supposed to convince him now that she suddenly found him the epitome of male sexiness?

She couldn’t. She wasn’t going to try. She had been a fool even to think of agreeing to Dee’s outrageous plan, but she had agreed and something warned her that it wasn’t going to be easy to convince Dee that she wanted to change her mind.

And if she backed out and Anna didn’t, how was it going to look? She was, after all, Beth’s best friend and, indeed, perhaps the best way of convincing Dee that her plan wouldn’t work would be for her, Kelly, to show her how impossible it was going to be, by going to tonight’s ball. She would be safe enough. There was no way that Julian Cox was going to repeat his attempt to come on to her, not after the way she had put him down the first time. And once she had failed to re-attract his notice Dee would surely accept that she had done her best and allow the subject to drop.

Yes, far better to do things that way than to risk offending Dee, who was, after all, only acting out of kindness and affection for Beth.

Where on earth were those wretched headache tablets? She had pulled everything out of their small medicine cabinet without finding them, and she knew she had bought some. And then she remembered she had given them to Beth, after the terrible crying jags she had had after her break-up with Julian had left her with a splitting headache. Glumly Kelly made her way to their small kitchen and filled the kettle.

The flat above the shop was on two floors; on the upper storey were hers and Beth’s bedrooms and their shared bathroom, and on the lower floor was their comfortably sized living room, a small dining room and an equally small kitchen.

Outside at the rear of the property was a pretty little garden, and at the bottom of it was the workshop which Kelly had made her own territory. That was where she worked on her new designs and painted the china she had accepted as private commissions. Painting pretty porcelain pieces and enamel boxes was her speciality.

Before joining forces with Beth, Kelly had worked as a freelance from her parents’ home in Scotland, supplying her pretty hand-decorated enamel boxes to an exclusive London store.

At three o’clock, with the shop still busy with both browsers and buyers, Kelly acknowledged that she was not going to be able to make time to snatch so much as a quick sandwich lunch, never mind drive over to Dee’s.

Ironically this Sunday had been one of their busiest since they had opened the shop, and she had not only sold several of her more expensive pieces, she had also taken orders for seven special commissions from a Japanese visitor who had particularly liked her enamelware boxes.

At four o‘clock, when she was gently showing the last browser out of the shop so that she could lock up, she was beginning to panic, not just about the fact that it was becoming increasingly obvious that she was going to have to go through with Dee’s plans for the evening but, femalely, because she knew that she simply did not have in her wardrobe a dress suitable for such an occasion. She and Beth had ploughed every spare bit of cash they had into their business—both of them had been helped with additional loans from their bank, their parents and Beth’s grandfather. Anna, too, had insisted on making them a cash gift, to, as she’d put it, ‘cover any extras’. They were beginning to show a small profit, but they certainly weren’t making anything like enough to warrant the purchase of expensive evening dresses.

Ordinarily, knowing she was attending such an occasion, Kelly would have done as she had done for her graduation ball and trawled the antiques shops and markets to find something she could adapt, but on this occasion there simply wasn’t time, and the smartest thing she had in her wardrobe right now was the elegant dress and coat she had originally bought for her brother’s wedding and which, though smart, was hardly the kind of outfit she could wear to a charity ball.

After she’d checked that she had securely locked the shop and that the alarm was switched on she made her way up to the flat. She was still finding it hard to understand what on earth had possessed her to agree to Dee’s outrageous scheme last night. She was normally so careful and cautious, so in control of her life. Beth was the gentle, easily manipulated one of the two of them; she was far more stubborn and self-assured. Too stubborn, her brother often affectionately told her.

Certainly she knew her own mind; she was, after all, a woman of twenty-four, adult, mature, educated and motivated, a woman who, whilst she would ultimately want to have a loving partner and children, was certainly in no rush to commit herself to a relationship. The man with whom she eventually settled down would have to accept and understand that she would expect to be treated as an equal partner in their relationship, that she would expect in him the same qualities she looked for in a best friend: loyalty, honesty, a good sense of fun, someone who would share her interests and her enthusiasms, someone who would enhance her life and not, as she had seen so often happen in so many other relationships, make the kind of demands on her that would prevent her from living her life as she really wanted to live it

‘But what happens if you fall in love with someone who isn’t like that?’ Beth had once questioned when they had been discussing men and relationships.

‘I won’t,’ Kelly had responded promptly.

Poor Beth. What was she doing right now? How was she feeling...? Kelly had never seen her looking so wretched or unhappy... Beth had really believed that Julian Cox loved her.

Since their break-up Kelly had heard rumours that Beth wasn’t the first woman he had treated badly. No, Beth was better off without him, Kelly decided as she went into their kitchen and filled the kettle. She gave a small shudder as she remembered the night she had returned early from a weekend visit to her parents to discover Beth almost unconscious on her bed. Taking too many sleeping tablets had been an accident, an oversight, Beth had assured her, and had pleaded with her not to tell anyone else what she had done as Kelly sat beside her hospital bed. Unwillingly, Kelly had agreed. Luckily she had found Beth in time...luckily...

Remembering that incident, Kelly slowly sipped her hot coffee. Was Dee really asking so much of her? No. She didn’t relish the role she was being called upon to play—what modern woman would?—but it was only a means to an entirely justifiable and worthwhile end.

But that still didn’t solve the problem of what she was going to wear. She and Beth were approximately the same size although Beth was fair-skinned and blonde, with soft, pretty grey eyes, whereas she was brunette, her skin tone much warmer, her eyes a dark purplish brown, damson—the colour of lilac wine, one besotted admirer had once called them.

The ball had been the subject of a great deal of excitement and speculation in town. It was to be the highlight of the town’s social year. The de Varsey family, who owned the elegant Georgian mansion where the event was to be held, had been local landowners for the last three hundred years and, despite their cost, tickets had been snapped up and the event sold out within a week of them going on sale, which made it even more extraordinary that Dee should have been able to produce a pair at such short notice.

Kelly could remember how thrilled and excited Beth had been when Julian had told her that he had bought tickets for the event.

‘I’ll have to hire something really special. This isn’t just a social event for Julian, it’s a very important business opportunity as well,’ she had told Kelly breathlessly.

Kelly had never properly discovered just exactly what line of business it was that Julian was in. He had talked very grandly about his own financial acumen and the hugely profitable deals he had pulled off, and he certainly had spent a lot of time talking into the mobile phone he took everywhere with him. He drove a very large and very fast BMW, but lived in a surprisingly small service flat in a new and not particularly attractive apartment block on the outskirts of town.

Kelly hadn’t been at all pleased when she had learned that he had suggested to Beth that she allow him to have some of his business mail addressed to their flat, but she had refrained from making too much fuss, not wanting to upset her friend.

Beth had been thrilled at the prospect of attending such a prestigious social event with him—as his fiancée; now another woman would be going there with him in Beth’s place.

‘Remember she could be just as much a victim of his ruthlessness as Beth was,’ Dee had reminded her and Anna last night when Kelly had commented that she didn’t know how any woman could date a man who she knew was supposedly committed to someone else.

If that was the case, Julian Cox deserved to be revealed as the unpleasant and untrustworthy creep that he was, for her sake as much as Beth’s, Kelly acknowledged, frowning as she heard her doorbell ring.

She wasn’t expecting any visitors. Although she and Beth had made several new acquaintances since moving to the town, as yet they hadn’t progressed to the stage of many close friendships. Getting up, she went downstairs to open the door that faced onto the main street.

A man was standing outside, a large box at his feet, a delivery van parked on the roadside behind him.