“You have a price list?”
“Of course.” She didn’t need to look his way to know that his wide mouth was curling just so at the corners and his dark eyes had a glint of amusement…or perhaps something else that right now might not be a good idea. Or was it? “I’ll print you out one. Any particular products you’re interested in?”
“Depends on prices. I’d like a quantity of the small bowls, mugs, and dishes. Assorted glazes will be fine, and say three, no, four, of the large lamp bases and urns.” She glanced up, and he nodded. “I’ve found, as a rule, that smaller items sell better if there’s an expensive item on display.”
He grinned. Watching with fascination was a big mistake. “I see. Sneak selling, eh? Hook them on the pricey stuff they can’t afford so they permit themselves a consolation purchase.”
She grinned back. What the hell? He’d started it. “It’s not infallible, but works quite nicely most of the time.”
Michael reached over her shoulder for a shallow dish with a pale turquoise glaze. “Take it as a sample,” he said, putting it in her hand. “Let’s go back into the kitchen and have tea while the price list prints out.”
She closed her hands over the smooth, cool glaze and walked back into the house as he stepped aside and locked the door to the warehouse after them. He was very security conscious for someone living this far from civilization, but he did have his livelihood in that small warehouse.
She put the dish on the counter beside her as she sat on the stool he held for her and watched as he reached for two mugs from hooks under the shelf.
He’d made the mugs himself, of that she was sure—the outsides showed wide marks from his hands on the wheel. Inside and outside, they were covered with a white glaze that let the darker clay show through on the wide curves. “Milk?” he asked.
She nodded. “Please, but no sugar.” Not that it tasted any different to her, but why put refined sugar in her body when it had no use for it?
He poured the tea, passed one mug her way, and offered a tin of biscuits. She refused, but he took four chocolate-covered digestives and proceeded to munch on them with particularly white and strong-looking teeth. He swallowed and looked at her. “Okay. What sort of commission are you charging?”
Better talk business than dwell on luscious, dark eyes. Better discuss delivery dates and returns than wonder how his sandy curls would feel against her face or how his tanned skin and rich blood would taste on her tongue.
Later. She could and would return, but for now, she had a deal to hammer out.
It was twilight before she was ready to leave.
He walked with her across the footbridge to her parked car, hesitating as he offered his hand. “Bye,” he said. “I’m sure I’ll be hearing from you.”
Her fingers closed over his, his eyes registering surprise at the strength of her handclasp.
She smiled. “We’ll keep in touch. Once I have storage space ready, we’ll firm up the consignment.” She dropped his hand and stepped away, fighting the temptation to step closer. He was mortal. She’d visit him, yes, but…“Goodbye!”
“Bye, Antonia,” he replied. “Be careful reversing.”
She drove back down the lane, half of her determined to return and feed and give Michael Langton a night of dreams to remember, while some deep instinct insisted that with this man she was biting off more than she should. Her mouth twisted at the unintentional pun. Sweet Abel! What did it matter? She’d never harm him. Couldn’t. Wouldn’t. But she had no question in her mind. She’d return. Soon.
Michael Langton stood listening until there was no sound of her engine and even the scent of motor oil and petrol had faded.
He should have thrown her out of his pottery at first sight. Yeah, right! He could no more have done that than change his nature. Antonia Stonewright fascinated him. Women were danger, trouble, and traps for the unwary. But about Antonia he sensed something different. True, she’d been all business, but he’d need to be devoid of all five senses not to catch her interest: the glimmer in her eyes, the scent of her skin. Odd, he hadn’t noticed a quickened heartbeat, but her smile and her voice had been enough.
She shared his interest.
The prospect was a recipe for disaster. He hadn’t cultivated the reclusive artist persona to have it breached by a good-looking woman down from Yorkshire.
Pots and bowls—yes, he’d send them on consignment. But never, ever could anything more than business exist between them.
He looked up at the sky. Two, three hours before dark, with moonrise a couple of hours after that.
He returned to the house, rinsed out the mugs they’d used, and walked over to the pottery to check the progress of the new firing. The kiln would be at temperature by dawn, and he’d be back long before then. He wedged several pounds of clay, slicing it with a twisted wire, before dropping each segment on the remainder, turning, cutting, and dropping again, until the clay was smooth and free of air bubbles. Satisfied, he wrapped it in a wet cloth and heavy plastic.
He washed his hands and took off his clay-covered smock and hung it on the hook by the door. Back in the house, he unzipped his jeans and left them, and the rest of his clothes, in the bathroom. He set the security system and closed the door behind him. Naked, he walked out into the moonlight. Standing in the shelter of a cluster of trees, he looked up at the full moon, threw back his head, and let out a deep, feline howl. Minutes later, a large, dark shape ran on all fours toward the open fields.
Chapter 3
James Chadwick stared at the papers spread on the leather-topped satinwood desk. He’d checked three times and scoured every single paper in the deed box. This was all there was. The pile spread out in front of him included his own birth certificate and those of his mother, uncle, and grandparents. Marriage and death certificates for his grandparents and death certificates for his great grandparents. Heck, even a stack of outdated passports and driver’s licenses and his parents’ marriage certificate dated six months before his birth. Interesting! But most interesting was reading his parents’ names: Rachel Stephanie Amy Caughleigh and Roger Alexander Chadwick. Amy, spinster, aged seventeen and Roger, retired solicitor, aged sixty-six. Crap almighty! May and December wasn’t in it. What wouldn’t he give to know the story behind that? A rushed marriage with Sebastian putting leverage on his younger sister? Or was it his grandparents? They had still been alive then. Just. They’d both died in a car crash a year after the shotgun wedding.
James let out a slow whistle. Seems the Caughleighs had a couple of eventful years. His parents’ marriage, his father’s death from heart failure five months after his birth, his grandparents’ accident, and then his own mother’s death.
Except that as punctilious as dear Uncle Sebastian had been about record keeping, Amy Chadwick’s death certificate was missing. Odd. Extremely odd.
James thought back to the little he remembered about his mother. She was fun; she laughed and played with him. Why not? She’d been not yet eighteen when he was born and twenty-four when she’d disappeared, and only a few months after that, he’d been told she was dead, and Uncle Sebastian had left him with old Sarah Wallace when he went off to the funeral in…
Damn! He could not remember. He had to have been told, surely? But at six, he’d scarcely grasped what it meant that his mother was dead. Never to come back. Ever.
Odd, thinking back, but ole Uncle Sebby had never been inclined to speak of his sister. The few times James had asked, he’d been brushed off. Not really surprising. Sebastian always brushed off anything he didn’t want to be bothered about. It had only been a year later that Sebastian had yanked him out of the village school and packed seven-year-old James off to boarding school.
James