A Treacherous Seduction. Penny Jordan

What’s it short for?’

      ‘Bethany,’ Beth told him.

      ‘Bethany…I like that; it suits you. My grandmother was a Beth as well. Her actual name was Alžb

ta, which she anglicised when she and my grandfather fled to Britain. She died before I was born—of a broken heart, my grandfather used to say, mourning the country and the family she had to leave behind.

      ‘When my parents finally visited Prague, after the Revolution, my mother said that she found it incredibly moving to hear her family talking about her. She said it made her mother come alive for her. She died when my mother was eight…’

      Beth made an involuntary sound of distress.

      ‘Yes,’ Alex agreed, confirming that he had heard and understood it. ‘I feel the same way too. My mother missed out on so much—the loving presence of her mother and the comfort of being part of the large, extended family which she would have known had she grown up here in Prague. But then, of course, as my grandfather used to say, the opposite and darker side of that was the fact that because of his political beliefs he would have been persecuted and maybe even killed.

      ‘The rest of the family certainly didn’t escape unscathed. My grandfather was a younger son. His eldest brother would, in the normal course of events, have inherited both lands and a title from his father, but the Regime took all that away from the family.

      ‘Now, of course, it has been restored. There are some families living in the Czech Republic today who have regained so many draughty castles that they’re at a loss to know what to do with them all.

      ‘Fortunately, in the case of my family, there is only the one. I shall take you to see it. It is very beautiful, but not so beautiful as you.’

      Beth stared at him, completely lost for words. British he might claim to be, British his passport might declare him to be, but there was quite obviously a very strong Czech streak in him. Beth had done her homework before coming to Prague; she knew how the Czech people prided themselves on being artistic and sensitive, great poets and writers, idealists and romantics. Alex was certainly romantic. At least in the sense that he obviously enjoyed embroidering reality and the truth. There was no way she came anywhere near deserving to be described as beautiful, and it infuriated her that he should think her stupid enough to believe that she might be. Why was he doing it?

      She was about to ask him when the lustres caught her eye again. Alex was right; they would be expensive on sale in a hotel like this one, but there must be other factories that made the same kind of thing—factories that did not charge expensive hotel prices to tourists. Without an interpreter, though, she would have no chance of finding them.

      Beth turned to Alex Andrews.

      ‘I know exactly what the going rate for interpreters is,’ she warned him fiercely, ‘and you will have to be able to drive. And I intend to check that the hotel management is prepared to vouch for you…’

      The smile he was giving her was doing crazy things to her heart, making it flip over and then flop heavily against her chest wall like a stranded salmon.

      ‘What are you doing?’ she protested, panicking as Alex reached for her hand.

      ‘Sealing our bargain with a kiss,’ he told her softly as he lifted her nerveless fingers to his lips. And then, before they got there, he stopped and told her thoughtfully, ‘Although perhaps on second thought…’

      Beth went limp with relief. But it was a relief that came a little bit too soon, for, as she started to pull away, Alex leaned closer to her and swiftly captured her mouth with his own, kissing it firmly.

      Beth was too shocked to move.

      ‘You…you kissed me,’ she gasped in a squeaky voice. ‘But…’

      ‘I’ve been wanting to do that from the first moment I saw you,’ Alex told her huskily.

      Beth stared at him.

      Common sense, not to mention a sense of self-preservation, screamed to her that there was no way she could employ him as her interpreter, not after what he had just done, but his mesmeric grey eyes were hypnotising her, making it impossible for her to say what she knew ought to be said.

      ‘We’ll need a hire car,’ he was telling her, just as though what he had done was the most natural thing in the world. ‘I’ll organise one.’