Marrying Up

by Wendy Holden

  Had permission been granted? Alexa was not sure. Bigski had a still, secretive face with pale eyes and paler lashes fringing them. The heavy lids were almost closed, giving him a sleepy look, although Alexa guessed this was deceptive, designed to lull others into a false sense of security. Bigski looked to her like one of those people who saw everywhere at once and could simultaneously listen into several different conversations. He looked like a man accustomed to having whatever and whoever he wanted whenever he wanted it. No wonder Mrs Bigski, who was now a few feet away talking to a woman in a tiara, was scared.

  Bigski spoke. ‘Alexa! Welcome. Any friend of Billy’s is a friend of mine.’

  Chapter 51

  Now that she stood in his presence, Alexa saw that Bigski was, in fact, small.

  Very small. Even without her shoes, she towered above him. His eyes were on the exact level of the tiny, teasing flash of nipple that her dress’s low-cut cleavage revealed.

  But the size of his wallet, Alexa thought, was obvious enough. The silk T-shirt smoothly ironed by one of a fleet of servants. Perfectly cut jacket with the Royal Yacht Squadron badge and sleeve landing at just the right spot on the wrist to reveal the topmost model in the Rolex range.

  ‘MacDonald! So you are Scottish!’ Lightly he took the end of her extended fingers. ‘I am very fond of Scotland,’ Bigski added in a Central Casting rolling accent. ‘I have several estates there. You are a MacDonald of MacDonald, I take it?’

  Alexa smiled. She had long ago learnt not to answer this question directly. ‘But if you want to see what’s under my kilt, we’ll have to go somewhere else.’

  She heard Barney’s sharp intake of breath. Possibly her rejoinder was a little pushy, and might have been a risk. But she saw the heavy eyelids flicker and knew the suggestion had made its impact. Bigski bowed. ‘Are you interested in art, Miss – or it is Lady – MacDonald?’

  Alexa did not state a preference. He could call her Lady if he wanted. ‘I adore it,’ she said.

  ‘Good. I’ve got some very interesting primeval sculptures I’d like to show you.’ Bigski’s curious light eyes were still on hers. ‘Later, perhaps,’ he added meaningfully. He bowed and moved away.

  Barney, beside her, was jiggling up and down like a small boy who hasn’t been to the loo recently. ‘You’ve done it.’

  ‘Not yet,’ Alexa said. But that she would do it, she now felt supremely confident. There was a warm, melting feeling building below her navel, which she recognised as desire.

  ‘Excitement always makes me hungry,’ Barney remarked. ‘I could murder some of the things on that buffet.’ He gestured to where, along one side of the room, lobster and oysters were arranged in row upon shining, seaweed-decorated row. Abutting them was a white-draped table where open bottles of champagne shone through shining ranks of flutes.

  Alexa, too excited to eat or drink anything anyway, with-drew to a seat by the wall and eavesdropped on a nearby conversation. One woman was describing to the other three the low-environmental-impact new house she and her husband had recently bought.

  ‘So green. We insisted on that. The pool is cleaned with marine salts, never chlorine. The garden is certified pesticide free with organic plants. Watered with Evian . . .’

  Alexa listened with exhilaration. These were wives of the super-rich; women who could tell at a glance the thread count of a Frette sheet, who knew all about advance-Fedexing your Hermès luggage. Was she about to join their ranks?

  As a new debate began about whether dogs preferred Mozart or Elvis piped into their kennels, Alexa rose to her feet. She had noticed that Bigski was no longer in the room. Was this her opportunity? Was he expecting her to find him?

  Her exit was aided by the fact that a huge ice sculpture of The Big One, filled with caviar, was making its ceremonial way into the room on a white-draped trolley, to cheers and applause from the guests.

  Alexa allowed instinct to guide her, and headed for what she imagined was the back of the boat.

  She proceeded through a series of passages and lobbies filled with statement blooms, eventually emerging onto a large deck filled with yellow and white striped furniture arranged round a small plunge pool.

  Alexa settled herself in the nearest chair, amazed at how confident she felt, how assured in her actions. She would sit and wait to be found. Liaisons like this had no real element of surprise anyway; both parties knew what they wanted. It was just a question of allowing the inevitable to happen.

  As she flicked, unseeing, through a glossy magazine on the table beside her, Alexa reflected that she should have tried for a foreign billionaire years ago. The rich deep seas of the international high life seemed both easier and more comfortable than navigating the shallow muddy puddles of the British aristocracy.

  Suddenly she looked up from the magazine and stared out across the gentle blue swell of the ocean to the mainland. She had the feeling she was not alone. The hairs rose on the back of her neck as she turned and met, over the striped back of the chair, the pale, intense gaze of Bigski. He was standing quietly in the shadows of the entrance to the deck.

  A thin smile twitched the lower section of his long, yellowish face. In return, Alexa favoured him with a mysterious smoulder. There was no need to say anything.

  He padded towards her on bare feet.

  Her heart was beating faster. It was a great moment. Never in the entire course of her career had she been in the presence of quite so much money.

  ‘You like it here?’ Bigski’s smile increased slightly. He looked as if he knew all her thoughts.

  ‘Yes, very much.’ Very much.

  ‘I am glad to have the opportunity to be alone with you.’

  Bigski leant closer towards her. ‘You are a very admirable woman, and I would like to admire you more.’

  As his chill yellow hand placed itself on her fake-tanned knee, Alexa allowed her eyelids to droop slightly and her mouth to drop open, as if this act alone sent ecstasy shuddering through her.

  His lizard eyes glowed. He smiled; his teeth glittered in the moonlight. Keeping his gaze intently on hers, he pulled her to her feet. Mindful of his height, she was careful not to straighten all the way up.

  As his mouth touched hers, Alexa tried to ignore the faint scent of garlic. Instead she flicked her tongue lightly between his teeth, and was gratified to hear a soft growl. The hands that held her tightened like a vice, and Alexa found herself forcing away images of what they might possibly have done in their pursuit of great fortune.

  The hands were pulling her swiftly across the polished deck. Half running to keep up, Alexa followed Bigski through a pair of open doors.

  She gasped. She cried out with delight. But Bigski was not even touching her. Rather, he was around the other side of a huge circular bed on which were scattered, as rose petals might be in other circumstances, masses of pieces of paper, which Alexa instantly recognised as money.

  Bigski was grinning. ‘You ever made love on a million dollars before? All new notes. We are first to use.’

  He looked at her expectantly; she kept her eyes trained on him as, slowly, she unfastened the back of her dress. Shaking it to the floor, she pulled some of her hair forward, not so much to conceal her modesty as to accentuate her nakedness.

  ‘No underwear, huh? Nice surprise.’ The teeth glistened again.

  Alexa arranged herself on the bed, The notes were crackly and rather sharp beneath her; still, if she had to have paper cuts, wild sex with a billionaire was not a bad way to get them. Her eyes flicked questioningly towards the open doors of the salon. While fairly confident about what lay ahead, she was not particularly seeking an audience.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ Bigski growled, his eyes gleaming as he lowered himself beside her. ‘No one will disturb us. They would not dare,’ he added, in a voice that made her think of the strangling hands, now moving to the zip of his trousers. He chuckled. ‘You’re about to see that I’m not called Bigski for nothing.’

  Chapter 52r />
  Giacomo had been wildly envious.

  ‘Don’t know what you’ve got to look so fed up about,’ he had grumbled as he mooched about Max’s dressing room, cracking gum in his teeth. ‘You’ll have a great time. Bigski’s yacht is one of the most expensive in the world.’

  Max did not answer.

  ‘You never know,’ Giacomo added provocatively. ‘You might even meet a nice girl.’ As his royal brother shot him a furious look, he said: ‘Honestly, I don’t know what it is about you and girls. You should try them. You might even like them.’

  Max did not dignify this with an answer.

  Now here he was at the marina. A small knot of people had gathered along the quayside and were watching him climbing on to the boat in his black tie and shining shoes. Some of them were wondering aloud if he was the Prince of Spain, others Prince Charles, which seemed especially ridiculous as the heir to the British throne was nearly half a century his senior and had famously large ears.

  Max entered the main reception room of the yacht. As every eye turned to him, the urge to flee the heavily scented room with its braying men and women wearing more jewellery than clothes was almost overwhelming.

  Navy-blue-shorted crew members in white shirts brandishing champagne hovered round, and a blonde with coat-rack collarbones, who Max assumed was his hostess, hurried towards him, rattling with diamonds. He plastered on a smile; actually, as the woman looked very apprehensive, even terrified, this was easier than he’d expected.

  ‘Mrs Bigski? I’m Maxim de Sedona.’

  She extended a hand as small and light as a child’s; he followed, through the crowd, a back so skinny that the shoulder blades protruded like Cadillac fins.

  ‘My husband is here somewhere,’ Mrs Bigski was saying, in a tone that sounded rather despairing. Her thin head on her skinny neck was turning constantly about. ‘He was, a few minutes ago.’

  Suddenly Maxim found his way blocked. A small, grinning, pink-faced man with thin dark hair plastered over to one side was standing right in front of him.

  ‘My dear Maxim! So good to see you again!’ A short arm extended and clasped him determinedly at the elbow. He was stuck fast, Max realised.

  Mrs Bigski had stopped too and was hovering, her large, worried eyes darting doubtfully from Maxim to the newcomer. But the newcomer was in supreme command of the situation. ‘My dear Svetlana – or can I call you Sveti?’ he boomed, beaming at his hostess. ‘This is such a wonderful surprise, I can’t tell you. Dear old Max and I go back years! We were at university together . . .’

  ‘What a very happy coincidence, Mr von Hoosier,’ Mrs Bigski remarked, taking a few paces backwards and starting to look about her again, presumably for her missing husband.

  ‘Van Hoosier,’ Barney corrected with aplomb. It might be a made-up name, but that didn’t mean it shouldn’t be got right.

  Maxim, who felt sorry for Mrs Bigski, realised that any attempt on his part to get away from the person now grasping him would only present her with another problem. He resigned himself to his fate. ‘Hello, van Hoosier,’ he said, without enthusiasm.

  Just when it had seemed his evening could not get any worse, it had. Barney van Hoosier. At university he had, Max remembered, crossed streets to avoid that oleaginous smile, but that option was not open to him now. Actual streets were one of the few attributes Bigski’s yacht lacked; presumably his next model would have them.

  Max wished he had brought Beano with him. His devoted spaniel had a sixth sense for people his master disliked; he would have sunk his teeth into the van Hoosier calf with alacrity. But Beano had been sick in the night; Max suspected he had overdone it in the palace kitchens. None of the staff were able to resist slipping him tasty morsels, and the royal supper had been tournedos Rossini last night. Maxim himself had found it impossible to digest it; that a small and elderly spaniel couldn’t was no surprise.

  Barney, meanwhile, was beaming from ear to ear. He could hardly believe his luck. There had been an awkward moment – well, an awkward half-hour, if he were honest – after Alexa had disappeared, when he had found himself without a single person to talk to. He had sought to address his predicament with the well-worn trick of weaving, smiling, through the crowd with two glasses of champagne, as if heading towards an acquaintance in the corner. This pretence, however, could be kept up only for two or three circuits.

  So when he saw, being ushered into the room, an old university acquaintance; a university acquaintance, in addition, festooned with royal orders and bearing himself every inch like the prince he was, Barney lost no time. He literally threw himself on Prince Maxim de Sedona.

  ‘My dear Maxim,’ he cried, steering the reluctant Prince to the side of the room.

  ‘Such a treat to see you here,’ he said fawningly. ‘The dear King and Queen are well, I take it?’ His jocosity concealed steely determination. Maxim de Sedona could be as distant and unfriendly as he liked, but Barney was a man on a mission. He had no intention of leaving the exchange without an invitation to the royal chateau, at least.

  Max resented the assumed familiarity with his parents and Barney’s all too obvious intentions. He looked around for an escape. His hostess might have helped, but he could see her at the back of the room, talking to some of the serving staff, still looking constantly about her. The missing billionaire, bazillionaire, whatever he was, had evidently still not been found.

  As, beside him, Barney continued in the same unctuous tone and with the same oily, avaricious little smile, Maxim’s dislike of him increased. Barney had just asked, with nauseous elaborateness, whether he was having an enjoyable holiday.

  Enjoyable! Max suddenly saw red. ‘Fantastically enjoyable,’ he drawled sarcastically. ‘First I was dragged back from England by my parents who’ve been trying to marry me off to a succession of women in whom I’ve no interest. And who have even less interest in me – the latest one, some girl from England, in fact, didn’t even bother to turn up. So one way or another, it’s rather spoilt my summer.’

  With that, Max turned on his polished heel and ploughed through the crowds. Barney stared after him, ablaze with excitement. How could he not have realised? Once you put two and two together, it was obvious.

  Alexa, and by extension Florrie, had not been talking rubbish after all. Maxim was the prince being prevailed upon to marry. Here was a golden opportunity; Alexa, of course, was currently exploring another. But wasn’t that golden opportunities all over? You waited ages for one, then two came along at once.

  Barney decided Alexa had to jump horses mid-race. However successful she was being – presumably at this moment – with Bigski, her installation as wife apparent would not be immediate. A period of consolidation would be necessary, and it would be complicated.

  Snaring Max would be so much simpler. There would be no wife to get rid of – if indeed Mrs Bigski could be got rid of; what was more, there would be a chateau, a title, a crown. So much more glamorous than some shady Russian fortune, and of course infinitely more prestigious. Barney could see himself, morning-suited in the front row of the royal wedding, waiting for the bride – his closest friend – to roll up in her carriage.

  He had to find Alexa with all speed. She might be in bed with Bigski somewhere, but there was a much greater and easier chance out here, and she was missing it!

  Barney felt sweaty with panic. Of course they could always call on Maxim in Sedona. But appearing at the chateau gate like any old tourist was an infinitely more demeaning way to meet him than at a party on equal ground. Max might refuse to see them anyway; Barney, who for all his ambition was realistic, was under no illusions as to the lack of esteem in which he was held by his royal acquaintance.

  Maxim’s dark head, a good foot above the rest of the crowd, was at the other side of the room now, almost at the double doors of the exit. Barney made a half-hearted dash after him, although what he planned to say or do, he had for once no clear idea.

  Indeed, for someone so customarily cool-
headed, he was all panic and indecision, as he saw the greatest chance of his conniving life slipping through his fingers. He pressed on, forging his path through the crowd with sharp little jabs of the elbow, straining to keep track of the dark head of the Prince. He had little interest in whom he shoved aside, which was why, when he came up against a particularly difficult-to-dislodge figure, he did not immediately recognise who it was.

  ‘Bloody hell, Barney,’ snapped Alexa crossly. ‘Just watch who you’re pushing out of the way, will you?’

  Chapter 53

  The few minutes that had just elapsed had not been the best of Alexa’s life. One minute she had been prostrate beneath the powerful thrusts of a panting billionaire. The next all hell had broken loose as Mrs Bigski burst into the room, eyes straining from their skull sockets, and pointed a pearl-handled gun at her husband. It was at that moment that Alexa realised she had underestimated her rival.

  She remembered with terror what Barney had said about her never walking again after this party. Kneecapping would be the least of it; shooting her dead would be the work of a second, and another few minutes would see her stowed below, ready to be consigned to the deep the next time The Big One sailed out for the day.

  Those who go down to the sea in ships . . . The words slipped into her head from nowhere. Weren’t they – or something similar – used at sailors’ funerals?

  As Bigski, suddenly not very big in any sense, leapt off her, shot over to the far wall and huddled, whimpering, with his face buried in the curtains, Alexa realised that the business of being an oligarch’s mistress, let alone his wife, was a more complicated matter than it had first appeared.

  She was lying on a million dollars in the master bedroom of a luxury yacht while a crazed-looking woman dripping in diamonds trained a lethal weapon right between her eyes. Situations didn’t come much more complicated than that.