Sheer Mischief

by Jill Mansell

“Oh!” Nina started to laugh. “I think Bruno’s worth a bit more than that, don’t you? He is my life partner, after all. I was thinking more along the lines of a new car.”

  • • •

  During the next two days, Janey didn’t have a chance either to see or speak to Bruno. By Friday night she was in a turmoil about whether to go to the party. The thought of turning up, being sociable toward Bruno and Nina, and allowing him to think that nothing had changed seemed hideously hypocritical.

  But on the other hand, and for purely selfish reasons, she was tempted to go anyway. Bruno’s famous birthday parties were a social landmark in Trezale, enormous fun and always riotously successful. His friends, glitzy and glamorous and all at least as extrovert as Bruno himself, descended from all corners of the country for the event, which invariably carried on into Saturday. Last year the gossip columns had been full of the stories about the playboy race-car driver, waterskiing naked at dawn across Trezale Bay and eloping the next day with the only just-divorced young wife of a particularly pompous Tory MP. The marriage had lasted seven months and six days, which was seven months longer than anyone who knew either of them had predicted. Earlier in the week, Bruno had shown Janey the fax sent by the same race-car driver accepting his invitation to this year’s party: “Me and my skis say yes, yes, please,” he had scrawled across the top of the page. Below it, he had written out fifty times: “And this time, I must not elope.”

  Oh, sod it, thought Janey, throwing down the evening paper and switching off the television. She’d been looking forward to this party for weeks. The prospect of sitting alone in her flat, mourning the loss of a bastard with whom she should never have gotten involved in the first place and consoling herself with a hefty bar of Cadbury’s Fruit & Nut was too depressing for words. She was going to do herself up, take herself along to the party, flirt with strangers, and have an all-around bloody good time. Telling Bruno to get stuffed could wait until next week.

  And who knew whom she might meet, Janey decided, daydreaming as she turned on the bath taps and tipped in at least half a pint of peach bubble bath. As long as she maintained a positive attitude, the possibilities were endless. And if the worst came to the very worst, there was always the waterskiing racing driver…

  By eight thirty, she was almost ready, and for once, to her immense relief, everything seemed to be going right. The black sequined dress she so seldom had the opportunity to wear looked as good as it always did, enhancing the curves she wanted enhanced and discreetly skimming over those she preferred to keep to herself. Wickedly expensive but worth every penny, it imbued Janey with self-confidence and glittered like coal when she moved.

  Her hair too had decided to behave this evening; the bronze combs holding it up at the sides were staying firmly in place, and even the loose, blond tendrils at the nape of her neck were falling naturally into place instead of sticking out at silly angles as they so often did when she tried to look chic.

  Bronze eye shadow, black mascara, a bit of eyebrow pencil, and two coats of pinky-bronze lipstick later, Janey was done. Stepping back and surveying her reflection in the mirror, she decided that if she said so herself, she looked pretty damn good.

  She was going to the party, and she was ready for anything.

  Except maybe waterskiing at dawn, she thought ruefully. At least, not in this dress…

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  The restaurant had been transformed. Tonight, minus its twenty-five tables, with wild music pulsating from loudspeakers and the lighting subdued, it looked more like a nightclub. And although it wasn’t yet ten o’clock, the place was already heaving with glamorous bodies intent on having a fabulous time.

  Bruno, wearing a new, raspberry-pink silk shirt, monopolized what was now the dance floor. With a bottle of Rémy Martin in one hand and a fetchingly disheveled brunette in the other, he was performing the lambada and simultaneously carrying on a shouted conversation with a tall, blond actor, star of a long-running series of coffee commercials. Watching him as he laughed, joked, and didn’t miss so much as a single move of the complicated dance, Janey realized that this was Bruno’s speciality; here, as if she needed it, was yet another example of his ability to have it all. He wanted to dance and he enjoyed talking to his friends, so why waste time doing first one thing, then the other? And when he liked two women, why miss out? Why not have both?

  Gazing around, she realized she couldn’t see Nina anywhere. All the women were amazingly done up; there wasn’t a shred of sprigged Laura Ashley cotton in sight.

  The next moment, in midgyration, Bruno saw her. Whispering something in the giggling brunette’s ear, he pressed the bottle of cognac against her cleavage and turned her in the direction of the actor. As he made his way over to Janey, she felt the familiar tug of longing in the pit of her stomach. The man was a liar and a cheat, but sexual attraction didn’t automatically evaporate into thin air. Willing herself to overcome it, she returned his welcoming grin with a brief smile and urged herself to remain in control. She supposed she ought to feel honored that he had abandoned the brunette in order to come and see her instead.

  “Janey, you look incredible! Mmm, and you smell of peaches…”

  As she submitted awkwardly to his embrace, Bruno murmured, “Sweetheart, relax. It’s my birthday. I’m expected to kiss my guests.”

  “Here’s your card.” Taking a step backward, she pulled it from her bag. Then, eyeing the table stacked with elaborately wrapped gifts, she added, “I didn’t buy you a present.”

  “Don’t worry, you can give it to me later.” Bruno winked. “Upstairs.”

  He simply didn’t care, thought Janey. He wasn’t even bothering to lower his voice. Taking another step back, she flinched as her high heel landed on someone else’s foot. Behind her, more and more guests were arriving, piling in through the double doors like customers on the first day of a Harrods sale. The stifling, perfumed heat combined with the green-and-gold decor gave the place a jungle atmosphere. Over to her left, a tall woman screeched with laughter like a parrot. The place was noisy and chaotic, but Bruno, she thought crossly, shouldn’t assume he couldn’t be overheard.

  “…absolutely gorgeous,” he continued, sliding an appreciative forefinger along her exposed collarbone. “Janey, you should do yourself up like this more often. I can hardly wait to unwrap you. Happy birthday to me, happy birthday to—”

  He was, Janey realized, well on the way to getting drunk. She hadn’t seen him like this before. Removing his hand from her shoulder before it could weasel its way anywhere embarrassing, she said abruptly, “Where’s Nina?”

  “Nina?” Bruno laughed. “Do I know a Nina? Come on, sweetheart, make my day. Tell me you’re wearing stockings underneath that delicious dress.”

  “Don’t be stupid.” Trying to sound brisk, Janey slapped away the errant hand now threatening to slide down her thigh. “Where is she?”

  “I say, you sound just like my old headmistress.” Bruno gazed at her in admiration. “Now there’s an idea.”

  “Where is Nina?” repeated Janey, loudly enough for those around her to hear. People were beginning to stare. “I need to speak to her.”

  “Her grandmother’s been taken ill.” He grinned once more, totally unrepentant. “She was rushed into the hospital this morning. Nina’s gone up to Berkshire to see her. She won’t be back until tomorrow night at the earliest.”

  So that was why he wasn’t bothering to be discreet, thought Janey. Feeling sorry for Nina, she said, “Is it anything serious?”

  “Chronic affluence.” Bruno helped himself to a glass of pink champagne from the table behind her and raised it in mock salute. “Dear old Granny Bentley. Seriously wealthy and ninety-three to boot. Well past her sell-by date, wouldn’t you say?”

  At first Janey didn’t say anything at all. At that moment, her task became easier. To Bruno it had simply been a flip one-liner, but as f
ar as she was concerned, it was downright cruel. And wonderfully, miraculously off-putting.

  “My grandmother is ninety-four,” she lied, her tone icy. “Maybe you think she’s past her sell-by date too.”

  • • •

  André Covel, who owned the hugely successful surf shop where Alan had spent most of Janey’s hard-earned money and who had been a particular friend of his, refilled Janey’s glass with white wine. Glancing across at Bruno, who was now back on the dance floor with the stunning Italian wife of a well-known rock singer, he raised his sun-bleached eyebrows and said, “You seem to know Bruno rather well. Anything going on that I should be told about?”

  Definitely not, thought Janey with a suppressed shudder. She liked André, but he was the most appalling gossip. And he knew everyone…

  “No.” She made it sound as if the idea was an amusing one, because anything the least bit emphatic would only bring out the Sherlock Holmes in him. “Not my type, thanks.”

  “Bruno?” Jan, André’s girlfriend, had been only half listening. With a giggle she said, “Everyone’s his type, though, lecherous old sod! D’you know, last Christmas he tried to seduce me in the kitchen of this very restaurant? It was right at the end of the evening, but there were still three tables of customers out here. Bruno invited me through to the back to see his Sabatier knives and told the washer-up to take a ten-minute coffee break. I told Bruno to take a running bloody jump,” she declared with pride. “I mean to say, ten minutes!”

  Bruno’s reputation was evidently common knowledge. Janey, who had never known of it until now, realized that she simply hadn’t been mixing in the right circles. Gossip, it appeared, had its uses after all.

  But anger and humiliation churned inside her. She just wished she could have had this conversation six weeks ago, before falling blindly into Bruno’s arms and kidding herself that it was love.

  “That’s nothing,” André was saying, oblivious to the effect his revelations were having. As he offered Janey a cigarette, he lowered his voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “Remember Natasha, the blond with the tattoo on her bum who came to work for me last year? Bruno had an affair with her mother. Fifty years old and the manageress of that building society on Pink Street. She was totally besotted with him, apparently. Natasha said she only just managed to persuade her not to have a face-lift.”

  “Fifty!” squealed Jan, who was twenty-four. “Practically old enough to be his mother. Yuck, totally gross.”

  Janey had heard more than enough for one night. The white wine wasn’t going down too well; her stomach felt like a nest of snakes. Moving away in search of food, hoping it might help, she found Nick and Tony, the antique dealers from next door, who were admiring the splendid buffet. Tony, wearing a magenta cravat and a new, extremely glossy toupee in a startling shade of chestnut, was piling his plate with scampi tails and endive salad. Nick, who had been greedily envying the whole fresh salmon, slipped his arm around Janey’s waist and gave her a welcoming peck on the cheek. He smelled of Penhaligon cologne and garlic, and Janey smiled because at least it was safe to assume that neither of them had ever slept with Bruno. They were devoted entirely to each other.

  “Here you are, my darling. Teeny Cornish potatoes coated in bread crumbs, deep-fried, and rolled in garlic butter.” Nick popped one into her mouth, selected another for himself, and rolled his eyes in appreciation. “Sheer heaven. Better than sex.”

  “Lovely,” agreed Janey when she had swallowed. With a grin she added, “So Bruno hasn’t thrown you out yet.”

  “Too busy philandering,” Nick remarked with a nod in Bruno’s direction. Following his gaze, Janey saw that Bruno and a blond appeared to be playing pass-the-orange without the orange.

  “Bless him,” said Tony with an indulgent smile. “He works hard. He’s just letting off steam. If you can’t philander on your birthday, when can you?”

  According to André, Bruno had been doing it day in, day out throughout most of his adult life. He practically made a career out of it. Reminded once more of her own gullibility, she said, “He’s getting too old to be a philanderer. Before long he’s not going to find it so easy to impress the girls.”

  “Ah, but he has charm,” Tony observed through a mouthful of salmon. “Charisma. Mark my words, that boy will always get by.”

  Nick and Tony adored Bruno. Janey couldn’t decide which was the most painful, being regaled with André’s scurrilous gossip or having to endure this paean of praise. Belatedly, she wished Maxine could have been here with her tonight. Maxine, who didn’t yet know the sordid truth, had sensed instinctively what Bruno was really like and had tried to warn her away from him.

  I was wrong and she was right, thought Janey wryly, sipping her drink. Ouch.

  It would have been nice to have company too. Doing herself up and telling herself that the party would be fun was all very well, but now that she was actually here, Janey was beginning to feel conspicuously single. Most of the guests were from out of town, and she didn’t know as many people as she had imagined she would. Sometimes even being driven to distraction by Maxine’s over-the-top flirting was preferable to standing alone and wondering who to talk to next.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  The next moment, just to prove she looked as solitary as she felt, a male voice behind her said, “Speak of the devil’s sister. Hello, Janey. All on your own tonight?”

  Turning, she saw that it was Guy Cassidy, looking ridiculously handsome in a black dinner jacket and white shirt. Next to him stood a tall, titian-haired woman wearing a strapless topaz silk evening dress. Janey smiled as Guy, making no mention of Serena, introduced her as “Charlotte, a friend of mine.” From what Maxine had told her, he had almost as many female friends as Bruno.

  “I was just telling Charlotte about Maxine’s latest adventure,” Guy went on, his tone dry. “She got onto Josh’s skateboard, shot down the lane at the end of our drive, and landed up in the back of a milk-delivery truck. The milkman almost had a heart attack.”

  Janey winced. “Was she hurt?”

  “No, but she spent the rest of the afternoon washing strawberry yogurt out of her hair. And the milkman, in a state of shock, ran over the skateboard.”

  “Poor Josh.”

  “Poor Maxine! Very poor Maxine, in fact. As soon as her hair was dry, Josh dragged her down to the shops and made her buy him a new one.” With a grin, he added, “It cost thirty-eight pounds. When I found out what he’d done, I didn’t have the heart to tell her he’d bought the old one at Oxfam for a fiver.”

  This time Janey laughed. Grateful that Guy hadn’t asked her where laughing-boy James was tonight and eager to keep him away from the subject, she said, “When she was seven, Maxine rode her bike into a fish pond and ended up covered in frog spawn. You’d think she would have learned her lesson by now.”

  Guy stepped to one side as a man wearing a crash helmet, white silk boxer shorts, a tropical suntan, and a pair of water skis made his way past. “This party would suit Maxine down to the ground,” he observed. “She could have brought Josh’s new skateboard along and challenged that chap to a race.”

  “She’d certainly enjoy herself.” Janey wondered where Serena was. “Is Maxine at home with the children?”

  “I thought it would be safer,” Guy replied enigmatically. “Bruno invited her, of course, but I told her it was her turn to babysit, and for once she didn’t kick up a fuss.”

  Surprised and faintly put out because she hadn’t realized Bruno had invited Maxine to the party, Janey said, “Oh.”

  Charlotte, who was gazing with fascination at the waterskiing race-car driver, drawled, “Do you know, those boxer shorts are completely see-through.”

  “Enthralling.” Guy returned his attention to Janey. “We hadn’t planned to come here ourselves; Charlotte pressed me into partnering her at a charity dinner at some castle in Bodmin, but it was
so god-awful we escaped at halftime.”

  “Between the main course and the sweet.” Charlotte, gazing fondly up at Guy, slid her hand into his.

  “I didn’t particularly want to come here either,” said Guy. “Bruno Parry-Brent isn’t one of my favorite people, but he knows how to throw a party. And at least the food’s edible.”

  Janey raised her eyebrows. “Does this mean you’re gate-crashing?”

  “Oh, I was invited too.” He looked amused. “Probably because I’m a good customer and Bruno felt I deserved to be thanked.”

  Charlotte, who evidently felt that Guy was spending too much time talking to a rival female, gave his arm a possessive tug. “Come on, darling. We’re missing all the fun.”

  “Hooray,” said Guy. On the dance floor the water-skier had now been joined by a fat man in a bikini with a surfboard under his arm. “Why don’t you go and dance with them?”

  “I’ve got a much better idea.” Charlotte wasn’t about to give in. Her green eyes glittered. “Why don’t you come and dance with me?”

  “Oh look, there’s Suzannah.” Embarrassed and terribly afraid that Guy was only staying because she was on her own and he felt sorry for her, Janey waved at a girl she barely knew. With a brief smile she said, “Do excuse me. I must go and say hello.”

  At least Suzannah didn’t mention Bruno. “My boyfriend’s buggered off to Ibiza,” she pouted. “Men, honestly. He didn’t even have the nerve to tell me to my face! All I got was a message left on my answering machine saying he’d be back in three weeks. How about you, Janey? Are you seeing anyone at the moment?”

  Out of the corner of her eye, Janey glimpsed Bruno murmuring into the ear of yet another blond. The next moment he was kissing her neck.

  “No,” she replied firmly. “Nobody at all.”

  Suzannah, who was also blond and whose parents owned the largest yacht in Cornwall, didn’t work. Getting her hair highlighted and zipping around in her open-top jeep evidently occupied all her time.