The Duke's Proposal

by Sophie Weston

  There was a small silence.

  ‘Shrewd,’ he said at last. She had the feeling he wasn’t very pleased about it.

  ‘So I’m right?’

  ‘Oh, yes. The professional never takes too much. It gets you banned.’

  ‘Banned?’ She was startled. ‘Do you cheat?’

  ‘You don’t have to cheat,’ he said dryly. ‘Just be cleverer than the house.’

  They walked in silence for a moment.

  To anyone watching they must look like the last word in glamorous success. The tall, handsome man in his impeccable tuxedo. The leggy redhead, not so formally dressed but making up for that in sheer beauty. Anyone watching would think: the perfect couple.

  Only they were not a couple. They were walking just that hand’s breadth apart. But it could have been the Bering Straits between them.

  In this heavily romantic setting Izzy and her Dominic would have had their arms round each other, stopping every so often to kiss and laugh. Pepper and Steven would have walked hand in hand, Pepper’s head drooping onto his shoulder to look at the moon.

  Jemima felt that inexplicable pinching round her heart again. She moved even further away from Niall and gave him a bright, social smile.

  ‘So, do you have a system?’ she said in a brittle voice. It was what Izzy called her How Nice To Meet You, Mr Mayor voice. It went with Jemima Dare, international celebrity, professional to her fingertips. It was the voice—and the technique—she used when she launched ships and opened nightclubs. Keep them talking about themselves and they thought that you were wonderful.

  Niall showed no signs of thinking she was wonderful. He looked at her frowning. ‘What’s wrong?’

  ‘Nothing.’ If possible her smile got even wider. ‘I thought you needed a system to beat the casinos at their own game.’

  His look was searching. ‘What did I say?’

  Jemima’s unheld hand felt like ice. She clutched her arms round herself and upped the smile wattage. ‘Nothing.’ Her brightness was almost feverish by now. ‘Isn’t it true, then?’

  He shrugged, letting the subject go. At least for the moment.

  ‘It doesn’t work like that. There’s no system that will beat a roulette wheel. They all have zeroes. In the States, lots of casinos have double zeroes. That doubles the house advantage. You can lose a lot of money thinking you have a system at roulette.’ He paused. ‘What is it, Jay Jay?’

  If only he hadn’t sounded so gentle all of a sudden! If only he hadn’t used the name she had given him, the name that only people who loved her ever used! It nearly undid her.

  She blinked rapidly, so there was not a hint of tears in her eyes, and pretended she hadn’t heard.

  ‘So, how does a professional gambler make a living?’ she asked, still in Nightclub Opening mode.

  ‘What?’

  Still gentle. Disarmingly, treacherously gentle. And was he watching her eyelashes?

  Jemima turned her head away. She could flirt with the best of them, but somehow, just now, she really, really didn’t want to. Not tonight, among the Chinese lanterns, with whispering undergrowth on either side of the path and the sea lulling and hushing in the distance.

  She repeated the question, not looking at him.

  Niall seemed to pull himself together. ‘Well, the best way is at cards. If you have a good memory, and the right sort of mindset, you can count the cards that have gone. Which means that as the game goes on the odds shorten considerably against what might come up. Blackjack is the best.’

  ‘Don’t the casinos mind?’

  ‘Sure. If they catch you doing it, they ban you.’

  ‘Ban you?’ She was startled into looking at him. ‘It’s against the law?’

  ‘No. Counting cards is legal. But not many people can do it. So when someone wins too regularly, the casino security staff watch. If you’re cheating they prosecute. If you’re counting cards, they ease you out. There’s even a blacklist. And I’m not on it, because I take care to lose enough.’ He gave her a smile, devastating in its sweetness. ‘Now, can we talk about you, please?’

  ‘No,’ she said on pure reflex.

  He nodded slowly. ‘I—see. Well, what about a walk along the beach, then? Seems a shame to waste all this moonlight.’

  Jemima’s heart leaped. She caught it back hard, like someone grabbing at a runaway kite at the last moment.

  ‘Let’s waste it,’ she said firmly. ‘I’m tired.’ She gave a theatrical yawn to prove it.

  He did respond for a moment.

  Then, ‘Liar,’ he said softly.

  ‘I am.’

  ‘You spent the whole afternoon snoozing. That will deal with it.’ He paused. ‘Unless you’re older than you look, of course.’

  Jemima recognised deliberate provocation. She glared. ‘I am jet-lagged,’ she announced pugnaciously. ‘On my time it’s six o’clock in the morning.’

  ‘Nearly time for breakfast, then.’

  She gave a sudden snort of laughter. ‘Not in my world.’

  His eyes narrowed. ‘Yes, we must talk about that some time.’

  ‘About what?’

  ‘Your world.’

  She stopped laughing. ‘What about it?’ she said uneasily.

  ‘It interests me.’ He gave her a long, lustful look and lowered his voice to the soles of his feet. ‘You interest me.’

  Jemima might have trouble with her heart and her blood pressure around Niall Blackthorne, but sexy looks were nine-to-five routine to her. Every male model she had ever worked out with practised that husky throb in the voice for when he got his break in the movies.

  She gave Niall a long, lustful—and rather better—look right back, and said, ‘You lie in your teeth.’

  He blinked, genuinely taken aback for a moment. Then his lips twitched. ‘So that makes two of us. You’re not jetlagged. You’re firing on all cylinders.’

  Jemima ground her teeth. She had walked right into that one!

  He put out hand. ‘Come on. You’re woman enough for a walk in the moonlight. Aren’t you?’

  Well, put like that, of course, there was not much she could do about it. Not and keep her dignity—to say nothing of her self-respect.

  She didn’t let him hold her hand, though. That would have been too much to ask.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  IT DIDN’T take long to leave the lanterns behind. Soon the casino was no more than a glimmer of lights on the horizon. And then they rounded an outcrop, and even that was gone.

  At once all the noises of the night seemed to come closer. The metallic rustle of the breeze in the palm trees. The gurgle of a stream falling down the hillside to their right somewhere close. The pulse-beat of the sea, like a patient animal, to their left. Jemima swallowed.

  ‘All very elemental,’ she said brightly.

  Or tried to. The breeze tossed her words up and threaded them like paper. It was as if she had no substance at all. At least, not compared with all the breathing, murmuring life out there in the darkness. She didn’t want Niall to hold her hand, but even so…She stepped closer to him and stayed there.

  He looked down at her. ‘Cold?’

  She shook her head. ‘No. Just a bit—well, outclassed, maybe.’

  ‘Outclassed?’

  She gestured towards the sea. She could not see it. But she could see a path of moonlight, shifting and rippling across the unseen waves.

  ‘Look at that. It’s like being on the edge of another world. You see why people believed in all that stuff—mermaids and kingdoms under the sea and magic. I’ve never seen anything like it before. So beautiful. But a bit frightening.’

  ‘I was brought up by the sea.’

  ‘Don’t tell me,’ said Jemima, resigned. ‘You can take all this in your stride.’

  There was a laugh in his voice. ‘Well, it doesn’t frighten me.’

  She said, in a moment of pure instinct, ‘But then nothing frightens you.’

  ‘What?’ He stopped dead.
r />   Jemima stopped too, and turned to face him.

  It must be down to the night. Or the heaving, whispering sea. Or that tantalising moonlight way behind his shoulder. Something magical had happened. Suddenly Jemima was telling the truth without reservation or restraint. She had no idea how she knew it was the truth. She just did.

  ‘You can handle anything, can’t you?’ she said slowly. ‘You don’t care about anything, so you can deal with it all.’

  There was a slight, tense pause.

  Then, ‘Where did that come from?’ He did not sound pleased.

  They were so close she had to tip her head back to look at him. ‘Are you saying it isn’t true?’

  He said slowly, ‘That sounds like an accusation.’

  It did too. She had no idea why. ‘It’s not human not to care about anything,’ she said grumpily.

  ‘You’d rather I got in a panic when the unexpected happens? A panicker would have left you at the airport to fend for yourself,’ he pointed out. His tone was mocking. But underneath there was something like real anger.

  Jemima did not stop to think about that. ‘Panic?’ she scoffed. ‘What was there to panic about?’

  His hands shot out. He took hold of her shoulders and held her still in front of him, as if she had been about to strike him. Or run.

  Did his women usually run? she thought ironically. And then it caught up with her—his women? His women?

  What was she thinking of? She wasn’t one of his women! Never in a million years.

  But she still stayed there, letting him hold her.

  He said, ‘You don’t know, do you? You just—don’t—know.’

  ‘Know what?’ Suddenly she was breathless.

  For a moment he did not answer. Instead, he scanned her face as if it would tell him all her secrets. What on earth did he think he could see in the moonlight?

  Except—Jemima realised with a little shock that she was seeing a different Niall Blackthorne in the moonlight. In spite of the shadows—maybe because of the shadows—he was suddenly a stranger. Not the arrogant beach bum. Not the suave gambler either. He looked taller, graver. There were wasp stings of moonlight along those haughty cheekbones. And suddenly she thought—You’re not haughty; you’re alone.

  And diabolically handsome in the moonlight.

  Something inside Jemima woke up and started to thrum. It was like a butterfly starting to pile-drive its way out of the chrysalis. It seemed to shake her whole body, scarcely perceptible but somehow irresistible.

  It was exciting. It was utterly new. It was terrifying.

  She put a hand to her midriff, to still her too rapid breaths.

  Niall did not notice.

  He said slowly, ‘Who are you? Who are you, really?’

  Jemima blinked. ‘What?’

  She must have sounded stupid, she realised, but she couldn’t believe it. Couldn’t he sense this pile-driver that was shaking her to her foundations? Didn’t he feel it too?

  Niall shook his head. The dark hair gleamed in the moonlight. His eyes were fathomless.

  ‘Well, your own story is a lie. You’re no traveller. And my hypothesis looks as if it’s wrong too. You’ve never been inside a casino in your life, have you?’

  ‘Your hypothesis?’ Jemima echoed. Suddenly she felt very cold.

  ‘That you are here to investigate me,’ said Niall, with complete sang froid. ‘You wouldn’t be the first.’

  ‘Oh.’

  Jemima hugged her arms round her. The breeze off the sea seemed to have got a lot colder.

  ‘Not that you were very good at it. Miss Jay Jay Cooper, travelling under the name of Dare.’ His voice was ironic.

  She stepped out of his hold. That damned credit card!

  ‘Isn’t it illegal to hack into a hotel’s records?’ she asked distantly.

  ‘Who needs to hack? I looked at your register card.’

  She bit her lip. ‘That’s sneaky.’

  He was unrepentant. ‘But practical.’

  ‘Like asking me to have dinner with you,’ Jemima said on a note of discovery.

  ‘That was in the nature of damage limitation. If you were investigating me I wanted to keep you under my eye.’ His voice was hard. ‘What better way than to wander off hand in hand to the casino?’

  Jemima put both hands behind her back. ‘Sneaky and nasty.’

  He shrugged. ‘Gets results.’

  ‘Does it?’

  She looked up at the diamond chip stars behind his shoulders. If she kept her eyes wide, looking at the sky, they weren’t going to fill up with silly tears. There would have been stars like this over the Gardens of the Hesperides. Paradise would have had nights like this. Only in Paradise people didn’t spy and lie and play games.

  ‘Does it really get results?’ asked Jemima bleakly.

  ‘Oh, yes.’

  ‘So what has it got you tonight?’ she challenged him.

  ‘Well, I know you have two names.’ He paused. ‘At least two names. That’s a clue.’

  ‘Clue to what?’

  ‘That you’re not all you seem.’

  She was oddly hurt. ‘Who is?’ she said, her voice as hard as his.

  He noticed that. ‘You mind?’

  ‘Mind you snooping in my records?’ Jemima was incredulous. ‘Of course I mind.’

  ‘Not that. You mind me finding out.’

  A chill touched her. ‘You’ve found out nothing,’ she spat. ’Nothing.’

  ‘You think so?’ But it wasn’t a challenge.

  She stared at him, the sudden anger dying as quickly as it had flamed up. ‘What?’ she said, uncertainly.

  ‘I’ve found out lots.’

  ‘Oh, yeah? Like what.’

  ‘Like—you guard yourself as if you’ve got someone on your trail too. Like—you don’t hold hands lightly.’ His voice softened. ‘Like—when you laugh, your whole face changes.

  As if he could not stop himself, he touched her lower lip. It was a fleeting brush of the fingers, light as a cobweb. And it was gone almost before she had time to register it. But it set her blood pounding through her veins.

  She could not help herself. She swallowed.

  He said almost inaudibly, ‘Like—I want to know you properly.’

  She stared at him, silenced.

  He looked back, his eyes grave in the silvery shadows. He had no right to look so—so serious, Jemima thought. So concerned. He was a beach bum who lived by outwitting casinos. He had set trap after trap for her tonight. Heaven knows how many of them she had fallen into! She was out of her mind if she thought she could rely on him, even for a moment. Even for a starlit night in Paradise.

  He said, ‘Don’t leave tomorrow. Stay at Pirate’s Point. Give us a chance.’

  She said nothing.

  It could have been another trap. Jemima, listening to her blood, knew very well that it might be. And knew that she would risk it. Had to risk it.

  ‘I’ll think about it,’ she said.

  But she knew she would stay.

  The next morning she picked up some fruit from the breakfast table and wandered down onto the beach. There were several people already there sunbathing. But nobody took any notice of her, she saw, pleased.

  She finished her pineapple and looked longingly at the sea. But she still had to buy a swimsuit. So she contented herself with swirling her hands about in the salt water before wandering out to the reception desk.

  Al was there. He looked up, smiling. ‘Hi? Sleep well?’

  ‘A log would have had a hard time keeping up,’ she said gravely. ‘Any messages for me?’

  ‘No.’

  Jemima drew a long sigh of satisfaction. I’ve won this one, then, Basil. She felt as if she had taken off a particularly vicious boned basque. You didn’t notice as long as you were wearing it. But when you took it off—bliss. She gave him a great big smile.

  He blinked. ‘Want to let the folks know you’re safe?’

  ‘Oh. No. Well, I hadn�
�t thought about it. Maybe.’ She put her head on one side. She had a gap in her diary, sure, but that didn’t mean the agency would be happy to lose sight of her. To say nothing of Izzy and Pepper. ‘Yeah,’ she decided. ‘You’re probably right. I really ought to let the family know where I am. Is there an internet café anywhere in town?’

  He grinned. ‘If you want to access your e-mail, you can use the computer in the office. I give you a card and it goes on your bill.’

  ‘Great.’ She looked round the lobby. ‘I don’t suppose you have a boutique too? I meant to pick up a swimsuit at the airport. But the shops in London were closed and in Barbados they hadn’t opened. And here—’ She shook her head sadly.

  Al handed over a key card and waved a hand in the direction of a discreet door behind a palm tree. ‘No boutique, sorry. You really will have to go into town for that. I heard Niall say at breakfast that he was going to take you. Just as well.’

  She was studying the card but her head reared up at that. ‘What?’

  Al let out a crack of laughter. ‘Didn’t he tell you, then?’ He shook his head tolerantly. ‘Boy, that man gets away with murder.’ He was clearly torn between admiration and a sense that it wasn’t fair.

  Jemima wasn’t torn at all. She stiffened. ‘Oh?’

  Al shook his head, oblivious. ‘He’s such a charmer!’ he said wistfully. ‘It’s always the same.’

  ‘Really?’ Jemima was frosty.

  ‘Every time he comes to stay. Cuts a swathe through the female guests. Why, only this week—’ He broke off. ‘And here he is.’

  It sounded as if he was congratulating her on Niall bothering to put in an appearance at all, thought Jemima, fuming.

  ‘So he is,’ she said, deceptively affable.

  ‘Gorgeous morning.’ Niall was clearly in tearing spirits. ‘Ready to go?’

  This morning he was wearing Bermuda shorts that showed off more muscular mahogany brown leg than Jemima wanted to think about.

  His chest was bare too. Hair-roughened. And brown as a nut. She averted her eyes.

  ‘I may have got the wrong end of the stick,’ she told the potted palm tree with dignity. ‘I didn’t sign up to go on a date.’

  Niall was not noticeably cast down. ‘You said you’d spend the day with me. Can’t back out now.’