The Monte Carlo Proposal

by Lucy Gordon

  Then there were the newlyweds, Charles and Jenny Stover. I’d been their best man six months ago. When I explained to them that I needed their help, and exactly what kind of help I needed, they laughed and said fine!

  Grace looked askance, though whether because Jenny was an old flame of mine or Charles was an old flame of Selina’s I wouldn’t like to say.

  But I told her I’d invited them now and it was too late to go back on it. She’s not the only one who can do bland innocence.

  But the one that really made her mad was Derek Lamming. His heart was set on Selina, and I think they’d have been married by now if Grace hadn’t stuck her oar in, trying to secure Selina for me.

  ‘You needn’t think I don’t know what you’re up to,’ Grace fumed to me.

  ‘I’m sure you do,’ I told her, grinning. ‘But I learned deviousness from you, so naturally I’m good at it.’

  ‘You do realise we don’t have room for all the extra people you’ve invited, don’t you?’

  ‘Then we’ll need a bigger yacht.’

  That was how we exchanged the modestly luxurious vessel that Grace had chartered for the much larger Hawk.

  What can I say about The Hawk? Think Onassis with knobs on. Other yachts had one swimming pool, The Hawk had two. It slept forty in over-the-top decadence.

  Every cabin was done in a different style-French Second Empire, Roman villa, Egyptian splendour, Renaissance-all of them with solid gold accessories.

  Since I was supposedly the big cheese of the outfit, I had a suite with a sunken bathroom, and a bed that could have slept ten.

  Grandpa Nick would have laughed himself to stitches.

  At the last minute Grace said worriedly, ‘You won’t do anything to offend Selina, will you?’

  ‘Grace, I will be the perfect gentleman with Selina,’ I vowed. ‘I won’t try to entice her into the moonlight, I won’t ogle her in a swimsuit, in fact I won’t even look at her in a swimsuit. I won’t try to kiss her, or hold hands with her. I won’t do one single thing that could compromise me into marriage with her. You can count on that.’

  ‘All right, be difficult if you have to be. You know what I mean. I don’t want to hear any more about this other woman-Cindy, or whatever her name is.’

  ‘I never told you her name, and I’m not telling you now.’

  ‘But you won’t invite her to come along with us, will you?’

  ‘No, I promise I’ll confine my meetings with her to fleeting assignations wherever we drop anchor.’

  Grace gave a scream, chiefly because she couldn’t decide if I was serious or not. I decided to leave it that way. ‘Cindy’ might be useful.

  I had no idea, then, just how useful.

  We set off from Southampton and went across to Cherbourg on the first day, then across the Bay of Biscay and down the coast of Portugal to the Mediterranean.

  We had a good time, with plenty of dinner and dancing, card-playing, wheeling and dealing-and flirting. I solved that problem by flirting madly with almost every woman aboard. Especially Jenny.

  She was safe. I could romance her without fear of being hog-tied. But then Charles got a bit tense-actually said I was overdoing it. He responded by dancing smoochily with Selina for a whole evening. Then it was Jenny’s turn to get tense.

  They mended matters by vanishing into their cabin for three days, and emerging wreathed in smiles.

  That was how I wanted to look when I found ‘her’. It wasn’t going to happen with Selina. I was beginning to wonder if it would happen with anyone.

  In Gibraltar Charles and I managed to jump ship for a few hours, returning with the dawn. He spread tipsy hints about a lady I was supposed to have met ashore, then clapped his hand over his mouth as if realising that he’d said too much.

  Grace gave me a look that would have shrivelled a lesser man.

  We pulled the same stunt in Naples and Venice. Then it was time to start back down the Adriatic coast, with Grace snapping at me and demanding to know just how stupid I thought she was.

  ‘If I thought you were stupid I’d be less scared,’ I told her truthfully.

  ‘Does this young woman really exist?’ she demanded.

  ‘My lips are sealed,’ I replied solemnly.

  ‘Then I think it’s time we met her.’

  ‘Is that the royal “we”?’

  ‘No, it includes Selina, since you’re playing fast and loose with the poor girl’s feelings.’

  ‘Grace, for the last time, I will not marry Selina. Is that understood?’

  ‘We were talking about your lady-friend. Do tell me when you mean to produce her. Perhaps she’ll be at the next port. You can bring her on board and we’ll all have such a jolly time together.’

  A master stroke. Game, set and match to Grace.

  I had to produce a girl soon.

  And Grace knew that I had nobody to produce.

  Palermo, Naples, Genoa: all the way up the coast I ducked and dived, with Grace asking, with unbearable sweetness, when she would have the pleasure of meeting my ‘friend’.

  When we anchored at Monte Carlo there were still several days left to go, which filled me with gloom. I was wondering how I could arrange an urgent call home and high-tail it out of there.

  The day after we arrived I received an unexpected gift. It was a set of solid gold diamond-studded cufflinks, and they came from a man called Hugh Vanner, on The Silverado, anchored just next door.

  I couldn’t wait to get rid of them. I’d vaguely heard of Vanner. He was the kind of shifty character who hung around on the fringe of the legitimate business world, picking up what he could get. His methods were those of a slimeball. I sent the cufflinks back with a note saying that I didn’t accept gifts from strange men. It was a safe bet that he wouldn’t get the joke.

  We all went to the casino. It was a sedate visit, during which we all behaved sedately and lost sedate amounts of money, then returned to the ship consoling each other for losses that we would barely notice.

  Once back on board we all went to our cabins, prior to congregating for a nightcap. I was feeling a bit tense, because Selina had been making significant remarks all evening and I could feel the noose tightening.

  The last straw came when a steward informed me that Vanner had called the ship while I was away.

  Now I was really paranoid. Looking out, I saw lights on The Silverado, and I had sudden visions of him coming over. I’d been hunted as much as I could stand, and suddenly I went mad.

  ‘Tell the Captain to have the boat ready to take me ashore again,’ I said. ‘And keep quiet about it.’

  Before leaving I changed my cufflinks. It was a chance to test a theory. I’d worn platinum cufflinks for the first visit to the casino, and lost. Now I was wearing Grandpa’s old tatty ones.

  My luck turned the moment I went in. I won until I got bored with winning, then strolled out into the gardens. At once I knew I was being stalked.

  My boredom with money doesn’t extend to giving it to people who are trying to pilfer it, so I made my move first, pouncing on whoever was crouching in the bushes.

  Suddenly I was grappling with a whirling dervish who thumped and kicked with alarming force and precision. The last one caught me straight in the midriff and almost winded me. It was sheer desperation that made me toss the other party to the ground and dive on top.

  And there was approximately ninety pounds of slender female writhing beneath me. If I hadn’t been gasping already I had plenty to gasp about now. In self-defence I got to my feet.

  The next few minutes were par for the course. I accused her of trying to steal from me; she denied it. But I was talking off the top of my head. My real consciousness was elsewhere, in the urgent warmth that had seized me as I lay on top of her and wouldn’t let go of me now.

  It got worse when I realised something else about her.

  ‘Why are you soaking wet?’ I asked.

  ‘I’ve been swimming,’ she said scathingly. ‘I thought i
t would be good for my health. Ow!’

  She’d trodden on something sharp, which must have hurt because her feet were bare. So was the rest of her, almost.

  She was wearing a silver lacy dress, tight at the waist and slit high at the thigh. The water not only made it cling to her, it also made it virtually transparent. So now I could see what had been writhing against me.

  She was beautiful-slender, perfectly proportioned, rounded, dainty, sexy, provocative. This was getting very difficult.

  Make me strong, I prayed silently to the guy who helps me on these occasions. Let me at least act like a gentleman, even if I don’t feel like one right now.

  But he must have been off-duty tonight, because there was the warmth, growing stronger every moment.

  I returned to normal consciousness to discover that we were having an infuriated discussion about casinos. I think I accused her of having an accomplice inside, but don’t ask me how we reached that point. I know we ended up scrabbling around on the ground for the cash that had fallen out of my pocket in the struggle.

  I suppose it was when she mentioned the British Consul that I realised I’d got it wrong, and she really wasn’t a thief.

  ‘Where are you running from?’ I asked.

  ‘A yacht. It’s called The Silverado and it’s moored down there. Look.’ She pointed down into the harbour. ‘That one. Right next to the big vulgar one.’

  ‘You mean The Hawk?’ I asked cautiously.

  ‘You know it?’ Now she definitely sounded hostile.

  ‘Why do you make that sound like a crime?’

  So she told me all about The Hawk, how its boss was a creep called Jack Bullen, better known as Bully Jack.

  I was glad she couldn’t see me too well at that moment.

  ‘Hugh Vanner has been trying to crawl to him,’ she seethed.

  ‘That makes this Vanner character a creep,’ I said, ‘but why Bullen?’

  ‘Because Vanner would only crawl to an even bigger creep than himself. He even sent him gold and diamond cufflinks. I ask you!’

  ‘That’s really disgusting,’ I agreed fervently.

  She told me how Vanner had tried to make her be ‘nice’ to his guests, and she’d jumped overboard to escape him.

  She was small and defenceless, with not a single possession-not on her, anyway. But she was defying the world and I’d never seen anything like her.

  Maybe the idea came to me then. Or maybe it had been nudging the edges of my thoughts for a few minutes past. But it was forming rapidly, and I had the outline pretty much shaped when I heard, ‘That’s her!’

  And there was a man who could only have been Vanner, rushing at us with two gendarmes, shrieking that the silver girl had stolen from him.

  I pointed out that the money lying all around us was mine, which stymied him, although he still frothed at the mouth until, to shut him up, I had to give him my name.

  ‘You’re Jack Bullen?’ he said in a choked voice.

  After that he couldn’t get rid of the gendarmes fast enough. He wanted to get me alone to do some business schmoozing.

  ‘When you’ve returned this lady’s property,’ I told him. ‘Deliver everything to The Hawk.’

  Fending off his attempts to join us, I took her arm and made for the road where there would be a taxi.

  ‘You were going to take me to the Vice-Consul,’ she said.

  ‘I’ve changed my mind. We’re going to The Hawk.’

  She was still arguing as we got into the taxi. I laid out her options.

  ‘You can go with Vanner, with the gendarmes or with me.’

  ‘That’s blackmail.’

  ‘It’s what I’m good at. Now, shut up or I’ll toss you back into the water.’

  I don’t normally talk to women like that, but something had happened to me that night. I was like a drowning man who sees his last hope and knows he has to grasp it. So my finesse went out of the window.

  Then I saw her looking at me. An incredulous, half-quizzical smile had taken over her face, and I found myself smiling back. We knew nothing about each other, except that we were on the same wavelength.

  ‘All right,’ she said.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Della’s Story

  ‘W E DON’T have much time,’ the man told me in a low, hurried voice.

  I could see that we didn’t. The taxi was on its way down the slope to the harbour, and we were going to be there at any moment.

  ‘All I can say now,’ he said, ‘is that I need help badly, and you’re the only person who can give it to me.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘I’m being nudged-well, frog-marched-into a marriage I don’t want to make. Selina’s a banker’s daughter, and money must marry money. That sort of thing.’

  ‘Sure, like you’re a millionaire,’ I said sceptically.

  ‘I told you who I am. Jack Bullen.’

  ‘Yes, after I’d given you all the clues. That story will do well enough for Vanner, but not me. I suppose you work on his yacht?’

  ‘I beg your pardon?’

  ‘Honestly, I’m grateful to you for saving me, but I wasn’t born yesterday. The silver plate’s wearing off those cufflinks, and I’ll bet you borrowed the flash clothes from your boss.’

  He tore his hair, and I had to admit that the tousled look suited him.

  ‘I haven’t got time to argue,’ he said. ‘Look, this is the harbour, and there’s a boat ready to take us to The Hawk. Just act like you’re wildly in love with me, and you might save me from a fate worse than death.’

  He was mad, but I owed him a lot, so I reckoned I’d play along. I was feeling light-headed by then, and willing to let the night end any way it would.

  He paid off the cab and we headed towards a small boat that was waiting. The pilot greeted us with a wave.

  ‘Evening, Pete.’

  ‘Evening, Mr Bullen.’

  I was too astounded to speak until I was settled into the boat.

  ‘He called you-’

  ‘Well, I told you,’ he said, sounding aggrieved.

  I tried to see his face as we sped out to the deep water where The Hawk was moored. But the light changed so fast that I couldn’t make out much except that he was grinning like a man with a handful of aces. I knew that look. I even had a weakness for it. And already I was getting warning signals that I was determined to ignore.

  One thing was clear. This man was trouble and fun in equal measures.

  So let the good times begin!

  ‘Just say that you’ll help me,’ he said urgently.

  ‘How?’

  ‘By being my girlfriend. Here’s the story. We’ve known each other for a few months, we meet constantly at my London flat, and these last few weeks we’ve had secret assignations all over Europe. My sister keeps demanding to meet you because she doesn’t think you exist, but you do.’

  He was gabbling, and I only took half of it in.

  ‘Assignations all over Europe-’ I said. ‘Weren’t we travelling together?’

  ‘No, I was on the yacht.’

  ‘Why didn’t you invite me on the yacht, you cheap-skate?’

  ‘Because Grace wouldn’t have you.’

  ‘Grace?’

  ‘My sister. My keeper. She’s organised this trip to get me married, but you are going to thwart her.’

  ‘So-I’m your girlfriend-?’

  ‘That’s right. I’m mad about you because you’re beautiful, sweet-natured, witty, and the sexiest thing in creation. Do you think you can remember that?’

  ‘Can you?’ I asked.

  ‘Yes, all of it. Especially the last bit. OK, we’re nearly there. Act the part.’

  ‘You want me to gaze into your eyes?’

  ‘I think it’ll take a bit more than that,’ he said hoarsely, and wrapped his arms tightly around me.

  I ought to have seen it coming, but he moved so fast that I was taken by surprise. Suddenly I was being pressed back against the curve of his arm while hi
s mouth covered mine in a perfect simulation of hungry passion.

  He was clever. I’ll give him that. Nothing offensive. Considering that I was half naked and we’d only just met, it was a virtuous kiss: everything for show on the outside and nothing really happening-except deep inside me, where there was a whole lot happening.

  I put my arms around him and helped out with the performance. At least I told myself it was just a performance. There was something about being pressed against him that made me tend to forget that.

  I was dimly aware that the boat had stopped and the pilot was turning around from the front to regard us.

  ‘Er-sir-?’ he said, grinning.

  Jack Bullen waved him away and redoubled his efforts. It seemed only polite to co-operate, so I did, writhing my fingers in his hair and pressing against him. There were lights on us now, so I gave it all I’d got.

  Looking up over his shoulder, I could see men and women leaning over the rails to gape down at us. They were all wide-eyed. Two women especially-one young, one middle-aged-glared at us with undisguised fury.

  He drew back his head a little and whispered, ‘Are they watching us?’

  ‘With their eyes on stalks,’ I murmured back.

  ‘Good. Let’s make it worth their while.’

  He returned to the fray, but this time in a way that was even more self-consciously theatrical. He kissed my face, my neck, all the way down, then below my ears.

  ‘Enough?’ he asked.

  ‘I think you’ve made your point,’ I said with difficulty.

  ‘Then let’s go,’ he muttered.

  As I climbed up the gangway ahead of him I was acutely conscious of my semi-naked behind waving about just in front of his eyes. I ought to have been modestly shocked, and with Vanner I would have been. But with Jack Bullen I could only remember the feel of his body pressing mine into the warm earth behind the casino. I wondered if he was enjoying the view. I had to take a deep breath against the wave of self-consciousness that washed over me, and then I found myself stumbling.

  He was there at once, his hands grasping my hips, steadying me.

  ‘Are you all right?’ he asked.

  ‘Yes-yes, I’m fine,’ I gabbled, wondering if I would ever make sense again. My insides were reacting in a way that was all their own.