Bedded For The Italian's Pleasure

‘I’m trying to,’ said Juliet honestly. ‘But I’ve got no qualifications. I don’t even have anyone I could apply to for a character reference. Except friends, of course, but I wouldn’t do that to them.’

‘Ah.’ Cary swallowed the remainder of his drink and signalled the barman that he wanted another. He gestured towards Juliet’s glass, too, but she shook her head. She’d barely touched the drink. ‘So—do you have any plans?’

‘Not yet.’ Juliet was getting tired of talking about her problems. ‘What about you? Are you still working for the bank?’

‘No such luck!’ Cary reached for his second whisky and downed a generous mouthful before going on. ‘I’ve been black-balled by the banking community. Hadn’t you heard? I’m surprised you didn’t read about it in the papers. It was all over the financial pages.’

Juliet was tempted to say that she’d had other things to do than study the financial pages, but she was disturbed by what he’d said. ‘What happened?’

Cary grimaced. ‘I gambled with clients’ funds and lost a packet. The bank was down a few million dollars and I was lucky to escape without being charged with negligence.’ He lifted a careless shoulder. ‘Apparently Grandmama still has some pull in financial circles. I was just chucked out of the bank with a severe slap on the wrist.’

Juliet was amazed. ‘But a few million dollars!’ she echoed disbelievingly.

‘Yeah. I don’t do things by halves.’ He took another mouthful of his drink. ‘It sounds a hell of a lot more in South African rand, let me tell you. But, dammit, you’re encouraged to take risks and I took ’em. I guess I’m not such a clever dealer, after all.’

Juliet shook her head. ‘I don’t know what to say.’ She paused. ‘Was your—was Lady Elinor very cross?’

‘Cross!’ Cary gave a short laugh. ‘She was livid, Jules. Positively fire-breathing. She’d never approved of my chosen career, as you probably know, and getting thrown out of South Africa pretty well burnt my boats with her.’

Juliet looked down at the liquid in her glass. She remembered Lady Elinor Daniels very well. Mostly because when Juliet was thirteen she’d been quite a frightening figure. She remembered feeling sorry for Cary, too, whose parents had disappeared while sailing in the Southern Ocean. At seventeen, he’d been taken away from everything and everyone he was used to, forced to go and live in some old house in Cornwall with a woman he barely knew.

Juliet lifted her head. ‘But you say you’ve got another job?’

‘A temporary one, yeah.’ Cary scowled. ‘Believe it or not, I’m working in a casino. Oh, not handling money. They’ve got more sense than that. I’m what you’d call a meeter and greeter. A kind of—bouncer, with class.’

Juliet gasped. ‘I can’t believe your grandmother approves of that.’

‘She doesn’t know. As far as she’s concerned I’ve got an office job. She still hasn’t given up hope of me settling down with a good woman and taking over the running of the estate. And that low-life, Marchese, is just waiting for me to put a foot wrong.’

Juliet would have thought he’d already put more than one foot wrong, but she didn’t say so. ‘Marchese?’

‘Rafe Marchese!’ exclaimed Cary half-irritably. ‘Surely you remember? My aunt Christina’s deliberate mistake?’

‘Oh, your cousin,’ said Juliet, understanding. But Cary took offence at that.

‘The bastard,’ he corrected. ‘A real one this time. Surely you don’t expect me to be friendly towards him. He’s made my relationship with Grandmama almost impossible over the years. I don’t forget how he treated me when I first went to live at Tregellin.’

‘He’s older than you, isn’t he?’

‘A couple of years. He must be thirty now. Or maybe a little older. Whatever, he’s there all the time, like a thorn in my side, and Grandmama loves to taunt me about leaving the estate to him.’

‘To taunt you?’

‘Yeah. Not that she would, of course. Leave the place to Marchese, I mean.’ Cary laughed again. ‘She’s far too conventional for that.’

Juliet hesitated. ‘If your aunt was never married to his father, why is his name Marchese?’

‘Because she put his father’s name on his birth certificate.’ Cary was dismissive. ‘A bit of a joke, that, considering I don’t think Carlo even knew he was going to be a father. Christina was such a flake, always taking off for some new destination, finding one distraction after another.’

‘I thought she was an artist,’ said Juliet, trying to remember what her father had told her.

‘She’d have liked to think so,’ said Cary, with a sarcastic smile. ‘Anyway, like me, Rafe was orphaned at a fairly early age. One too many Martinis for Christina and she fell from the balcony of the hotel in Interlaken where she was staying with her latest conquest.’

‘How awful!’ Juliet was amazed that he could be so blasé about it. She had been his aunt, after all. She took another sip of her drink, taking a surreptitious glance at her watch as she did so. It was time she was leaving. She needed to buy one or two items of food from the local delicatessen before heading home.

‘Anyway, I’ve got to go down there next week,’ Cary went on, apparently unaware that she was getting restless. He grimaced. ‘I told her I’d got a girlfriend and she wants to meet her.’

‘Oh.’ Juliet smiled. ‘Well, I hope she likes her. Is it someone you met while you were in Cape Town, or does she live in London?’

‘I don’t have a girlfriend,’ declared Cary flatly. ‘I just told her that to get her off my back. You know what I said about her wanting me to settle down and so on? I thought if she believed I was getting serious about someone, she’d lay off for a bit.’

‘Oh, Cary!’

‘I know, I know.’ He scowled and summoned the bartender again to order another drink. ‘Where am I going to find a suitable girlfriend between now and next Thursday? I don’t even know any “suitable” girls. My tastes run in another direction entirely.’

Juliet stared at him. ‘You’re—gay?’

‘Hell, no!’ Cary snorted. ‘But the kind of girls I like, you don’t take home to introduce to your grandmama. I’m not interested in settling down, Jules. I’m only twenty-eight. I want to have some fun. I don’t want some good woman and a couple of sprogs hanging about my feet.’

Juliet shook her head. He’d changed so much from the shy boy he’d been when they were children. Was this his grandmother’s doing, or had he always had this streak of selfishness in him? Perhaps he wasn’t so different from David, after all.

She was suddenly aware that he was staring at her now. There was a distinctly speculative look in his eyes, and she hoped he had no designs as far as she was concerned. She might be desperate, but Cary simply wasn’t her type. Sliding down from her stool, she nodded pointedly towards the door.

‘I’ve got to go.’

‘Go where?’

Was it any of his business? ‘Home, of course.’

Cary nodded. ‘You wouldn’t fancy having dinner with me, I suppose?’

‘Oh, Cary—’

‘It was just a thought.’ He chewed vigorously at his lower lip. ‘I wanted to put a proposition to you. But I can do it here, just as well.’

‘Cary—’

‘Hear me out.’ He laid a hand on her sleeve and, although Juliet badly wanted to pull away, she had accepted a drink from him and that made her briefly in his debt. ‘Would you consider coming down to Tregellin with me? As my pretend girlfriend,’ he added swiftly, before she could object. ‘You say you need a job. Well, I’m offering you one. Well-paid, of course.’

Juliet couldn’t believe her ears. ‘You’re not serious!’

‘Why not? We’re friends, aren’t we? We’re male and female. Where would be the harm?’

‘We’d be deceiving your grandmother. And—your cousin.’

‘Don’t worry about Rafe. He doesn’t live at the house.’

‘All the same—’