The Bachelor's Bargain. Jessica Steele

friends of nieces—it’s been hell!’

      Shame. ‘There must have been one or two acceptable ones.’

      ‘Acceptable for what? If I’d given in and taken just one of them out, my mother would have been wondering what to give us for an engagement present!’

      ‘As bad as that?’

      ‘Believe it. Though,’ he conceded, ‘things did get a little better when Piers left university and came here to live with me.’

      ‘Your mother thought it better that you looked after him?’

      ‘That too, of course. But mainly she saw that if she was wasting her time with me, then Piers was just coming up to marriageable age. Piers is fifteen years younger than me. Love my mother though I do, I loved her more when she started to leave me alone and give Piers the treatment. Though in his case it was granddaughters of friends and great-nieces who were brought out for inspection.’

      ‘Is that why your brother took off abroad?’ Merren asked. It seemed logical. ‘To get away?’

      ‘No, nothing like that. Piers had a whale of a time. He thoroughly enjoyed not having to hunt, but finding his supper there, handed to him on a plate.’ Which wouldn’t suit you, Jarad Montgomery, Merren guessed. He’d want to hunt. He wouldn’t want conquests handed to him on a plate. Which was why, she saw, he’d been unable to find a flicker of interest for any of the women his mother had introduced. ‘Piers came out of it unscathed, and has gone abroad for a year because that’s what he always planned to do. Which, Merren Shepherd,’ Jarad said, ‘brings me round to letting you know why I’ve been confiding what is exclusively a family matter.’

      Merren looked at him warily. He was serious now, unsmiling. Why, she wondered, when she felt certain he was a rather private man, with a great affection for his family, would he tell her, a person he barely knew, details about his family—as he just had?

      ‘It’s got something to do with the money, hasn’t it?’ was the best guess she could come up with. ‘The two thousand pounds you’re out of pocket?’

      ‘Got it in one,’ Jarad congratulated her. ‘When earlier I opened my door and my mother and Veda walked in, I feared the worst. Piers only left last Thursday, and already I’m back being the target!’

      ‘You think they’ll revert back to trying to get you to the altar?’

      ‘I know it!’ he stated unequivocally. ‘They’ve started already. My mother, ably abetted by Veda, came today to insist I’d be letting her down if I didn’t pay Hillmount a visit next weekend. They’re up to something.’

      ‘You think they’ll have someone on hand for you to—er—partner?’

      ‘I’d bank on it. I told them I’d got plans—and of course they wanted to know what plans.’

      ‘Well, if you’ve something on, surely they won’t expect…’

      ‘I’ve nothing on that’s so important I can’t change it. But, having had a breathing space while Piers was here, I saw at once that the year ahead was going to be pretty diabolical if I couldn’t head them off.’ He broke off for a moment, but then resumed, ‘Which was why, partly for the hell of it, partly in an attempt to knock on the head any “casual” introductions they have lined up for me in the coming twelve months, I told them that I’d met someone special and that I didn’t want to miss any chance of seeing her. That I hoped they’d understand, and not be hurt that I wouldn’t be going down to Hampshire next weekend.’

      ‘You’re seeing someone special?’ Merren checked.

      ‘I don’t know anyone that special,’ Jarad denied, with a grin. ‘But by that time both my mother and sister were quite positive I was going steady.’

      ‘Didn’t they want to know more about her?’

      ‘You’re getting to know them,’ he commented lightly. ‘I told them they’d meet her in due time—which, left in peace, would give me time to work out my next move. Happy when at last it appeared I’d been nailed, they were on the point of leaving, in fact were all at the bottom end of the hall, when you rang the bell.’

      Merren looked at him, but when he held her gaze it seemed he had nothing more to say, and she played back in her mind Jarad opening his door to her, his mother and sister appearing behind him, their questions, Mrs Montgomery kissing her cheek. Merren’s eyes widened.

      ‘They think—th-think I’m your steady girlfriend, don’t they?’ she gasped. And, as more brain power arrived—‘This is a delightful surprise,’ he’d said!—‘That’s what you wanted them to believe, wasn’t it?’

      ‘Not until I glanced at my mother and saw that eager glad light in her eye. Both she and Veda were speculating like mad—Is she the one? It seemed a shame then to waste the opportunity—tailor-made—on my doorstep.’

      ‘Opportunity?’ Merren questioned, not certain how she felt about any of this, but striving to keep up. ‘You used me to…’

      ‘Don’t look at it that way,’ he cut in.

      ‘What other way is there to look at it?’ she bridled. ‘In that one glance to your mother you read the situation and decided to make capital out of it—using me! How else am I supposed to look at it?’

      ‘Are you always this fiery?’ he wanted to know, and, not giving her chance to answer, he went on, ‘If you’ll bear with me for a short while, I’m sure you’ll agree that we can work everything out to our mutual advantage.’

      Merren opened her mouth. Mutual advantage! He was hinting at the money she owed him—must be. Oh, crumbs—whatever was worked out she was still left owing him two thousand pounds—which she hadn’t a hope of repaying. ‘I’m listening,’ she mumbled.

      ‘It’s obvious to me that you can’t manage on your salary or you’d never have got yourself into debt.’ Given that Robert and his family were in receipt of State benefits, a good part of her salary went to assist a family of five, but she wasn’t about to tell him that. ‘Which makes it equally obvious that you’re never going to be in a position to repay the two thousand I handed you yesterday.’ Merren shifted uncomfortably in her seat, deciding she could do without this tell-the-truth-and-shame-the-devil tactic. ‘Equally obvious, too, is the fact that, while you might get yourself into debt, you have every intention of settling all those debts—which is why you’re here now.’

      ‘You said to come.’

      ‘You needn’t have.’

      ‘You know where I live,’ she thought to mention.

      ‘You wouldn’t have come otherwise?’

      It didn’t take any thinking about. ‘Oh, I would,’ she answered. Pride, honesty. She’d have come. ‘It’s a pig being honest.’

      ‘Good,’ Jared smiled, having no doubts about her honesty, apparently—she had an idea he would never have introduced her to his mother and sister the way he had if he’d had any doubts about her. ‘It’s clearly important to you that we find some way for you to pay back that money—you wouldn’t be here at all otherwise.’

      ‘You’ve found some work for me?’

      He smiled. ‘I’ve found a job for you—if you’re willing to do it.’

      ‘I’ve told you, I’m prepared to do anything legal.’

      ‘Oh, this is legal,’ he assured her. Then, evenly, he enquired, ‘How would you like to be my steady girlfriend for a year?’

      Merren stared at him. She wasn’t sure that her jaw didn’t drop. ‘You’re not serious?’

      ‘I promise you I am.’

      ‘But—but—we don’t even know each other!’ she protested.

      ‘We