The Monte Carlo Proposal. Lucy Gordon

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 it 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