Sheer Mischief

by Jill Mansell

  But Oliver Cassidy was in a different league altogether. After years of struggling and making do, Thea was ready to be spoiled by a man who wasn’t afraid to wave his wallet. And although she’d only just met him, she knew instinctively that here was a man who wasn’t afraid of anything at all.

  It had been a dazzling evening. Arriving in the Rolls less than five minutes after Janey had left, Oliver had picked Thea up and taken her to the five-star Grand Rock Hotel where he was staying. The hotel restaurant, one of the best in Cornwall, was as impressive as she had hoped. And her dinner companion, Thea decided as she sipped her cognac, had definitely exceeded all expectations.

  “How long are you staying down here?” she asked, having already learned that he lived in Bristol.

  Oliver Cassidy shrugged, adjusting snowy shirt cuffs. “A week, maybe two. I’ve been looking at properties in the area, thinking of moving down here.”

  Better and better, thought Thea happily, admiring his discreet gold cuff links and breathing in the scent of Penhaligon cologne. “Well, I’m pretty familiar with the area. Perhaps I could help you there.” Pausing, she broke into a smile. “Helping other people to spend their money is a great hobby of mine.”

  As far as Oliver Cassidy was concerned, her bluntness made a refreshing change. Over the years he had become something of an expert on the subject of gold-digging females, and what he’d discovered was that, to a woman, they would tear out their own professionally manicured fingernails rather than admit that his money held any interest for them or that it could make any difference to their attraction toward him. It was all so tiresome, so bloody predictable.

  Thea Vaughan, on the other hand, was making no secret whatsoever of her interest in both him and his money, and he found her honesty quite disarming. He wanted to get to know this charming, teasing woman; she interested him more than anyone else had done for years. He also, quite urgently, wanted to take her up to his suite and make love to her. Ever the perfect English gentleman, however, he felt he should allow her to finish her cognac first.

  It wasn’t difficult to read his mind. Thea was looking forward to the hours ahead just as much as he was. Beneath the immaculate, dark-blue suit and white shirt, she could only too easily imagine the contours of his body. Oliver Kennedy—no, Cassidy—had the erect stance of a guardsman, and he’d kept himself in remarkably good shape. His chest was broad, his stomach flat, and he sported an impressive tan. Going to bed with him, she thought as her fingers idly caressed the stem of her brandy glass, would be fun.

  But there was no hurry. No hurry at all.

  “Go on, then,” she said with a provocative smile. “I’ve told you all about my miserable marriage. Now it’s your turn.”

  “Which particular miserable marriage did you have in mind?” Oliver, after puffing meditatively on his cigar, leaned back in his chair and signaled for the waiter to replenish their drinks. If she could wait, so could he. “There are three to choose from.”

  “All of them,” said Thea cheerfully. “In chronological order. And I want to hear the gory details…”

  Since picking wives had never been one of his strong points, there were plenty of those too. Over the next half hour, he regaled her with hair-raising tales of his three scheming, volatile wives. If Thea suspected that he was bending the facts in order to present himself in a blameless light, she didn’t voice such thoughts aloud. And it was riveting stuff anyway, better than any soap opera. According to Oliver—trusting, innocent Oliver—he had been bamboozled in turn into matrimony by Liza, Milly, and Fay. All three, it appeared, had been blond, beautiful, and absolute hell to live with. They made Macbeth’s witches look cute.

  None of the marriages had lasted longer than three years. Each wife had departed in a flurry of recriminations and alimony. Following the third divorce, Oliver had vowed that he would stick to mistresses. They might be expensive, but they were a damn sight less expensive than greedy, vengeful wives.

  “And there were no children?” said Thea, totally engrossed and not in the least put off by the declaration. She couldn’t imagine anything more thrilling than being an expensive mistress. This kind of scenario was right up her street.

  Oliver looked momentarily uncomfortable. “I have a son by my first wife,” he replied after taking another puff of his cigar. “But we had…er…a disagreement some years ago. I’m afraid we haven’t been on speaking terms since then.”

  With a directness which so often made her elder daughter cringe, Thea rested her chin on her clasped hands and said, “Really? What happened?”

  “I tried to stop him making the same mistake I had.” Oliver Cassidy didn’t make a habit of admitting that he could have been wrong. He still wasn’t entirely convinced that in the matter of Véronique he might have been, but her untimely death had come as a great shock to him nevertheless. “I’d been through three disastrous marriages and realized too late that my wives were only interested in my money. My son was living in London, doing very well for himself in his own career. Then, when he was twenty-three, he met a young French girl. She was eighteen years old and penniless. He was besotted with her. Within a few weeks of meeting her, he brought her down to Bristol and informed me that they were planning to get married.” He paused, remembering the ensuing argument as plainly as if it had happened yesterday. “Well. To cut a long story short, I told him he was a bloody fool, and he went ahead and married her anyway. They had two children, and a few years later, she died. I attempted to contact my son afterward, but I’m afraid he wasn’t able to forgive me for disapproving of the marriage in the first place.”

  “But that’s terrible!” cried Thea, suffused with indignation on his behalf. “You only had his best interests at heart. You were trying to help him!”

  “I know, I know. But my son had ideas of his own. You know how stubborn children can be.”

  “So you’ve never ever seen your grandchildren?” Thea persisted, her dark eyes sympathetic.

  Oliver shook his head. There was no need to mention that fateful afternoon when Véronique had brought them to his house. The encounter wasn’t something of which he was particularly proud.

  “Never.”

  “It’s a tragedy,” she declared expansively. “And those poor children…”

  Smiling, he leaned closer. “Between ourselves, that’s one of the reasons I’m thinking of buying a house down here. They moved to Trezale a year ago. I’m not getting any younger.” He spread his hands and added sorrowfully, “I’d like the chance to get to know them.”

  Her emotions heightened by cognac, Thea was on the verge of tears. She took his hand in hers. “You know, you really are a very nice man.”

  • • •

  Oliver Cassidy’s plush suite was decorated in peacock blues and greens, and subtly lit.

  Unashamed of her body, Thea removed her clothes with neither coyness nor ceremony, then crossed the bedroom to stand naked before him.

  “Who’s seducing who?” he said, appreciating her lack of artifice.

  Thea, loosening his tie, looked amused. “Does it really matter? We’re adults. I think we both know why we’re here…”

  He removed his jacket and watched her capable fingers unfastening the buttons of his white shirt. She was still smiling, evidently enjoying herself. And she was right, of course; any further games were unnecessary.

  Aroused by her straightforward attitude, as well as by the proximity of her unclothed body, Oliver realized that it had been years since he had wanted a woman this badly. He put his arms around her, drawing her against him. He was sixty-one years old, and his life wasn’t over yet.

  “Yes,” he said, inhaling her warm scent and pressing a kiss to her temple, where white hair met tanned, enticingly perfumed skin. “And I think you are a very nice woman.”

  “You’re so right.” Closing her eyes, Thea slid her hands inside his unbuttoned shirt. �
��I am.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  “If you don’t eat your Shredded Wheat,” said Maxine, hating the sound of her own voice and frantically casting about for an appropriate threat, “I’ll—”

  “What?” Josh challenged her, his eyes narrowing. In the two days since his father had been back from France, Maxine had definitely changed for the worse. No longer any fun, she had taken to bossing them around, ruthlessly rationing their television time and insisting they do boring schoolwork even though it was still the middle of summer break. If she hadn’t demanded to see his exercise books, he would never even have found the squashed Mars bar in the side pocket of his satchel, so the fact that he wasn’t hungry was all her fault anyway. “If I don’t eat my Shredded Wheat,” he repeated mutinously, “you’ll what?”

  Hell, thought Maxine, who couldn’t have cared less whether he ate his stupid breakfast. All she was trying to do was prove to Guy Cassidy that she could do the job he so obviously didn’t think her capable of, and all she was doing was making everyone miserable, including herself.

  And Guy, damn him, wasn’t even paying attention. Buried behind his paper, apparently engrossed in the racing pages, he was drinking strong black coffee and ignoring his young son’s act of rebellion. Maxine, who had been so determined to impress him, wondered why she even bothered.

  “I shall begin by shaving your head,” she replied sweetly, because Josh was inordinately proud of his spiky, blond hair. She had also observed the first furtive flickers of interest in ten-year-old Tanya Trevelyan, whose parents ran the local post office. “And then I shall paint red spots all over your face with indelible felt pen. Then I’ll tell Tanya that you’re madly in love with her!”

  Ella screamed with laughter. Josh, turning purple, shot Maxine a look of fury.

  “You wouldn’t!”

  “Oh yes, I would.”

  Grabbing Guy’s arm, he wailed, “Dad, tell her she can’t do that! She can’t tell Tanya I love her…”

  But Guy, who appeared to have other matters on his mind, wasn’t interested. “Of course she won’t.” His tone brusque, he glanced at his watch and stood up. “Damn, I’m going to be late. I’ll be back this evening at around nine.”

  “Make her promise not to say anything to Tanya,” Josh begged, still mortified by the prospect of hideous humiliation.

  “Make him promise to eat his Shredded Wheat,” said Maxine, imitating his nine-year-old whine.

  Guy merely looked exasperated. “For heaven’s sake!”

  “Thanks for your support,” muttered Maxine, seizing the bowl of cereal and clattering it into the sink. “You’re a great help.”

  Ella, who detested having her hair washed, tugged at her sleeve. Her eyes shining, she said hopefully, “Maxine? If I’m naughty, will you shave my head?”

  Since attempting to instill discipline and show Guy what a treasure she was had been such a dismal failure, Maxine left the children to their own devices for the rest of the morning. If nonstop TV cartoons were all they wanted to watch, why should she care?

  Having washed up the breakfast things and gazed morosely out at the rain sweeping in from the sea, she sat down at eleven o’clock with a big gin and tonic and the portable phone. To cheer herself up and get her own back on Guy for being so grumpy, she was going to phone all her London friends for a good gossip. The fact that it was peak time and would cost him an absolute fortune only made the prospect more enjoyable.

  “You make him sound like an ogre,” exclaimed Cindy from the opulent comfort of her four-poster bed in Chelsea. Recently married to a rich but ugly industrialist some twenty-five years older than herself, whose vast stomach, thankfully, was a serious impediment to their sex life, she couldn’t imagine what Maxine had to moan about. “I met Guy Cassidy at a party last year and he was absolutely charming. All the women were drooling like dogs! Maxi, you have to admit he’s sensationally attractive…”

  “Looks aren’t everything,” Maxine drawled, jiggling the ice cubes in her glass and tucking her bare feet beneath her on the sofa. Then, relenting slightly, she added casually, “Well, he’s not bad, I suppose.”

  “Don’t give me that,” crowed Cindy, who knew her too well. “What are you trying to tell me, that you’ve had your hormones surgically removed? You must fancy him rotten!”

  Maxine grinned. Cindy, in London, was a safe enough confidante.

  “OK,” she admitted, taking a slug of gin. “So maybe I do, a bit. But I’d fancy him a lot more if only he’d show a smidgeon of interest in return. You have no idea how demoralizing it is, slapping on the old makeup and making myself generally irresistible when he takes about as much interest in me as he does in the bloody milkman.”

  “Sometimes makeup isn’t enough,” replied Cindy, ever practical. “Sometimes you just have to rip off your pinny and get naked.”

  “You mean I should seduce him?” At such an awesome prospect, even Maxine blanched.

  “Works every time,” Cindy said happily. Maxine doubted whether Cindy would even recognize a pinafore if it leaped up and strangled her. She’d certainly never worn one in her life.

  “It wouldn’t work with Guy.” Gloomily contemplating her almost-empty glass, she imagined the scenario. She had a horrid feeling he would laugh his handsome head off. Before firing her, naturally.

  “Why?” countered Cindy. “Have you got fat?”

  “I’ve got Guy Cassidy as a boss,” Maxine sighed. “So far, he’s seen through everything I’ve tried, and all he does is sneer. He’s too smart to fall for an old trick like that.”

  “You’re losing your nerve, girl. Living out in the sticks is doing something to your brain. Isn’t he worth taking a chance on?”

  “It’s all right for you.” As Maxine spoke, the doorbell rang. “All you did was meet him at a party. You want to try living with him.”

  “Darling, I’d be there like a shot!” Cindy, her interest aroused, sounded excited. “Now there’s an idea. You could invite me down for a weekend. If you’re too chicken, I’ll have a crack at him myself!”

  “I have to go.” Maxine, uncurling herself, realized that her left leg had been seized by pins and needles and was now completely numb. “There’s someone at the door.”

  “Oh pleeease,” Cindy urged. “I’m your friend, aren’t I? Go on, invite me!”

  “No,” said Maxine bluntly. “You’re married.”

  “Don’t be so boring,” protested Cindy. “At least I’m not chicken!”

  Cindy didn’t understand, thought Maxine as she made her way awkwardly to the front door, clinging to furniture as she went. She wasn’t chicken either, she just wasn’t prepared to make a complete prat of herself and lose both home and job into the bargain. And she would have her wicked way with Guy Cassidy eventually; she was quite determined on that score. It was simply a matter of timing and technique. And pouncing on him buck-naked, Maxine decided with a small, wry smile, didn’t exactly rate highly in terms of finesse.

  She needn’t have bothered to stop en route and grab a handful of fivers from the tin in the kitchen, because it wasn’t the milkman after all.

  “Yes?” said Maxine, staring at the woman on the doorstep and mentally noting the style and quality of the clothes she wore. She’d bet her last cookie it wasn’t the Avon lady either.

  “Is Guy here?” The visitor eyed Maxine in turn, instantly homing in on the black currant jam stain that, courtesy of Ella, adorned her yellow T-shirt.

  The rain was still bucketing down, driven in from the sea by a ferocious wind and hammering against the windows like gravel. Anyone else caught out in such a storm would have looked like a scarecrow.

  But this woman, wrapped in a long, lean leather coat the color of toffee apples, worn over a cream-and-toffee-apple-striped silk shirt and cream trousers, seemed impervious to the weather. Screamingly elegant from her short, sleek bl
ack hair to her beige Ferragamo shoes, she simply wasn’t the kind of female whose mascara ever ran. Maxine couldn’t bear people like that. Most ominous of all, however, was the fact that in her elegant hand she carried an elegant suitcase. Naturally, it matched the outfit.

  Feeling very down-at-heel by comparison, Maxine replied with a trace of belligerence, “He’s away on a shoot in Wiltshire. We aren’t expecting him back until late this evening. He may even decide to stay there overnight.”

  The woman, however, simply shrugged and smiled. Even her teeth were elegant. “So much for surprises.”

  Deeply engrossed in her telephone conversation with Cindy, Maxine hadn’t heard an approaching car. Now she realized there wasn’t one.

  “I came by taxi,” said the woman, intercepting her glance in the direction of the drive.

  “Don’t worry.” Maxine stepped aside and gestured her to step inside. “I’ll phone for another one. I’m sorry you’ve had a wasted journey, but if you’d like to leave a message for Guy, I’ll make sure he gets it. As I said, he probably won’t be back tonight…”

  “It’s quite all right,” said the woman easily, making her way past Maxine into the hall and dismissing her offer with a nonchalant wave of her wrist. Indicating the suitcase in her other hand, she added, “This isn’t a fleeting visit. I’m down here for a week at least.”

  Bugger, thought Maxine. It hadn’t worked. “Really? How nice,” she said aloud.

  • • •

  Her name was Serena Charlton, and in confined spaces, the reek of her scent was positively overpowering. One of Guy’s ruthlessly slender model “friends,” she was showing every sign of making herself at home.

  “We’re extremely good friends,” she told Maxine as she slithered out of the leather coat and handed it to her. “I expect Guy’s told you all about me.”

  Not so much as a syllable, thought Maxine, taking comfort from the fact. It was going to be interesting seeing Guy’s reaction when he returned and found an uninvited guest comfortably installed in his home. What fun if he booted her out…