SUSANNE MCCARTHY - Satan's Contract

Pippa sighed wryly, conceding defeat. Somebody had bet Jeremy fifty pounds he couldn’t walk the wall, and he had needed no second bidding. Considering that he was all of twenty-three years old, the Honorable Jeremy Hardwicke-Cooper frequently behaved like a little boy—especially when, as now, he was what he cheerfully called, ‘hog-whimpering’.

At last, to her profound relief, he reached the end of the wall safely, and swung himself down, caring not a jot for the scuffing of his already rather well-worn dinner-jacket. ‘There!’ he proclaimed in triumph, swooping his arms around her and dropping a lightly affectionate kiss on her forehead. ‘Safe and sound—told you so!’

To be fair, it wasn’t solely an excess of alcohol that accounted for the rowdy high-spirits of the group; having spent the earlier part of the evening dutifully attending a very stuffy charity ball, it was now as if they had been let off the leash.

But Pippa wasn’t really in the mood for their usual high-jinks tonight. As they crossed the car park, she gently detached herself from Jeremy’s casually embracing arm—though in the midst of all the merriment he didn’t seem to notice.

What was the matter with her? These were her closest friends, she had known them all her life—but lately she had begun to feel as though she no longer had much in common with them. The sons and daughters of the wealthiest and most distinguished families in the district, they seemed to take nothing seriously; was she the only one who ever wondered whether there was more to life than driving expensive sports cars too fast, or trying to ski backwards down the red run at Verbier wearing a fright-mask?

They had reached the wide steps that led up to the front porch when she suddenly became aware that she was being watched. Someone had just got out of a car on the far side of the car park—and some sixth sense had told her who it was before her eyes even met those deep-set hazel ones.

Shaun Morgan acknowledged her with a faintly sardonic smile, and she turned away quickly, an odd little flutter accelerating her heartbeat, her cheeks slightly pink. To cover her reaction she added her laughter loudly to someone’s childish joke, grasping Jeremy’s hand as she skipped lightly up the steps to the porch.

‘Come on—I want to dance all night!’ she declared, a little over-bright.

‘I’m game for that!’

It was a boisterous crowd that erupted into the elegant bar of the club. Pippa was perhaps the only one sober enough to realise that they were behaving very badly, expecting lesser mortals to steer out of their way, demanding and receiving first service at the bar. But some evil demon seemed to have got hold of her, goading her to even more outrageous extremes.

‘Champers!’ she demanded imperiously. ‘I won’t drink anything less.’

‘Of course not!’ concurred Jeremy, as if such an idea was unthinkable. ‘The very best. Hey, Kevin,’ he called out to the barman. ‘How about building us a couple of magnums of that Bollers down here—and make it snappy, eh?’

Pippa was acutely aware that Shaun had come into the bar shortly behind them. He had slanted just one disparaging glance in their direction, and then turned away to talk to his companions, totally indifferent to the juvenile antics of the beautiful young things at the bar.

Well, damn him—why should she care what he thought of her? Whatever she did, he was going to despise her. Besides, who needed Shaun Morgan anyway? There were plenty of other young men who seemed more than interested in winning her favour—wealthy, handsome, highly eligible young men like Jeremy.

But try as she might to deny it, she knew that she was doing all she could to make him notice her, even if in the most negative way. And the less she was succeeding, the more desperately she tried. He seemed to be totally absorbed in the conversation at his table; it hadn’t taken him long to get on social terms with the directors of Morgans, she reflected tartly—the party he was with consisted of two of the senior board members and their wives.

Without actually drinking very much, she was managing to give the impression of hogging a whole magnum of champagne to herself, waving it around as she laughed and joked, flirting outrageously with Jeremy and all the other young men in the crowd.

They had seemed at first a little surprised at her uncharacteristic behaviour, but were soon responding eagerly. A loud quarrel had broken out between Jeremy and Peter for the honour of drinking champagne out of her shoe.

‘It’s my prerogative,’ Jeremy was insisting, brushing aside his best friend’s protests. ‘It was me she came in with!’

‘But I thought of it first,’ Peter argued plaintively. ‘It’s really not sporting, you know, pinching another chap’s idea.’

Clutching the long satin skirt of her lapis-blue evening dress in one hand, Pippa skipped up on to a bar stool, slipping off one dainty shoe and dangling it above their heads. ‘I’ll settle the argument once and for all,’ she declared brazenly. ‘Whichever of you can reach my shoe can be the one to drink out of it.’

There was an immediate scramble as all the young men in their crowd—and several hangers-on—vied eagerly for the prize. She laughed teasingly, holding it just out of their reach; but too late she realised that she had chosen a precarious perch as in the mêlée someone knocked against the stool, and suddenly she felt herself losing her balance.

She fell backwards with a small shriek—into a pair of safe, strong arms. ‘Well, that wasn’t a very sensible thing to do,’ an all-too-familiar voice commented with dry humour as he set her on her feet. ‘You could have broken your ankle.’

She glared up at him, too resentful of his mockery to thank him for saving her. ‘So what?’ she pouted. ‘A short life and a merry one!’

‘A broken ankle wouldn’t be very likely to kill you,’ Shaun pointed out dampeningly. ‘You’d just have a couple of very uncomfortable months in a plaster. I can’t help but think that would cramp your social life somewhat.’

She shrugged in a gesture of haughty indifference, lifting her foot to slip her shoe back on, angry that he was still holding her in the circle of his strong arms, angry with herself for having given him the excuse to do so.

‘Let’s dance.’ Without troubling to ask her permission, he drew her out on to the floor.

She stiffened, alarmed at the prospect of being held close to him any longer. ‘No!’

‘Why not?’ The hint of challenge in those level eyes told her that he had recognised her fear.

‘I...I want to go back to my friends,’ she temporised, knowing full well that he couldn’t have prevented her if she had only resisted more forcefully.

‘Back to those idiots?’ He cast a scornful glance over her shoulder at the gaping crowd they had left behind. ‘Is that why you wouldn’t go out to dinner with me—because you prefer to hang out with a bunch of Hooray Henrys?’

‘They aren’t Hooray Henrys,’ she protested indignantly.

‘They sure look like it to me. And seeing you with them does absolutely nothing to improve my opinion of you.’

‘So?’ She was finding it difficult to keep her heartbeat steady, being held so close to him—his body was strong and hard, and there was a faint musky scent in her nostrils that made her feel strangely dizzy. ‘I told you before, I don’t give a damn for your opinion.’

‘True,’ he concurred. ‘But for the record, I’ll give it to you anyway. You’re a spoilt little rich bitch, and my strongest inclination is to put you over my knee and smack your bottom.’

She tried to return him a frosty glare, but she couldn’t quite meet his eyes—and anyway the effect would have been ruined by the hot blush that sprang to her cheeks. ‘How dare you speak to me like that?’ she protested breathlessly. ‘Who the hell do you think you are?’