Contents

       Title Page

      Chapter 1

      Chapter 2

      Chapter 3

      Chapter 4

      Chapter 5

      Chapter 6

      Chapter 7

      Chapter 8

      Chapter 9

      Chapter 10

       Chapter 11

       Chapter 12

       Chapter 13

       Chapter 14

       About the Author

       Also by Timothy Lea and Rosie Dixon

       Copyright

       About the Publisher

       CHAPTER 1

      You can imagine my feelings when I discover that it is Geoffrey Wilkes on top of me – well, you could if you had read Confessions of a Night Nurse, Confessions of a Gym Mistress or Confessions from an Escort Agency. I am quite overcome. The surprise for one thing. The last person you would expect to find taking advantage of you at a masked ball for a seminar full of American businessmen in a posh country house, would be your own homespun boyfriend, wouldn’t it? It makes you wonder what he gets up to the rest of the time. Not of course that Geoffrey is really my boyfriend. More a long-standing admirer. He’s always there when you don’t need him, if you know what I mean.

      I think the shock must be too much for me because, when I next open my eyes, Geoffrey has gone and the sunlight is streaming through the casement windows. I look down at the ruckled sheets and my own naked body bruised by a night of unspeakable lust – or, what I imagine must have been a night of unspeakable lust – and feel a sense of grave disquiet. Although no blame can be attached to me, I feel somehow tainted by what has taken place. That is the worst of these involuntary fits of passionate ecstasy that I sometimes become involved in. They do take their toll of your moral equilibrium – I don’t quite know what it means either, but they mentioned it in the Cosmopolitan I was reading at the hairdressers and I thought it sounded rather good.

      Geoffrey has left his mask on the bedside table and tucked into one of the eye slits is a piece of paper. It must be a note to me. No doubt apologising for his inexcusable behaviour. The more I think about it, the more amazed I am that I did not recognise him before he took his mask off. It just shows how many Babychams he must have forced me to consume – and all that stuff about the brandy chasers helping to settle my stomach. A girl has to be very careful these days. I pick up the note. ‘Mr Sweeney rang. There was no Spam left so I got you corned beef. They are in the top drawer of the filing cabinet.’ How very strange. I can’t remember anyone called Sweeney. There was a terrible man called Doctor MacSweeney who behaved in a very unprofessional manner towards me when I was pursuing a nursing career but it could hardly be the same person. Furthermore, there is no sign of a telephone in the room. Nor, for that matter, a filing cabinet. And why should Geoffrey think that I wanted a Spam sandwich? I don’t like Spam. It is all very mysterious. I turn the piece of paper over.

      ‘Dear Rosie,’ I read. ‘When I woke up this morning you were still asleep and I did not have the heart to wake you up. Last night will live in my memory for ever. It was even more exciting than that time after the tennis club dance –’ That was another terrible occasion which I try to keep shrouded in the mists of iniquity. Geoffrey plied me with punch and unwanted information on how he had strengthened his wrists for his backhand volley and the night air made me feel all dizzy. Something unpleasant might or might not have taken place behind the heavy roller. You know what it’s like when you’ve had too much to drink – or rather, you don’t know what it’s like when you’ve had too much to drink.

      ‘I never knew you were so passionate,’ I read. ‘I thought I was going to die of pleasure when you –’ Did I do that!? I feel myself blushing to the roots of my hair. There must have been something in the drink other than a large quantity of alcohol. I would have to be drugged even to think of doing a thing like that. In fact I am not so certain that this is the first time I have ever heard of it. Oh dear, I do hope that I am not some kind of Jekyll and Hyde-type character who can change her personality and act in a manner totally alien to her true fresh, pure, untainted self.

      Perhaps it is something to do with the job. I thought that working for the Nicetime Escort Agency would bring me into the company of refined and amusing men dripping with savoir faire and all that kind of thing. That’s what managing director, Sammy Fish, told me anyway, and I wanted desperately to believe him. In fact, the reality was something else. The men’s minds were so one-track that they might have been running on monorails. None of them were interested in what I call companionship. They might have been taking part in a race to see how fast they could take my knickers off. After a while it gets you down.

      I put down Geoffrey’s note and gaze out across the wide acres of pasture land that comprise but a fraction of Chedworth Place’s vast natural amenities – as it puts it in the brochure. Maybe I should face up to the fact that I am not cut out to be an escort. I am too easily shocked.

      I pick up the note again. ‘I look forward to seeing more of you in the next few days (!) Please excuse scribble. This note from my secretary was all I could find to write on. Love, Geoffrey. P.S. I think I liked it best of all when you –’ No! It is too much. He must be imagining things. I could never have done that! I crumple the piece of paper into a ball and throw it towards a fabric-covered waste paper basket – the place is beautifully furnished, I will say that for it. As always happens in such cases, the paper hits the rim of the basket and bounces back towards the bed. I bend down to retrieve it and – click! The bedroom door opens. Conscious that I am revealing a not altogether inconsequential amount of tolerably shapely flesh, I jerk myself to an upright position and find that I am staring into the fast-glazing eyes of my employer, Sammy Fish. His eyes are not staring into mine. For those of you who have not read Confessions from an Escort Agency I feel I should point out that Sammy is not a tall man. In fact, he makes Charlie Drake look like a natural for the next Tarzan film – not that Sammy couldn’t get into the picture. He would make a great Cheetah.

      ‘Mr Fish. Please!’ I say, quickly snatching up a sheet and holding it in front of my naked body – I can read the expression on my employer’s face like one of those magazines the police confiscate in large numbers.

      ‘You don’t have to beg, baby,’ says Mr Odious, advancing towards the bed at a speed that disturbs me. ‘Looking like that, I’d give you a going over for nothing.’

      ‘That’s very flattering,’ I splutter. ‘Don’t you ever knock when you go into a lady’s bedroom?’

      ‘Not unless the door’s locked. No point, is there? You don’t want to be ashamed of your body, darling. It’s a work of art. If I had a body like that, I’d want people to see it. In fact, it’s a crime to keep it to yourself. If Wedgwood Round the Bend saw that lot he’d nationalise you tomorrow.’

      ‘Thank you very much,’ I say. ‘Now please, do you mind? I want to get dressed.’ The minute I have spoken I realise that I have not expressed myself very well.

      ‘I don’t