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have guessed her to be desperate. In spite of the indiscretion about Darius's little drugs business that Rafferty remembered, it seemed Isobel could be discreet when it mattered to her.
    ‘As I said, Guy only gave her the job as a favour to her mother; he knew the family through his late wife. Though I think Guy's rather regretting it now. He says Isobel's becoming a pest, always ringing him, telling him she loves him. She's set her cap there all right.’
    Between all the introductions, the wine and Lancelot Bliss's gossip, Rafferty lost the thread, forgot he was meant to be a smooth, sophisticated, urban professional, and blurted out, ‘but I thought you said he was married to Caroline?’
    Lancelot stared at him as if astonished that his confidant should have turned out to be a naive provincial. ‘Usual thing, Nigel,’ he explained with a patronising air that was reminiscent of Rafferty's cousin. ‘Caro and Guy have what you might call a semi-detached marriage. It seems to work okay for them. But keep it under your hat. It wouldn't do for it to get out, not in their line of work. Some clients might feel let down. It's what made Isobel think she might be in with a chance of turning Guy from semi-detached to detached and available.’
    Rafferty raised what he hoped was a sophisticated eyebrow to enquire, ‘And how did Caroline take that?’
    ‘Didn't turn a hair of that immaculately groomed head, though I believe Isobel has since felt the nip of Jack Frost. Caroline keeps Guy on a long leash and lets him roam. That way he always comes back. Caro knows her man. Guy loves ‘em and leaves ‘em. But I imagine he finds marriage to Caroline way too convenient to leave her. It keeps him safe from the predatory Isobels of this world, do you see?’
    Rafferty did see, though the seeing deflated him a little. If Lancelot Bliss was to be believed, the agency wasn't immune from the lying, cheating and betrayal so prevalent elsewhere. Perhaps he'd wasted his money paying for what was already so freely available. But then he remembered Jenny Warburton. The memory gave him a warm glow that had nothing to do with the sultry weather.
    ‘Poor Isobel, one has to feel rather sorry for her. Because she has not only that costly designer outfit on her back, she's got her family perched there as well.’
    Lancelot plucked another glass of wine – his sixth by Rafferty's counting – from a passing waiter and knocked half of it back. It served to make him even more garrulous. ‘So if Isobel finally gets the message that Guy's giving her, she'll be man-hunting elsewhere with even more desperation.’
    From Rafferty's other side, a man he recalled being introduced as Ralph Dryden, commented, ‘Poor girl's deluded. Didn't you say her father suffered from a similar affliction, Lance?’
    Bliss nodded. ‘Runs in the family, according to Guy. He told me her father's convinced he's the next Richard Branson. Considering he apparently gets involved in one idiotic money-losing scheme after another, his delusions must be of the certifiable variety.’ He looked at Ralph and added, ‘Still, we all know what they say about a fool and his money.’ For some reason this comment caused Ralph Dryden's plump face to flush hotly.
    Whether Ralph had become unwisely entangled with Isobel, Rafferty didn't know. But of one thing he was sure – dressed as she was, Isobel looked no man's idea of a suitable girl to take home to mother, never mind marry. She looked strictly mistress material. Jenny, on the other hand, although like Caroline and a number of the other women, dressed in a sleeveless little black number with a hint of cleavage, still managed to give off a demure air. It had appealed to him from the moment he had met her.
    Lancelot Bliss must have exhausted his gossip for he fell silent. Now Ralph Dryden, drawled loudly in Rafferty's other ear.
    ‘So what is it you do, anyway, Nigel?’
    ‘Property,’ Rafferty answered as briefly as politeness