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them. But if I had to make a guess I’d suggest that the Pink Ribbon Club put them there.’

      Okay.

      He was distracted.

      ‘What the hell is the Pink Ribbon Club when it’s at home?’ he asked, but easing back. He’d known she’d worry, but hanging around to offer explanations hadn’t been appealing. ‘And, more to the point, why are they hanging the damn things from my gate?’

      She offered him a brochure from a stack on the desk. ‘I’ve given them permission to hold a Wedding Fayre here—that’s Fayre with a y and an e—so I imagine they’re advertising the fact to passing traffic. That’s why I’m here this week,’ she explained. ‘The couple who are caretakers of the place do a good job, but I can’t expect them to be responsible for the house and its contents with so many people coming and going.’

      ‘Why?’ he asked.

      ‘Why did I give the PRC permission to stage the Fayre here? It’s a local charity,’ she said. ‘Founded by Lady Annika Duchamp Smith?’

      He stared at the wedding bell and horseshoe bedecked brochure for a moment before dropping it and subsiding into an ancient leather armchair.

      ‘The Duchamp family owned the house for generations,’ she prompted when he didn’t respond. ‘It’s their coat of arms on the gate.’

      ‘Really. Well, that covers the Duchamps. What’s the story on the Smiths?’ he asked, remembering a Smith with that hallmark English aristocratic cool and a voice that told the world everything they needed to know about her class, background.

      A Smith with silvery-blue eyes that not only looked as if they could cause chaos if they had a mind to, but had gone ahead and done it.

      Pam shrugged. ‘Presumably Lady Annika married a Mr Smith.’

      ‘For his money rather than his name, apparently, since she chose not to relinquish her own.’

      For a moment there, when the word charity had been invoked, he’d found himself on the back foot but he quickly rallied. These people stood for everything he loathed.

      Privilege, inherited wealth, a belief in their own innate superiority.

      People for whom charity meant nothing more than another social event.

      For a while he’d been dazzled too. Then completely blinded. But he had both feet firmly back on the ground now.

      ‘It’ll take more than playing charity queen to get Lady Annika back inside Longbourne Court,’ he said.

      ‘Well, actually Lady Annika—’

      ‘I mean it,’ he cut in, not interested in her ladyship. ‘Give the Ribbon mob a donation if you think they’re doing a good job, but get rid of her. And her Fayre with a y and an e.’ He snorted with disgust. ‘Why do they spell it like that?’

      ‘Beats me,’ she replied, ‘but I’m afraid you’re stuck with it. Even if it wasn’t far too late to ungive permission, I wouldn’t. Celebrity magazine are covering the event—which is why we need a dress rehearsal so that they can get photographs. Your conference centre is about to get the kind of publicity that money just can’t buy.’

      ‘You didn’t know I was planning a conference centre.’

      ‘Oh, please! What else are you going to do with it? Live here? On your own? Besides, our favourite architect, Mark Hilliard, sent me a sheaf of forms from the Planning Department.’

      ‘He didn’t waste any time!’ Then, realising that Pam was looking at him a little oddly, ‘Which is good. I stressed the need to get on with it when I spoke to him.’

      ‘Oh? You managed to find time to speak to your architect.’

      ‘It was a matter of priorities. The sooner we get started on this, the better.’

      ‘In that case, the publicity is good news.’

      ‘You think? This may come as a surprise to you, Pam, but the people—the women—who read gossip magazines, who go to Wedding Fayres, spelled with a y and an e, do not organise conferences.’

      ‘I arrange conferences,’ she pointed out.

      ‘You are different.’

      ‘Of course I’m not. And I never miss an edition of Celebrity.’

      ‘You’re kidding?’

      ‘Am I?’ She didn’t bother to reassure him, just said, ‘You’re nothing but an old-fashioned misogynist at heart, aren’t you, Tom?’

      ‘You can’t get around me with compliments—’

      ‘And maybe the teeniest bit of a snob?’

      ‘A snob!’ On the contrary, he was the self-made man whose bride-to-be had decided that, once spending his money—egged on by her old school chum, Miss Smith—had lost its novelty, and the mists of lust had cleared, he wasn’t good enough to marry.

      ‘An inverted one,’ she elaborated, as if that was any better.

      ‘I’m a realist, Pam.’

      ‘Oh, right, that would be the realist who fell off the edge of the earth six months ago, leaving me to hold the fort?’

      ‘Which disproves your misogynist theory. If I disliked women, why would I leave you in charge while I took some much needed time out? Unlike you, I don’t take three holidays a year. And why would I have appointed you as my CEO in the first place? Besides, I kept in touch.’

      ‘Because I’m damn good at my job,’ she said, answering the first two parts of his question. ‘But, for your information, the occasional email to keep me up to date with the real estate you’ve been vacuuming up on whichever continent you happened to be at the time so that I could deal with the paperwork, is not keeping in touch.’

      ‘I’m sure I sent you a postcard from Rio,’ he said. The only one he really remembered was the one he hadn’t sent.

      ‘“Wish you were here”? Chance would have been a fine thing. Besides, I wanted to know how you were.’ Then, ‘You’ve lost weight.’

      ‘I’m fine, okay!’ She didn’t look convinced. ‘Truly. But I decided that since I was taking a break I might usefully expand my empire while I was about it.’

      ‘That’s not expanding your empire, it’s called displacement activity,’ Pam said, giving him what his grandmother would have described as an old-fashioned look. ‘If you were a woman, you’d have bought shoes.’

      ‘Which proves my point about women,’ he said. ‘Real estate is a much better investment.’

      ‘And, assuming you were thinking at all, which I take leave to doubt,’ Pam continued, ignoring that and returning to the third part of his question, ‘I’d suggest it’s because you don’t think of me as a woman at all.’

      ‘Which is the highest compliment I could pay you.’

      ‘Is that right? And you’re surprised that Candy Harcourt dumped you?’

      Surprised was not actually the first word that had come to mind. Relieved … Evading the question, he said, ‘So, is this Wedding Fayre your idea of payback for leaving you to do your job?’

      ‘Well, if I’d known you were going to be here, that would definitely have been a bonus. As it is, like you, I was being realistic. This is business. I am doing my job. Looking after your interests in your absence.’ She gave him a long, hard look. ‘And, as my last word on that subject, I suggest you go down on your knees and thank Candida Harcourt—or should I say The Honourable Mrs Quentin Turner Lyall—for letting you off the hook.’

      ‘She actually married him?’

      ‘It’s true love,

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