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even asking what he wanted in return. Gutsy as well as cool. Or maybe just desperate. Her mother must be right out of the boys’ book of dragons.

      ‘Then all I ask in return for my company this afternoon is that you don your wedding hat again and come to my sister’s wedding as my guest.’ He could see that she was puzzled. ‘We’ll form our own escort agency, you and I. A very exclusive one. I will keep at bay the suitors your mother has lined up for you; your task will be to fend off a gaggle of hopeful spinsters, widows and divorcees that Dora and Poppy have targeted as prospective wives for me.’

      ‘You’re joking!’ she gasped.

      ‘I sincerely wish I was,’ he replied.

      He’d overheard them quite by chance. He had been about to risk the dining room, which had become the centre of operations for wedding planning, and take the girls a drink to fortify them as they sorted out the final details, when Dora’s voice had brought him up short.

      ‘Ginnie Metcalfe would be the perfect wife for Gussie, you know. She’s not too old for babies, but not so young that he’d look stupid. I can’t bear old men with young wives, can you?’ Old? Thirty-eight wasn’t old! ‘She’s been brought up to run a big house and she’s got the most wonderful seat on a horse.’

      ‘Darling, Ginnie Metcalfe looks like a horse,’ Poppy had replied, and the pair of them had dissolved into giggles. Giggles! It was not in the least bit amusing, and he’d been about to march in there and tell them so when Poppy had said, ‘I think Sarah Darcy-Williams is our best bet. If you made her your matron of honour, you could sit her next to him at the reception.’

       Sarah Darcy-Williams! Never. Not in a million years. Not if she was the last woman on earth.

      ‘She’s been married before,’ Dora had said doubtfully. And the poor guy had had to run for his life after two years. The mystery of it was how he had managed to stick it out for so long. ‘Of course, that does mean she’ll have had the romance knocked out of her, and let’s be honest, Poppy, Gussie isn’t one of life’s great romantics. I mean, can you imagine him sending a woman red roses?’

      ‘Or silk underwear.’

      ‘Silk underwear?’ Dora had given a little whoop of astonishment. ‘Are you telling me that Richard buys you silk underwear?’

      ‘Just a little something now and then, to wrap around a pair of earrings or a pendant …’ This had been followed by a deep sigh from Poppy.

       Romantic? When the hell had he had time to be romantic? Keeping one step ahead of them had taken every vestige of wit he possessed. Not that he was a total stranger to the florist, or to long-stemmed red roses come to that—but buying a woman silk underwear …? Maybe he was getting old, because he would have thought that was the quickest way to a black eye known to man, even if you were married to her.

      While he’d pondered on the illogicality of women, his sisters had proceeded to dissect his character with the precision of a pair of brain surgeons as they matched him against every available female over the age of thirty in the county.

      They’d clearly decided it was time he had a wife to take care of him now that they were both otherwise involved, and, quite overlooking the fact that he’d spent the last fifteen years looking after them, they’d decided that it was their duty to find him one. Someone sensible; someone who would be grateful for the attention; someone who had reached the magic age of thirty. He was sure it would have been older but for the fact that they were concerned that he might want an heir. Kind of them to be so considerate.

      The trouble was that once those two girls had put their minds to something, nothing would move them. He could protest as much as he liked that he had no intention of marrying anyone, least of all any of the women they had picked out as likely candidates.

      They would humour him, make a fuss of him, tell him not to worry about a thing, and if he wasn’t extremely wary he would very shortly find himself standing at the altar of the village church, waiting for some female who would be wearing a vast amount of lace and a smile like the Cheshire Cat as she chained him to her with a tiny band of gold. It was quite possible that he would even be quite happy at the prospect. He’d seen it happen to more than one man. It was quite terrifying what women were capable of …

      His only advantage was that they had no idea that he had wind of their plans. It wasn’t much, but he intended to put it to good use. His first move was to take himself out of harm’s way, somewhere safe, where he wouldn’t find himself agreeing to some innocent-sounding invitation that would result in tears before bedtime. His tears.

      And in the privacy of his club, a place where no one would be allowed to bother him without his express permission, he could spend the entire weekend in serious consideration of some way to divert them from their devious little plan.

      Once the wedding was over, he would be safe. Dora would be on honeymoon with John, and when they returned she would have a husband, her little stepdaughter, Sophie, and all the distractions of everyday life, as well as her charity work to keep her busy. And Poppy’s contract with an American cosmetic company would soon take her and Richard back across the Atlantic.

      It was the week before the wedding that would be the most dangerous period. There would be any number of dinners and small parties for family and friends, affairs at which the Ginnie Metcalfes and Sarah Darcy-Williamses would be pushed at him with the belief firmly implanted by his sisters that, with a little effort, they might soon be Mrs Fergus Kavanagh. Rather like a game of pass the parcel—whoever caught him when the music stopped would be the winner. He wasn’t a vain man, but he was well aware that he would make a prize catch for an ambitious woman.

      Unaware of his sister’s plans, he might just have been flattered enough by all the attention to slip a little … and where two or three determined women were gathered in the cause of matrimony, a slip was all it would take.

      Of course, Veronica Grant was ambitious, too. She had to be to have broken through the glass ceiling and risen to the top in what was still largely a man’s world. But she was ambitious on her own behalf. She was no more on the prowl for a wealthy husband than he was seeking a suitable wife, with or without a good seat on a horse.

      She had taken him by surprise with her suggestion, it was true, but nobody had ever suggested he was slow in latching on to a good idea. She was, in fact, the answer to a confirmed bachelor’s prayer.

      And, like all the best plans, it had simplicity to commend it. It was delightfully simple. Perfectly simple. Fergus could hardly wait to see Poppy and Dora’s reaction when they discovered that their dull, unromantic, boring old brother could find a woman of such elegance, self-assurance and beauty without any assistance from them.

      Always assuming, of course, that Veronica Grant would agree to a double distraction. ‘You need me to keep your mother’s posse of prospective bridegrooms at bay and I’m happy to do it,’ he said. ‘All I ask in return is that you stick to my side like glue at Dora’s wedding in two weeks’ time. No strings. No complications. Not even the momentary embarrassment of a cheque in an envelope. Just two people helping each other out of a difficult situation.’ He smiled at her across the remnants of their breakfast. ‘Well, Miss Grant, what do you say? Do we have a deal?’

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