A Suitable Groom

by Liz Fielding

  ‘That’s a terrible idea,’ he said, truly hating the thought of her hiring some dreadful gigolo type. Then, because she was looking at him rather oddly, ‘Your mother doesn’t sound like the kind of woman to be impressed by a fake Italian count.’

  ‘Who said he was fake? Impoverished European aristocrats have to eat too, you know. But you’re right. I’m afraid a good-looking toy boy simply wouldn’t cut the mustard on this occasion. I need someone who would give the appearance of being a serious contender. Someone like you, Mr Kavanagh.’ She picked up her cup, sipped her tea and then replaced her cup carefully on the saucer before looking him straight in the eye. ‘Which is why I bribed Peter to put you at my table.’

  Fergus Kavanagh could not remember the last time that anyone had reduced him to silence. ‘You bribed Peter?’ he managed finally.

  It was time to come clean, own up, face the music. ‘I’m afraid so,’ Veronica admitted. ‘I saw your dash for the train and I asked him if you ever came into the restaurant car for breakfast. He assured me that you never missed.’

  ‘Did he, by God? Well, I have to say that Peter is a great disappointment to me. I had always assumed that he was thoroughly discreet. Tell me, what did it take?’

  Oh, Lord, he was angry. She’d got Peter into trouble and made an utter fool of herself into the bargain. For nothing. ‘I’m sorry?’

  Fergus was not fooled by her apparent innocence. ‘What did it take to bribe him?’ he said carefully.

  ‘Oh, I see.’ She hesitated, then gave a little shrug. ‘I’m not sure that I should tell you.’

  After the initial shock, Fergus decided that he was rather enjoying himself. ‘Force yourself,’ he urged.

  ‘A ticket for the Cup Final?’ she offered.

  ‘The Cup Final?’ This woman could get tickets for a sporting event at the top of every red-blooded male’s wish list? ‘The FA Cup Final?’ he asked, to be quite certain. She nodded. ‘But that’s only a week away. There can’t be any tickets left,’ he said, rather stupidly.

  ‘I have two.’ It suddenly occurred to her that he wasn’t so much angry as taken by surprise. ‘Had two,’ she amended.

  ‘And you thought one of them worth my presence at your breakfast table?’

  She put her head to one side and regarded him for a moment. In for a penny, she thought … after all she had nothing to lose … ‘Now that I’ve met you, Mr Kavanagh, I am of the opinion that you would have been worth both tickets.’

  She didn’t mince her words. Formidable indeed. And Fergus couldn’t bring himself to blame Peter for accepting her offer. ‘I have the feeling that I should be flattered,’ he said finally.

  She spread her fingers in a gesture that left it entirely up to him whether he was flattered, or merely intrigued. Just as long as he was one of them. ‘It was the best I could do at short notice. I had to think quickly, you see.’

  He did. And she’d certainly done that. ‘Your best is very good, Miss Grant.’

  But was it good enough? ‘Not really. Jefferson Sports are a major sponsor. I’m expected to attend and bring a guest.’

  ‘Peter?’ His disbelief was understandable.

  ‘Peter,’ she confirmed. ‘He’ll have a lovely day. Lunch, a chance to meet some former players—’

  ‘I don’t doubt it,’ he said, cutting her short. ‘But aren’t you supposed to take along one of your major customers?’

  ‘I’d far rather take someone who really enjoys the game, someone who can tell me what exactly is happening. Peter is a keen follower of Melchester Rovers, you know. And besides, major customers can pull enough strings to get their own tickets.’

  ‘I hope Nick Jefferson sees it that way.’

  ‘Nick has his mind on other things at the moment. Anyway, Peter is a customer. He bought a set of our golf clubs a few months back. I got him a discount.’ Veronica Grant smiled at him, inviting him to join in her little joke. Instead, Fergus gave her an old-fashioned look. ‘You know Nick?’ she asked.

  ‘I’m afraid not.’

  ‘The man has a highly developed sense of the ridiculous,’ she assured him.

  ‘With you as his Marketing Director, he must need it.’ Then, ‘Suppose I hadn’t co-operated?’ He indicated the seat at the far end of the carriage that had originally caught his eye. ‘I might have chosen to sit over there.’

  She turned and glanced at the empty seat. ‘You did,’ she pointed out, turning back to face him. ‘But Peter stopped you by my table and I waylaid you with my hatbox. Are you interested in football, Mr Kavanagh? I might be able to lay my hands on another ticket, in a good cause.’

  ‘I have a standing invitation to the Cup Final, Miss Grant.’

  ‘Of course. Lunch with the directors, a seat in their box. Nothing less will do for Mr Fergus Kavanagh.’ He didn’t deny it. ‘I’m not sure what else I could offer …’ she paused so briefly that he might have imagined it ‘… a gentleman.’

  He had thought for a while that she might be having a little joke at his expense. But she wasn’t. ‘You’re serious, aren’t you?’

  ‘In deadly earnest. You see, you fit the profile perfectly.’

  He considered asking just what the ‘profile’ might be. Then thought better of it. ‘But you don’t know anything about me.’

  ‘That’s not entirely true. I know, for instance, that you are the most eligible of men—that is, you’re wealthy and unmarried, which for the purpose of this little exercise is all that is required—although to be honest I cannot think how you have escaped the clutches of some matchmaking mama for so long.’

  ‘Just lucky, I guess. Of course, I don’t have a title,’ he said, his tongue firmly in his cheek, beginning to enjoy himself as the germ of an idea began to take hold, grow … ‘Maybe that’s the reason.’

  ‘Two out of three isn’t bad,’ she pointed out. ‘And you’re bound to turn up in the New Year Honours sooner or later. So, what do you say, Mr Kavanagh, are you free this afternoon at two o’clock?’

  Dear God, but the woman was cool. He wondered what it would take to heat her up. And would it be a slow overnight defrost, or was she the kind of woman who would simply explode in a rush of steam like a volcanic geyser?

  ‘Where is this wedding?’ he asked, to take his mind off such disturbing thoughts.

  ‘St Margaret’s.’

  ‘St Margaret’s, Westminster?’

  ‘Fliss’s mother is a Member of Parliament.’

  ‘Formidable women run in the family, then?’ His eyes creased in amusement.

  ‘At least one in every generation,’ she confirmed. Then, ‘The reception is in Knightsbridge. We wouldn’t have to stay late. In fact, if we appeared desperately keen to leave early it would be a positive bonus.’ She lifted her shoulders in the most elegant of shrugs. ‘My mother wouldn’t bother me about biological clocks for months.’

  Fergus sat back and regarded the lady with interest. Such quick thinking was rare, and he could well understand how she had made it to the boardroom at such an early age. But he wasn’t slow on his feet when it came to taking advantage of unexpected opportunities. He might not want a ticket for the FA Cup Final, but Miss Veronica Grant had just offered him the perfect answer to his own difficulties.

  ‘You have gone to great lengths to ask me for a favour, Miss Grant,’ he said, ‘and such quick thinking should not go unrewarded.’

  ‘Is that a yes?’ she enquired hopefully.

  ‘A qualified yes. My top hat and brand-new morning suit are at your disposal this afternoon …’

  Her smile was tinged with uncertainty. ‘But—?’ she added, after a small pause.

  He returned her smile. He’d known she would understand. ‘But,’ he confirmed, ‘I shall require a small favour in return.’

  ‘Well, that’s only fair,’ she agreed, happy to indulge him in whatever sporting fantasy turned him on. ‘What event did you have in mind?’

  ‘Event?’

  ‘A day at Lord’s? The Centre
Court on Finals Day at Wimbledon?’

  ‘Could you manage even that?’ he asked.

  ‘It wouldn’t be easy,’ she admitted. ‘But then, nothing worth the effort is ever easy.’

  Fergus decided that Miss Grant was a woman with more than good looks to commend her. ‘On this occasion it will be. That is, if you are free on the seventeenth of this month. It’s a Saturday.’

  ‘I’ll make sure that I am,’ she said, without hesitation, without 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?’

  CHAPTER THREE

  VERONICA had acted on an impulse born out of desperation when she’d seen Fergus Kavanagh sprinting across the platform and climbing aboard the train. But then, all her really good decisions had been made that way. Not that she would ever have admitted it. Women did not reach the boardroom by admitting to anything as unbusinesslike a
s ‘feminine intuition’, the distaff version of that old favourite ‘gut instinct’ so often used by men to justify decisions which seemed completely off the wall.

  But it was one thing taking a chance on a business deal, quite another propositioning a man she had never met before on the eight-fifteen to London.

  Looking across at him now, she could still scarcely credit that split-second quantum leap from idea to action. But a deep-down tingle as he had entered the carriage had told her that she had been right, that her intuition was in perfect working order. Fergus Kavanagh was, without doubt, the man to impress her mother: chiselled good looks, classic tailoring and the kind of financial stability that would stand up to any amount of scrutiny. It was a winning combination, and with him on her arm she would certainly be spared her mother’s pointed references to the march of time.

  She glanced at Kavanagh surreptitiously from beneath her lashes and discovered that he was watching her, waiting for her answer. By his own admission, he came into that category of thirty-something men who had somehow escaped marriage. Had he really been too busy to find a wife, or could it be that his interests lay in another direction? Could it be that he was in fact gay, but chose to keep the truth from his matchmaking sisters?

  There was nothing in those thoughtful brown eyes to raise her pulse or her blood pressure, yet there was something, a stillness, that sent a warning tingle straight to her toes. If this had been a business meeting, she would have known he was the most dangerous man in the room, and up close, in full colour, Mr Fergus Kavanagh looked a great deal more impressive than his fuzzy newspaper photograph had suggested.

  When he’d appeared in the doorway of the dining car she’d almost lost her nerve, unexpectedly daunted by the power that seemed to emanate from him; it was an unfamiliar feeling. She was used to being the one in control.

  But now all she had to do was say “yes” and they would be conspirators. It would be them against the meddling matchmakers, and who could ever doubt that they would win?