she didn’t enquire where he was going, or why. Instead, she began to lightly tap the shell of her egg. Fergus found her lack of curiosity profoundly irritating. Women were supposed to be terminally inquisitive, weren’t they? He buttered his toast and forked up a mouthful of fish. ‘Today,’ he said before he could stop himself, ‘I have to see my tailor.’
That wasn’t entirely true. He didn’t have to visit his tailor today. Any time next week would have done, but it had made as good an excuse as any for fleeing his own house in the middle of his sister’s wedding preparations. Not that Dora had looked as if she had believed him. But then, Dora was irritated at having her plans frustrated.
‘Your tailor?’ Veronica Grant didn’t look as if she believed it, either. ‘Oh. I thought there might be some crisis with the takeover.’
His eyebrows rose. ‘Are you an interested stockholder by any chance?’ he demanded.
‘No,’ she said, not in the least intimidated by the sudden fierceness of his answer. ‘Just interested.’
Her smile almost knocked him back in the seat. He would have suspected that she was flirting with him, except that people didn’t flirt with total strangers on the eight-fifteen train into London. At least, not in his experience.
Maybe it was time he widened his experience. He got a charge when one of his horses won a race, but it didn’t match this.
He tried a smile of his own. It wasn’t at all difficult. His irritation had quickly evaporated in the company of this intriguing woman. ‘To be honest, the visit to my tailor is an excuse,’ he confided—since she didn’t believe him, he might as well make a virtue out of owning up. ‘My real reason for going up to town is to escape the mayhem of wedding preparations. I can assure you that a takeover is a piece of cake compared to the effort that seems to be involved in organising something as simple as a marriage ceremony.’
‘You’re getting married?’ That shook her. She covered it with another of those smiles, but she hadn’t planned on that. Well, that was all right. Wedding bells didn’t form any part of his plans, despite his sisters’ plots.
‘Me? Heaven forbid.’ Just so that she knew he wasn’t in the marriage market. ‘And in the unlikely event that I should ever be rash enough to take a plunge into that shark-infested pool, Miss Grant, I shall do it with the minimum of fuss. There will be no balloons, flowers or bridesmaids. I will not have a marquee erected on my lawn, or invite four hundred people to break my gardener’s heart, trampling through his borders.’
Veronica Grant took a spoonful of egg. Why on earth was her hand shaking? She simply wanted to borrow the man for the day, not marry him. Marriage played no part in her future plans. ‘The lady you decide to marry might have other ideas,’ she pointed out, before eating it.
‘They do say three’s a charm.’
‘Do they?’ Fergus was not about to let that pass unchallenged. ‘Then they—whoever they are—are talking through the back of their collective heads.’
‘I see.’ The lady was trying to hide a smile.
‘It’s not funny, Miss Grant.’
‘Of course it isn’t. In fact, I endorse your sentiments wholeheartedly.’ But the smile didn’t leave her eyes. It was irresistible. He just couldn’t help smiling back. ‘So you’re taking refuge in your gentleman’s club?’
He was that transparent? ‘The temptation to stay there until the whole thing is over is almost overwhelming; unfortunately, I have to give away the bride. But at least it’s given me an excuse to come up to town.’
Veronica Grant’s smooth high forehead puckered in the smallest of frowns. Then she said, ‘Oh, the tailor.’
‘Apparently I need a new morning suit for the occasion.’ And when Dora made up her mind about something, there was no point in fighting it. It was a thought to send a shiver of apprehension down his spine. ‘I had a call yesterday to say that it’s ready.’
‘Oh.’
I need a new morning suit … That sounded so unbelievably pompous, he thought. No one needed a new morning suit. ‘Actually, the one I inherited from my father fits like an old friend, and would have done perfectly well, but it’s black,’ he explained. ‘Dora said it made me look like a funeral director.’
Somewhat unexpectedly, Veronica Grant laughed. It was a real laugh, and caused several people to turn in their direction. Then she shook her head. ‘Weddings are hell, aren’t they?’
‘This one will be,’ he said with feeling. And not just because it was turning his house and his life upside down. Then he remembered the hatbox. ‘Is that the reason for the hat? Are you on your way to a wedding?’
‘For my sins.’ She concentrated on pouring her tea as the train raced through a cutting. ‘My cousin is getting married. She’s twenty-two and she hooked a viscount at the first attempt.’
‘Oh.’ He couldn’t think of anything else to say.
She flashed him a look from beneath her lashes. ‘That sounds terribly bitchy, doesn’t it?’ He didn’t reply. He didn’t see Miss Grant as the bitchy type, but it was quite possible that she’d been trying to hook a viscount too, and she was nearer thirty than twenty. ‘I’m not jealous of Fliss, Mr Kavanagh. She’s a lovely girl, and deserves a wonderful life with the man of her dreams … ’
‘But?’
She gave an expressive little shrug. ‘But my mother will be. Jealous. She’ll give me long, hurtful looks. She’ll sigh a lot. She’ll murmur about “biological clocks” ticking away and her desperate longing to hold her first grandchild before she moves on to that everlasting cocktail party in the sky.’ Veronica illustrated this with small, theatrical gestures and expressions that summoned up her mother’s reaction to perfection, and Fergus found himself grinning. He couldn’t help himself.
‘I take it that her demise is not imminent?’
‘No. She’s fifty-five, but refuses to admit to more than forty-nine and gets away with it every time. But that won’t stop her having a …’ She waved her spoon as she searched for an appropriate word. ‘Do you suppose that there is a collective noun for prospective sons-in-law?’
‘I’ve no idea. A proposal?’ he suggested, after a moment’s thought.
‘A proposal?’ She considered it, and then smiled appreciatively. ‘A proposal of sons-in-law. I like that.’ It was rather like someone switching on the lights when she smiled, Fergus decided. And not just any lights. More like one of those enormous Venetian crystal chandeliers. Or the Christmas lights in Regent Street. Or Blackpool Illuminations. Quite possibly all three. ‘Well, there you have it,’ she continued. ‘I used to love family weddings, but these days they are something of a trial. My mother knows I won’t be able to escape her “proposal” of prospective sons-in-law; she’ll have them lined up for me like stallions at stud, each one vetted for financial acuity, with a family tree of oak-like proportions
