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Since Leroy, who had to be the Great Dane, now had his paws on her shoulders and had her pinned to the car as he licked her face, this was just as well, Chas felt.
‘Um—down boy!’ She wiped her face with her jacket sleeve. ‘I’m Chas Bartlett. I believe I’m expected.’
‘Good heavens! We thought you were a man! How do you do? I’m Harriet Hocking, Vanessa’s mother. To be perfectly honest, I’m relieved. I was expecting some long-haired arty chap.’
‘You were? But—uh—Ms Tait knew I wasn’t a man, after the initial confusion.’
Harriet raised her eyebrows. She was good-looking, thanks to great bone structure and a slim figure, but in a rather weathered kind of no-nonsense way. ‘Well, she somehow failed to pass it on; not like our Birdie. Never mind, come in!’
Several exhausting hours later, Chas closed herself into her bedroom, slipped her shoes off and sat down on the bed.
Then she lay back flat across the bed with her arms outstretched and started to laugh softly. Beside Harriet, Vanessa and Clare Hocking, Laura Richmond paled into insignificance.
If she could get this wedding to the altar she’d be more than a genius!
She sat up. The only member of the immediate wedding party not present this evening had been the man who had hired her, Thomas Hocking. Would it be too much to hope that he might actually be normal?
Yes, it would, she decided.
She herself had brought his name up halfway through dinner—a dinner that she would probably remember for a long time. It had been served in a large panelled room at a vast table with silver cutlery, crystal glasses and Wedgwood china. A pale, tense-looking young man, apparently part of the kitchen staff, had dished up and passed around a feast.
‘I thought Thomas Hocking might be here since he actually hired me, I believe,’ she ventured at the dessert stage—brandy pudding and custard, which she was secretly viewing with despair after all the food that had gone before.
‘Thomas?’ Vanessa, a stunning brunette, raised her eyebrows and smirked. ‘As a matter of fact, Thomas more or less press-ganged the rest of us into being here, then he sloped off. Typical, and with a woman, no doubt! I bet it’s that peachy blonde who’s opened up a riding school down the road.’
‘She certainly finds plenty of opportunities to visit Cresswell,’ Harriet said drily, ‘so you can’t exactly blame Thomas.’
‘Can’t you?’ Vanessa said with some patent cynicism. ‘If there wasn’t such a very long line of them, I might agree.’ She shrugged and turned to Chas. ‘Don’t worry about it,’ she advised. ‘He’s only paying for the wedding.’
‘If the details were left to him,’ Harriet said, ‘Vanessa would have to make do with a registry office, come to that.’
Clare Hocking, about the same age as her sister-inlaw, Harriet, put in, ‘There is a lot to be said for elegant simplicity, you know.’
They all gazed at her. Far from elegantly simple in her appearance, Clare wore several layers of clothing, none of which matched, as well as a stole and three long necklaces. Her silvery hair was tumbling out of a bun and she had two bright spots of artificial colour on each cheek, rather like a clown.
‘All the same…’ Rupert, Lord Weaver, cleared his throat. ‘I’m quite sure we won’t have to r-resort to a r-registry office. He would never do that to you, Vannie,’ he added reproachfully.
‘However, he can,’ Harriet said at large, ‘make things awkward, as we all know. Therefore this way, with Chas here to help—at his suggestion—we can keep the rest of his involvement to a minimum.’
‘Agreed.’ Vanessa pushed away her dessert plate and reached for a plum. ‘So whatever you do, Chas, take a stern line with Thomas!’
A womaniser, obviously, Chas thought as she considered Thomas Hocking in the privacy of her bedroom, but who was he and what other bizarre qualities did he possess?
He obviously held the purse strings but he didn’t sound like Vanessa’s father or Harriet’s husband. An uncle perhaps, who was now the head of the family? Who was resented, even, not only for his grip on those purse strings but also for his reprehensible taste in peachy young blondes?
She shook her head. Time would tell. In the meantime, the couple of hours after dinner she’d spent with Vanessa, Harriet and Clare had been tricky to say the least.
She’d listened to Vanessa’s ideas for her wedding and her dress, she’d listened to both Harriet and Clare’s ideas, and had formed the opinion that never would the trio meet.
That was when she’d quietly produced her folder of wedding dresses and pointed to the one she felt would suit Vanessa best.
There’d been a startled silence, then Vanessa had jumped up and thrown her arms around Chas. ‘It’s perfect! So different but so beautiful.’
‘It is lovely,’ Harriet agreed.
‘My, my!’ Clare enthused.
Then they discussed venues, and Chas gave her opinion that Cresswell Lodge was the perfect spot for a wedding reception. And, thinking rapidly, she outlined some ideas for decorating the house and garden for a wedding, including a silk-lined marquee on the lawn, because, as she told them, she never took chances with the weather.
‘Ah,’ Harriet said thoughtfully, ‘not just a pretty face, Chas Bartlett.’
‘I hope not, Mrs Hocking,’ Chas replied. ‘I did also wonder if it mightn’t be appropriate for the bride and groom to arrive at the reception in a horse-drawn carriage. Naturally they’d have to drive from the church in Warwick by car, but we could do a discreet changeover somehow or other. And horses do seem to feature prominently in your lives.’
Harriet sat up and Vanessa drew an excited breath. ‘Awesome!’ she said.
‘Wonderful,’ Harriet agreed. ‘You can leave that bit to me, Chas. Of course, we’d need matching carriage horses but that shouldn’t be too hard.’
Chas came back to the present and bit her lip. Matching horses?
She really needed to know what her budget would be before she made any more expensive suggestions. Not—she gazed around the impressive guest bedroom—that the Hockings appeared to be short of a dime, but there was the mysterious Thomas and his ‘registry office’ notions to take into account.
She yawned and was startled to see it was close to midnight so she changed into her night gear. Then she remembered that, impressive though the room was, with a king-size bed invitingly turned down, lovely drapes and a matching carpet, and warm as it was from central heating, there was no en suite bathroom.
The guest bathroom was several doors down a passage. She picked up her sponge bag and walked to the door, and the lights flickered, went out and stayed out.
Damn, she thought. I hate going to bed without cleaning my teeth! I’ll just have to manage in the dark.
She stepped out into the passage and waited a few moments for her eyes to adjust to the gloom. The house was quite silent.
She found the bathroom and, after a bit of fumbling around, managed to clean her teeth, wash her face and attend to all else that was necessary.
As she came out of the bathroom she hesitated and felt for her watch. It wasn’t there, for the simple reason that she’d taken it off when she was changing.
Not that it matters, she assured herself. I know that I have to turn this way, count two doors down and the third is my bedroom.
It all worked to plan and with a sigh of relief she shut herself into the room. There was nothing for it but to go to bed, since the lights were still out—she’d flicked the switch she’d groped for beside the door then flicked it off when nothing had happened. She pulled off her robe, felt around for the bed, and slipped into it.
The next few moments were electrifying. An arm descended on her waist, a sleepy exclamation issued forth, a pair of hands started to run down her body and a man’s deep voice said, ‘Holy mackerel! Not again!’
CHAPTER TWO
CHAS gasped, twisted and reared up. To her mortification, the sounds she uttered, which were meant to be serious screams, came out instead as a series of squeaks.
‘Whoa!’ She was determinedly wrestled back to the bed. ‘Look here, sweetheart, you came into my bed, not the other way around, so your objections are a bit bogus, surely?’
‘Stop!’ Chas hissed.
‘Why? Do I know you?’
‘No! There’s been a terrible mistake.’
To her fury, he moved his hands on her again, from her breasts down to her waist, and left them there. ‘Mistake?’ he mused as his hands almost spanned her waist. ‘I would have thought you were rather divinely put together, Aphrodite. Definitely an ornament to any man’s bed.’
‘Will you stop doing that!’ Chas commanded as she wriggled beneath the feel of his hands on her body. Not that he was hurting her. It was the opposite if anything…
‘I can explain. I must have lost—’ she stopped as the bedside lamp flickered on ‘—my way,’ she finished as her eyes widened.
She was in another vast bed but this one had a magnificent carved headboard. The pillows were plump and exotic, the colours ranging from pomegranate to slate-blue, and there were at least six of them. The sheets were slate and the quilt, now pushed aside, was patterned in pomegranate on a slate background.
Two bedside tables carved to match the bedhead bore lamps with silver foil shades. The walls were mushroom-pink, the ceiling was café au lait and a vast expanse of pale-toffee carpet fled into the shadows.
It was a stunning bedroom but not only that. Talk about Aphrodite—she was in the hands of a stranger who could have been Adonis.
The silence stretched as they stared at each other.
He had longish brown hair and a broad forehead tapering to a determined chin. He had smoky grey eyes, highly quizzical but all the same quite magnetic, beneath darker brows. He was naked, to the waist at least, and just about male perfection personified.
The skin of his broad shoulders was smooth and golden. His chest was sleekly muscled and sprinkled with dark hair, his throat was strong and his hands, now removed from her body, were tapered but powerful.
If she was taken aback, so was he, for a moment, as his grey gaze roamed over her.
He inspected her mass of shiny dark hair, the oval of her face, the naked pink of her lips and the velvet blue of her eyes.
She wore a slip of a cranberry silk nightgown with shoestring straps. It had a V-neckline that plunged quite low and the creamy swell of her breasts was visible. The narrowness of her waist was hinted at and the lovely curve of her hips was more than hinted at where the cranberry silk clung. Her legs were long and slender and her skin was satiny.
He took it all in then returned his gaze to hers, and as their eyes locked, for one crazy moment, Chas felt as if she’d all along been destined for this bed and this man; it just seemed—fitting somehow.
Her lips parted in amazement as the kind of frisson she hadn’t experienced for a while touched her deliciously in all her secret places down her smooth body.
He read the amazement in her eyes and the ghost of a smile touched his mouth, then he looked down her body again.
The nightgown ended just below her hips and was rucked up anyway.
She followed his gaze down to her thighs and, with a gasp of horror, pulled the sheet up to her throat.
He smiled lazily this time and said softly, ‘Closing the stable door after the horse has bolted, Aphrodite? You really are a mass of contradictions.’
Chas sat bolt upright, still clutching the sheet with some hazy idea of wrapping herself in it while she beat a hasty retreat, but he anchored his side of it firmly to the bed. He also circled his other hand round one of her wrists.
‘What are you doing?’ Her eyes widened.
‘Taking out some insurance,’ he drawled. ‘Just in case you decide to rush from the room screaming rape.’
‘I had no intention of doing that!’
He shrugged. ‘Ah, seduction then. Tell you what, I’ll make up my mind about that in a moment. So,’ he said, ‘you lost your way?’
Chas felt a tremor of fear run through her—what had she got herself into? She set her teeth. ‘Yes. There was a power failure. I—I went to the bathroom and got…disorientated.’
‘Really?’
There was so much sardonic disbelief in this single word that Chas blushed vividly, but she soldiered on. ‘If you don’t believe me, how do you explain your lamp coming on of its own accord?’
He thought for a moment. ‘I decided to read for a while.’ He reached around and pulled a book from under a pillow. ‘I must have fallen asleep with the lamp on, and we do get power failures. That would explain—some things,’ he said and sat up suddenly, although he didn’t release her wrist. ‘Who are you?’ he asked grimly.
‘I—I’m here to organise a wedding,’ she said disjointedly, ‘but I’m having some trouble convincing myself this isn’t a madhouse.’
His eyebrows disappeared into his hair. ‘Chas Bartlett in drag?’ he queried incredulously, his gaze resting on her breasts again. ‘Or, no. Would you be his assistant, perhaps? Sent to secure the deal in the time-honoured way?’
She stared at him with her mouth open.
‘Don’t play the innocent with me,’ he advised softly. ‘It happens. So what exactly does The Perfect Day wedding consultancy supply? Your services in my bed as well?’
Chas drew a deep breath into her lungs and swung her free hand so that it connected with his cheek, hard.
He didn’t even flinch, but jerked her into his arms. ‘If that’s how you like it, rough, two can play that game,’ he said barely audibly.
His arms felt like iron bars around her. The look in his eyes, of serious contempt, frightened the life out of her but what was even more frightening was the real-isation that, contemptuous or not, he intended to kiss her…
‘Don’t, don’t—don’t!’ she warned.
‘Don’t kiss you? Why not? You may have an avaricious little soul but your body is another matter.’ He loosened his arms slightly and looked downwards. ‘Another matter entirely.’
Chas twisted like an eel and managed to free herself, but only momentarily. She was just about to slip off the bed when he caught her wrist again. ‘Oh, no, you don’t, sweetheart,’ he drawled. ‘We haven’t finished what you started yet.’
She was breathing tumultuously. ‘L-look—I mean, l-listen to me,’ she stammered. ‘I am Chas Bartlett. It’s short for Charity. There’s only me in the wedding consultancy—you’ve got it all wrong. And I did lose my way! What’s more, if you lay another finger on me I will scream rape and blue murder.’
A little silence developed as they faced each other. He was still holding her wrist but he pushed himself up on his elbow and studied her. Her hair was gloriously disarrayed, she was flushed and still breathing heavily, but her blue eyes were deadly serious.
He rubbed his knuckles along his jaw and pulled the sheet up.
‘So you were a woman all along?’ He frowned. ‘Why did Birdie think you were a man?’
‘People assume Chas is short for Charles.’
‘What’s wrong with Charity?’ he queried.
‘Nothing, unless your grandmother is Faith and your mother Hope. I think I was about nine when I decided that Charity was a bit much.’ She stopped and eyed him with extreme frustration. ‘What’s that got to do with anything? I’m quite sure this is a madhouse now. And who the hell are you?’
‘I just happen to live here.’ He smiled fleetingly. ‘What makes you think this is a madhouse? I mean…’ he shrugged those magnificent shoulders ‘…I’m tempted to agree with you at times, but how would you know?’
Chas sent him a smouldering look. ‘I’ll tell you. I was hired by someone called Thomas Hocking, who brought me all this way specifically so he could meet me, then didn’t even have the decency to turn up tonight, apparently because according to his own family he’s too busy womanising. And now I’m told that he, the man paying for the wedding, would much rather have a registry-office do!’ This time her eyes flashed scornfully. ‘That’s not the kind of wedding I put together, and it makes me wonder why I’m here and if he can afford me. It just doesn’t make sense.’
‘Oh, he could.’
Chas blinked a couple of times as she tried to put this in context. ‘He could what?’
‘Afford you.’
