Bride By Friday

Tess had a folder full of travel documents given to her by the agent in Yaldara Bay. And instructions that scared the life out of someone who’d travelled three times to Sydney for her nursing exams and that was as far from home as she’d ever been.

Now... she had to go through Customs in Heathrow, find the Airbus office, catch the bus to the coach station-then walk about five blocks to the cheap bed and breakfast the agent had booked for her. She had a map. It was all here. Just follow the instructions.

‘I’m being met by a driver,’ Charles said in her ear and made her jump. ‘I can give you a lift.’

‘I don’t want a lift,’ Tessa said crossly. ‘Thank you. My bus fare is paid.’

‘Very efficient.’ Charles lifted her travel documents and frowned down at the page of instructions telling her where to go. ‘Backblow Street. I don’t know about my future wife staying here.’

‘Well, you go and ask your future wife where she wants to stay,’ Tessa managed. ‘Just leave me alone.’

‘But...’

‘No,’ she said flatly. ‘Please...just leave me be.’

They parted soon after landing.

Charles somehow managed to stay by her side until they hit the queue for Immigration. Then there were two queues—one for British subjects and one for aliens. To her surprise, Charles headed for the local queue.

‘I’ll wait for you on the other side,’ he said, but she shook her head resolutely. Her passage through was surprisingly swift, her luggage was the first off the conveyor belt and then she was at the Airbus terminal knowsing she need never see Charlie Cameron again in her life.

She should be relieved. She should be shaking off the memory of such a lunatic with speed. Instead, she boarded her bus feeling as desolate as she’d ever felt in her life.

It must be Christine’s death, she told herself, and the fact that she was on the other side of the world from Donald. From anyone she knew.

But as she sat on the top of her double-decker bus, heading for central London, the thought of Charlie Cameron’s gentle smile stayed with her.

He was a nut but a nice nut, she decided as she buried herself in the map showing her where to go when she left the bus. She could afford to remember him with affection.

But a tiny voice at the back of her head told her she didn’t want to remember him at all. The thought of his strong arm around her—the feel of his cashmere sweater—the sheer maleness of the man—that was what she wanted.

Oh, yeah? And the thought of being wife to the Earl of Dalston? she told herself grimly. If he’s the Earl of Dalston then I’m travelling on a flying pig. Now stop thinking about lunatics and start thinking about maps.

It took Tess an hour to find her hotel and by the time she did it was still only seven in the morning and she was exhausted.

Donald had presented her with a set of baggage wheels as a farewell present. ‘Because taxi prices are sky high and you’ll be using enough of our house savings as it is,’ he’d told her. ‘Using these wheels, you can walk pulling your things behind you. They’ll make you independent.’

Which they might have if they’d been good quality, Tess thought gnmiy. The streets were rough and the plastic wheels were weak. Tess walked a block before the first wheel buckled. Then she was left with no choice but to carry everything by hand. There wasn’t even a rubbish bin where she could dump her broken wheels. She had to carry them as well.

It was the middle of June. At home it had been crisp and cool in the beginning of winter. Here it was summer. It was too early to be hot but it was humid enough to be uncomfortable, and Tessa’s jogging suit was way too heavy. By the time she stopped outside a dubiouslooking lodging house, she was exhausted.

At least she’d made it. Primrose Place. Bed and breakfast.

Tess looked up at her lodgings with dismay. She had to stay in London for a couple of nights—she needed to see her sister’s lawyer before she went north—and accommodation in the city was expensive. Donald and the travel agent had chosen this place for her from a brochure. Surely it hadn’t looked like this in the advertisement?

The place looked just plain seedy. The last primrose to grace Primrose Place had hoisted its roots and departed centuries ago, breathing a sigh of relief as it did. All that was left was a dingy, soot-covered building. The cracked window in the front was plastered with newspaper, and a smell of stale grease hung about the front door.

She had no choice. She had to stay here. Her accommodation was paid.

Tess looked up and down the street. All the buildings here—a long line of terraces three storeys high—were much the same, all slightly unkempt and grubby. The street was early-morning quiet, milk bottles standing empty on each doorstep. A large black car nosed its way into the end of the street and stopped, its engine still running. Its occupants didn’t emerge.

This was like something out of a second-rate whodunmt movie.

Maybe it was because she was very much alone that she felt uneasy. Despite the heat, Tess shivered, and rang the bell fast.

The bell echoed hollowly inside, and she heard a mass of dog flesh hurling itself against the other side of the door. Hardly a welcome. All she heard was snarling.

The snarling ended with a human curse and then the door opened. Her landlord stood before her, still in the bottom half of dirty pyjamas, bald, unshaven and his flabby white chest bare.

‘What d’ya want?’

Tess caught her breath.

‘I’m...I’m booked in here.’ She held out her accommodation voucher. The man took it, kicked the dog back from behind him and sniffed as he inspected it. Then he thrust the voucher back at her.

‘This is for tonight. Come back five o’clock when the doors open. Not before.’ And he slammed the door in her face.

Tess hadn’t cried. Not once. Not when the phone call had come telling her Christine was dead. Not when Christine’s mother-in-law had told her she was crazy to come and she wasn’t wanted. Not when she’d said goodbye to Donald.

She came very close now.

She stood on the greasy doorstep and took great lungfuls of humid air and fought for control. It was seven o’clock in the morning in a strange city and she had nowhere to go.

A hand landed on her shoulder and held.

Tess yelped. There was no other word to describe the sound that came out as she jumped about six inches in the air. When she came down to land, the hand was still on her shoulder, turning her around to face whoever it was accosting her.

But Tessa Flanagan was no victim. As charge nurse at Yaldara Bay Hospital, Tessa’s reactions to emergencies were tuned to be lighting-swift-and now was no exception.

She attacked right back.

During one very boring winter in Yaldara Bay, Tess had enrolled in a self-defence course for women. Then, after an incident with a drunk in Casualty, she’d taught the same class to the junior nurses on her staff. Over and over.

Sometimes she’d wondered whether it really would work. If she was attacked, would she be so frightened that she’d freeze?

Obviously not. Her training worked a treat.

As her attacker hauled her around to face him—before she even saw who was attacking—she thumped her fist fair across his left eye. In the same instant, Tessa’s spare hand dropped and came upward fast, crunching as hard as she possibly could. Right into his private parts.

And Charlie Cameron grunted in agony, fell back and clutched himself where it hurt most.

Tess stared... and stared some more.

‘Charlie...’

‘So who were you expecting?’ Charlie managed, groaning and bent double. ‘Jack the Ripper? Hell, Tess, you’ve damaged me for life!’

‘But...’