Bride By Friday

‘Very well,’ he said. ‘Let’s start this now.’

Tessa’s bath was glorious. The bedroom itself was sumptuous, with plush white carpet, a vast, canopied bed and blue and gold curtains over a wall of windows which looked over the square and the rooftops of London beyond.

The en suite bathroom had the same fantastic view, and the bath—which could have accommodated three of Tessa—was amazing.

‘It’s a shame to bathe at night because you need to close the curtains or turn off the Light if you’re not to shock the neighbours,’ Mary told her as she handed her an armload of bath towels. ‘But the good thing about English summer is our lack of night-time. Enjoy your bath, lass.’ And she left her to soak.

Tess soaked. And soaked.

It was the first quiet time Tess had had since she’d heard of Christine’s death. It was the first time her responsibihties and need for organization had eased. The shadow of Christine’s death receded, with the image of Charles Cameron superimposing itself on her thoughts. Tess lay back under the foam, stared up at the ornate plasterwork on the high ceiling and wondered just what she had got herself into.

The image of Charlie Cameron as a lunatic was fading. Henry and the maternal, perceptive Mary seemed dependable and trustworthy, and they formed a respectable backdrop for the man. Tess was almost starting to believe in the earldom. And the castle. Almost.

‘Surely he doesn’t seriously expect to get married in six weeks?’ she asked the ceiling. ‘But then...to lose all this if he doesn’t...’

It was too hard. She drifted in and out of her bubbly haze until Mary’s call pulled her back to reality.

‘That bathwater’ll be getting cold, lass. You pull on a bathrobe and come for breakfast’

A bathrobe.

Tess looked about her warily. She didn’t want to put on her soiled jogging suit again but...

There was a thick white bathrobe hanging from the door. Tess towelled herself dry and examined it with caution.

It was a gorgeous garment. It wrapped completely around her with heaps to spare and came down to her toes. The white towelling was absolutely plain except for a rich purple letter embroidered on the breast pocket.

‘D’.

D for Dalston?

If this was all a hoax then it was some elaborate setup, Tess decided. But...Charlie as an earl? Charles Cameron wasn’t like any earl Tess had ever met.

Tess made a silly face at herself in the mirror, grabbed a comb from her handbag and attacked her washed and tangled curls with force.

Yeah, well, exactly how many earls have you met before, Tessa Flanagan? she asked herself. Heaps and heaps? Or only one? An earl called Charlie. And he’s waiting for you at breakfast. So put some clothes on and go and find him.

Easier said than done. Her clothing had disappeared. Tess came cautiously out into her bedroom to find no sign of her baggage.

There was a pair of soft, fit-all slippers by the bed—also engraved with D. Tess slid them on and padded out into the hall. She was feeling stranger and stranger.

As if she really were in a harem.

‘Any minute now a slave or two will pop out, perfume me and cart me off to the master,’ she said grimly.

‘Hey, I’d like that!’

Tess swung around like a scalded cat. Charlie was standing at the door of the room opposite, dressed in a bathrobe identical to hers.

The master himself. And he’d heard what she had said.

Tess blushed scarlet from the toes up.

‘You don’t need a slave to perfume you. You look cuter than I do in that thing,’ Charlie complained, ignoring her blush. ‘It isn’t fair.’

She might look cuter—but Charlie looked staggeringly male. Charles might be wearing an identical bathrobe to Tessa’s, but on him it looked completely different. The robe only came to Charlie’s knees. His brown legs emerged beneath like solid trunks.

Because the robe didn’t have quite the capacity to wrap round Charlie’s much larger body, his chest was bare to the waist. His chest was tanned, muscled and coated with deep black hair—just like the hair on his head which, wet from his shower or bath, was clinging in damp tendrils across his brow. The strands were just touching the bruise across his eye. Tess hauled back on an almost irresistible urge to brush the strands back. To soothe the hurt...

Ridiculous! She kept her hands strictly to herself.

‘I...I couldn’t find my clothes.’

‘Nor I, mine. If I know Mary, we’ll get them cleaned and pressed whether we want them cleaned and pressed or not.’ Charlie grinned his slow, lazy smile that did funny things to Tessa’s insides. ‘Last time I came here I brought my Dnzabone—the coat I use for mustering cattle back home. It’s useful when I go up north and don’t want to stay indoors. Mary attacked it with force. When I got back to Australia, I was the only cattleman in the country wearing a Drizabone with a starched collar!’

Tessa’s strain eased as the image made her grin. Drizabones were standard wear for Australian farmers—huge, brown waterproof coats that were only valued after they’d been worn in by hard work and grime. To wash one was almost sacnlege. And to starch it...

Charlie chuckled with her and the strain eased some more.

There was a wonderful smell wafting from the end of the hall and Charles was leading her toward it. He held open the door for Tess to precede him, and she brushed against his long body as she passed. Towelling against towelling...

He was so big and so male and... And his feet and legs were bare. And the strain came flooding back! Tess was having all sorts of irrelevant thoughts about what would happen as those bare legs stretched upward...

Good grief! The way she was thinking she almost deserved to be a slave. And she was engaged to Donald!

She fought her mounting colour and tried to concentrate on what was before her. That wasn’t hard. The dining table was groaning under a pile of food.

The table itself was vast, built to seat a dozen or more. The room was ornate and gilt and...

‘And too damned formal for words,’ Charlie growled. ‘What’s wrong with the kitchen, Mary?’

‘You know you only use the kitchen when you come here by yourself,’ Mary told him. ‘Your uncle always uses... used... the dining room.’

‘Well, that’s one way I don’t have to follow in his footsteps.’ Charlie pushed open the double doors. Beyond the dining room lay a kitchen, warm and fragrant with cooking, the vast Aga stove along the far wall a welcome in itself. Infinitely more comfortable than the ornate dining room. ‘We’ll eat in here.’

‘But I’m baking bread.’

‘Then Tess and I will watch you bake as we eat. Not that you need to bake for weeks by the look of this lot.’ He lifted a plate from the table and sniffed m delight. ‘Singing hinnies. Mary, now I know I’m back.’

‘Home,’ Mary said softly. ‘You’re home, my lord. Where you belong.’

‘Mary...’

‘Your place is right here now,’ she told him and her voice grew a little stern, as though she were a nanny reminding a child of his duty. ‘You’re the Earl of Dalston now, my lord. Whether you like it or not.’

CHAPTER THREE

‘SO TELL me how you come to be an Australian earl?’ Tess asked over her second cup of coffee. To her surprise, she’d packed away another vast breakfast.