“So, were you sent to secure the deal in the time-honored 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 realization that, contemptuous or not, he intended to kiss her….

At the Cattleman’s Command
Lindsay Armstrong

www.millsandboon.co.uk

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Lindsay Armstrong was born in South Africa, but now lives in Australia with her New Zealand-born husband and their five children. They have lived in nearly every state of Australia and have tried their hand at some unusual—for them—occupations, such as farming and horse-training—all grist to the mill for a writer! Lindsay started writing romances when her youngest child began school and she was left feeling at a loose end. She is still doing it and loving it.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ONE

‘CHAS BARTLETT?’ Tom Hocking frowned. ‘Are you suggesting a man to organise this wedding, Birdie?’

‘Not so strange when you think about it,’ his secretary, Birdie Tait, offered.

They were talking to each other over the phone, Tom from his stud outside Warwick, Birdie from the office in Toowoomba.

‘Men do design clothes,’ Birdie continued down the line. ‘They also make great chefs and interior decorators, so—why not? Chas Bartlett certainly comes highly recommended.’

‘You’ve met him?’

‘No. But I spoke to a very satisfied customer. All Laura Richmond could say was Chas did this; Chas organised that; Chas was a dream! And her daughter’s wedding was a howling success.’

‘Laura Richmond,’ Tom repeated thoughtfully. ‘Talk about a raging snob if ever I’ve met one. Mind you, things are getting hairy up here, so…’ He paused and shrugged. ‘Go ahead and hire the guy, Birdie, for a consultation at least.’ He pulled his diary towards him. ‘Am I right in thinking I’m free next weekend?’

‘Yes, Mr Hocking.’

‘Then see if you can get him to drive up and stay overnight on Saturday; we’ll all be here, which may not be that easy to arrange over the next few weeks. Explain that to him if he objects to working weekends.’ He paused. ‘It mightn’t be a bad idea to drop the hint that my sister is marrying the heir to a peer of the realm.’

‘A very good idea, Mr Hocking.’

‘Thanks, Birdie. If I don’t hear otherwise from you, I’ll expect him at—say—four o’clock on Saturday afternoon?’

‘I’ll do my best, Mr Hocking.’ Birdie put the phone down.

She was well-named but, although frail and diminutive in appearance, she had the heart of a lioness when it came to guarding and promoting her employer’s interests. In many ways she looked upon Tom Hocking as the son she’d never had—she’d worked for his father Andrew and had been wildly and hopelessly in love with him.

Truth be told, she would have been much more interested in seeing Tom marry and settle down rather than his sister, Vanessa, whose wedding they’d been discussing—but here she often paused and sighed.

At thirty-three and six feet four in his socks with a rock-hard body, Tom attracted women in droves. It wasn’t only that. He was equally at home riding a horse or flying a plane, and his business acumen had seen him advance the Hocking empire with a vengeance when he’d taken over from his father.

He now held executive positions on the boards of several companies that were Australian icons. He mixed—but then the Hockings always had—with the cream of society.

But was there more than the occasional tinge of impatience in his grey eyes, eyes that were often amused as well as devastatingly acute, these days? His sense of humour had always been wicked and irreverent, but when he lost his temper the wisest course was to take evasive action. Not that it happened often but—was it happening more often these days?

Birdie sighed again. She could tell that her boss wasn’t a hundred per cent happy but there was nothing she could do to help.

She might like to pin it down to the lack of the right woman in his life but that was simplistic, she knew. On the other hand, finding the perfect woman could be part of the problem. Even at his best, Tom Hocking was a handful. He was a born leader and capable of sheer arrogance. One suspected a prospective wife would need the patience of a saint, but would a saint be what Tom was looking for?

Tom Hocking also took a moment to ponder after talking to Birdie on the phone.

It so happened he liked the heir to the peer of the realm to whom his sister, Vanessa, was engaged, but he wasn’t totally convinced Rupert Leeton, Lord Weaver, was what she needed. Vanessa was as head-strong as an unbroken filly at times, whereas Rupert was a thinker and a dreamer.

His mother was ecstatic about it, though. Even his aunt Clare, a dedicated, rather eccentric spinster who lived with them, was delighted.

However, the run-up to these nuptials looked set to provide a maelstrom of confusion and turbulence.

Vanessa and his mother were already arguing over wedding-dress designers, venues and bridesmaids. Clare and Vanessa were at loggerheads over the choice of minister to perform the service. Rupert was starting to look strained and his slight stammer was becoming more pronounced.

Tom was of the opinion that it promised to be a rare bun fight, unless he took a hand, hence his decision to call in a wedding consultant.

He pushed his fingers through his hair then rubbed his jaw as he contemplated his household and his lifestyle.

He’d stepped into his father’s shoes five years ago. At that time Cresswell Lodge, on Queensland’s Darling Downs, had been the main family enterprise. An historic thoroughbred stud pioneered by one of his ancestors, its beautiful old homestead was still a showpiece.

The stud sold yearlings all over the world and, in consequence, the Hocking family rubbed shoulders with the élite of the thoroughbred world: sheikhs, royalty and self-made billionaires from all continents.

Not only had he continued that tradition but he’d also branched out. He’d put his love of flying, brought with him from the air force, to good use, for example, and turned a small crop-spraying business into a private airline. Most of his customers were pastoralists, graziers or mining and exploration companies, but he’d recently opened a deluxe charter wing for anyone who wanted to get from A to B in style and privacy. It was going well. So were his other non-thoroughbred enterprises.

Not that his mother, Harriet, approved entirely. She gave the impression that anything tainted with commercial overtones, which encompassed just about everything that didn’t have to do with horses, was beneath her. She lived and breathed horses. She had been a champion dressage rider in her day with an Olympic medal to her credit.

That was how Cresswell had acquired Rupert Leeton. The son of a friend of a friend of Tom’s mother, he’d come ‘down under’ to further his Olympic equestrian aspirations by taking tutelage from Harriet Hocking—and he’d never left.

A frequent source of irritation for Tom was the way his mother, and his sister come to that, simply refused to recognise that Cresswell Stud was a highly commercial enterprise, even if it did rely on horses. It was his father’s judgement in mares and stallions, and now his own, that kept an awful lot of dollars rolling in, without which they wouldn’t be able to scour virtually the whole world for horses.

Vanessa was also horse-mad. She was a showjumper, with extremely expensive tastes in all areas but little appreciation of how it was all funded. Both Harriet and Vanessa were passionate about Cresswell…but did Rupert, he often wondered, understand this trait in his future bride?

And there was Clare, his paternal aunt. He was very fond of Clare, despite her sometimes daffy ways, but even she had a very expensive hobby. She collected paintings and antique porcelain.

They all, with the possible exception of Lord Weaver, had very decided ideas.

He got up and went over to the mantelpiece. There was a framed photo of himself on it staring out over a vast, untamed landscape. He studied it for a long moment. It epitomised the call of the wild he’d had to resist for the last five years, which he’d spent nurturing the Hocking empire and his mother, aunt and sister. Then he turned away and dragged his thoughts back to his sister’s wedding.

‘Here’s hoping you have a solid constitution, Chas Bartlett, wedding consultant,’ he said to himself. ‘What you really need to be is a battering ram in a velvet glove.’

Charity Bartlett, nicknamed Chas from childhood, did not tend to make the people who knew her think of her in ‘solid’ or ‘battering ram’ terms, even within a velvet glove.

She was twenty-six, with deep blue eyes, pale skin and a mass of rich brown shoulder-length hair with a slight kink in it. She was five feet four, leggy and slender, with narrow hands and feet.

One did discover, if you got to know her, that she was warm and friendly, extremely active and energetic. She was a good lateral thinker but she had trouble telling her left hand from her right without the large round gold watch on a sturdy leather band, which she always wore, and possessed a poor sense of direction.

None of this interfered with her sheer artistry in putting together that ‘one perfect day’. She credited her parents’ genes for this. Her father, a cordon bleu chef, owned and ran a gourmet delicatessen and extremely ‘in’ café. Her mother, Hope, the head buyer for a chain of fashion stores, travelled overseas twice a year and was au fait with all the latest fashions. Her mother, Chas’s grandmother, Faith, had owned an antique shop and taken interior-design commissions. For as long as she could remember, Chas had been exposed to wonderful food, elegant clothes and lovely homes.

Since her father and grandmother could also be classified as highly excitable people, it was her mother who must have passed on to Chas some practical genes. It was these genes, added to her innate sense of style, that had enabled Chas to build up a wedding-consultancy business and make a go of it.

She’d called her consultancy The Perfect Day and ran it from her apartment in Brisbane. Thanks to the Richmond-Dailey wedding in Toowoomba, eighty miles west of Brisbane, Chas’s reputation had spread, she discovered as she took a call from one Birdie Tait, on behalf of someone called Thomas Hocking.

‘May I speak to Chas Bartlett?’ Birdie said down the line.

‘Speaking,’ Chas replied.

‘But—is this The Perfect Day wedding consultancy?’

‘Yes, it is, and I am Chas Bartlett, which is a bit confusing, I know. Chas is actually short for Charity.’

‘I see,’ Birdie said slowly.

‘Is that a problem, me not being a man—uh—Ms Tait?’

‘Well, no.’ Birdie sounded a bit confused, however. ‘It’s just that Laura Richmond gave me to understand—the thing is, she only ever mentioned you by name, not by gender, now I come to think of it, so…’ She trailed off.

Chas looked heavenwards. The Richmond-Dailey wedding had been a nightmare to organize, thanks to the bride’s mother, whom Chas had privately nicknamed Attila the Hen. Yet now it sounded as if Laura might have recommended her to someone.

You’re a genius, kid! Chas complimented herself with a grin.

‘Well,’ Birdie said again, ‘would you be interested in organising another wedding on the Darling Downs, Ms Bartlett?’

Ten minutes later Chas put the phone down and studied the notes she’d made.

Cresswell Lodge, the Hocking family, a peer of the realm—no, the son of a peer of the realm, but still a lord. Lord Weaver to be exact.

Chas stopped reading her notes at this point and got up to waltz around her studio. You beauty!

When Birdie Tait put down her phone, she studied it unseeingly for a long moment, then she shrugged.

Tom had found the idea of a man organising Vanessa’s wedding surprising, so he was not likely to take issue with Chas Bartlett being a woman, was he?

She had sounded rather young, though. Still, anyone who’d survived Laura Richmond must be quite tough, so why was she, Birdie, worried?

It came to her. Surviving Laura Richmond and surviving Tom Hocking were two entirely different matters…

Birdie bit her lip. But sounding young didn’t necessarily mean you were young and impressionable in that regard, did it? All the same, for all concerned, it would probably be a good thing if Chas Bartlett wasn’t young, impressionable—and pretty.

She pulled the phone towards her again and rang the stud but all she got was the answering machine. She left a message for Tom, telling him it was all set up for next Saturday and correcting her mistaken information on the wedding consultant’s sex.

Then she tried his mobile but it was unattended so she left a short message saying that Miss Charity Bartlett was arriving on Saturday, and asking him to either call her or check his emails. She then posted him an email message.

More, other than take to carrier pigeons, she thought exasperatedly, I cannot do.

Once she’d started to make money, Chas had invested in a royal-blue Range Rover. She’d had the back seat taken out so there was plenty of space for samples, dress boxes, boxes of invitations and the like.

It was a clear Saturday afternoon as she drove west of Brisbane and via Cunningham’s Gap towards Gladfield, the address of Cresswell Lodge.

The flat-topped vertical striations of the Great Dividing Range stood out rocky, grand and tinged with blue in the clear air. The bellbirds were calling as she drove through the Gap.

On the top of the range, the scenery changed to mostly flat and the temperature dropped a bit. It was early spring so the landscape of vast paddocks was still tending towards dry and old gold or raw and ploughed.

She’d been told to arrive around four and she was running on time. To help with her often non-existent sense of direction, she’d got detailed instructions from Birdie and drawn herself a large-scale map in thick black felt-tip pen.

She turned off the highway as instructed and took a few back roads through the paddocks. She turned right into Cresswell Lane and it ended at the gates of the lodge. Pretty impressive gates too, with horses rampant on each gatepost.

Horses, Chas thought, and—carriages. I haven’t done a horse and carriage wedding yet but this mob might be perfect for it!

She drove on between well-fenced paddocks, past a lovely old barn with a central cupola, then the drive climbed a bit and as she breasted the rise she took a quick, excited breath. Cresswell Lodge homestead was a gem as it spread out below.

Beneath a vast green roof, the walls were of honey-coloured stone. The house was L-shaped with paved verandas. Some of the walls and posts were creeper-hung, and a smooth lawn flowed down to a creek flanked by graceful old willow trees.

Curls of smoke were coming from the chimneys and two dogs were gambolling on the lawn—a large Great Dane and a miniature fox terrier. They stopped gambolling and streaked towards the Range Rover as she pulled to a stop.

A woman in her sixties, all kitted out in riding gear, came round the corner of the house and called the dogs to order as Chas got out of the car. They took no notice of her.

‘Hello! Who are you? Don’t worry about Leroy and Piccanin, they don’t bite.’

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.’

The way he said it caused Chas to stir uneasily. ‘I meant afford my services, naturally,’ she said.

‘That too.’ His grey gaze rested on her mouth.

‘What—? Are we talking about the same thing?’

His lips twisted. ‘I don’t think so. I happen to know Thomas Hocking is—how to put it—between mistresses at the moment, and I’ve got the distinct feeling he’d be very happy to afford you in that capacity.’

‘Let me go!’ Chas said furiously and struggled to free herself.

All she achieved was to lose control of her side of the sheet as he swept it aside, although his action did at least reveal that he was wearing a pair of sleep shorts. At the same time it left her completely exposed to him again, and he made the best of it.

‘Mmm…’ he murmured, studying her from head to toe and all the curves, the expanse of pale, skimpily-draped-with-cranberry-silk skin, in between. ‘Love the legs. Definitely mistress material.’

‘Who…who are you?’ she stammered as she tugged her nightgown down as far as she could.

‘Tom Hocking, ma’am. No one calls me Thomas, except Birdie.’

Chas gasped as all sorts of things fell into place. One of them being her sheer stupidity. Who else but the man controlling the purse strings would have what definitely looked like the master bedroom? Why hadn’t she thought of that? Because she’d had a mental vision of an elderly profligate uncle or something! Which was not to say that this Thomas Hocking wasn’t profligate. His intentions only minutes earlier would have certainly fallen into that category.

‘Of all the…’ she said with deep outrage. ‘How could you do this?’

‘Do what? Fall asleep peacefully in my own bed, on my own, until you climbed into it? That’s all I recall.’

Her breasts heaved. ‘No it’s not! You misrepresented yourself, you won’t believe me and you’re keeping me here against my will!’

He opened his mouth then appeared to change his mind. ‘If you got to the bathroom safely, how come you ended up here?’

Chas winced. ‘It is a strange house, and with no lights it’s not so surprising. Anyway, I don’t have a great sense of direction and I didn’t have my watch on.’

He stared at her. ‘Would that have helped? What is it? A luminous compass as well as a watch? A miniature GPS?’

‘Very funny,’ Chas said stiffly. ‘No, but it does help me tell my right hand from my left.’

‘You got to your—mid-twenties,’ he hazarded, ‘without being able to tell your right from your left? That certainly explains it.’

Chas set her teeth at the irony in his eyes. ‘It can happen, believe me.’

He looked as if he wanted to say you learn something every day!, and ruffled his hair. ‘Well, where do we go from here, Aphrodite?’

‘So no one calls you Thomas?’

‘I can’t remember the last time anyone did, apart from Birdie. Why?’

Chas wrenched her wrist free and tumbled off the bed. ‘Where do we go? Back to Brisbane first thing, for me at least. I don’t appreciate being made a fool of like this!’ She grabbed her robe and sponge bag and ran from the room.

Breakfast was a help-yourself affair.

Juice and coffee were set on a buffet table as well as cereals, yoghurt, fruit and a frosted jug of milk. Several silver-lidded warming dishes were lined up and there was a basket of rolls and bread.

The only person in the dining room when Chas entered was Rupert. There was one word that summed up Rupert Leeton, Lord Weaver, and that was diffident. He wasn’t particularly good-looking, he was of medium height, he could most easily disappear in a crowd but, despite his obvious reticence, he was nice.

A good match for Vanessa Hocking? Chas had wondered. Perhaps only time would tell.

She’d calmed down somewhat since her encounter with Tom Hocking but she wasn’t feeling particularly charitable towards any of the Cresswell Lodge inhabitants, so she murmured a cool greeting.

Rupert, however, rose courteously to pull out a chair for her and offered to fetch her a glass of juice.

‘Thank you.’

‘As a matter of fact I feel like saying that to you!’ Rupert placed a glass of orange juice in front of her. ‘Vanessa’s like a new person since your session last night. They were getting all bogged down and it was definitely getting on Tom’s nerves,’ he confided. ‘But your ideas have breathed new life into the old girl!’

‘Ah, Tom,’ Chas murmured, and flicked the bridegroom a reproachful glance.

‘Of course!’ He tapped his forehead. ‘You have no idea who Tom is, do you?’

‘She does now.’

Chas froze as Tom Hocking strolled into the room and poured himself a cup of coffee at the buffet. He sat down opposite Chas with it. ‘Don’t you, Ms Bartlett?’ he added.

Chas swallowed. ‘Yes.’

Tom Hocking smiled and turned to Rupert. ‘What’s this you’ve been telling her about me being a womaniser, as well as all sorts of weird things?’

Rupert grimaced and attempted several garbled explanations. ‘It was the Thomas that did it,’ he finished. ‘It sort of took us by surprise, and then—the girls were just feeling a bit highly strung, I suppose.’

‘Is that so?’ Tom murmured.

Chas studied him. In contrast to Rupert, who was clean and crisp, Tom Hocking had dark shadows on his jaw. He was in his socks, he wore faded jeans and a stained khaki work shirt but—this surprised her—he was not unimpressive.

‘Lord Weaver,’ she said coolly, rather than dwelling on the physical properties that made Tom Hocking stand out even in his work clothes, ‘didn’t start it. He defended you if anything.’

‘Thank you, Rupe,’ Tom said with obvious irony. He rose, picked up his cup and said to her, ‘I’d like to see you in my study when you’ve finished your breakfast, Ms Bartlett. It might be a good idea to get someone to show you right to the door.’

He strolled out.

Rupert clicked his tongue. ‘Sorry about that. It obviously led to a misunderstanding.’

Chas started to say something about a monumental understatement but confined herself to murmuring, ‘You could say so. I get the feeling he’s not an easy person to handle at the best of times, however.’

Rupert considered and shrugged. ‘He does have the final say around here. He is very successful.’

‘Perhaps he needs more than a cup of coffee for breakfast?’ she suggested with a tinge of frivolity she was far from feeling.

‘Oh, he would have been up and about hours ago. He always breakfasts first then goes out to the horses.’

‘I see. One of those?’

Rupert smiled. ‘In a word.’

Chas finished her breakfast but not with great enjoyment. Then she made a point of cleaning her teeth before asking her way to Tom Hocking’s study.

He was on the phone to, it emerged, Birdie Tait. He waved her to a chair and continued his conversation, giving Chas ample time to look around. Like the dining room the study was panelled and, like the rest of the house, was beautifully furnished with antiques—a marvellous old oak desk, two winged chairs with linen covers and a lovely array of art on the walls.

So impressed by the art was she, she got up to have a closer look and didn’t realise he’d finished his phone call until he said her name.

‘Oh!’ She moved back to the chair and sank into it.

They stared at each other across the desk for a long moment.

He was now showered and shaved and wore khaki trousers and a blue sweater with military-style patches on the elbows and shoulders. Unfortunately, Chas discovered, these clothes did not prevent her from seeing him in her mind’s eye wearing nothing but a pair of sleep shorts.

To her further confusion, from the light of pure devilry in his grey eyes, she had no doubt that his mind’s eye had swept away her blue jeans and apricot jumper and he was seeing her in only a flimsy slip of a nightgown.

She prayed that she wouldn’t blush but she did, and it got worse than that. Her nipples tingled, causing her to move abruptly.

There was no way he could have known this had happened to her, not beneath a bra and jumper, but she got the feeling, as his eyes narrowed, that he did. Her awkward movement must have given her away.

‘Yes, well,’ he drawled, ‘you remind me of a long-legged, skittish filly, but what have you to say for yourself this morning, Ms Bartlett?’

Chas drew on all the composure she possessed and remembered her determination to eschew all mention of the events in his bed. ‘I don’t think this is a very good idea, Mr Hocking,’ she said briskly. ‘I don’t believe we could work together, so—’

‘It’s my sister and my mother you’d be working with,’ he interrupted. ‘Incidentally, Birdie has cleared up a lot of the confusion. Apparently she left all sorts of messages for me regarding your metamorphosis into a woman that I never got.’

‘Never got?’ Chas frowned.

‘You will find, should you accept this commission, that it helps to be a horse around here.’ This time he studied her hair caught back at the nape of her neck.

Chas blinked.

‘Yes,’ he continued, ‘all the best treatment is reserved for the horses. Other things, like answering machines, mobile-phone messages and the like get short shrift. Someone borrowed my mobile phone; someone accidentally deleted the message tape on the answering machine. I must admit, I just forgot to check my emails. Birdie is at her wits’ end with us.’

Chas shrugged. ‘I’m not surprised. But that actually makes me more sure that this would be an impossible wedding to organise, Mr Hocking, and—’

‘Why? You appear to have slayed my mother and my sister with your ideas.’

Chas hesitated. ‘That’s the other thing. They did lead me to believe you—uh—might not appreciate the costs involved.’

He smiled somewhat grimly and named a figure.

Chas’s eyes widened and her lips parted.

‘That obviously surprises you, Ms Bartlett. Not enough?’

‘Plenty,’ Chas said, then bit her lip.

He lay back in his chair. ‘I may run a tight ship, which they like to interpret, occasionally, as me being cheap, but I wouldn’t expect Vanessa to marry Lord Weaver without all the trimmings.’

Chas was lost for words.

‘Look…’ He sat forward. ‘I apologise for everything that led up to you feeling you’d been made a fool of last night. But it was me they were taking the mickey out of, not you.’

‘And you didn’t feel you were making fun of me when—?’ She stopped exasperatedly on the thought that she hadn’t planned to mention that.

‘When I was…? Talking about mistress material?’ he suggested. ‘Actually—’ his eyes glinted ‘—I was serious, and that was a compliment.’

‘Well, that depends entirely, Mr Hocking,’ Chas said, ‘on your reputation with women. Was your family maligning you there, do you feel?’

‘I don’t know what they said.’ He still looked amused.

‘That you’d sloped off last night, with a woman, no doubt,’ she elucidated.

His amusement changed to injury. ‘I did not! Well, I guess there was a female involved, actually. Two, as it happens.’

Pure blue scorn beamed his way.

‘I was called out, Ms Bartlett,’ he continued, ‘to help with a difficult foaling. Both the dam and a filly foal survived and are doing well now.’

For a moment Chas wished she could fall through the floor. ‘So…so why did they say that?’

He shrugged. ‘I may have forgotten to mention it to anyone.’ He waited for a moment then said softly, ‘Don’t you have a sense of humour, Chas?’

‘I have a very well-developed sense of humour normally,’ she said slowly. ‘Climbing into a strange man’s bed seems to have dampened it somewhat.’

‘Why don’t we start again?’

She swallowed.

‘You may have carte blanche within the limits of your budget. I don’t know if anyone’s mentioned this but Rupert’s parents, the Earl and Countess of Wickham, will be attending. So will several other lords and ladies. I’m quite sure this wedding will find its way into some English magazines and papers, not to mention Australian ones.’

Chas clicked her tongue. ‘That’s blackmail.’

He said nothing.

‘But I do run a business,’ she added a little helplessly.

He nodded in serious agreement.

‘Oh, all right!’ Chas was goaded into flinging at him.

He sat back and made a steeple of his fingers. ‘I thought it might be.’

‘Look here, if you’re as successful as they say you are, why take exception to my commercial instincts?’ Chas challenged.

‘I’m not. It’s your other instincts I’m wondering about.’

‘Such as?’

‘How much…’ He paused thoughtfully. ‘How much of your decision was based on curiosity? A mutual curiosity, I do admit, but one stemming from your inability to tell your left hand from your right last night?’

Chas rose. ‘None whatsoever! I happen to be the ultimate career girl.’

‘Who said anything about interfering—’ his gaze drifted down her figure ‘—with your career?’

‘I’m saying it now. I never mix business with pleasure, Mr Hocking—not that I would classify you as pleasure—and I have no intention of joining a long line of peachy blondes!’

He looked askance at her. ‘Peachy blondes?’

‘That was the other detail your family imparted last night. Peachy blondes, such as the riding-school owner who has supposedly taken to haunting this place.’

He opened his mouth to reply but she turned on her heel and walked out.

He said, just before she reached the door, ‘If you’d left your hair loose you could have tossed your head just like an exasperated filly.’

She stayed on for the morning but declined lunch.

She also managed to detach Vanessa from her mother and aunt. And she had the felicity, when she said to Vanessa that above all it was her wedding and the important choices should all be hers, of being spontaneously and gratefully hugged.

They chose the invitations, decided on the bridesmaids’ dresses—there were to be two plus a flower-girl and a page-boy—and what the men of the wedding party would wear. Vanessa selected a colour scheme for the decorations and flowers. They discussed menus and looked through a selection of wedding cakes, and Vanessa promised to send Chas a guest list so the invitations could go out.

At the end of the session, Vanessa looked Chas over curiously. ‘I could never have sorted this all out on my own. I could never have made up my mind! How do you do it?’

Chas grinned. ‘I’m not sure. Perhaps it’s because I love weddings and I love seeing them being the happy, joyful occasions they should be.’

‘Ever had one of your own?’

Chas hesitated. ‘Funnily enough, almost. Then he—We decided to call it off.’

‘Wouldn’t that turn you off weddings for life?’ Vanessa queried.

‘Oh, I was already in the business but—no,’ Chas said slowly and with a faint frown, ‘it didn’t.’

‘Did it turn you off men?’

‘Ah!’ Chas looked humorous. ‘That’s another matter. Dashing, very good-looking men who get away with murder, perhaps. And I’m certainly not into serious relationships now.’

She gathered together all her papers and returned to business. ‘Vanessa, we only have three months, which isn’t a great deal of time for a wedding this size, but if you want to change anything, do let me know. By the way, who is giving you away?’

‘Tom.’ Vanessa grimaced. ‘With unconcealed relief, no doubt—no, that’s not fair.’ She got up and looked out of the window over the garden. ‘We may joke about it and get mad with him sometimes, but without Tom we’d be lost.’ She turned back to Chas abruptly. ‘Do you know how much I love this place?’

Chas blinked. ‘No. I mean, so would most people probably.’

‘It’s part of me,’ Vanessa said slowly, then changed the subject again. ‘You will come up often, won’t you?’

‘Of course, as often as I can.’

Chas drove home in a slightly better frame of mind than the one she’d started the day in, but she found she had Vanessa Hocking on her mind.

A strange mixture, she thought. Those arrogant Hocking airs her brother could turn on in spades—she broke off and shivered as she recalled the way Tom Hocking had looked at her from time to time—but then a glimpse of vulnerability in Vanessa, which was certainly not in Tom.

The next morning, Monday, she began to make arrangements for the Weaver-Hocking wedding. She engaged caterers, she hired the marquee as well as chairs and tables. She got in touch with her favourite florist and a hairdresser who also did make-up.

It was a slight tussle on account of lack of time to persuade the wedding-dress specialists whose work she really admired to take on the creation of the wedding and bridesmaids’ dresses, until she mentioned that the groom was heir to a peer of the realm. It produced an instant response—not only would they be happy to do the dresses, but they’d also be happy to travel to Gladfield to take measurements and for future fittings.

She put the phone down with a sigh of relief. That had to be so much easier than co-ordinating Vanessa and the bridesmaids to come down to Brisbane.

She remembered then that one thing they hadn’t discussed was music, for the church or the reception, and she made a note to speak to Vanessa about it.

Her next call was to her mother about Harriet and Clare’s outfits plus the bride’s trousseau.

‘The thing is,’ she said down the phone, ‘I’m a little short of time for getting the outfits for the mother and aunt of the bride designed and made, but I’m terrified that if they’re off the rack, someone else will turn up at the wedding in them.’

‘Come and see me at work, darling,’ Hope Bartlett advised. ‘We’re thinking of featuring a new designer, she’s very good and very keen to make her mark. She might well consider a wedding commission, especially a wedding like this—didn’t you say the bridegroom was a lord? Worth her while, despite the short notice. And I can certainly help you out with the trousseau.’

‘You’re a pet, Mum! And what would I do without Rupert?’

‘Come again?’

‘He’s the lord, Rupert Leeton, Lord Weaver. You have no idea what doors that name unlocks!’

On Tuesday, Chas drove down to the Gold Coast for a conference with staff of the luxury hotel where one of her other weddings was to be staged in the ballroom.

At the end of a satisfying talk, she strolled out into the beautiful gardens that gave onto the beach to pick out the optimum spot for the wedding photos.

The last person she expected to bump into was Tom Hocking.

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