Liz Fielding - A Suitable Groom

Her perfect date?

Veronica Grant needs a man to take to her cousin’s wedding in order to keep her matchmaking mother at bay. A man like Fergus Kavanagh. He’s perfect—rich, charming and sexy. If he accompanies Veronica, her mother won’t mention marriage for weeks!

Luckily, Fergus has matchmaking relatives of his own he wants to avoid, so he proposes a pact: he will be Veronica’s pretend lover if she becomes his! Now he just needs to remember it’s all an act… even though their sizzling chemistry feels oh-so-real!

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Cover

Excerpt Her perfect date? Veronica Grant needs a man to take to her cousin’s wedding in order to keep her matchmaking mother at bay. A man like Fergus Kavanagh. He’s perfect—rich, charming and sexy. If he accompanies Veronica, her mother won’t mention marriage for weeks! Luckily, Fergus has matchmaking relatives of his own he wants to avoid, so he proposes a pact: he will be Veronica’s pretend lover if she becomes his! Now he just needs to remember it’s all an act… even though their sizzling chemistry feels oh-so-real!

Title Page A Suitable Groom Liz Fielding www.millsandboon.co.uk

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

Copyright

‘THANKS for the lift, Nick.’

‘It’s the least I can do, considering you turned up at six this morning to go over those figures with me.’ Nick Jefferson lifted Veronica’s small suitcase from the boot. ‘Call me when you know which train you’re catching back tomorrow and I’ll pick you up. In fact, why don’t you come to supper? Cassie’s working on a new recipe; I know she’d welcome a totally unbiased opinion, and you haven’t been near her in weeks.’

‘Your wife should be putting her feet up with the baby so near,’ Veronica replied quickly. ‘Not slaving over a hot stove for any Tom, Dick or Jane you invite home.’

‘Come to supper and you can tell her yourself to take it easy, along with your opinion on her recipe,’ he informed her. ‘Maybe she’ll listen to you.’

‘I doubt it.’ Veronica relieved him of her case. ‘Besides, there’s more than one way to keep a lady in bed, Nick. Offer to rub her back … or something.’

He grinned. ‘Now why didn’t I think of that? Hey, don’t forget your hatbox.’ She pulled a face. ‘Anyone would think you don’t want to go to this wedding.’

‘I don’t much,’ she said. ‘I love my cousin dearly, but family weddings are fairly close to the bottom of my list of favourite events. One above going to the dentist. Maybe. My dentist makes me laugh.’

‘Then why go? It’s not compulsory, is it?’

Veronica offered Nick a wry smile. ‘My family take weddings seriously; you’re expected to turn up unless you’ve got a doctor’s note confirming the plague.’ She regarded the hatbox with dislike. ‘You don’t happen to know a bribable doctor, do you?’

‘I’m afraid not. Would a note from the boss do? “Veronica can’t come out to play until she’s finished a report on the marketing of our latest line in camp fridges to Eskimos—”’

She laughed. ‘Heaven forbid. I get enough grief from my mother about putting my career first as it is.’ She took the cumbersome hatbox from him. ‘I’d better go. Missing the train would not be an acceptable excuse either.’

Fortunately, the eight-fifteen had a dining car—the six o’clock start had left her feeling hollow, and it was going to be a long day. The steward smiled as he spotted her. ‘Morning, Miss Grant. Here, let me take your bag.’

‘Thank you, Peter,’ she said, surrendering her small suitcase and dropping her hatbox onto the vacant chair at the two-seater table before settling herself in the opposite seat, glancing out at the platform in that still moment of expectancy while the guard glanced along the length of the train to make sure all was clear. Then, as the man raised his whistle to his lips, his attention, and hers, was caught by the brisk, sharp sound of leather-shod feet pounding up the stone steps.

‘Hold that door!’

The latecomer had called out with the confident ring of someone used to instant obedience. He got it, and Veronica found herself holding her breath as a tall, lithe figure sprinted across the platform and boarded the train. The door banged shut, the whistle blew, the train slid seamlessly from the station.

‘Ready to order, miss?’

She turned to the steward. ‘Do my eyes deceive me, or was that Fergus Kavanagh, Peter?’ she asked, surprised. She would have bet any amount of money that the Chairman of Kavanagh Industries was a chauffeur-driven Rolls man.

‘Yes, miss. Travels with us most mornings. As he says, if he doesn’t travel with us, who will?’ He grinned at her raised eyebrows. ‘He does own a sizeable chunk of this line. Do you know him?’

‘No,’ she said. ‘Not yet.’

Fergus Kavanagh was normally the most even-tempered of men, although he would have been the first to admit that he couldn’t take any great credit for that. It was simply that very few people went out of their way to irritate him.

Today, however, was not normal.

Today he would have positively welcomed the opportunity to strangle two of the most interfering, the most infuriating women it was his misfortune to be related to.

The guard, his whistle to his lips, held the door for him as he raced up the stairs to catch the eight-fifteen train into London. ‘You’ve cut it a bit fine this morning, Mr Kavanagh.’

‘I seem to be cutting my entire life a bit fine at the moment, Michael,’ Fergus replied, without any noticeable lack of breath, as he stepped aboard.

The other man grinned. ‘It’s always the same with weddings. I’ve seen two daughters through it; I know what it’s like. Just you concentrate on how peaceful it’ll be when it’s all over, and you’ll sail through it.’ And with those words of comfort the man blew his whistle and slammed the door.

Peace. As Fergus made his way through the crowded carriages in the direction of the restaurant car the word flickered tantalisingly, like a beacon just out of reach. Peace was a concept that had always seemed just to elude him, but he had believed, he had really believed, that after Dora’s wedding it might at long last be attainable.

With both his sisters married, and now the responsibility of their respective husbands, he could concentrate on business, his estate and the simple pleasures available to a bachelor of means. He was a collector. He collected fine art, fast racehorses and profitable companies.