Cara Colter - SOS - Convenient Husband Required / Winning a Groom in 10 Dates - SOS - Convenient Husband Required / Winning a Groom in 10 Dates

All he wanted from May Coleridge was her pride at his feet. And he would have it.

She had been his last mistake. His only weakness. Since the day he’d walked away from this house, his clothes freezing on his back, he’d never let anything, any emotion, stand in his way.

With his degree in his pocket, a mountain of debt to pay off, his mother incapable of looking after either herself or Saffy, the only job he had been able to get in his home town was in an old import company that had been chugging along happily since the days when the clipper ships brought tea from China. It wasn’t what he’d dreamed of, but within five years he’d been running the company. Now he was the chairman of an international company trading commodities from across the globe.

His success didn’t appear to impress May’s disapproving housekeeper.

‘It’s been a while, Mrs Robson.’

‘It has. But nothing appears to have changed, Mr Wavell,’ she returned, ice-cool.

‘On the contrary. I’d like you to be the first to know that May and I are going to be married.’

‘Married!’ And, just like that, all the starch went out of her. ‘When…?’

‘Before the end of the month.’

‘I meant…’ She shook her head. ‘What’s the hurry? What are you after? If you think May’s been left well off—’

‘I don’t need her money. But May needs me. She’s just been told that if she isn’t married by her birthday, she’s going to lose her home.’

‘But that’s less than four weeks…’ She rallied. ‘Is that what Freddie Jennings called about in such a flap this morning?’

‘I imagine so. Apparently, some ancient entailment turned up when he took James Coleridge’s will to probate.’

The colour left her face but she didn’t back down. ‘Why would you step in to help, Adam Wavell? What do you get out of it?’ She didn’t give him a chance to answer. ‘And that little girl’s mother? What will she have to say about it?’

‘Nancie,’ he said, discovering that a baby made a very useful prop, ‘meet Hatty Robson. Mrs Robson, meet my niece.’

‘She’s Saffy’s daughter?’ She came closer, the rigid lines of her face softening and she touched the baby’s curled up fist. ‘She’s a pretty thing.’ Then, ‘So where is your sister? In rehab? In jail?’

‘Neither,’ he said, hanging onto his temper by a thread. ‘But we are having a bit of a family crisis.’

‘Nothing new there, then.’

‘No,’ he admitted. A little humility wouldn’t hurt. ‘Saffy was sure that May would help.’

‘Again? Hasn’t she suffered enough for your family?’

Suffered?

‘I met her in the park. She was up a tree,’ he added. ‘Rescuing a kitten.’

She rolled her eyes. An improvement.

‘The only reason she told me her troubles was to explain why she couldn’t look after Nancie.’

‘And you leapt in with an immediate marriage proposal. Saving not one, but two women with a single bound?’ Her tone, deeply ironic, suggested that, unlike May, she wasn’t convinced that it was an act of selfless altruism.

‘Make that three,’ he replied, raising her irony and calling her. ‘I imagine one of May’s concerns was you, Mrs Robson. This is your home, too.’

If it hadn’t been so unlikely, he would have sworn she blushed. ‘Did she say that?’ she demanded, instantly on the defensive. ‘I don’t matter.’

‘You know that’s not true,’ he said, pushing his advantage. ‘You and this house are all she has.’

And this time the blush was unmistakable. ‘That’s true. Poor child. Well, I’m sure that’s very generous of you, Mr Wavell. Just tell me one thing. Why didn’t your sister, or you, just pick up the phone and call one of those agencies which supplies temporary nannies? I understand you can afford it these days.’

He’d already explained his reasons to May and he wasn’t about to go through them again. ‘Just be glad for May’s sake,’ he replied, ‘that I didn’t.’

She wasn’t happy, clearly didn’t trust his motives, but after a moment she nodded just once. ‘Very well. But bear this in mind. If you hurt her, you’ll have to answer to me. And I won’t stop at a hosing down.’

‘Hurt her? Why would I hurt her?’

‘You’ve done it before,’ she said. ‘It’s in your nature. I’ve seen the string of women you’ve paraded through the pages of the gossip magazines. How many of them have been left with a bruised heart?’ She didn’t wait for an answer. ‘May has spent the last ten years nursing her grandpa. She’s grieving for him, vulnerable.’

‘And without my help she’ll lose her home, her business and the animals she loves,’ he reminded her.

She gave him a long look, then said, ‘That child is hungry. You’d better give her to me before she chews a hole in your neck. What did you say her name was?’

‘Nancie, Mrs Robson. With an i and an e.’

‘Well, that’s a sweet old-fashioned name,’ she said, taking the baby. ‘Hello, Nancie.’ Then, looking from the baby to him, ‘I suppose you’d better call me Robbie.’

‘Thank you. Is there anything I can do, Robbie?’

‘Go and book a date with the Registrar?’ she suggested. ‘Although you might want to put your trousers on first.’

The kitchen was empty, apart from a couple of cats curled up on an old armchair and an old mongrel dog who was sharing his basket with a duck and a chicken.

None of them took any notice of him as he unhooked his trousers from the rail above the Aga and carried them through to the mud room, where the kitten had curled up in the fleece and gone to sleep. He hoped Nancie, jerked out of familiar surroundings, her routine, would settle as easily.

Having brushed off the mud as best he could and made himself fit to be seen in polite society, he hunted down May. He found her in a tiny office converted from one of the pantries, shoulder to shoulder with a tall, thin man who was, presumably, Jeremy, as they leaned over her desk examining some artwork.

‘May?’

She turned, peering at him over a pair of narrow tortoiseshell spectacles that were perched on the end of her nose. They gave her a cute, kittenish look, he thought. And imagined himself reaching for them, taking them off and kissing her.

‘I’ve talked to Robbie,’ he said, catching himself. ‘Put her in the picture.’

That blush coloured her cheeks again, but she was back in control of her voice, her breathing as she said, ‘You’ve explained everything?’

‘The why, the what and the when,’ he assured her. ‘I’ll give you a call as soon as I’ve sorted out the details. You’ll be in all afternoon?’

‘You’re going to do it today?’ she squeaked. Not that in control…

‘It’s today, or it’s too late.’

‘Yes…’ Clearly, it was taking some time for the reality of her situation to sink in. ‘Will you need me? For the paperwork?’

‘I’ll find out what the form is and call you. I’ll need your number,’ he prompted when she didn’t respond. ‘It’s unlisted.’

Flustered, May plucked a leaflet from a shelf above her desk and handed it to him. ‘My number is on there.’

For a moment they just looked at one another and he wondered what she was thinking about. The afternoons they’d spent together in the stables with him ducking out of sight whenever anyone had come near? The night when they had been too absorbed in each other to listen? Or the years that had followed…?

‘What are you doing?’ he asked, turning to look at the artwork laid out on the table.

‘What?’ He looked up and saw that she was still staring at him and her poise deserted her as, flustered, she said, ‘I’m ch-choosing a label for Coleridge House honey. Do you know Jeremy Davidson? He’s head of the art department at the High School.’ Then, as if she felt she had to explain how she knew him, ‘I’m a governor.’