Best Man To Wed?. PENNY JORDAN

original bookings. She was comfortably middle-aged and extremely efficient and Poppy couldn’t believe that she could have made such a mistake. The receptionist had summoned the duty manager at James’s request and James was now explaining the situation to him and reiterating the fact that they required two separate rooms.

      The duty manager shrugged and shook his head. ‘That, I am afraid, is not possible,’ he told James. ‘The hotel is fully booked for the conference, every room already taken...’

      ‘But they must have somewhere... some room,’ Poppy gasped as she heard what he was saying.

      ‘None; there is nowhere,’ the duty manager repeated firmly.

      ‘Then we’ll just have to find somewhere else to stay,’ Poppy burst out.

      Her face flushed beneath the withering look that James gave her as he asked her sardonically, ‘Where exactly did you have in mind? The nearest town is forty miles away.’

      ‘Then...then I’ll just have to...to sleep in the car,’ Poppy asserted wildly. ’I—’

      ‘For four days?’ James gave her a derisive look. ‘Don’t be so ridiculous...’

      ‘James, you can’t let them do this,’ Poppy protested as the duty manager turned away from them to deal with the harassed-looking courier in charge of a party of Japanese businessmen who, from what Poppy could hear of their agitated conversation, had lost not just some luggage en route but one member of their party as well. ‘Do something.’

      ‘Such as?’ James asked, gesturing to the now packed reception area and the press of people demanding attention from the receptionists.

      ‘You’ve attended conferences before; you know what they’re like,’ he pointed out. ‘The rule is if it can go wrong it will...’

      ‘Maybe, but it’s never gone wrong before,’ Poppy seethed. ‘How can they make a mistake like that...? There must be something you can do... Offer to pay them extra... to...’

      ‘Poppy,’ James told her, speaking slowly and patiently as though she were a child too young to grasp what he was saying. ‘There are no empty rooms. Believe me. I just heard one of the receptionists telling another that she’s already been forced to give up her staff room and share with someone else on another shift because of overbooking. Believe me, it’s either this room or nothing.’

      It was on the tip of Poppy’s tongue to tell him that if that was the case then there was no way she was staying. But then she-remembered how much James would relish her giving him an opportunity to prove how unprofessional she really was and she forced the impulsive words back.

      James, taking her acceptance for granted, was already signing the register and taking possession of their pass-cards.

      ‘We might as well find our own way,’ he told Poppy. ‘God knows how long we’d have to wait for a porter.’

      Like her, James was only carrying a briefcase and an overnight bag. She just hoped that the hotel’s laundry facilities were better organised and more reliable than its booking system, she reflected angrily as she followed James towards the nearest bank of lifts.

      The modern part of the complex had been built around an atrium and as the lift took them upwards they could look down past the open balconies to the greenery and splashing fountains below them.

      Although the complex had been given the title of spa it did not actually possess any natural hot springs or spa waters of its own, the term, Poppy suspected, being used in a slightly looser sense to embrace the fact that it offered a wide range of self-indulgent treatments and dietary regimes and holistic alternative therapies.