He got the impression Daisy wasn’t very pleased with him. ‘What chat-up line?’ he demanded.
‘I’ve no idea, but you must have one. You can’t possibly think up something new to say to every girl you meet.’
‘You’re very touchy tonight, sweetheart. Is this my payoff for agreeing that you’ll look like a duck at Michael and Ginny’s wedding?’
‘What?’
‘For saying that you’ll look like a duck …’ Unhappily, ‘‘… you’ll look like a duck …’’ coincided with one of those sudden drops in noise level that occasionally happens in a crowded room, and everyone turned to stare.
Daisy flushed. ‘Well, thanks, Robert,’ she said. ‘I really needed that.’ And she placed her glass in his hand and walked away.
Daisy was furious. She couldn’t ever remember being angry with Robert before, and the sensation was rather like taking a deep breath over the bottle of smelling salts that her mother used as a reviver on particularly strenuous jaunts around stately homes. A dizzy blast that was a lot more intoxicating than the wine she had been drinking.
Maybe that was why, when her natural circulation of Monty’s flat brought her back to the Australian with the sun-bed tan, she was rather more encouraging than she might have been. Especially since Robert was glowering at him rather than giving his full attention to a luscious brunette who quite evidently hadn’t learned a thing from her predecessors’ mistakes. But then maybe she didn’t care about commitment. Robert was very good looking.
Nick jerked his head in Robert’s direction. ‘Are you and he …’ He shrugged, leaving her to mentally fill in the gap with whatever relationship she thought appropriate.
She dragged her gaze back from Robert and gave Nick her full attention. ‘Robert and me?’ She managed a laugh. ‘Heavens, no, we’re just good friends. I’ve known him since I was in my cradle. He’s more like a brother.’
‘Is that right?’ He grinned. Well, he did have an exceptional set of teeth, dazzlingly white against the tan. ‘It must be brotherly concern, then. But since your good friend looks as if he’d like to put a knife in my back, maybe we should move on. Try a club, maybe?’
Why not? The brunette was clearly intent on getting her wicked way with Robert. Another five minutes and he’d have totally forgotten the bacon sandwich deal, if he hadn’t already. Forgotten about her, in all probability until the next time he needed someone to stick a maggot on a hook, or fill in as a date at a dinner party. Well, that was the way she’d chosen to play it, and he did always come back to her for tea and sympathy. If she was careful, he always would.
In the meantime it was rather pleasurable having a good-looking man showing a more than passing interest.
As she looked up at him, it occurred to Daisy that Nick would impress the heck out of her mother. Well, why not? ‘Do you have anything planned for two weeks today?’ she asked.
Nick opened his mouth, closed it again, then said, ‘Not that I can think of.’ He flashed his teeth at her again, using them in much the same way as the brunette was using her eyelashes. It could get boring, she decided. ‘What do you have in mind?’
‘Nothing exciting. I wondered if you’d like to come to my brother’s wedding, that’s all.’
‘Brother as in brother?’ He glanced across at Robert. ‘Or brother as in ‘‘good friend’’?’
‘My brother Michael is the one getting married. Robert is just the best man.’
‘Then I’m sorry, because I’d love to have come. There’s nothing I enjoy more than a good wedding. Unfortunately, I’ll be in Perth.’
She considered the logistics of getting him from Scotland … Then the penny dropped. ‘You mean Perth, Australia, don’t you?’
He was grinning again. She was beginning to suspect he advertised toothpaste for a living. ‘I’m afraid I do. But we could still have that date. Give your brother’s wedding a miss and come with me. We could have a wedding of our own.’ On the other hand there was nothing boring about a man who issued that kind of invitation. Eccentric, perhaps. Over-endowed with imagination, maybe. Drunk, even. Although he didn’t sound drunk.
‘Well, that’s different. But I’m afraid I’ll have to say no. I’m fourth bridesmaid, you see.’ Although the fact that her mother would never speak to her again if she jetted off to the other side of the world with a complete stranger simply to avoid being fourth bridesmaid might be considered a positive reason for accepting his invitation.
Of course, if she ran away to get married she might just be forgiven. It would certainly put her out of reach of temptation where Robert was concerned. No comfortable backsliding into gap-filling if she was in Australia. Unfortunately, Nick and his teeth were part of the package.
‘They won’t miss one bridesmaid, will they?’ he pressed, when she didn’t immediately answer.
‘I’m afraid they would. Three would look so untidy on the photographs. Besides, I make it a rule never to accept proposals of marriage from men I’ve only just met.’
He wasn’t deterred. ‘We’ve got three days before I leave. Plenty of time to get to know one another. Why don’t we start with a dance?’
‘Three whole days?’ she repeated as he relieved her of her glass in a masterful manner and, taking her firmly about the waist, pulled her close. He was more heavily muscled than Robert. Undoubtedly the consequence of hours spent on a surfboard getting that improbable tan. ‘You don’t waste much time, do you?’
‘Life’s for living, not wasting.’
he had a point, but she laughed anyway. ‘You’re crazy.’
He looked hurt. ‘Why? Because I want to get to know you really well? Suppose we were made for each other and you went to this wedding and I went back to Oz and we never found out?’
‘That’s a risk I’ll just have to take,’ she said, although she didn’t think it was that big a risk. She had the strongest suspicion that he meant getting to ‘know’ her in the physical sense, rather than intellectually. In fact she suspected that the frank, open, bighearted act was just that. An act. He was just looking for a girl to fill the gap between now and catching his plane, and he wasn’t particularly fussy about which girl.
Okay, so she didn’t object to filling Robert’s little gaps. But she loved Robert. Well. Maybe not right at this moment. At this moment she felt like telling him that he was crazy, too. That life was a two-way street and that if he wasn’t careful he’d end up old and lonely. Of course she’d just be wasting her breath. And who was she to tell him that he’d end up old and lonely, when it was far more likely that she’d be the one who was everyone’s universal greataunt rather than anyone’s grandmother?
He’d probably still be pulling all the best-looking nurses when he was in his dotage, and she’d probably be the sap pushing his Bath chair.
‘Wouldn’t you like to find out?’ Nick asked, as he came to halt in a corner.
She hadn’t been paying too much attention to what he was saying, but this seemed to require an answer. She looked up. ‘Find out what?’
Stupid question. The lights were dim, they were in one of those little out of the way corners, and he needed no further invitation to lower his mouth to hers and kiss her.
It was pleasant as kisses went. Nothing heavy. Just a testing-the-water kind of kiss, and Daisy pulled back before it got too serious, looking up at the big, bronzed hunk with just a touch of regret. Her mother would have really loved Nick.
‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I think I’d rather just leave it like this. With you wondering.’ She already knew. Had known since her cradle that there was only one man in the world for her.
For