“I want you to go to bed…now!”

“Bed…” Georgia’s mobile features betrayed her, shock crimsoning her already pink face.

As Piers saw the expression in her eyes, and realized just what she was thinking, he cursed silently under his breath.

“You’re shivering, you might have caught a chill.” As he spoke, he involuntarily moved closer to her.

“No!” As she lifted her hand from her body to ward him off she inadvertently stepped back onto the hem of her big towel.

Only loosely secured around her body, the towel began to unwrap itself.

Immediately, Georgia made a despairing grab for it and just as immediately, Piers launched himself across the gap that separated them, every instinct propelling him to do the gentlemanly thing and protect her modesty. The towel, though, and perhaps fate, too, had other ideas so that all Georgia’s hands encountered was empty air whilst Piers’s were unexpectedly and explosively filled with warm, silky, damp-fleshed woman.

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Penny Jordan is one of Mills & Boon’s most popular authors. Sadly, Penny died from cancer on 31st December 2011, aged sixty-five. She leaves an outstanding legacy, having sold over a hundred million books around the world. She wrote a total of one hundred and eighty-seven novels for Mills & Boon, including the phenomenally successful A Perfect Family, To Love, Honour & Betray, The Perfect Sinner and Power Play, which hit the Sunday Times and New York Times bestseller lists. Loved for her distinctive voice, her success was in part because she continually broke boundaries and evolved her writing to keep up with readers’ changing tastes. Publishers Weekly said about Jordan ‘Women everywhere will find pieces of themselves in Jordan’s characters’ and this perhaps explains her enduring appeal.

Although Penny was born in Preston, Lancashire and spent her childhood there, she moved to Cheshire as a teenager and continued to live there for the rest of her life. Following the death of her husband, she moved to the small traditional Cheshire market town on which she based her much-loved Crighton books.

Penny was a member and supporter of the Romantic Novelists’ Association and the Romance Writers of America—two organisations dedicated to providing support for both published and yet-to-be-published authors. Her significant contribution to women’s fiction was recognised in 2011, when the Romantic Novelists’ Association presented Penny with a Lifetime Achievement Award.

One Intimate Night
Penny Jordan

www.millsandboon.co.uk

I should like to dedicate this book to everyone at the

Cheadle and Cheadle Hulme Dog Club and,

of course, to Sheba and Kerry.

CHAPTER ONE

‘GEORGIA…good…I’m sorry we’ve had to drag you in on your day off but there’s a bit of a flap on.’

Georgia Evans’s smile turned to an anxious frown as she saw the concern shadowing the eyes of the senior partner of the veterinary practice where she had worked since becoming a fully qualified vet six months earlier.

‘I wasn’t doing anything special,’ she responded, ignoring the accusing mental image she had of her half-painted flat walls—a task she had willingly abandoned when she had received the telephone call from the surgery’s receptionist asking if she could come in.

‘What’s—?’

Pre-empting her question, Philip Ross told her quickly, ‘It’s the mare out at Barton Farm; she’s foaling and there are complications. Gary is with her but I suspect we may have to operate. I’m on my way over to join him now. Jenny will take over my morning’s ops and Helen will take Gary’s surgery, which will leave you as our emergency on-call vet, and if you could take the morning’s dog-training class as well…’

As he spoke Philip was on his way out of the room, and, aware of the seriousness of the situation, Georgia made no attempt to delay him.

Once he had gone she walked into the main office and reception area of the practice.

Although all the small pets due to have operations had already been delivered by their owners, the main clinic of the day hadn’t started as yet and Georgia was free to make herself a cup of coffee and check to see if she had any post, whilst discussing what had happened with the other two more senior vets she worked alongside.

‘I hope we don’t get any emergencies,’ she confided to Jenny. ‘I’m not sure…’

‘If I were you I’d worry more about the dog-training class than any emergencies,’ Jenny advised her wryly. ‘Ben will be there…’

‘Ben? Mrs Latham’s Ben?’ Georgia questioned, groaning when Jenny nodded.

‘Oh, no!’

Mrs Latham’s Ben was an English setter. A beautiful dog without an ounce of aggression in him, but unfortunately with more than his share of scattiness. To make matters worse Ben was a rescue dog, with Mrs Latham his second owner. Ben had been rescued from ending up in a dog’s home thanks to her decision to give him a place to stay with her, and Georgia could well remember the first time she had seen him.

She had been working at the surgery for less than a month when a harassed young woman had turned up with Ben, who was just over a year old then and physically fully grown. He was a handsome, lovable, charming and completely dizzy dog, and Ben’s then owner had complained to Georgia, who had been the vet on duty when she had brought him in, that with an elderly father to care for, a husband whose work took him away for days at a time and two young children she simply could not cope with a boisterous, energetic large dog.

As she’d looked from the woman’s anxious eyes to the dog’s trusting ones Georgia’s heart had sunk. Ben was a beautiful dog, healthy, young, and as a fully bred pedigree had no doubt cost his owner an awful lot of money, but here she was telling Georgia defensively that there was simply no way she could keep him.

It had been at that moment that Mrs Latham had walked in, and Georgia’s heart had sunk even further.

Mrs Latham was the owner of a raffish ginger tom cat who had adopted her when his previous owners had moved house. Ginger had cynically pounced on Mrs Latham’s tender heart and the equally tender choice cuts of fish and meat she supplied him with and had moved himself in to Number One Ormond Gardens. But Ginger was, at heart, an independent warrior, and his night-time clashes with other cats in the neighbourhood meant that he was a regular visitor at the surgery.

Having reassured Mrs Latham that Ginger was recovering very well from the small operation he had had to repair a tear in his ear, Georgia had left Mrs Latham in the waiting room with Ben’s owner whilst she went to collect Ginger from the cattery.

On her return she had discovered that Ben’s owner had left but that Ben was still there, with a rather bemused Mrs Latham, who’d announced breathlessly to her that she was now Ben’s new owner.

In vain had Georgia gently tried to dissuade her, pointing out all the problems she was likely to encounter with such a big dog in her small, pretty town house. Mrs Latham, however, had proved unexpectedly resistant to her arguments. Ben was now hers.

And so Ben had gone to live with Mrs Latham and Ginger, and a more indulged, pampered pair of pets, everyone at the surgery agreed, it would have been hard to find.

Ben, despite all Mrs Latham’s attempts to ‘train’ him, was still regularly disrupting the weekly training class the surgery organised for dog owners.

‘The problem is that Mrs Latham simply can’t bring herself to be firm with Ben and show him who’s boss,’ Jenny had complained wryly after Ben had totally disrupted her own training session.

‘He’s a lovely dog but he needs a firm hand. As a breed, setters are scatty for the first two years. They need exercise and space and an owner who knows how to handle them. Mrs Latham loves him but she’s sixty-two, and before Ben’s eruption into her life she lived for her weekly bridge sessions.’

Helen had giggled. ‘Has she told you about when she took Ben with her and apparently he was lying under the table and then got up at the wrong moment and sent it and the cards flying? He’s banned from going now…’

Georgia, whose heart was just as tender as Mrs Latham’s, had sighed.

‘It’s a shame, because he’s such a lovely dog.’

‘Try telling yourself that after you’ve taken a class with him in it,’ Helen had advised her.

‘I already have,’ Georgia had told her, ‘and I know just what you mean, but there’s no malice in him; he’s just—’

‘He’s just not the dog for a woman with Mrs Latham’s lifestyle,’ Helen had interrupted her.

It was true. Mrs Latham lived virtually in the centre of their small market town which, although quiet by modern-day standards, and surrounded by the farmland whose needs it serviced, was still no place for a dog who needed long, long country walks and a physically energetic owner.

Predictably, perhaps, Ben’s original owner had proved impossible to trace—a ‘visitor’ unknown at the surgery. They had no record of either her or Ben.

They had all tried to suggest to Mrs Latham that a new owner ought to be found for Ben, but still she’d refused to be swayed.

‘He’s already been abandoned once,’ she had told Helen firmly. ‘So traumatic for him, poor boy. Why, when he first came to me he was so frightened of being left that he insisted on sitting on my sofa right up next to me. So sweet…’

Helen had rolled her eyes at the others as she’d related this piece of canine emotional manipulation.

‘So sweet,’ she had scoffed. ‘That dog knows when he’s on to a good thing. Talk about spoiled…’

Smiling to herself now, Georgia picked up her post. A small, pretty girl with dark red curls and huge violet-blue eyes wide-spaced in a creamy-skinned, delicately small-boned face, she had wanted to be a vet ever since she could remember.

Getting this job in such a busy, prestigious practice and within a two-hour drive of her parents’ home had been ideal, and she had soon settled down in the small flat she’d bought and begun to make new friends amongst her colleagues.

There was no man in her life: the years she had spent studying to qualify as a vet had meant that there had been neither the time nor the space for a permanent relationship. She had good friends, though—of both sexes—and enjoyed socialising. Ultimately she wanted to meet a special ‘someone’, fall in love, commit herself to their relationship and raise a family, but she was not in any hurry. Her warm personality and sensual good looks meant that she was never short of admirers. But right now her career was her main priority. Her elder brother often teased her that it was just as well that he was married with a young family because, otherwise, their parents would have had to wait a long time for their grandchildren.

Much as she loved her work, and the animals who featured in it, Georgia had no pet of her own, mainly because of the long hours she worked.

Quickly she checked her watch. Ten minutes to go before the owners and their dogs arrived for the week’s training class.

This was an extra service the practice provided along with access, should their owners wish it, to a pet psychologist—every vet who took the class had to go on a special course themselves to make sure their own training skills were up to the mark. They ran two courses, one for adult dogs and one for younger puppies, and it was Georgia who normally took the puppy classes, which was a duty she loved.

The practice was very fortunate in that, having been established for many years, and initially having been set up by the present senior partner’s grandfather, it owned the large garden to the rear of the Edwardian house which had been converted into its offices, operating theatre and surgeries. In addition to the cattery and kennels, the practice also had a large indoor training area, which was where the morning’s class was to be held. Picking up her box of rewards, and making sure she had everything else she would need, Georgia opened the door and walked into the passageway which led to the training room.

Piers Hathersage grimaced as he surveyed the back seat of his once immaculate car, now covered in dog hairs and the papier mâché mess which had originally been a magazine he had inadvertently left there.

‘Bad dog,’ he told the culprit sternly.

Ben responded by barking sharply and rearing up on his hind legs. He was a powerful dog, and Piers wondered for the umpteenth time what on earth his godmother had been thinking of when she had decided to give him a home.

It was true that he was a very handsome dog—his coat shone and his eyes sparkled with humour, intelligence and mischief, whilst he bounded impatiently on his lead, trying to pull away in the opposite direction from which Piers intended to lead him.

Piers had arrived at his godmother’s last night intending only to pay her a fleeting visit on his way back from his parents’, but on finding that she had sprained her ankle whilst falling over her wretched dog, and that her main concern about her incapacity was the fact that she would be unable to take him to his weekly training class, he had felt obliged to offer to perform this chore for her.

‘Oh, Piers, would you?’ she had breathed with such evident relief. ‘Do you hear that, Ben?’ she had cooed at the miscreant.

‘Uncle Piers is going to take you to your training class.’

Uncle Piers! Piers had gritted his teeth and manfully resisted the temptation to say what he was thinking.

Five months earlier, when his godmother had first got Ben, his parents had told him how concerned they were about the wisdom of her acquiring such a large, unruly dog.

‘Why on earth has she got him?’ Piers had asked them frowningly.

‘Well, she was a bit vague on the subject,’ his father had told him. ‘However, it seems that he came to her via the veterinary practice where she takes that dreadful cat she’s adopted.’

Piers’s parents were both slightly younger than Emily Latham, who had befriended them as a young couple when they had first married.

Ten years ago, just after Piers had returned from a stint of working abroad, her husband had died and, remembering all the small kindnesses she had done for him as a boy and her generosity as a godmother, both with her time and her love as well, Piers had made sure that he continued to visit her just as often as he could.

She and her late husband had had no children, and Piers suspected it was because of this that she was inclined to have such a rose-coloured and sentimental view of children and animals.

Listening to his parents, Piers had well been able to imagine how easily she had been prevailed upon to take in someone else’s abandoned dog, and he had further gathered from a chance remark of his godmother’s that some young woman at the practice had been responsible for ‘introducing’ her to Ben. To encourage an elderly widow to take on a dog that was plainly quite unsuitable for her was, in his opinion, a highly irresponsible thing for anyone to do, much less someone who was supposed to be professionally involved with animals. But despite all his carefully logical arguments his godmother had remained obdurate: Ben was one of life’s victims, a poor, misunderstood canine who, far from needing the strong hand of a firm disciplinarian, rather needed to have his psychoses treated with tenderness, love and indulgence.

Surveying the carnage Ben had wrought in his godmother’s once immaculate garden, Piers had been unconvinced. However, his visit to Emily Latham had a dual purpose. Thanks to the increasing demand for the complex software programs produced by the business Piers ran, he was having to look for larger premises, and that had prompted him to consider moving away from the city, where he currently lived and worked, back to the town where he had grown up and where he knew that property was much less expensive.

He was, he reflected now, at the dangerous age of thirty-seven, not so very far off the landmark birthday of forty, and ready to eschew the fast-paced city life he had lived for the last decade for something a little gentler. He was also ready to trade the single life he had enjoyed, for something more companionable and cosy. A wife? Children? He wasn’t against marriage as such, but perhaps he was too choosy because, as yet, he had not met ‘the right woman’, nor even come close to doing so.

Now, thanks to Ben and his godmother’s painful ankle, he had had to put back the appointments he had made to view several properties in the area in order instead to take Ben to his training class.

‘How many has he been to?’ he had asked his godmother as she had tussled with Ben and the dog’s reluctance to wear his collar, tenderly loosening it a notch.

‘Oh, I’m not sure. I think this is his third. Of course, we did miss some of the classes in the first set I took him to. He got dreadfully upset because there was a dog there he didn’t like, and the teacher suggested that it might be as well if he didn’t attend for a few weeks. He was so disappointed, poor dog, and I really felt for him when all the other dogs graduated with good marks. He looked so downcast.’

‘Oh, indeed,’ Piers had agreed dryly, surveying the troublemaker with dispassionate eyes.

‘He’s a very sensitive animal,’ his godmother had persisted gently. ‘And so clever. He always knows when the telephone’s going to ring and he comes to find me to tell me.’

Piers, who had heard the sorry tale of how the dog had chewed through the handset cord, had forborne to comment on this remarkable display of canine intelligence. His godmother always had been a soft touch.

Now, as he crisply commanded Ben to sit, he turned to investigate the mess of chewed paper on the rear seat and floor of the car, cursing under his breath as he realised the dog had munched on a magazine he had been keeping because of an article that contained some information he had wanted to reread.

Judging from the diverse array of cars in the practice’s car park, its dog owners must span the full spectrum of human personalities, Piers acknowledged as his glance moved from a gleaming brand-new top-of-the-range Mercedes to a battered Land Rover and on to a pretty red and cream Citroën.

His own Jaguar was, he had to admit, a small piece of pure self-indulgence, a sleek dark maroon sports model which he had bought in a moment of uncharacteristic impulsiveness.

‘What happened to the eco-friendly estate car you said you were intending to buy?’ Jason Sawyer, his partner, had asked him wryly when he had seen it. Jason, with a wife and four children, often bemoaned the fact that the only really suitable car for his lifestyle was the large people-carrier which his wife drove, leaving him to use the family’s second car.

‘I’m not quite sure,’ Piers had admitted.

‘Enjoy it whilst you can,’ Jason had told him. ‘Belinda is making noises about us buying a camper van. She says it will be ideal for touring holidays with the kids!’

As Piers approached the entrance to the practice he saw a large notice pinned to the door with an arrow on it, stating ‘Training Classes—this way.’

Following the direction of the arrow round the side of the building, he could see a long, low range of out-houses in front of him which had obviously been converted for a variety of uses. It was plain which one was his destination from the small crowd of owners and dogs milling around outside it, all of them surrounding a small red-headed girl dressed in a white tee shirt that lovingly moulded itself to her softly rounded breasts and a pair of jeans which moulded themselves equally tenderly to a femininely curved bottom.

Very sexy, was Piers’s first thought—his second was that it was no wonder the majority of dog owners surrounding her were male.

It was obvious that she was the class’s teacher, but Piers deliberately held off from approaching her. It was his habit to assess everything carefully and detachedly before allowing himself to become involved with anyone. A little caution, in his view, was no bad thing, but Ben, it seemed, had other ideas. A momentary lapse of attention, a small slackening of Piers’s firm hand on the dog’s lead, and Ben seized his chance.

Georgia had seen Ben and his unfamiliar human attachment arrive out of the corner of her eye, but she had been too busy welcoming her class with small treats and warm words of welcome to pay too much attention—at least not openly. Inwardly, though, there was nothing wrong with the speed of her reactions, nor the lightning way that her senses registered the awesomely male aspects of Ben’s handler. Tall, broad-shouldered, well muscled, if the way his tee shirt was being flattened against his torso by the breeze was anything to go by. Very thick short dark hair, a rather grim expression in those bitter-chocolate-brown eyes, it was true, and a certain very determined compression about the folded line of his mouth, but otherwise quite staggeringly good-looking, and more sexy in his jeans and tee shirt than any man except an actor as seen in a chocolate-bar advert had any right to be.

Ben, meanwhile, for reasons which only a similarly attuned canine mind could appreciate, had spotted the human who, so far as he was concerned, was responsible for his present blissful lifestyle in doggie heaven with Mrs Latham. He’d made a connection in his brain between Georgia’s brief appearance in the waiting room at the vet’s and his re-homing with Mrs Latham and, being the affectionate animal that he was, he quite naturally wanted to show his appreciation.

Having convinced his besotted owner that a collar worn anything less than loose enough for him to slip his head through and free himself from at will was an instrument of torture highly likely to cause him death by strangulation, as soon as he spotted Georgia he slipped his head from his collar with practised ease and tore across the yard towards her, scattering pets and owners as he did so, launching himself at Georgia and almost knocking her to the ground with the force of his enthusiastic greeting.

‘Ben…down,’ Georgia instructed firmly.

Tongue lolling, Ben obligingly wagged his tail.

‘Ben,’ Georgia repeated, ‘down.’

Ben nuzzled her neck lovingly.

‘Dr Dolittle, I presume,’ Piers drawled sarcastically as he reached his escapee charge and unceremoniously yanked him off Georgia by the scruff of his neck, instructing him in an ominously quiet voice, ‘Sit.’

Ben knew when a little diplomacy was called for. Obligingly he sat very heavily on Piers’s feet, leaning lovingly against him and looking up into his eyes.

Ignoring this touching appeal, Piers sternly refastened Ben’s collar—several notches tighter.

Georgia knew that it was up to her to take charge, but for some reason her thought processes seemed to have turned to gooey marshmallow. All she could focus on was how wonderfully broad Piers’s chest was, how flat his belly, how corded with male muscles his arms were, as Ben twisted and turned in his hold, giving sharp, short barks of feigned distress.

‘I don’t know who was responsible for foisting this delinquent hound on my godmother,’ Piers was saying through gritted teeth, ‘but if I ever find out…’

So he was Mrs Latham’s godson. Sternly reminding herself that she was a trained professional, and that right now her attention ought to be focused on her canine pupils and not on the six-foot hunk of hormone-level-raising male gorgeousness standing in front of her, Georgia dipped her hand into the box of rewards she had put down at her feet, proffering one to Ben.

‘Good boy, Ben. Sit…’ she cajoled him.

‘Don’t—’ Piers began sharply, and then stopped as Ben suddenly turned into the most demure dog imaginable, giving Georgia a liquid-eyed look of love before taking the titbit she was offering him.

‘Come on, everyone,’ Georgia instructed her small group. ‘Let’s go inside and get started.’

Once inside the large, empty room it quickly became obvious to Piers that, whilst the majority of the other dogs there were responding to Georgia’s careful instructions to their owners, when it came to doggy obedience Ben was in a class of his own.

When he had disrupted the class for the fifth time, by grinning wickedly at the slightly nervous collie bitch to one side of him and standing, Piers was quite sure deliberately, on the tail of the dog on the other side, Piers decided he had had enough.

There was no doubt about it: Ben was a master manipulator and most definitely not the dog for a woman as hopelessly incapable of disciplining him as his godmother.

Several yards away Georgia tried to keep her mind on what she was doing. Ben’s waywardness was communicating itself to the rest of the class, and Georgia could see the sardonic look in Piers’s eyes as the dogs grew restless, their concentration broken by Ben’s sabotage.

Ben’s trouble wasn’t that he wasn’t intelligent enough, Georgia reflected; it was more that he was too intelligent. Too intelligent and far too energetic for his current sedate lifestyle. Setters were gun dogs; they needed exercise and lots of it, and equally large amounts of firm handling.

The class came to an end and, as was her custom, Georgia made a point of going up to each dog to pet it before it and its owner left.

Ben she left till the last. Not, she assured herself, for any reason other than that she was curious to know why Mrs Latham had not brought him to the class.

‘My godmother has hurt her ankle,’ Piers informed Georgia curtly after she had introduced herself and asked him where Mrs Latham was.

Close up, Piers was even more excitingly masculine than she had imagined. Stern, cold-eyed men were not normally her style, Georgia admitted; she preferred good humour to good looks any day of the week. But something was quite definitely causing that little quiver of female appreciation she could feel disturbing her normal level-headed calmness.

However, it was plain that Piers was nowhere near as impressed by her as she was by him, Georgia conceded ruefully as she heard him telling her curtly, ‘If today’s evidence of the success of your dog-training classes is anything to go by, I’m not surprised that Ben is proving so obdurate. Have you any professional qualifications for this?’

Immediately Georgia’s hackles rose.

‘I’m a fully trained vet,’ she informed him shortly, ‘and, yes, I have been trained to—’

‘You may be trained, but Ben most certainly isn’t,’ Piers cut across her coldly. ‘He’s too much of a handful for my godmother, and…’

As she listened to him Georgia’s heart began to sink. What he was saying was quite true, of course, but in his short life Ben had already had two homes and, despite his wilful determination to resist instruction, there was no doubt that in his own way he was devoted to Mrs Latham. Heavens knew what would happen to Ben if her godson were to persuade her to part with him.

Crossing her fingers mentally, Georgia told Piers semi-truthfully, ‘Setters can initially be a bit wild, but once they get over that they calm down tremendously.’

‘I’m sure they do,’ Piers agreed, giving Georgia a narrow-eyed look, ‘provided they are living in the right environment, and the right environment for Ben is not, in my opinion, the home of a sedentary woman who’ll not see sixty again.’

‘Ben has already been re-homed once,’ Georgia told Piers protectively. ‘It’s a traumatic experience for a dog to be parted from an owner it’s become attached to.’

‘Indeed. However, I’m sure you’ll agree that it would be an equally traumatic experience for my godmother if, as fortunately did not happen on this occasion, Ben were to pull away from her again and, instead of merely causing her to stumble and hurt her foot, dash out into the road with possible fatal consequences for himself.’

Georgia bit her lip. He did have a point, but she still felt she had to defend Ben.

‘Once Ben can walk properly on the lead that kind of thing won’t happen,’ she informed Piers.

‘Once! Don’t you mean if, or more probably never?’ Piers asked.

He looked down at the dog sternly. Ben smiled back at him, and then tensed as, out of the corner of his eye, he saw a cat strolling round the corner of the building. Springing to his feet, he tugged hard on his lead, forgetting that Piers had tightened his collar.

Piers gave an exclamation of irritation as Ben’s leap for freedom caught him off guard and slightly off balance, and, instinctively knowing the dog’s strength, Georgia reached out to grab hold of Piers’s arm to help steady him.

Afterwards, Piers told himself that it was the feel of Georgia’s soft breast pressing against him, the scent of her clean perfume in his nostrils and the softness of her hair brushing against his bare arm that had caused him momentarily to slacken his grip on Ben’s lead. After all, Georgia was a stunningly attractive woman, and the sight of those soft, oh so well rounded breasts jiggling around inside her tee shirt whilst she had been running up and down the room with the dogs had left a lasting impression on his brain—and his body!

As Ben tore after the cat both Georgia and Piers shouted commands to him to stop, but it was Philip who was actually responsible for him coming to an abrupt halt as Ben turned the corner and ran full tilt into him.

Rushing across to take hold of Ben’s lead, Georgia apologised to her boss.

‘How is the mare?’ she asked him anxiously.

‘Fine. Both she and the foal are doing very well, although it was touch-and-go for a while.’ Philip frowned as he turned from Georgia to Piers and asked, ‘Isn’t it Piers Hathersage?’ He explained, when Piers acknowledged his recognition of him, ‘I thought I remembered you from school. What are you doing these days?’

Discreetly Georgia left them to renew old acquaintanceships, at the same time making a mental note to ask Philip to have a word with Piers and hopefully persuade him to see Ben in a much better light than he currently did.

‘He’s not a bad dog,’ she told Helen later, when she was relating to her what had happened.

‘Not bad, no,’ Helen replied, ‘but you’ve got to admit that he is too much for Mrs Latham.’

‘Mmm,’ Georgia agreed. ‘It’s such a shame, though, because she’s devoted to him and Ben thinks the world of her.’

‘Oh, he’s told you that, has he?’ Helen teased her, adding, ‘I think you’re quite smitten with him yourself. Or is it someone else who has aroused your interest?’

Refusing to rise to Helen’s bait, Georgia shook her head and exclaimed, ‘Is that the time? I must go otherwise I shall be late for this afternoon’s clinic.’

CHAPTER TWO

BY THE time he had driven Ben back to his godmother’s, Piers had made up his mind. The dog had to go. However, when he let himself into the house he found Emily Latham in a state of some agitation. Her sister, it transpired, had telephoned her in Piers’s absence asking her if she would like to take the place of her friend who had had to drop out of a three-week cruise of the Mediterranean at the last minute.

‘Everything’s paid for,’ she told Piers. ‘All I would have to do is pack and take the train to Mary’s…’

‘So what’s stopping you?’ Piers asked her with a smile.

Poignantly she looked at Ben.

‘I just can’t leave him,’ she told Piers solemnly.

‘You could put him in kennels,’ Piers suggested.

Immediately his godmother shook her head.

‘Oh, no, he’d hate that,’ she told him, adding simply, ‘Who would give him his chocolate at night and make sure he has everything he wants? No, he wouldn’t be comfortable in kennels. He sleeps upstairs in my room at night and…’

Piers closed his eyes. It was getting worse and worse. No wonder the dog thought he was the boss.

‘It’s no good. I’ll have to ring Mary and tell her I can’t go,’ Emily said dispiritedly.

Piers frowned and came to a quick decision. He had planned to spend only a few days with his godmother, looking at local properties, but, in reality, there was nothing to stop him from staying longer, nor from working from her house whilst he did so, and besides…He looked at the dog lying sprawled out on the rug in front of the fireplace, a whole array of semi-chewed toys spread around him.

With his godmother safely out of the way he could look around for another home for Ben.

‘Yes, you can,’ he told his godmother firmly. ‘I’ll stay here with Ben.’

‘For three weeks? Oh, I couldn’t ask you to do that,’ Emily Latham demurred, but Piers could see the gleam of hope in her eyes.

‘You aren’t asking me,’ he told her prosaically, ‘I’m volunteering. And besides, it will give me more time to look around for somewhere to live and work.’

‘Well, if you’re sure…’

‘I’m sure,’ Piers confirmed. ‘You go and ring Mary.’

As his godmother headed for the door she paused and stopped, saying, ‘Oh, I nearly forgot. How did the training class go?’

Piers grimaced. ‘It didn’t. In fact the whole thing was shambolic. The young woman who took it was very easy on the eye and equally easy on the dogs. I always thought red hair was supposed to signify temper in a woman, but she—’

‘Red hair…Oh, it must have been Georgia who took the class. She’s lovely, isn’t she? She’s only been with the practice a few months. In fact it’s really thanks to her that I got Ben…’

Piers tensed. ‘Thanks to her? You mean she was responsible for that…that…?’

He stopped as the telephone started to ring and his godmother went to answer it. He might have known, he fumed. No wonder the wretched woman had been so keen to protect Ben, if she was the one who was responsible for his godmother having the dog in the first place. Of all the irresponsible…

Wrathfully he remembered the chaos of what had purported to be this morning’s dog-training class. Philip must have used his eyes rather than his brain the day he had decided to employ her. She certainly was very eye-catching, with that mass of thick, dark red hair and that delicate face, those lusciously dark-lashed eyes and that body that was so curvy that it was just made for a man’s hands to caress…

Abruptly Piers frowned; this was no way for him to be thinking. His godmother had more than likely committed the same folly of being instantly attracted to her crafty canine, for no one could deny that Ben was an extremely good-looking dog.

He, Piers, attracted to Georgia? Impossible…He liked cool, intellectual brunettes, tall and slim, fully up-to-speed independent women who would have shuddered in distaste at the mere thought of an animal’s hair anywhere near their immaculately presented persons.

A short, curvy redhead with tousled curls who thought nothing of cuddling one of her furry friends was quite definitely not his cup of tea…No way…no way at all…

‘That was Mary on the phone,’ his godmother announced happily as she came back into the room. ‘I’ve told her that I’m going to be able to join her after all.’ Her face clouded slightly. ‘Are you sure you really want to do this, Piers? I know that Ben can be rather a naughty boy at times, but his heart’s in the right place…’ She beamed adoringly at the dog, who had followed her into the room and was looking approvingly up at her.

‘His heart may be, but unfortunately the rest of him does not appear to want to follow suit,’ Piers murmured dryly, giving the dog a quelling look. Ben scratched vigorously behind his ear, causing Emily Latham to give Piers a horrified look of concern.

‘Oh, Piers, you don’t think he’s caught something, do you?’ she exclaimed worriedly.

‘If he has I’m sure his friend at the vet’s will be more than happy to relieve him of it,’ Piers assured her grimly.

‘Oh, dear, I’d better give them a ring, and then I must pack and you’ll need food…and…’

‘I’ll ring them—in the morning. You go and pack by all means, but as for food I can shop for that myself tomorrow. This evening we’ll eat out…my treat.’

‘Oh, no…we can’t do that,’ his godmother protested. ‘Not on my last evening at home. It wouldn’t be fair to Ben.’

‘No, of course not,’ Piers agreed sardonically. ‘I wasn’t thinking. Do forgive me, Ben!’

‘We could have a take-away,’ Emily suggested. ‘There’s a very good pizza place in town that delivers. Ben loves them, don’t you, Benny? He likes the anchovy ones best…’

Defeatedly Piers closed his eyes whilst Ben’s tail thumped enthusiastically on the floor.

‘Thanks for taking this afternoon’s cases,’ Philip told Georgia as she emerged from their second surgery. ‘Oh, and by the way, if I could just have a word with you before you leave…?’

Despite Philip’s smile and his thanks Georgia was conscious of a small frisson of unease. However, the afternoon’s patients had all turned out to be fairly straightforward, and any who had needed minor treatment had all responded well.

‘Ah Georgia.’ Philip smiled as she popped her head round the door to his office a few minutes later. ‘Yes…come on in…

‘Well, the good news is that you can take your missed day off tomorrow, if that suits you.’

‘Yes, thank you, that will be fine,’ Georgia accepted. ‘The good news’, he had said; that meant that there was some bad.

‘Sit down,’ Philip invited her, indicating the chair in front of his desk. ‘I appreciate that you were somewhat thrown in at the deep end, so to speak, today, and I’m sure that, like all of us here, there are some aspects of the work you prefer to others. For instance I’ve always enjoyed operating and large-animal work, whilst Helen, as you know, prefers dealing with the smaller domestic pets…’

Georgia frowned, wondering where exactly Philip’s conversation was leading. In another few seconds she knew.

‘I understand that this morning’s dog-training class wasn’t entirely successful.’

Georgia’s heart started to thump a little uncomfortably. Had someone complained?

‘There were one or two problems,’ she admitted huskily. ‘Ben…’

‘It does require a certain type of very strong personality to control a group of over-excited dogs,’ Philip continued before she could explain. ‘I know. I’ve been having a look at your file and I see that you had an excellent report from the intensive dog-training course we sent you on, but sometimes translating what has been learned in that kind of protected, cocooning environment into real life can be more difficult than we envisage.’

‘Someone’s complained.’ Georgia couldn’t help preempting him flatly. ‘I know that things did get a bit out of hand this morning, but…’

‘A bit!’ Philip’s eyebrows rose. ‘According to Piers, the dogs were totally out of control.’

‘Piers…’ Georgia’s heart thumped even harder. Oh, she might have known that he would be the one.

‘The reason they were out of control,’ she defended herself hotly, ‘was because he had brought Ben.’

‘Ben.’ Philip sighed. ‘Yes, I’m afraid Ben is proving to be rather a problem, and not just at the dog-training classes, according to Piers. I understand that he’s recently been the cause of Mrs Latham hurting her ankle—fortunately not seriously—this time. But so far as Piers is concerned I suspect that Ben is very much on parole.’

Was that Philip’s way of saying that so was she? Georgia wondered a little later as she drove home. Philip was a kind employer, and Georgia had thought she had found if not the idyllic then certainly an ideal job for herself, but Philip’s gentle little homily this afternoon was making her wonder if the partners were as happy with her as she was with them.

Philip’s last words to her had been a hint that maybe she might think it worthwhile doing a further intensive course in dog training. Only by reminding herself that the blame for her carpeting lay not with Philip, nor even with Ben, but with his irascible and unpleasant handler, had she been able to bite back the impulsive retort that had sprung to her lips that the one who needed the intensive course was not so much her but Ben.

He was a friendly and highly intelligent dog, but Mrs Latham spoiled him dreadfully.

With another three months to go before her nine-month probation period was fully up, Georgia now felt uncomfortably aware that her job might not be as secure as she had imagined. There were other veterinary practices, of course, but she liked this one, and besides, how was it going to look on her CV if the practice didn’t give her a full-time contract? Not good—not good at all.

This was all down to Piers Hathersage, she reflected angrily.

The following day Georgia drove to Mrs Latham’s home in the centre of the town.

It was late afternoon, and the early summer sunshine was throwing soft dappled shadows over the warm sandstone in which the local houses were built.

Wrexford was a charming place, a sturdily built and solidly settled market town which took a pride in itself and its history. The River Wrex, from which the town got its name, ran virtually through the town centre; originally the place had been the only spot where local people could ford the breadth of the river, and although modern-day traffic crossed it by bridge the local council had made an attractive park area along the river banks through the town centre for people to enjoy.

Mrs Latham’s Queen Anne town house was one of a pretty terrace built originally by a local landowner and let out to the town’s prosperous burghers.

The street leading to the houses was not open to general traffic; its modern tarmac covering had been stripped back to reveal the original cobblestones and traditional street lighting had been installed, complete with hanging baskets of pastel-coloured trailing plants. In front of the houses themselves the cobbled area opened out into a wider rectangle of ground reaching to the river, with a mature beech tree in its centre.

Residents and their visitors were allowed to park on the cobbles, although all the houses had long gardens and garages to their rear, and it was on these cobbles that Georgia parked her own small estate car, facing the river. Water had always fascinated her, and the River Wrex was a particularly attractive one, especially here in the town, where the very stringent conservation rules of the area meant that the water was blissfully clear and home to a wide variety of wildlife. During Georgia’s first month at the practice someone had brought in an otter with a damaged paw which had been found on the river path. Thankfully a small operation had repaired the damage and the otter had been successfully returned to its home.

Upstream from the town, on the site of what had originally been the area’s corn mill, the original buildings had been turned into a tourist attraction—the millpond cleaned out and its weir restored to its original glory. It was a popular site for picnickers and walkers and Georgia, who loved the countryside, couldn’t help thinking how fortunate she was to live and work in such a beautiful environment.

She felt completely at home here, and had even begun to daydream of the admittedly at the moment remote possibility that she might one day be able to afford to buy into the partnership as a junior partner.

Under Philip’s traditional management the practice had a slightly old-fashioned air to it, so Georgia had been thrilled when the response to her pleas to be allowed to introduce a pet-visiting scheme to a nearby old people’s home had met with overwhelming success.

The pets, carefully chosen and nominated by their vets and accompanied by their enthusiastic owners, visited the home on a regular basis to see their human ‘friends’.

One elderly man, who had always had a dog throughout his adult life before entering the home, had cried emotional tears to see the chocolate-brown Labrador who had visited him.

‘He’s just like my Brownie was,’ he had told the dog’s owner in a choked voice as he’d stroked the obliging dog.

Georgia had several other similar schemes she wanted to introduce as and when the opportunity arose. But with a black mark hovering over her, thanks to Piers, how could she do so?

It was pointless, of course, blaming Ben or Mrs Latham. Even so, she was hoping that the opportunity might arise to suggest tactfully to the older woman that both she and Ben would benefit from Ben undergoing a complete retraining course at the hands of someone with the expertise to teach the dog properly on a one-to-one basis.

Opening her car door, Georgia got out and walked determinedly towards Mrs Latham’s house.

Piers was in the kitchen when Georgia rang the bell—and feeling rather out of temper. He had driven his godmother to the nearest mainline station earlier in the day and then gone on from there to do some essential food shopping. The diet of an old lady who, whilst not totally vegetarian nevertheless seemed to prefer a very light menu, was not one that he, as a six-foot, twelve-and-a-half-stone mature adult man felt happy with. Not that he didn’t believe in healthy eating—he did—but he liked substantially more on his plate than his godmother enjoyed.

He had returned to her house via the estate agent’s, where he had had an in-depth talk with the representative he had seen, outlining his requirements, and had come away with half a dozen promising property details to look over, feeling more than ready for the lunch of locally grown new potatoes accompanied by Scottish salmon, fresh vegetables and a hollandaise sauce he had promised himself.

His first intimation that this was to be a delayed pleasure had occurred when he’d opened the front door and seen the soft drift of feathers floating innocently down the stairs and into the hallway.

Feathers…!

He’d studied them frowningly as the draught of air from the open kitchen door drew them outside.

Feathers?

An unpleasant suspicion had gathered as ominously as the frown corrugating his forehead.

Putting down his shopping, he’d called out sternly, ‘Ben?’

Silence…

Nothing…!

Closing the back door, Piers had hurried upstairs. The door to his godmother’s bedroom was open, and as he’d looked into the room his heart had sunk. There was Ben, lying fast asleep on his godmother’s bed, surrounded by feathers; a torn pillow on the floor had pointed to their origins and Piers had taken a deep breath before saying firmly, ‘Ben!’

In his sleep the dog had breathed deeply, and then wrinkled his nose as a feather landed softly on it.

Grimly Piers had surveyed him. No way could the dog be asleep, and, as though to prove him correct, Ben had suddenly lifted one eyelid just the merest fraction and then closed it again.

Wrathfully Piers had taken action, marching over to the bed and getting hold of Ben’s collar and yanking him firmly onto the floor.

Four hours later, having made do with a sandwich for his lunch, he had finally cleared away the last of the feathers, walked Ben, given him his meal and responded to his godmother’s anxious phone call that, yes, he and Ben were getting on fine, albeit through fiercely gritted teeth.

Now, just as he was about to sit down and study the estate agent’s properties, someone was at the door. No doubt some crony of his godmother’s, who would want to have the full story of where she was and who he was.

Irritably Piers walked towards the hall door.

Immediately Ben got up to follow him. He was a sociable dog, and in his experience visitors to the house meant an hour or so of entertainment and the added attraction of some of Mrs Latham’s home-made cake—plus, if he was really in her good books, his own special mug of tea. Ben liked tea.

Barking excitedly, his tail wagging furiously, he rushed past Piers, determined to get to the front door ahead of him. Well, after all, he was the main male of the household. That chancy cat didn’t count. It had a home of its own several streets away, as Ben well knew, and only came here for extra meals.

As Ben made to barge past him Piers reacted immediately, grabbing hold of his collar and stopping him and then using it to half push and half drag the dog back into the kitchen, hauling him towards his bed and sternly telling him, ‘Quiet…Stay.’

Unused to such cavalier treatment, Ben did exactly that for just as long as it took Piers to get on the other side of the door and close it, and the sound that greeted Georgia as Piers opened the door to her was one of heart-rending distress as Ben, recovering from Piers’s assault to his household supremacy, started to howl with a piteous and searing intensity.

‘What’s happened? What’s wrong with Ben? What have you done to him?’ Georgia demanded immediately, her glance going anxiously to the closed kitchen door, behind which the dog’s agonised wails were increasing in volume.

‘I haven’t done anything to him,’ Piers denied sharply. ‘What—?’

‘Yes, you have. You’ve hurt him,’ Georgia insisted, ignoring Piers to hurry to the kitchen door and push it open.

As soon as he saw her Ben’s eyes lit up. This was more like it—a human who understood! Whining pitifully, he lay in his basket, his eyes half closed whilst he breathed arduously.

Whilst Piers looked on grimly from the doorway, Georgia rushed over to Ben, getting down on her knees in front of him, quickly checking his pulse and then the rest of him.

To her relief nothing seemed to be wrong, and then, disconcertingly, just as she was about to demand an explanation for his piteous cries from Piers, Ben opened one eye and started to nuzzle hopefully at the pocket where she kept her dog treats.

From behind her Georgia heard Piers saying sardonically, ‘It seems that diagnosis is even less your forte than training…There’s nothing wrong with him.’

‘Where’s Mrs Latham?’ Georgia demanded, hot-faced with chagrin. Piers, it seemed, was quite right—there was nothing wrong with Ben, but there was no way she was going to admit as much.

‘Not here, I’m afraid. Nor will she be here for the next few weeks; she’s having a much needed holiday with her sister, and whilst she’s away I’m going to be staying in loco parentis, so to speak.’

‘She’s left Ben with you? You’re looking after him?’ Georgia queried, unable to hide her feelings.

‘There wasn’t really much alternative. It seems that the kennels weren’t…er…able to take him…’

Georgia’s flush deepened a little as she saw the way Piers was looking at her.

‘You’re staying here, looking after Ben?’ she repeated, swallowing tensely, as though she found the words uncomfortably unpalatable.

‘I’m staying here looking after Ben,’ Piers agreed grimly. ‘And whilst I’m here I am going to look round for a more suitable home for him.’

‘No!’ Georgia protested. ‘You can’t do that. Mrs Latham would never part with him.’

‘My godmother is besotted with the animal, I agree,’ Piers replied acidly. ‘But that does not make theirs in any way a suitable alliance. Far from it…’

‘It isn’t Ben’s fault he’s so…so…so disruptive,’ Georgia defended. ‘If he was properly trained—’

‘If he was properly trained. But that’s the crux of the matter, isn’t it? He is most certainly not in any way trained at all, and in my view—’

‘Setters are scatty when they’re young…but…’

Georgia had no idea why she was defending the dog so fiercely. After all, she had said herself that Ben wasn’t really a suitable dog for Mrs Latham, but something about the way Ben was looking at her, something about the obvious love and the doggy treats and toys which surrounded him touched her heart in a way she could hardly explain to herself, never mind to the tough, uncompromisingly unemotional man standing in front of her.

‘Look, I appreciate that you have a vested interest in him staying here. After all, you were the one who foisted him on my godmother in the first place, weren’t you?’ Piers told her grimly.

Georgia stared at him.

‘No. I…’

‘Don’t bother trying to deny it,’ Piers warned her. ‘My godmother told me herself that you were responsible for her getting Ben.’

Georgia’s heart sank. Mrs Latham had on more than one occasion mentioned how large a part she believed Georgia’s unavoidable absence from the waiting room had played in her becoming Ben’s new owner. But for Piers to claim that she had either actively solicited such a situation or even encouraged it was way beyond the truth. Not that she was going to attempt to tell him so. Why should she? Let him think badly of her if he wished. She didn’t care; why should she?

Just because he had the kind of sexy good looks that made her heart thud and her temperature rise, that did not mean that she was foolish enough to want to solicit his good opinion and ignore her own principles in doing so. Besides, he really wasn’t her type. No, not at all. She liked men with kind, open, honest faces and ready smiles, men who liked animals and understood them. The kind of man she liked would have immediately seen that Ben was as much a victim of the situation as his owner.

Georgia frowned as she looked down at Ben. She had no doubt that Piers would carry out his threat to find him a new home. And if he couldn’t…A horrible mental picture of Ben being dragged into the surgery to face…Georgia swallowed hard. The practice had a rule about not destroying healthy dogs simply because their owners no longer wanted them. But there were other practices…Tears filmed her eyes. Quickly she ducked her head and blinked them away. There was no way anything like that was going to happen to Ben. Not whilst she was around to prevent it.

‘All Ben needs is someone with the skill and the patience to treat him properly. He’s a strong-willed dog but there’s no malice or unkindness in him.’

‘Someone.’ Piers raised his eyebrows. ‘And have you any suggestions where I might find this paragon?’

Both his voice and his expression implied that he already knew that such a task was way beyond her capabilities, and, remembering the chaos of yesterday’s training class, Georgia could understand why.

‘He’s a very intelligent dog,’ she persisted. ‘He could be trained.’

‘But not by you, apparently,’ Piers told her derisively.

Georgia felt her face burn with discomfort. When she had finished her training course the instructor had told her that he had been impressed with her ability to handle the dogs. ‘But you could be a little bit firmer,’ he had added.

‘If I had him on a one-to-one basis then, yes, I could train him,’ Georgia insisted recklessly.

There was a long silence, and then, to her consternation, Piers said coolly, ‘Very well, then, prove it. You’ve got three weeks to persuade me that you’re right.’

Three weeks. Georgia swallowed nervously. What on earth had she done? What on earth had she committed herself to? There were places, she knew, where dogs underwent two-week intensive training courses, guaranteed to have them obeying all the basic commands and walking to heel, but the dogs were boarded at the training school and the trainers spent all day, every day, teaching them. There was no way she could achieve anything like the same effect with a couple of training sessions twice a week for three weeks.

‘It isn’t quite that easy,’ Georgia protested. ‘To train him properly I’d have to have him living with me, and I’m not allowed to have a pet in my flat.’

‘Admit it. You can’t train him,’ Piers challenged her.

Georgia’s eyes darkened to deep purple with the passion of her emotions. ‘I could if I had him living with me,’ she repeated. ‘But, as I’ve just told you, that isn’t possible.’

‘Maybe not, but it is possible for you to come and live with him.’

‘Live with him…?’ Georgia stared at Piers.

‘My godmother has another guest bedroom, and I’m sure, under the circumstances, she wouldn’t have any objection to your moving in here for the duration.’

‘Me…move in here…with you?’ Georgia squeaked.

‘No,’ Piers corrected her gently. ‘You move in here to train Ben.’ And then, even more gently, he explained, ‘If I was inviting you to move in anywhere with me, I promise you the necessity for a spare guest bedroom would not exist!’

Her face scarlet with mortification, Georgia scrambled to her feet.

‘I can’t move in here,’ she said—but then her glance fell to Ben, who was lying peacefully at her feet. He really was the most handsome dog, and his nature was so devoid of any kind of meanness that he deserved a loving owner and a good home. And there was no doubt about the rapport which existed between him and Mrs Latham, even if he did take atrocious advantage of her.

The thought of him being passed on to yet another owner or ending up unwanted in a dogs’ home was just too much for Georgia’s tender heart to bear.

‘I’ll do it,’ she heard herself saying recklessly. ‘I’ll move in and I’ll prove to you just how well-trained a dog Ben can be…’

The derisive look Piers was giving her warned Georgia that he had scant faith in her claim, but that only made her feel all the more determined to prove herself and Ben to him.

Mentally she started to make plans. Coincidentally she had some holiday leave due. If she took it that would give her some extra time with Ben. The practice was within walking distance of Mrs Latham’s house, so she would be able to dash home during her break when she was working to be with him, and then there were her off-duty hours. Three weeks. She could feel the anxiety starting to clutch at the pit of her stomach.

‘Second thoughts?’ she heard Piers asking her sardonically.

‘No,’ she denied firmly. ‘But you will have—once Ben’s trained.’

‘I shan’t hold my breath,’ Piers advised her dryly.

CHAPTER THREE

‘YOU’RE doing what?’ Helen asked Georgia in startled amazement the next day, when Georgia told her what had happened.

‘Not doing, have already done,’ Georgia corrected her wryly. ‘I moved into Mrs Latham’s house yesterday afternoon.’

‘So you’re living with Piers? Mmm…lucky you,’ Helen teased her, rolling her eyes expressively. ‘If I didn’t love David so much…’

‘I am not living with anyone,’ Georgia contradicted her swiftly. ‘I’m simply staying there so that I can train Ben. He’s such a lovely dog, really, Helen, but Piers is determined to put pressure on his godmother to make her get rid of him; I can tell. It will be a strictly business relationship.’

‘I just hope you know what you’re doing,’ Helen told her warningly. ‘You know how keen Philip is on maintaining the right image for the practice, and he does tend to be a little bit old-fashioned. He won’t take it very well if you don’t succeed—your failure reflecting on the reputation and good name of the practice et cetera, et cetera—even more so, I feel, since Piers has put it on a business footing.’

‘Well, I’m under a cloud in Philip’s books already, thanks to Piers,’ Georgia admitted. ‘But I can’t just let him cold-bloodedly send Ben away. Which reminds me, I’m going to have to skip lunch today; I want to go back to the house and do some work with Ben. I took him for a good long walk before I came out this morning.’

‘You did?’ Helen raised her eyebrows. ‘Well, that has to be an achievement all by itself. According to Mrs Latham he hates wearing a collar and pulls like mad on a lead.

‘You did use a lead, didn’t you?’ she demanded when she saw the way Georgia was avoiding looking at her.

‘It was very early in the morning. No one else was about on the river path and I managed to bribe him to come back with some treats,’ Georgia told her defensively. ‘He needed the exercise, Helen; that’s part of the trouble. He isn’t using enough energy.’

‘Mmm…’ was all Helen would allow herself to say.

Piers had been equally unimpressed by the fact that she had walked Ben off his lead. It had been unfortunate that he should have been in the kitchen when she had arrived back with the dog and had seen her coaxing him back into the house with treats.

‘I think my godmother has already taught him that particular message,’ Piers had told her grimly as Ben had refused to come more than a few feet at a time without extra treats. ‘If this is your idea of training him, then—’

‘He needed a walk,’ had been all Georgia would permit herself to say as she’d prepared Ben’s food.

When she had returned to the house the previous day, Piers had been waiting for her and had shown her upstairs to a delightful bedroom complete with its own bathroom.

‘I’m up on the next floor,’ he had informed her, lifting his head in the direction of the ceiling, ‘so we shouldn’t be under one another’s feet too much. Tomorrow, once you’ve had time to settle in, I suggest we draw up a timetable which will allow us both to use the kitchen in privacy, although most evenings I shall probably be eating out.’

Georgia hadn’t said anything for the simple reason that she’d desperately been trying to assimilate the import of the strong surge of disappointment his words had brought her. What was the matter with her? Surely she didn’t want to share her meals with him? Surely she didn’t want to share anything with him? How could she after the antagonism and, yes, dislike, he had shown towards her?

He had also outlined to her the reason why he was staying in his godmother’s house, underlining the fact that when he was working he preferred to do so without any kind of interruption.

‘I wouldn’t dream of interrupting you,’ Georgia began stiffly, but fell silent with fury when he continued as though she hadn’t spoken.

‘Naturally I have no desire to pry into your…private life, but suffice it to say that I also feel it is something that should be conducted in your own home.’

‘If you’re suggesting that I would…that I have—’ she began, and then stopped, contenting herself with a curt, ‘I don’t happen to have the kind of “private life” I suspect you mean, but if there was someone…special…in my life…I can assure you that there is no way I would want to see him or be with him, with you…’ She stopped again as her words threatened to choke her. ‘Anywhere other than…somewhere I could be completely private with him,’ she told Piers shakily.

How dared he suggest that she would indulge in…that she would want to…? The very thought…

Piers watched her with a small frown. There was no mistaking either her sincerity or her vehemence, just as there was equally no mistaking the fierce surge of male pleasure it gave him to know that not only was there no man in her life but also that her attitude betrayed the fact that her sexual experience was probably limited to little more than one relationship—a youthful affair with a fellow student, which she had begun as a virgin and left, though technically a ‘woman’, with very little real experience of true sensuality.

Georgia would have been shocked and chagrined to know what he was thinking, mainly because his thoughts were so accurate. Losing her virginity to her boyfriend at university had seemed to be the right thing to do. She had liked Mark, had trusted him, and had even persuaded herself that she loved him. And for a while perhaps she had, but her sexual intimacy with him had left her feeling that there must be something lacking in her that she should have found it so pedestrian an experience, almost totally lacking in the fireworks and intensity she had imagined. They had parted amicably after just over a year together—Georgia had no regrets about the fact that they had been lovers, only about her own failure to experience the sensations, to feel the ecstasy others seemed so capable of achieving.

Piers had given her her own key to the house and had passed on to her the detailed verbal instructions his godmother had given him as to Ben’s routine and care.

‘He has what?’ Georgia had demanded in bemusement at one point.

‘Bakewell tart on Mondays, cream sponge on Wednesdays and chocolate éclairs on Fridays. Apparently they are his favourite,’ Piers had told her sardonically. ‘Oh, and he likes to wash them down with a mug of tea…’

‘Tea. Well, yes, some dogs do like it,’ Georgia had agreed.

What she couldn’t understand was how Ben managed to stay so healthy-looking and fit on such a patently unhealthy diet and with so little exercise, but when she’d said as much to Piers he’d told her grimly, ‘Oh, but he does have plenty of exercise. Nearly every day, according to my godmother, he manages to escape from the garden, often not returning for close on an hour…’

Which was why she had recently had installed a new dog-proof fence made of strong netting. Georgia had recommended to Mrs Latham that she wire in an underground electric fence, operated via a special unit attached to Ben’s collar, but Mrs Latham had considered it too dangerous for the darling animal!

Georgia had closed her eyes. She really hadn’t wanted to hear any more!

Now she glanced at her watch. It was time for her break.

Ben greeted her with a welcome bark when she let herself into the house, launching himself at her and trying to lick her enthusiastically.

‘Down, Ben,’ she commanded. ‘Down…’

Predictably Ben ignored her. Suppressing a sigh, Georgia went to open the back door. Obligingly Ben followed her.

‘Sit, Ben,’ she commanded once they were outside. Obediently Ben did so.

Amazed, as well as pleased, Georgia went to praise him and give him a treat, but as she reached him Ben nimbly sidestepped her and, with startling speed, raced towards the other end of the garden.

‘Patience and perseverance,’ Georgia repeated determinedly to herself under her breath half an hour later as Ben, having thoroughly enjoyed the game of racing up and down the garden whilst Georgia tried to get him to sit still, stood two feet away from her, tongue lolling, grinning widely.

Georgia closed her eyes and took a deep breath before commanding firmly, ‘Sit, Ben. Sit.’ She grasped his collar with one hand and placed her other firmly on his back.

Ben was a strong dog, though, and from the start it was equally plain to both of them that he was going to win the undignified tussle which ensued. Well, at least Piers wasn’t here to witness Ben’s triumph over her, she told herself as Ben finally grew tired of the game and, with a strong tug, almost pulled her off her feet, causing her to tumble and end up sprawling on the grass.

Her break was over, and so far she had made absolutely no progress whatsoever. Tonight after work she would try a different tack, she promised herself as she managed to coax Ben back into the kitchen before quickly tidying herself up. A long, long walk to burn off some of his energy followed by some walking-to-heel training, and whilst she had him on his lead they could practise some sitting on command as well.

‘How did it go?’ Helen asked her when she was back at work.

‘Don’t ask,’ Georgia responded wearily.

‘Mmm…well, I looked out a couple of animal psychology books for you,’ Helen told her. ‘Perhaps they might help.’

‘If Ben continues to behave the way he did this lunchtime I’m going to be the one needing the psychologist,’ Georgia told her feebly.

‘Remember, per—’

‘Perseverance and patience, I know,’ Georgia agreed. ‘Only Ben already has them both.’

Before leaving work that evening Georgia made a few necessary purchases: a short choke chain to replace Ben’s collar and lead, and some more treats.

Since her training session with Ben had not left her enough time for lunch she was feeling extremely hungry. She had made some chilli the previous day and she was looking forward to eating it along with some of the delicious fresh bread she had bought from the local bakery. However, the first thing that hit her as she walked into the house was the delicious, mouth-watering smell of cooking food. Her stomach started to rumble. Piers was obviously back before her. For some reason she had expected to return before him, and besides, hadn’t he said that he normally ate out?

As she pushed open the kitchen door the first thing she saw was Ben’s empty bed, the second Piers himself, who was standing beside the open oven door stirring something inside it.

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