Joe clapped his hand to his head. "Tiff, baby! You're right! I should call him immediately and find out exactly what his client's problem is. Then we go from there."

"You're suggesting that you arrange a marriage for me with a total stranger?" Ashley asked. "No. I don't think so."

"Listen, Ashley," Tiffany said quietly, "no one is suggesting we set a date and you two meet for the first time at the altar. This isn't India. Let Joe check it out with his cousin. If there is a possibility that you two might be a match, we'll arrange a meeting in our offices here. If you and the guy hit it off, then we can run with it from there. Hey, it takes all the fuss and muss out of looking for a guy. We'll have his background, because he's Ray's client. And he has to have a few bucks or his father wouldn't have put in such a clause trying to protect him and the family money. It could be an ideal setup for you."

"Then if he's rich and relatively acceptable, why hasn't he found his own wife?" Ashley wanted to know. "Sounds very fishy to me. What if the guy is weird or a perv?"

"Ray will know," Tiffany said soothingly.

Ashley sat silent for several long moments while they waited for her to say something. Finally she spoke. "Okay, check it out, Joe. And when you have all the facts-and I mean all of them-come back to me with them. I'll make my decision then." She stood up. "I've got to get back to the shop. I have a special shipment coming in today for Emily Devlin. Pure silk, lace made by nuns in a convent in Madeira, the whole thing hand-sewn. Her husband ordered it for her as a surprise for after the baby is born."

"That man is a treasure," Tiffany remarked. Then she got up too. "I'll see you out," she said, "and Joe, get on the phone now with Ray."

The two women walked arm in arm into the office's reception area.

"An arranged marriage sounds like it might be a good idea, Tiff," Ashley said. "Thanks for being so on-the-ball and thinking of it."

"Don't think badly of the boys for not coming up with a solution," Tiffany answered her. "This is a thorny problem you've got, sweetie. They're guys. They think practical." Then she grinned. "And this is definitely a night for the Channel, huh?"


"I can never thank you enough for introducing me to it," Ashley said, returning the grin. "After the debacle with Carson I really needed a serious diversion. Everyone is always telling me how calm and levelheaded I am. Well, that's because I take my means out in the Channel." She chuckled. "And someone's cute butt is going to get strapped pink and hot tonight, I can assure you."

"Glad I could help," Tiffany replied, surprised at what she had just heard. She would never have considered that Ashley was into domination, but then, she had learned long ago never to judge a book by its cover. "Have fun," she said as she ushered Ashley out the door of the office. "See you at the club."

Ashley waved a diffident hand as she hurried down the stairs. Outside the June afternoon was a glorious one. Watching the light traffic she walked across Main Street to her own shop. "Did the Devlin order come in?" she asked Nina, her assistant, as she entered the store.

"Yep, just while you were gone. I didn't open it. I thought you would want to do that," Nina said with a smile. "But I have to admit I'm dying to see it. It's in the back."

"Have we been busy?" Ashley wanted to know.

"Sure we have," Nina replied. "Bridal season, and they all want sexy underwear."

Ashley smiled and went into her office, where Nina had placed the small package. Carefully she tore off the paper wrapping. Then she opened the box and lifted the exquisite silk-and-lace nightgown from the tissue wrapping. It was the palest pink, with the most delicate lace Ashley had ever seen. Carson had discovered the lace while vacationing with Peter on the island of Madeira, ferreted out its source, and brought the information to her. She had paid the nuns for a year's supply of their lace, and put it with her seamstress to use on certain garments. Part of her shop's success was being able to offer unique, one-of-a-kind items. The nightgown in her hands was certainly beautiful.

"Nina, come and look," she called out, and her assistant hurried in.

"God, it's beautiful!" Nina said. "She's going to love it, but I wonder if he knows it will be Christmas before she can wear it. I mean, it isn't something you put on when you're nursing. Breast milk would really stain such delicate silk, and she'll nurse exclusively for six months, like they all do now."

"It's the thought that counts," Ashley said softly. "And he thought of it. Now, why can't I find a guy like that?"

"You want to talk about it?" Nina asked sympathetically. She was a motherly but fashionable woman in her early fifties.

"What's to talk about?" Ashley said gloomily. "Three weddings planned. Three weddings canceled. Three florists, three caterers, three bands, all paid for and canceled. Three wedding gowns and twelve attendants' dresses, all paid for and then donated to the hospital's secondhand shop. And let us not forget the hundreds of wedding gifts that have all had to be packed up and returned with a handwritten note of regret. 'Dear Mr. and Mrs. Van Buren: I'm so sorry to tell you that the wedding has had to be canceled because the groom turned out to be gay, dead, a con man. I am returning your beautiful and most thoughtful wedding gift via Federal Express. Fondly, Ashley Cordelia Kimbrough, who has sucky taste in men.' "

Nina couldn't help it: She laughed. "Oh, honey," she said. "I'm sorry."

"I'm sorrier," Ashley replied. "But it really is getting to be rather comical, isn't it? I wonder if 'three strikes and you're out' applies to situations like this?"

"I think you just haven't met the right man," Nina, a widow, said cheerfully.

"I've got eighteen months," Ashley said softly, "or I really will be out. Out on the street. Damn! I will not lose everything to an organization called SSEXL, even if I have to marry a monkey in the zoo!"

"Speaking of monkeys, Lila Peabody came in today to pick up her new bras," Nina murmured. "That boob job she got looks great. And at her age, too. She said she was just seventy."

"Seventy-five," Ashley corrected. "Perky boobs, and a face like a leather satchel. She has the money. Why she didn't do the face too, I don't know. I suppose it's because her skin is so damaged from her constant tanning."

"Rumor has it she has a new beau," Nina said.

"I heard. Old Paul Hilton," Ashley replied.

"No fool like an old fool," Nina remarked.

"Do you ever think of remarrying?" Ashley asked her assistant.

"No. I don't want to break another one in, thanks. Besides, who needs a man when you have the Channel, my dear? I can't thank you enough for introducing me to it. I can have sex anytime, and any way I want it, and at four a.m. I'm back in my own bed. It's just too perfect."

Ashley laughed. "TMI," she told Nina, who just chuckled.

"Do you want me to call Mr. Devlin and tell him his order is in?" Nina asked.

"Yes, please," Ashley said.

The rest of the afternoon passed without incident. Two more brides-to-be came in to purchase items for their trousseaux. One of them was a girl Ashley remembered being the little sister of a schoolmate. She almost winced when the girl glowingly told Nina that Ashley and her sister used to babysit her when they were in their teens. Then Ashley made the mistake of asking after the girl's older sister.


"Oh, Claire's been married over ten years now, and has three kids," came the reply. "Can I tell her that you said hi?"

Ashley nodded, smiling, but catching Nina's sympathetic gaze. Bloody hell! she thought. Why is it that everybody but me can find a husband? I'm not looking for anything unusual. I want a nice guy with a good sense of humor with whom I can talk and share things. Is that so hard? Obviously it was. Being rich was both a blessing and a curse.

At five p.m. on the dot she closed up Lacy Nothings for the day and bade Nina good night. Then, going around back, she got into her silver Solstice and drove home.

"Good evening, Miss Ashley," Byrnes, her butler, said as she entered the house. "Shall I tell Mrs. B. dinner at the usual time?"

"Yes, but I'll want to eat out on the porch tonight, Byrnes," Ashley told him.

"Very good, miss," the butler replied with a bow, and went off to the kitchens to speak with his wife, who was Kimbrough Hall's cook.

Ashley went up to her bedroom suite. After stripping off her clothes she walked naked into her large bathroom. Opening one side of the double glass doors to her shower, she programmed it and turned the water on before stepping into it. A dozen water jets spurted forth from the marble enclosure as she turned herself about to get thoroughly wet. Reaching for a cake of olive oil soap a friend had brought her from Italy last year, she washed herself quickly. She didn't want to be late for dinner, because Mrs. Byrnes usually did some sort of steak dish midweek, and dinner was served at six p.m. on the dot. She would want a little time for a glass of wine before she ate.

Turning off the shower after she was well rinsed, Ashley stepped from the glass-and-marble surround and reached for a towel. The towel was warm from the heating rack. Once dried, she looked at herself critically in the full-length mirror. She wasn't one of those tiny size-zero or size-two little girls. She was the average size of the American woman: size fourteen. But there wasn't an ounce of fat on her body, her legs were long, and her breasts were high and softly rounded. Everything was in proportion, she thought smugly, even if she couldn't be called dainty. That was one reason she had opened Lacy Nothings: so that every women from size two to size twenty-two could have sexy underwear and night wear.