Maggie Robinson by Mistress By Mistake

Author:Mistress By Mistake
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Published: 2011-09-01T08:35:45+00:00

Chapter 17

The tomcat’s yowl awakened her. Soon he was joined by the female’s grating song. It was still fully dark, damp and grim with the torrents of rain that had fallen for days. The weather had matched Charlotte’s mood perfectly. Since her return home, she had been unable to appreciate her snug little cottage or the sudden profusion of flowers and vegetables in her garden. Instead she saw bare whitewashed walls and a tangle of weeds that would have to wait until the sun shone. If it ever did. Perhaps Deb had left some paintings upstairs with which she could beautify her humble house. No nudes, of course, although absolutely anything could be in the crates that Deb had shipped to her over the years. Charlotte should sit down and write to her, offer to send everything off to Arthur’s estate in Kent. Bard’s End. She knew that now.

She wondered if Deb had even returned home yet, or was still honeymooning with her new husband. Charlotte’s precipitous disappearance from Little Hyssop had been duly noted and remarked upon. When accosted in the village shops, Charlotte staunchly told the tale of her sister’s wedding, not that she had witnessed it. She discovered she had a flair for dissembling, right down to the color of her sister’s wedding gown (rose pink, she decided, mostly because it would be her own choice in the unlikely event she ever married) and choice of flowers (white lilies, for the same reason). This fictitious version of her London trip seemed to satisfy the local tabbies, who always had time for a good gossip, even if the protagonists were unknown to them. Charlotte had trudged home with her meager supplies, the brim of her old straw hat dripping rainwater, but she was not struck by a bolt of lightning for telling her lies. Despite Mr. Frazier pressing quite a lot of money into her hands, far more than she asked for, she had set it away for a rainier day and was determined to resume her quiet life on her restricted budget.

Now she really was a whore, bought and paid for, even if she didn’t intend to touch all the pound notes Mr. Frazier had conjured unless major calamity befell her. The money was sitting in a chipped ginger jar on her mantel. No self-respecting thief would be tempted to remove such pottery from the premises. She supposed if the cottage ever caught fire, she’d force herself to rescue it.

Having a bit of a financial cushion was a help. She might not be able to depend on Deb to keep herself and the cats afloat now that Arthur controlled the purse strings. And Deb had been indifferently generous anyway, depending on the gullibility of her past patrons.

Months could go by before she remembered that she had a sister buried in the country.

The last ten years had been a test for Charlotte to live within exceptionally modest means.

The little she got for her lace had put food on the table, although it was not generally known in Little Hyssop that Mrs.

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