Snow Angels by Nadine Dorries

Author:Nadine Dorries [Dorries, Nadine]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: The Lovely Lane Series
ISBN: 9781789544800
Publisher: Head of Zeus

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‘Hello, I’m Miss Devonshire, no relation to the Duke, just in case you were wondering.’ Her laugh cackled, forced and rehearsed for the frequent times she used her unfunny explanation to accompany her officious introduction. Emily and Dessie were speechless in front of the total stranger and ushered her into the house, past the sleeping Louis in his pram and invited her to take a seat in the front parlour of their terraced house. They looked at each other with amazement as they watched the stranger march down their hallway.

‘Who is she?’ mouthed Dessie to Emily as he closed the door.

‘I’ve no idea,’ Emily mouthed back.

Miss Devonshire had failed to remove her gloves as she shook their hands, her own so thin Dessie could feel the hard bones beneath. He had disliked her on sight. ‘What Duke?’ he mouthed to Emily now as the woman took in the layout of the parlour with one sweeping glance, ignoring them. Much older than either of them, her forbidding style of dress, pickled in pre-war aspic, made Emily feel flippant and very unmotherly in comparison. Miss Devonshire wore a mid-calf length tweed skirt, a frilled high blouse, a hand-knitted heather-coloured cardigan buttoned up to the neck and a cameo brooch securing her blouse peeped out over the top. Her hair was dark, worn in tight short pin curls tucked under a bottle-green felt hat with a feather pinned in the side.

‘Is Mrs Casey poorly?’ Emily asked, her voice tentative.

‘Poorly? Not as far as I know. She has left and I have taken her post. I am the person you will be dealing with from now on. Yes, I thought it was you.’ Miss Devonshire peered at Emily over her glasses. ‘I used to sit on the board of trustees at St Angelus.’

Emily racked her brain and then she remembered her, a difficult, uncompromising and stubborn woman who had voted against her application to train as a nurse. A woman who was easily impressed by an applicant with an address in the right neighbourhood of Liverpool and quick to discriminate against those who came from around the dock streets.

‘Here, let me take your coat – you’ll feel the benefit when you leave,’ Emily said, trying to make her voice sound as helpful and cheerful as possible.

Miss Devonshire slipped the open, thick worsted wool from her arms. ‘Thank you so much,’ she said as her eyes took in the room. She missed nothing, from the dust on the brow of the plaster cast of the Virgin Mary to the teacup stain on the Formica coffee table. Emily noticed that the clothes and detritus associated with Louis, which she had shoved behind the sideboard, were peeping out, right in Miss Devonshire’s line of vision.

Whilst Miss Devonshire appraised the parlour, Emily took a peep at the label on the inside of her coat – Andrée of London it read and Emily thought Miss Devonshire must be a wealthy woman. What would she make of their terraced house

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