The Bride Takes a Groom by Lisa Berne

Author:Lisa Berne
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2018-04-24T04:00:00+00:00

It was strange how even though you were completely estranged from your husband, you still got up, still walked and talked and acted as if everything were normal.

Katherine sat at her dressing-table while Mary, the maidservant who had been helping her, carefully brushed her hair. In the mirror Katherine could see that from time to time Mary looked rather wistfully at a bottle of scent which was set out on the dressing-table, a gift from someone at the wedding—one of Father’s cronies—which she had never used. The little porcelain bottle was rounded at its base, with a long, narrowing neck, and painted all over with flowers in a fashionable chinoiserie style.

“Mary,” she said, “may I give you that scent-bottle? Would you like to have it?”

Mary’s face lit up. “Oh, ma’am, really?”

“Yes. Let me find the box it came in, too. It’s very pretty.” Katherine pulled open a drawer of the dressing-table, then another, and found it in the next drawer she opened. “Here it is.” She held it in her hand, paused for a moment. It was a tin box, decorated on its lid with more chinoiserie flowers. You could put more in it than just a scent-bottle, couldn’t you? She remembered, suddenly, her dream from two nights ago.

I’ve forgotten something, but I don’t remember what it is. It’s something very important.

You’ve got to find it yourself, old Mrs. Penhallow had said in her dream, you won’t find it here, then shut the door to the London townhouse.

Puzzled, Katherine stared at the tin box.

Then she gave herself a shake. Took one of her largest handkerchiefs, wrapped the scent-bottle in it, and carefully put it into the tin which she placed on her dressing-table. She turned to look up at Mary. “For you,” she said, and Mary’s obvious pleasure in the little gift made tears once again threaten to fall.

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