The Iron Horse by Edward Marston

Author:Edward Marston
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi, azw3
ISBN: 9780749008499
Publisher: Allison and Busby
Published: 2010-04-07T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER NINE

Kitty Lavender spent most of the morning on a shopping spree, buying what she considered to be the last few vital accessories for her visit to Epsom Downs during Derby Week. She wanted to look at her best for the occasion. A hansom cab returned her to her lodgings and, when she alighted from it, she was laden with boxes and packages. Her landlady was at the window as she arrived and, seeing what Kitty was carrying, she came to open the front door for her.

‘Thank you, Mrs Collier,’ said Kitty, stepping into the house. ‘I didn’t have a spare hand to ring the doorbell.’

‘You have a visitor, Miss Lavender,’ said the landlady, a small, rotund, motherly woman. ‘I showed him up to your room.’

Kitty was wary. ‘It’s not Mr Johnson again, is it?’

‘No, Miss Lavender.’

‘Then it must be Mr Fido.’

‘It’s not him either.’

‘Oh – then who is it?’

‘Your father.’

Kitty was nonplussed. Since her father had died years before, she knew that it could not possibly be him. Somebody had entered her lodgings under false pretences and that disturbed her. Hiding her alarm from the landlady, she struggled upstairs with her shopping then put down one of the boxes so that she could open the door of her drawing room. Lord Hendry was sitting in a chair. When he saw how burdened she was, he got up and walked over to her.

‘Let me help you, Kitty,’ he volunteered.

She was shocked. ‘What are you doing here, George?’

‘Let’s get everything inside first, shall we?’ he said, picking up the box from the floor and ushering her into the room. He closed the door behind him. ‘We don’t want your landlady to overhear us. She believes that I’m your father. We can’t have her thinking that we committed incest.’

Kitty put her shopping down. ‘You’ve no right to be here,’ she said belligerently. ‘Even when we were friends, I kept you away from my lodgings. I like to preserve some privacy.’

‘I needed to speak to you, Kitty.’

‘Then you should have asked me to meet you somewhere.’

‘After what happened last time,’ he said reasonably, ‘I had no guarantee that you’d agree to see me again.’

‘So you tricked your way past my landlady with an arrant lie.’ She became suspicious. ‘How long have you been here?’

‘Long enough to have a good look around.’

‘I hope you didn’t dare go into my bedroom.’

‘Why – what secrets have you got hidden in there?’

‘Is that why you came?’ she demanded. ‘To snoop on me?’

‘Calm down, Kitty,’ said Lord Hendry, putting a hand on her shoulder. ‘I’ve only been here five minutes or so.’

Reacting to his touch, she pulled away smartly and went to open the door of her bedroom. She glanced inside to make sure that nothing had been moved or taken. Satisfied that all was well, she turned back to face him again.

‘I was interested to see where you lived,’ he said. ‘It’s exactly the kind of place I imagined – comfortable, tasteful and essentially feminine.’ He became serious.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.