The Property of a Gentleman: One House. Many secrets. by Gaskin Catherine

Author:Gaskin, Catherine [Gaskin, Catherine]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Tags: women's fiction, romance, romantic suspense, gothic romance, love story, romantic fiction, historical, romantic novelist, romantic thriller
Publisher: Corazon Books
Published: 2013-12-04T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 6

I

Then I was driving down the motorway towards London, the pieces of the bowl wrapped in a silk scarf, and packed among my clothes in a suitcase. I kept pushing the Mini near seventy, pushing until my teeth seemed to rattle with the vibration. I noted the stares of the drivers I passed, most of them driving much more powerful cars; often I got frantic and antagonistic blasts from horns when I did something especially stupid. But I kept pushing and sometimes taking foolish risks – except that in my present frame of mind, I really didn’t know what was foolish. I stopped when I had to at the service areas, to go to the toilet, to buy coffee in a plastic cup, and a wrapped sandwich which I ate later as I drove. All of England was going by in those hours, down from the sparsely populated region of the northeast, through the Manchester–Liverpool overspill, on and on down until the prettily luxurious, but still overcrowded Home Counties came up. It began to rain, and the driving grew harder, but I didn’t relax the speed. I got to Watford, and Hendon, and I could feel my eyes begin to sting and burn. And then I was enmeshed in the crawl of the evening rush-hour traffic, and there was nothing I could do but sit and stare at the lines of cars ahead, and those going in the opposite direction, listening to the click-click of the windscreen wipers; it was then I smoked the first cigarette since I had begun to drive, and let my thoughts deliberately dwell on what had happened at Thirlbeck.

Askew hadn’t even seemed very interested when I told him – hadn’t even wanted to delay his breakfast to look at it. ‘You don’t seem to understand, Lord Askew. It may be very valuable, and I’ve broken it.’

Unbelievably he had shrugged. ‘I’m afraid I have to talk in clichés, but I don’t know what else to say. It’s broken – plenty of things get broken. As well as people.’

‘But you do understand that I have to go and tell my director at Hardy’s. For someone who works with ceramics, I’ve been unbelievably clumsy. They expect better of me.’

‘Look,’ he said, ‘just sit down and have your breakfast, and let me have mine, there’s a good girl.’ He poured coffee for us both. ‘I really think you’re being a bit hasty over this. After all, what does it have to do with Hardy’s if something in my house gets broken? I simply don’t see the connection. Why does it become their business? Here, at least have some toast with that.’

‘Well, you did say you were considering offering the contents of this house for auction. What I’ve just done could seriously prejudice that. You might decide to take the sale to Christie’s or Sotheby’s ... or somewhere else. Whether or not this turns out to be what I suspect it might be, or quite worthless, is hardly the case.

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