A Rather Curious Engagement Read Online Free PDF

if I knew anybody who’d want to buy.”
    “Careful,” Jeremy cautioned. “There’s been all that press about us, and I’m sure she’s heard of the inheritance. If she knows you’re the buyer, she may expect more than a fair market price. Maybe you should consider letting my office handle the transaction. It’s possible we can pull this off without the sellers knowing who bought it.”
    “Um,” I said. “I already told her I was interested.”
    Jeremy sighed that light, ah-well sigh that an Englishman uses when he’s trying to disguise how badly he really thinks you screwed up; yet at the same time he’s telling you in that maddening way of his. I ploughed on, anyway.
    “Well,” I added boldly, “there we were, standing in the hallway talking, when in comes Gladys, the old lady from the first-floor apartment. So of course she hung around wanting to know what Doris and I were up to. So then Gladys said wouldn’t it be nice if I bought her place, too, because her daughter had already invited her to come to Canada and live with them, and she could see her grandchild be born and grow up, and her husband loves fishing there . . .”
    “Good God,” Jeremy groaned. “Why didn’t you just announce the whole deal on the evening news?”
    “Well, Gladys said that she and her husband would be willing to consider ‘a good offer,’ ” I amended lamely. “And everybody liked the idea of one person owning the whole house, and restoring it to its former glory.”
    “We’d have to check the freehold, for one thing,” Jeremy said. Now I groaned. England has this archaic way of sometimes leasing London houses for 99 years instead of selling it to you outright. It was all very complicated, but the fact that Jeremy was thinking in these terms meant that he thought we might actually pull it off.
    “They showed me their apartments,” I said. “They’ve lived in them forever, and you know how old people are, they don’t like to change things unless something breaks and can’t be held together with Scotch tape anymore. So both apartments need updating. Which they admit, and that might keep the price manageable.”
    “I suppose the basement could be converted into a garage,” Jeremy said thoughtfully. I perked up. I knew that launching an independent career would be a much bigger leap for Jeremy, so I thought that creating a tangible workplace would make it more desirable and real.
    “And here’s the best part,” I said, now that I had him hooked, “I’m thinking that we can convert the first floor of this townhouse into a suite of beautiful offices, where we could start up our new consulting firm. You know, like you said in Italy. Remember?”
    He smiled wryly at me. I’d been trying to nudge him along with this; after all, it was his Plan. Jeremy had said that we should first take a hiatus from work, and travel a bit, taking time to think about how we might pool our talents and create an enterprise of our own—so that we wouldn’t just be ships passing in the night in our respective careers.
    “You said, that with your legal expertise, concerning international law and personal estates,” I reminded him, “combined with my historical research expertise—”
    “I believe I called it your ‘natural-born snooping ability,’ ” Jeremy corrected.
    “Can’t you just see it?” I rhapsodized. “The ground-floor apartment is actually much bigger than this one. Your office could have one of those world-map globes, the kind that opens up and turns out to be a fully stocked bar. You can have drinks with your best clients there. A beautiful Persian rug in front of the fireplace, with a loyal Great Dane asleep on it, and a desk with antique paper-weights and leather pen cup and . . .”
    “Penny,” Jeremy said in amusement, “you forgot the pipe rack. You and your old movies! Who am I supposed to be, Sherlock Holmes? All of that is very well—although the Great Dane might be a bit dubious—but I want