An Eligible Bachelor Read Online Free PDF

oak front door led into a wood-panelled entrance hall that was large enough to hold a cocktail party, yet felt welcoming rather than cavernous. There was a stone fireplace big enough for a man to stand in, and a sweeping staircase that rose then split into two, leading back on itself to either side of the house. The flagstone floor was scattered with faded and worn Oriental rugs; a round mahogany table in the middle held a Chinese vase. There were three doors: one to the drawing room on the left, one to the dining room on the right and one to a corridor that ran the width of the back of the house leading to the library, the small sitting room and the kitchen.
    Richenda wandered through each room in turn, reflecting with interest that the house was so gracious, so quietly authoritative, that there was no real need to decorate as such. Its features set the tone, so it was merely a question of choosing paints and fabrics that enhanced the atmosphere, rather than trying to impose one’s own style. And Richenda couldn’t deny that Madeleine had an excellent eye in what she had chosen.
    The drawing room was painted soft ochre, with three large cream Knole sofas grouped around the fireplace. Conveniendy placed occasional tables were home topieces of silver and glass. Several landscapes adorned the walls. Richenda decided that this room, perfect though it was, was a little too formal for her liking. It was a room for polite conversation, not relaxing.
    The dining room was more dramatic, its walls a peacock bluey-green of startling depth, set off by the golden Cotswold stone fireplace and mullioned windows. The curtains were a rusty red silk with a wide velvet self-stripe; a huge Persian rug under the table picked up the blues and the reds, while an enormous ormolu mirror over the fireplace reflected the entire room. The overall effect was dramatic, but not overpowering; a room that showed itself to best effect by candlelight.
    Her favourite room of all was the small sitting room. Fifteen foot square and south-facing, with doors that opened out on to the garden, its walls were painted powder blue, and it contained two high-backed sofas smothered in cushions, a coffee table, a pretty little writing desk and a dainty piano. There was a bookcase crammed with paperbacks; everything you should ever read, from Daphne du Maurier to Wilbur Smith via George Orwell and Virginia Woolf. It was incredibly feminine; perfect for reading or writing letters, or kicking off your shoes and curling up with a magazine.
    There were logs laid in the fire ready, and Richenda bent down to pick up a spill. It might only be early October, but there was a tiny chill in the air. Carefully, she lit the spill and thrust the flame into the centre of the kindling. She knew all about lighting fires. Once upon a time, it had been one of her many menial tasks. As the flames took hold, she smiled in satisfaction. The pressmight never know it, but her story was as close to Cinderella as it was possible to get.
    Richenda’s mother had had her as an act of rebellion. As the youngest daughter of elderly parents, living in a modest house on a quiet estate on the outskirts of Woking, Sally Collins had seen giving birth as a romantic gesture, a ticket out of her stifling existence, totally missing the point that a baby was a living, breathing ball and chain with twenty-four-hour needs. By the time that penny had dropped, the baby’s father had done a bunk and the eighteen-year-old Sally was left stranded in a freezing caravan struggling on a mishmash of benefits. The bitter words of recrimination that she’d hurled at her bewildered parents, who would in fact have done anything to help her, precluded her from going back home. Besides, better a freezing caravan and the freedom to light up a joint if she fancied it than the claustrophobic, wallpapered walls of suburbia.
    Sally looked like a Russian doll, with her sweet round face, her black eyes, pink cheeks and rosebud lips,