Bath Belles Read Online Free PDF

hardly think so!”What an odd coincidence that he should name a bag of gold—just what Graham was supposed to have stolen. But it was only a coincidence; there was no knowing look from him.
    When we returned below I made sure to give him back his jacket before entering the saloon, in case Mama would think it overly familiar of me to have accepted it. It was just at the door of the master bedroom that I returned it.
    “Would you mind holding it?”he asked. “I can hardly squeak into it without my valet.”
    I found myself holding Mr. Desmond’s jacket while he slid his arms into it. Without thinking what I was about, I automatically lifted my hand and eased out a crease while he pulled it down in front. When I realized what I was doing I pulled my hand away as if he were on fire. “Why, thank you, Miss Haley,”he said over his shoulder. “My valet and I are grateful to you. We have our sartorial reputation to maintain. Pipp would be furious with me if I appeared in public in wrinkles.”He spoke lightly.
    I found myself smiling at this bold city gentleman, who smiled back readily in a way that set my blood racing. I felt the urge to flee back downstairs to safety. “Shall we go down and discuss the sale?”I suggested. “Over a glass of sherry, perhaps ...”
    “By all means, but if you hope to get me tipsy and coerce an offer to purchase from me, I must warn you, you’ll look no how. I holds my liquor like a gentle mort. I bet a vicar’s daughter don’t.”On this speech he took my arm, and we soon entered the saloon in a fit of laughter over some foolishness or other.
    It would be hard to say who was more astonished—Mama or Esther. Their startled faces brought us back to propriety with a thump. Mr. Desmond took charge of the conversation in a brisk, businesslike manner.
    “I would like to bring a builder along to go over the place thoroughly before making an offer,”he said. “To see if the building is structurally sound, you know, I don’t want to get into the expense of having to put on a new roof or shore up crumbling walls.”
    “Oh, it is not that bad, Mr. Desmond!”Mama assured him. “The windows are drafty, to be sure, and the closet doors poorly hung, but the walls are not crumbling.”
    “But you will have no objection to my bringing a builder?”he repeated.
    “None at all,”I said hastily, lest he take the idea we were trying to hide some flaw.
    “Tomorrow, say, at eleven o’clock?”he asked. He pulled out a little appointment book, which gave me the notion he was a very busy man of affairs. But when I got a peek over his shoulder I saw his appointments were not so serious as that. It was “Tattersall’s, settling up day,”“Lunch with Boo at Whites,”“Dinner and rout party, Lady Higgins,”and similar important matters that filled his page. “Miss Haley—check house”was squeezed in between Tattersall’s and lunch with Boo.
    There was no opportunity to relay Mr. Desmond’s state of single blessedness to Mama, so she instituted a quiz herself. “Will your wife also come to see the house?”she asked, slyly innocent.
    “As I was telling your daughter, ma’am, I don’t have a wife yet.”Esther pursed her lips and smiled, but fortunately Mr. Desmond was looking at me at the time.
    “The house is a good size for a bachelor, yet large enough that a young family could stay on till their nursery had two or three youngsters in it,”Mama said. “Is it handy to your place of work, Mr. Desmond?”she continued.
    “Fairly close. I work at the Royal Exchange,”he answered, which did not enlighten us much. “You ladies are removing from London entirely, are you?”
    “We never lived here,”Mama said. “We hail from Bath—remember I mentioned it. This is the first time my daughters have ever been to London. My eldest”—and she nodded at me—”inherited the house, but we shan’t live in it.”
    Mr. Desmond settled in to humor her. “I think you would like London. Bath