How to Murder the Man of Your Dreams Read Online Free PDF
Author: Dorothy Cannell
Ben watched what I ate, or sized me up before and after I sat down to a meal. Guilt was the bogeyman who stood behind me at the table, wincing each time I reached for a second helping of shepherd’s pie or reminding me that eating dessert is no longer deemed politically correct. But in the still of the night the bogeyman retreated into the shadows. Then I could forget that there are people in this world (such as my unrepentantly gorgeous cousin Vanessa) who can eat a baker’s dozen of doughnuts in one scoff and still span their waist with two fingers.
Lolling back on the sofa, with a clutch of digestives in one hand and my cup of tea comfortingly alongside, I relished the moment of unutterable peace before picking up my library book and reentering the world of Hester Rosewood, spirited governess and determined virgin.
Shame on me! I have to confess that virginity was never something I had prized unduly, considering everyone gets to be one at least for a while. It was always something I’d hoped I would outgrow, along with my childhood tendency to bronchitis. But the time had come when I’d begun to feel I was saddled with the condition for life, unless I overcame my terror of horses, took up riding, and was lucky enough to fall off the saddle. By the time Ben appeared on the scene, in my late twenties, I was convinced I was walking around with the scarlet letter V on my forehead for all the world to see.
Opening
Her Master’s Voice
at the page I had left off reading, my life, my world, fell away as I entered the world of Hester Rosewood. I walked with her at dead of night towards the churchyard, and when we passed through the lichgate, we merged so that I became Hester of the eighteen-inch waist and deceptively demure bosom. It was my heart that pounded with mounting fear that Sir Gavin would follow the lantern’s wavering gleam and demand my immediate return to Darkmoor House. It was my soul that cried out for him in the silence that told me he wouldnot come, because his invalid wife would be staging one of her deliriums.
Somewhere within the branches of one of the looming elms an owl hooted, a sound both forlorn and predatory. Was I a fool to flee the man I worshipped with every fibre of my being? Could I bear to return to Cousin Bertha’s dreary house, knowing my pulse would never again quicken at the sound of my beloved’s footsteps on the stairs?
Out in the hall the grandfather clock doled out twelve somber strokes. My hall, my clock. And the telephone that now rang once … twice … had to be my telephone because such intrusions did not exist in the world of Hester Rosewood. Whoever could be ringing up at this hour? Closing my book with a disgruntled sigh, I climbed off the sofa, took a sip of tea, now as cold as the graveyard, and braced myself for Ben’s voice calling over the banister that my cousin Freddy was on the line and eager to give me a harrowing account of his camping holiday with Jonas. Freddy, being a confirmed night-owl, never worries about disrupting other people’s sleep. There was not the least reason for me to panic that Jonas had broken his leg climbing into his sleeping bag, or had been attacked by a swarm of killer bees released into the woods by a mad scientist. Without resorting to running—never one of my favourite indoor sports—I crossed to the door, only to be met with deathly silence. No heavy thump, indicating that Ben had passed out cold on hearing ominous news, whatever its specifics. No urgent voice demanding I get upstairs on the double. Whether the caller had dialed a wrong number or was one of Ben’s employees at Abigail’s requesting instructions on how to reprogram the dishwasher, there was no reason for me to turn off the drawing room light and abandon Hester Rosewood to the gloom of the graveyard.
Ben probably hadn’t noticed that I wasn’t in bed yet. If I knew him, he had rolled over in a tangle of sheets, fumbled sleepily for the phone, mumbled some
Lolling back on the sofa, with a clutch of digestives in one hand and my cup of tea comfortingly alongside, I relished the moment of unutterable peace before picking up my library book and reentering the world of Hester Rosewood, spirited governess and determined virgin.
Shame on me! I have to confess that virginity was never something I had prized unduly, considering everyone gets to be one at least for a while. It was always something I’d hoped I would outgrow, along with my childhood tendency to bronchitis. But the time had come when I’d begun to feel I was saddled with the condition for life, unless I overcame my terror of horses, took up riding, and was lucky enough to fall off the saddle. By the time Ben appeared on the scene, in my late twenties, I was convinced I was walking around with the scarlet letter V on my forehead for all the world to see.
Opening
Her Master’s Voice
at the page I had left off reading, my life, my world, fell away as I entered the world of Hester Rosewood. I walked with her at dead of night towards the churchyard, and when we passed through the lichgate, we merged so that I became Hester of the eighteen-inch waist and deceptively demure bosom. It was my heart that pounded with mounting fear that Sir Gavin would follow the lantern’s wavering gleam and demand my immediate return to Darkmoor House. It was my soul that cried out for him in the silence that told me he wouldnot come, because his invalid wife would be staging one of her deliriums.
Somewhere within the branches of one of the looming elms an owl hooted, a sound both forlorn and predatory. Was I a fool to flee the man I worshipped with every fibre of my being? Could I bear to return to Cousin Bertha’s dreary house, knowing my pulse would never again quicken at the sound of my beloved’s footsteps on the stairs?
Out in the hall the grandfather clock doled out twelve somber strokes. My hall, my clock. And the telephone that now rang once … twice … had to be my telephone because such intrusions did not exist in the world of Hester Rosewood. Whoever could be ringing up at this hour? Closing my book with a disgruntled sigh, I climbed off the sofa, took a sip of tea, now as cold as the graveyard, and braced myself for Ben’s voice calling over the banister that my cousin Freddy was on the line and eager to give me a harrowing account of his camping holiday with Jonas. Freddy, being a confirmed night-owl, never worries about disrupting other people’s sleep. There was not the least reason for me to panic that Jonas had broken his leg climbing into his sleeping bag, or had been attacked by a swarm of killer bees released into the woods by a mad scientist. Without resorting to running—never one of my favourite indoor sports—I crossed to the door, only to be met with deathly silence. No heavy thump, indicating that Ben had passed out cold on hearing ominous news, whatever its specifics. No urgent voice demanding I get upstairs on the double. Whether the caller had dialed a wrong number or was one of Ben’s employees at Abigail’s requesting instructions on how to reprogram the dishwasher, there was no reason for me to turn off the drawing room light and abandon Hester Rosewood to the gloom of the graveyard.
Ben probably hadn’t noticed that I wasn’t in bed yet. If I knew him, he had rolled over in a tangle of sheets, fumbled sleepily for the phone, mumbled some