Talk of the Town Read Online Free PDF Page B

conquests. What do you have to do with the woman?”
    “Nothing. I don’t know her at all.”
    “I shouldn’t think you’d want to.”
    “I don’t, but the thing is... It’s this book she’s writing."
    Richard stared in fascination, a slow smile spreading across his handsome face. “You don’t mean to say you ever performed an act worthy of publication in the book, Bess?” he asked.
    “Certainly not! It is no such a thing.”
    “Ah—you blast my hopes. I had thought there for a moment that in your salad days you had cut up a lark. It’s Larry, then, is it?”
    “Yes, and she must be bought off, Dickie— Richard!”
    “What did he do?”
    St. Felix was treated to an expurgated, whitewashed, and harmless version of the straying of Lawrence, and lifted a brow in question. “It’ll hardly set the town on its ear that he once paid a few calls to Mrs. Pealing,” he pointed out.
    “It was more than that.” The story came out in bits and pieces, until after fifteen minutes St. Felix was more or less possessed of the facts and reminded that a folio in the Cabinet hung in the balance—a fine ornament for the family’s reputation.
    “Very well, I’ll go with Larry,” he decided. “I confess I am curious to see the latest scandal. And I’d better make sure he don’t overpay. Not a penny more than five hundred pounds in my opinion. If I have the whole story, that is,” he finished up.
    This jibe went unanswered. “No, Richard, Larry must not go with you. I want you to go for him. You deal with her, you are better able to handle her sort.”
    “On what do you base that opinion?” he asked.
    "Oh mercy, Dickie, don’t get satirical on me. I am desperate! You know Larry’s a fool—that is... I don’t mean—only he is not shrewd like you and not able to give a set-down half so well.”
    “Thank you,” Richard said in a thin voice. “Tell me, is Larry to foot the bill at least, or am I to have that honour, as well?”
    “I took a thousand pounds from the bank. I hope she’ll settle for five hundred.”
    “She will,” Richard said, arising.
    “Lady Pamela Thurston stopped by for lunch. She went to pay up yesterday, and she says they are demanding interest.”
    “I don’t know why you associate with that creature. Hair the colour of a flamingo.” He stopped in mid-tirade. “Did you say they? Is Pealing in on it, as well? I thought I heard she was a widow.”
    “She is, but she has a girl staying with her. A niece, I believe; and Lady Pamela says she’s the image of Mrs. Pealing at the same age. She was very pretty, you know.”
    “I didn’t suppose an antidote had half of London at her feet,” he said, continuing towards the door.
    “Come right back and let me know!” Bess called after him and then took up her vigil.
    St. Felix drove his curricle to Upper Grosvenor Square and eyed a somewhat ramshackle apartment building with scorn. What a fool old Mrs. Pealing must be to have run through the fortune Eglinton left her and be living in such squalor as this. He gave his card to the butler and said he had come on a matter of business.
    The card was handed to Mrs. Pealing, who sat in the study with Miss Ingleside, continuing on the work of editing. Her pink face paled, and she said, “Impossible! He’s dead.”
    “Who is dead?” Daphne asked.
    “St. Felix.”
    “Oh yes, for a certainty. They never canonize a living person. But who on earth—or in heaven—is St. Felix?”
    Effie handed her the card. “Oh, the Duke of St. Felix,” Daphne smiled, impressed. A baronet’s wife and a colonel were their lordliest callers thus far. “I wonder how much gold is jingling in his pockets. We’d better go in and see him.”
    “Not I!” Effie stated firmly. “I am too busy.”
    “Auntie, you can’t leave a duke cooling his heels. Now do use your head. It isn’t the dead St. Felix flitted down from heaven to see you. It is his heir, probably his son. Come along. I’ll go with