The Curse of Penryth Hall by Jess Armstrong EPUB & PDF – eBook Details Online
- Status: Available for Free Download
- Author: Jess Armstrong
- Language: English
- Genre: 20th Century Historical Romance
- Format: PDF / EPUB
- Size: 3.3 MB
- Price: Free
EXETER
AUGUST 1922
THERE were three things a girl wanted after the night I’d had. One: a
proper breakfast. Two: a scarcity of sunlight. And three—possibly most
important—coffee. Dark, bitter, and at least two pots. But I had none of the
aforementioned. What I did have, however, was a splitting headache, a
sunburn, and my octogenarian employer sitting alongside me in a deck
chair with the Pall Mall Gazette and Globe in his hands.
I blinked in the bright morning sun, then shut my eyes back tight. I
braved a glance down at myself, still dressed in the same ocher silk evening
gown from the night before. Details of which returned in the vaguest of
flickers, none particularly illuminating. The nearby bells of Exeter
Cathedral rang out loud and clear, rattling around in my gin-muddled head.
“Is there coffee?”
“Is that all you have to say for yourself?” Mr. Owen flicked another
page in his paper, his dark-brown eyes fixed upon the newsprint. “When
you didn’t come down for breakfast I thought you’d finally gone and
drowned yourself in this death pit you’ve dug in my rose garden. But it
seems you’ve nearly done the job in gin.”
I waved a hand at him, ignoring the twinge of truth in the last barb. “It’s
a bathing pool, Mr. Owen. They’re going to be all the rage one day.
Besides, your roses were dead when I moved here. I daresay I improved
matters.”
He chuckled beneath his breath. At least he wasn’t terribly cross. He
seldom was, no matter how deep my provocation. I sat up in the wooden
chair, pulling my knees against my chest, wincing at the light. The blackcap
in the tree nearby was particularly effusive in his morning song. The fellow
was a bit more cheerful than I.
He slid a wire-framed pair of sunglasses across the table between us,
and I breathed out a sigh of relief, taking them at once. God bless him. A
rapidly cooling cup of tea sat on the table beside me, and I couldn’t help but
smile. This was our habit, he and I, had been since I’d answered his
advertisement for a room to let. Though I’d gotten quite a bit more in the
bargain. We’d lived together in this strange little world here in the eastern
part of Devon, and it suited us both fine. In name, he owned it all: the
bookshop, the derelict mansion along with everything in it—with the
exception of my little automobile and my clothing. Oh, and my jewelry.
Not
that I had much of that anymore as I’d taken a rather bare-bones approach
to life since the end of the war. Fewer ties, fewer things to lose.
With the sun no longer assaulting my head, I opened my eyes to the jade
and gilt tiles of the pool, which sparkled back at me like a jewel box in the
midmorning sun. And while he might detest the thing, it was my greatest
joy as we weren’t along the seaside. “Has Mrs. Adams arrived yet?”
“After last night, lass?” Mr. Owen raised an incredulous bushy white
eyebrow.
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