Free Royal Revels by Joan Smith

he advised her.
    “I wouldn’t call it a tiff exactly,’’ she said pensively, concluding Belami had voiced his dislike of her aunt.
    “Fight might be closer to it. Don’t want to get him riled up all the same. Wouldn’t be quite the thing for me to marry you today. Thank you all the same. I’ll bear it in mind for the future.”
    “All I meant,” she told him, slowly shaking her head, “was that I want an excuse to go to a real estate office, and if we pretend to be a married couple, we could let on that we’re looking for a house. Somewhere around the corner of North Street and the Dyke Road.”
    “North Street! No, no, it’s the Marine Parade or Promenade Grove we want. North Street is a highway, bustling with traffic from dawn to dark. Steep as may be, too, and loaded with coaching offices.”
    ‘‘I’m trying to help Dick,” she finally said in plain English. ‘‘He wants to learn when Lady Gilham hired her house. And if we should learn she means to leave it soon as well, that would be interesting. So we’ll say we want a house in that exact neighborhood,” she outlined patiently.
    “I’ll let you do the talking,” he decided wisely. It occurred to him, as they drove along looking for real estate signs, that they might just as easily pose as brother and sister. Funny that hadn’t occurred to her. No, what popped into her mind was that she was his wife. Deirdre was hard put to understand the fatuous smile Pronto wore.
    They stopped at two offices without any luck. A glance at their toilettes and the agent was trying to peddle a house on Marine Parade. It was at the third office, a seedy one on North Street itself, that they finally struck some luck.
    “I don’t have anything right on North Street at the moment, but I just might... When do you need the place?’’ the agent asked, nibbling the end of his pen.
    “As soon as possible.” Deirdre answered eagerly. “Preferably by February, but we could wait till March.”
    “I just might have a place opening up in February. I have one customer, a Lady Gilham, who’s hired the McLean place by the month. She said when she took it she might have to leave on short notice.”
    “What’s that you say, Lady Gilham?’’ Pronto asked, starting up from his reverie.
    “Why, yes, do you know her?”
    “No, no. We never heard of her,” Pronto said, blushing pink. “How much does her place cost to hire?’’ he asked, feeling a husband ought to ask or he’d be taken for henpecked.
    “By the month or the year?’’ the agent inquired.
    ‘‘The year,’’ Deirdre said.
    “I’ll just look it up for you,’’ the man said and went to his file cupboard. Deirdre’s heart beat faster as she sat, willing him to bring the file to the counter, but he only opened it where he was and began riffling through it. She was forced to another shift and advanced to the cupboard.
    “Would it be possible to get a glass of water? I feel rather faint,” she said, fanning herself with a handkerchief.
    “Why didn’t you tell me, Miss Gower?’’ Pronto exclaimed, trotting after her. She glared at him for using her own name, but the agent hadn’t appeared to notice.
    “Have a seat. I’ll get some water at once,’’ he said and left.
    She quickly picked up the file of the McLean house and took it to her chair. The very top item in it was a letter from Lady Gilham, addressed from the Redstone Hotel in London and dated in late August. Beneath the letter was a copy of her rental agreement. She had taken possession on the first of September. Deirdre felt as though she had won the Derby.
    The agent returned with the water. Deirdre gulped hastily and said, “We’ll think about the house and be back later.”
    “But I haven’t told you the price by the year,” he pointed out.
    “That’s all right,” Pronto said helpfully. “We’ll take it.”
    “I’m not at all sure Lady Gilham will be vacating it. I have a much better place…”
    “No, no, we want