Free The Disenchanted Widow by Christina McKenna Page A

insist. Now, here’s to it. Bottoms up!”
    There was a pause while Sir Edward took another calming sip of wine. Lorcan set his glass down with care and stood up.
    “Well, I’ll be going, sir, if that’s all.”
    “You haven’t touched your claret.”
    “No, I’ll pass on the claret if you don’t mind.” He moved to the door. “Bad for the concentration. One needs a clear eye and a steady hand for the work I do. It’s more demanding than, say, being a trainee archaeologist.”
    “Breast flannels!” bellowed Sir Edward. There was a hint of triumph—perhaps smugness—in his voice.
    Lorcan turned, nonplussed. “I beg your pardon, sir?”
    “It’s what the ladies wore before the brassiere was invented, according to my wife. The Countess of Clanwilliam had no uplift to speak of; therefore Reynolds wouldn’t have given her one. Mind you don’t, either.”
    Lorcan could hold his tongue no longer. How dare Sir Edward’s snooty wife cast aspersions on his fine restorative work?
    “Perhaps you’d inform your good wife, sir,” Lorcan said slowly and evenly, “that wealthy ladies in those days, and especially those who were able to engage the services of Mr. Reynolds, could afford to wear corsets, which pushed their…their…assets up, as it were. Flannels were for the less well-off.”
    Sir Edward’s mouth fell open. The sheer impertinence of it!
    “I say, steady on, old—”
    “Now, if that is all, I have a lot of work to do before I go. Good day!”
    No one, not even his boss, had the right to show such disrespect.
    Lorcan left the room, not slamming the door but shutting it quietly, as a gentleman would, on such blatant Anglo-Irish disparagement.

Chapter ten
    A s luck—or misfortune—would have it, the repair to Bessie’s car was delayed. According to Mr. Grant, the unexpected death of Willie-Tom’s mother had closed the shop in Killoran for three days, to “get him over the wake and funeral and the like.”
    Deep down, though, Bessie Halstone, with her newly revived surname and unexpected circumstances, was glad of this interlude. It gave her time to think. And the longer she dallied in the lovely, quaint cottage among Aunt Dora’s things, the more she wanted to stay. After all, who would find her there? She was sure that the Dentist would not even have heard of a small place like Tailorstown.
    A place to lay low was one thing. Finding money to live on was quite another. Not that Packie had provided her with much security at any time, but there’d always been something coming in, whether by fair means or foul—mostly foul—to keep the wolf from tearing down the door.
    So, when finally the mechanic bumped down the lane in her Morris Traveller, its paintwork shining, its windows agleam, she’d a proposition to put to him. She invited him in for a cuppa.
    “Have you ever thought of renting this house out?” she asked, pouring tea and turning on the charm like a floodlight. “Soheavenly here after the bustle of the city, and such a lovely part of the world.” She’d changed into her best frock—to oil the wheels—and applied generous dabs of Sweet Honesty scent to those all-important “pulse points”: behind her ears and on her wrists.
    “Rentin’ the place? Well now, I never thought-a that,” said Gusty Grant, trying to ignore her creamy cleavage by concentrating hard on one of the open-billed storks his aunt had so painstakingly embroidered on the tablecloth. “Come tae think of it now, I nivver thought of it atall till ye mentioned it, like.”
    “Excellent!” Bessie said. “Shall we say a month to start with? Belfast is not safe, as you can imagine, given what these terrorists get up to. And now, with this hunger strike about to get worse, our lives would be in danger…no doubt about it.” She proffered a plate of chocolate teacakes.
    “God, aye, I know what yer sayin’. Must be wild there now with the hunger strike, as ye say. Ye’re far safer in the cawntry right