Down the Garden Path by Dorothy Cannell Read Free Book Online Page B

the corners was not wistful but bizarre? “What a fuss,” I said, brazening the situation out. “Your friend was extremely inhospitable to me. I believe she left by the front door as you came in the back.”
    “You haven’t lost your entrancing nerve.” Harry leaned over the bannister rail and clasped his hands to his chest a la the Balcony Scene, panting down at me, “Tessa, Tessa! Have you perchance come here to beg me to make renewed application for your hand, now that your father the vicar is forcing you into a loveless union with some elderly widower?”
    “I told you, I want us to be friends.”
    “Your wish is my command.” Harry swung nimbly over the rail and landed almost noiselessly at my feet. “I will convey your apologies to my—friend, when next we meet. Now, let’s eat.”
    I flounced after him into the kitchen, where with Spartan efficiency Harry readied lunch. The cheese, cream, a cut loaf, and a packet of butter got tossed on to the table and he stabbed a knife into the pie. “Don’t need a plate, do you?” He hurtled some cutlery in front of where I sat at the table. “Here’s your serviette.” Seizing a piece of paper towel he made to tuck it down the neck of my dress, but I flipped it away and spread it demurely on my lap.
    “Sorry,” he leered. “The baser side of my nature momentarily ascended. Eat up, you wicked temptress, you.”
    That disarming way of his was most unfair. I could not stay angry with him but perhaps that wasn’t all bad. Perhaps it meant I really had outgrown being in love with him. “Speaking of wickedness”—I toyed with my fork—”I have decided finally to do something meaningful with my existence. I’m taking up a life of crime. And my reason for being here is to ask you—delightful rogue that you are—to be my accomplice.”
    “I failed Greek at school.” Harry moved back to the table with a pot of tea.
    “Okay: translation. I am going to stage a crime with me as the victim and you, hopefully, as the perpetrator.”
    “Are you on something?” He leaned forward solicitously, raised one of my eyelids and appeared to study the pupil. “Apparently not, so the only other explanation is that you have been consorting with some very strange characters. I’m surprised at you. A vicar’s daughter should be above all shady activity.”
    “That is the whole point.” I leaned my elbows on the table and trusted my wistful look was in evidence. “I am not by rights a vicar’s daughter. I am in reality a nameless nobody who doesn’t even have a proper birthday.”
    Harry leaned back in his chair. “So tell me, what’s the crime? Do you want me to kidnap half the population of the U.K. between the ages of thirty-five and sixty and hold them hostage until one of them confesses to being your long-lost mother? Let it go, Tessa. You’ve had wonderful parents. Do you plan to disown them when you find the real thing? And have you ever considered that perhaps you are being a little greedy? One father, one mother is the general rule. Hold on a minute ... are you asking me to break into some welfare office or courthouse—wherever adoption papers are stored—and sneak your file out under my raincoat? No, that can’t be it, because you said something about me villain, you victim. Right?”
    “Right. And you wouldn’t do any good trying to filch my records because I already know that officially I didn’t exist before arriving at the vicarage. But you are kind of on the right track. This does concern my search for my origins.” I pushed my cup towards him and he refilled it. “Thanks.” I took a sip and hoped that I could get through my explanations without Harry thinking I had lost all touch with reality.
    “Last week I went on a day coach trip to Stratford.”
    “A bit touristy but harmless.”
    “Stratford is only relevant because it explains why I happened to be in Flaxby Meade, which is ...”
    “Quaint. But minus the Bard to give its thatched