Femmes Fatal by Dorothy Cannell Read Free Book Online Page A

the vicarage always says, ‘A lady keeps her pride in her pocket. She don’t flash it around, no more than she’d flash her bare behind in public.’ ”
    I couldn’t imagine Reverend Foxworth’s daily saying anything of the sort, but then I hadn’t believed Jonas when he claimed she was after him.
    “And I know, Mrs. H, as how you feel this is the least you can do, after all me years of loyal service. Never a job too big or too tall.” She swept a hand ceilingward.
    Remembering my earlier thoughts about Michelangelo, I spooned rice into first one beak, then the other. “So exactly what is the problem?”
    “Sounds to me as though this Fully Female is for married women only.”
    “Rubbish. That would be discrimination. Besides, the number of times you’ve been married, you make me look a rank amateur.”
    “Well, since you put it that way …”
    Time to close in for the kill. “They’ll beg you tojoin. You’re a far more interesting candidate than I. Think about it. Mr. Walter Fisher is still a moving target, whilst Ben is already …” I broke off, shocked by where my babbling was headed. Was that how I saw myself—as the lady huntress who, having bagged her lion, could sit back and fan herself while watching him prowl the cage?
    Bother! I’d slopped applesauce down my apron.
    On the bright side, Mrs. Malloy was looking happier than I had seen her in hours. Getting onto her high-heeled feet, she rolled up her leopard cuffs, looked at the clock, which said twelve fifteen, and picked up the toaster—in lieu of a hand mirror—to check that every hair and beauty spot was in place. Satisfied, she wound up the electric cord, stashed the appliance in a cupboard, and signalling time was up, put on her feather hat. Poor Tobias Cat, diddled out of his inheritance.
    “Let’s get one thing straight from the beginning, Mrs. H. If we’re to be partners in this passion pit caper, I won’t have you making me late for appointments.”
    Success can be sweet, or it can come in other flavours. At that moment I, who had vowed never to smack my children, could have smacked my employee. Did she expect me to slip on my coat, wave the twins bye-bye, and tell them to fend for themselves until Mummy got home? I was about to tell Mrs. M that I had old-fashioned ideas on parenting, when the garden door burst open and, with the impact of Norman the Doorman arriving to save the day, in strode my cousin Freddy. Good heavens! Why was he dressed up like a horny Viking?
    “Hey, cos!” Kicking the door shut with his booted heel, Freddy dropped down on one knee and flung his arms wide. Rooms, along with people, cower when Frederick Flatts enters. He’s a six-foot stick of dynamite waitingto blow. “I come at your command, O radiantly disheveled maiden, to bend your ear with verses sweet from Balda Dead.”
    “What’s he cackling about?” Mrs. Malloy, who has yet to learn respect for her betters, turned on me as if I had invented Freddy for the express purpose of making us late for Fully Female.
    “I promised to help him rehearse for a part in the play, Norsemen of the Gods , being put on at the village hall.” Wiping my hands on my apron, I reached down and lifted Freddy up by his ponytail, dislodging the horns in the process.
    “Clumsy,” he grumbled, as said appendages bounced into the playpen.
    “You do know that you’re making a complete goat of yourself? Real Vikings never wore those stupid things.” Take that, Freddy, for the crack about my appearance.
    Me disheveled? The man should look in a mirror every once in a while. Several weeks previously he had shaved off his beard, but he was still very much the vagabond. A skull and crossbones dangled from one ear and the left sleeve was ripped out of his sweatshirt to reveal the tattoo of two locked hearts (presumably his and that of his girlfriend Jill) on his shoulder. Aunt Astrid in one of her rare attempts at humour once said that Freddy’s parents had tried to