His Perfect Bride? by Louisa Heaton Read Free Book Online Page A

Phoebe Macabee lives next door to me and she told me about your belly-dancing class.’
    ‘You ought to come. It’s fun.’
    ‘With my hips? I don’t think so, dear.’ She rubbed her left arm, absently.
    Lula noticed the movement, but said nothing. It didn’t have to mean anything, did it? She’d been wheeling her basket—perhaps it just ached? ‘It doesn’t have to be about the hips, you know. You could still come. Be with the group. Get some shimmying action with the arms?’
    The old lady shook her head. ‘My shimmying days are over, dear, but thank you for inviting me. You here for a book?’
    ‘Research.’
    She looked at the electoral roll in front of Lula. ‘You need to know about the people round here?’
    Lula shrugged. ‘Maybe.’
    ‘Well, I’ve lived here all my life, dear. I know pretty much everyone. My name’s Yvonne, but everyone knows me as Bonnie.’
    ‘Bonnie. That’s a lovely name.’
    ‘Thank you.’ Bonnie settled into a chair next to her, her bones creaking as she did so, sighing the sigh of a woman who had finally found the time to sit down in the day. ‘Now, what do you want to know?’
    Lula was unsure of what to say. She appreciated Bonnie’s offer, but did she want to tell the old lady why she needed knowledge?
    Bonnie must have seen the look on her face because the old girl smiled and laid a hand on Lula’s knee. ‘I can keep a secret.’
    ‘Secrets are the problem. The person I’m looking for has kept a secret for a long time, and I’m not sure I should be allowed to tell it.’
    ‘Are you part of the secret?’
    Lula nodded.
    ‘I thought so. Figured you wouldn’t be looking, otherwise. Well, my dear, to my way of thinking if you’re part of the secret then you can tell whoever you want. I’m discreet, if that helps any, but I know you don’t know me from Adam.’
    ‘How about you just tell me what you know about certain people?’
    ‘I can tell you general knowledge. But I can’t go telling private stuff. Discreet, remember?’
    Lula smiled back. ‘Discreet. What do you know about Eleanor Lomax?’
    A small radiator affixed to the wall beneath a cork board of notices ensured that the cold outside didn’t permeate the small library and Lula and Bonnie sat pleasantly warm, discussing stories and people.
    ‘Eleanor Lomax has had a hard time of it lately,’ Bonnie began.
    ‘I know about her health problems.’
    Bonnie reached into her wheeled basket for a pile of heavy books and laid them on her lap with a sigh. ‘Well, you would, being a doctor. The breast cancer? Yes, terrible it was. I went with her once to the hospital, to sit with her whilst she got her chemotherapy. I tried to stay bright for her, but it’s an odd place, the cancer ward. All those people on hiatus, waiting for treatments, waiting for news, waiting to get back to their own lives.’
    ‘It can be difficult.’ Lula didn’t need telling about that. She’d been there.
    ‘Yes, it can. But she was strong—she fought it and she won. Physically, anyways.’
    ‘What do you know about her before?’
    Bonnie tilted her head to one side as she consideredher answer. ‘She’s always lived alone. Never had a man about the place as far as I know.’
    ‘Family?’ So far Bonnie hadn’t told her anything helpful.
    ‘I think she mentioned a sister once, but there was a bit of a scandal so they don’t talk to each other much.’
    Lula perked up. A scandal? Like an unplanned pregnancy? That sort of thing could stop family members from getting along. Had Eleanor been forced to give up a baby? Or had she done it willingly and her family hated her for it? Or was it something else entirely and Eleanor Lomax was a woman who had nothing whatsoever to do with Lula at all?
    ‘Does the sister live close by?’
    ‘Over in the next village. She’s much older than Eleanor, I think, and not well, last I heard.’
    Lula nodded her head. Could be anything. But, as a doctor, she wondered whether she could