Marriage & the Mermaid (Hapless Heroes) by Louise Cusack Read Free Book Online Page A

there ever since. Old man Wilson’s alone now –”
    “His son visits,” Glenda interrupted around a mouthful of jam drop. “He’s there now.”
    Jim leant across and tapped a nicotine stained fingernail onto the table in front of Betty. “The prince of Wales was a guest at Saltwood around nineteen hundred. They had a special bathing room built just for his visit, with a big claw foot tub. I can’t remember what they use that room for now. Petal?” he turned to Glenda.
    “Torn down, I think,” Glenda said. “The boy, Balthazar used it as a cubby when he was tiny, you know, before…”
    “Right,” Jim said and held out his cup for some tea. The conversation faltered while Glenda poured them all a cup and Betty stirred sugar in absently. Thinking. “I’ll be happy to stay home and look after Uncle Jim while you’re working, Aunty Glenda,” she said. “And for a special treat, why don’t I make dinner the night before, so you’re well rested on Friday?”
    Glenda put down her teacup and smiled. “That would be lovely! Wouldn’t it, Jim?”
    “I’ll make a roast dinner,” Betty added, before he could argue. “With all the veggies you like, Uncle Jim. Lots of pumpkin and sweet potato.”
    “I do like a roast,” he admitted.
    “It’s a deal then,” Betty said. “You’ve been so good to me. It’s the least I can do. And who knows, there might be more things I can do to help that we haven’t even thought of yet.”
    Glenda smiled fondly. “She’s such a poppet, isn’t she Jim?”
    Even Jim cracked a smile then, showing stained and broken teeth. “She’ll turn some boy’s head, that’s for sure.”
    Turning tricks and giving head was Betty’s area of expertise. Winning boy’s hearts was a whole other ballgame and she had no intention of going there. Betty’s plan was to be Suzy Solo in her own cool crib, with shoes. Lots of shoes. A whole room of shoes, in fact.
    That was her future, and she was prepared to do bad things to achieve it.
    Looking forward to that, actually.

Chapter Six
    B az put the drawstring shorts and tee shirt on the chaise lounge in the guest bedroom, trying to stay calm. The girl had definitely been here. He knew he wasn’t going mad. But his hands were trembling again. After the relative calm of the garden he was back to being a nervous wreck.
    Think. Where could she be?
    Naked.
    Beautiful.
    And looking for sex.
    Was she wandering around the house where his father could bump into her? Or would Carlos find her floating face down in the pool?
    Baz went back out into the hallway and looked down the way he’d come, from the kitchen. He hadn’t passed her, so his best bet was to head in the opposite direction, to the front of the house. The spare room and his father’s bedroom were still empty, so that narrowed the search. Baz turned left at the end of the hallway and went past the foyer then left again to trail down the other side of the horseshoe hallway back towards the kitchen. After checking the media room with its projection screen and lounges, and the study, which still had sand on the carpet from his father’s mandala, Baz had a sudden, sickening premonition.
    He walked slowly to the library door, dread building with every step, then he eased his head around the corner, and whatever air had been in his lungs, fell out.
    She was sitting cross–legged in a wingback leather armchair, completely naked with slicked–down hair dripping onto the jumble of loose papers filling her lap. Blue ink ran across some of them and when Baz saw the leather satchel beside the chair he realised they were probably old documents relating to Saltwood that had been kept for historical purposes. He glanced around the floor–to ceiling bookcases that lined the room but couldn’t see where they had come from.
    What he could see, on the opposite recliner, was Ted snoring, oblivious to the desecration of his family’s heritage.
    Baz neither blinked nor swallowed. He was completed