Mr Scarletti's Ghost by Linda Stratmann Read Free Book Online

the ladies found you out as an adventurer?’ she teased. ‘If they are clever they will hold on to their money. If I wanted a handsome face in my drawing room I would purchase a painting. That would be far less trouble than a husband.’
    ‘The London ladies of fortune are like castles moated about with lawyers,’ he said gloomily. ‘If I have no success there then I might come to Brighton for the high season and lurk around the pavilion, where I might discover a dowager duchess taking the air, and win her hand.’
    Mina looked at him carefully and saw that for all the outward show of elegance his garments were not as fresh or as fashionable as they needed to be for such an undertaking. ‘I hope you are not in debt for lodgings,’ she said, ‘or do you remain with Edward?’
    ‘Edward vouchsafes me a corner of his attic,’ said Richard. ‘He is well, but his talk is all about work. It is a subject for which I feel very little enthusiasm, and I can contribute nothing to the conversation.’
    ‘That does not bode well for Miss Hooper,’ said Mina. ‘A woman should expect her husband to have more than one subject on which he can talk with some authority, preferably several.’
    ‘I have met the lovely Miss Hooper,’ said Richard, ‘and I think she will not be very demanding in the area of conversation. I can see why Edward is so much in love with her; her father is really quite rich. But that china doll kind of beauty has never appealed to me. I like the kind of girl who—’ He hesitated.
    ‘The kind of girl you could not introduce to Mother?’ ventured Mina.
    He laughed. ‘You have it, my dear.’ He squeezed her hand affectionately. ‘But Mina, you must be very dull here. Do you really wish to wait on Mother forever? She has Simmons now, and she can do very well without you, you know. You should think of marrying.’
    ‘Oh come, now, who would have me?’ said Mina with a smile. ‘A miser looking for an unpaid drudge perhaps, who would expect me to be grateful that he has deigned to look at me? No, I shall never marry, and I am perfectly content with that.’ She did not say it but sometimes she felt almost fortunate, enjoying unimaginable freedom for a respectable single young lady. No one, seeing the little woman with the crooked body and curious gait, could suppose her to be anything other than honest. No one would press her to marry a tedious man or allow children to command her time and absorb her strength. By not being constrained into the narrow sphere of wife and mother she had discovered that she had the choice of being almost anything else she pleased.
    They strolled on a little further. There was a long pause in the conversation, and into the cheerful enjoyment of the early summer weather there crept a grey chill. ‘What is it, Mina?’ said Richard. ‘I am not a fool and I can see that something is making you unhappy.’
    They stopped walking, and gazed out across the beach to the distant glitter of the sea. Pleasure boats were drawn up on to the shore like the drying carcasses of stranded porpoises, and there was an almost endless line of freshly painted bathing machines ready to trundle into the water, their large wheels and small bodies making them look like colourful spiders.
    Mina looked further, to where the bright water met the soft cloudy horizon, then closed her eyes and thought of sea-spirits and mermaids and kings with green hair and enchanted reefs of pearl and coral.
    ‘Do you still go sea-bathing?’ asked Richard. ‘I have heard it is very beneficial.’
    ‘So all the medical men say, but I have had my fill of medical men and their opinions,’ said Mina. ‘I get neither pleasure nor relief from sea-water, warm or cold. There was a time when I bathed once a week when the weather was fine, but that was only to please Mother, and I was able eventually to persuade her not to be too disappointed if I stopped.’ She turned to him. ‘I am perfectly well, but if you must know