Login to ManoBook
icon 0
icon TOP UP
rightIcon
icon Reading History
rightIcon
icon Log out
rightIcon
icon Get the APP
rightIcon
5.0
Comment(s)
38
View
29
Chapters

Grey Roses by Henry Harland

Chapter 1 No.1

I woke up very gradually this morning, and it took me a little while to bethink myself where I had slept-that it had not been in my own room in the Cromwell Road. I lay a-bed, with eyes half-closed, drowsily look looking forward to the usual procession of sober-hued London hours, and, for the moment, quite forgot the journey of yesterday, and how it had left me in Paris, a guest in the smart new house of my old friend, Nina Childe.

Indeed, it was not until somebody tapped on my door, and I roused myself to call out 'Come in,' that I noticed the strangeness of the wall-paper, and then, after an instant of perplexity, suddenly remembered. Oh, with a wonderful lightening of the spirit, I can tell you.

A white-capped, brisk young woman, with a fresh-coloured, wholesome peasant face, came in, bearing a tray-Jeanne, Nina's femme-de-chambre.

'Bonjour, monsieur,' she cried cheerily. 'I bring monsieur his coffee.' And her announcement was followed by a fragrance-the softly-sung response of the coffee-sprite. Her tray, with its pretty freight of silver and linen, primrose butter, and gently-browned pain-de-gruau, she set down on the table at my elbow; then she crossed the room and drew back the window-curtains, making the rings tinkle crisply on the metal rods, and letting in a gush of dazzling sunshine. From where I lay I could see the house-fronts opposite glow pearly-grey in shadow, and the crest of the slate roofs sharply print itself on the sky, like a black line on a sheet of scintillant blue velvet. Yet, a few minutes ago, I had been fancying myself in the Cromwell Road.

Jeanne, gathering up my scattered garments, to take them off and brush them, inquired, by the way, if monsieur had passed a comfortable night.

'As the chambermaid makes your bed, so must you lie in it,' I answered. 'And you know whether my bed was smoothly made.'

Jeanne smiled indulgently. But her next remark-did it imply that she found me rusty? 'Here's a long time that you haven't been in Paris.'

'Yes,' I admitted; 'not since May, and now we're in November.'

'We have changed things a little, have we not?' she demanded, with a gesture that left the room, and included the house, the street, the quarter.

'In effect,' assented I.

'Monsieur desires his hot water?' she asked, abruptly irrelevant.

But I could be, or at least seem, abruptly irrelevant too. 'Mademoiselle-is she up?'

'Ah, yes, monsieur. Mademoiselle has been up since eight. She awaits you in the salon. La voilà qui joue,' she added, pointing to the floor.

Nina had begun to play scales in the room below.

'Then you may bring me my hot water,' I said.

Continue Reading

Other books by Henry Harland

More

You'll also like

My Neighbor's Wife

My Neighbor's Wife

E_STEVANIA
5.0

"You're a creepy bastard." His eyes smolder me and his answering grin is nothing short of beautiful. Deadly. "Yet you hunger for me. Tell me, this appetite of yours, does it always tend toward 'creepy bastards'?" **** Widower and ex-boss to the Mafia, Zefiro Della Rocca, has an unhealthy fixation on the woman nextdoor. It began as a coincidence, growing into mere curiosity, and soon, it was an itch he couldn't ignore, like a quick fix of crack for an addict. He didn't know her name, but he knew every inch of her skin, how it flushed when she climaxed, her favourite novel and that every night she contemplated suicide. He didn't want to care, despising his rapt fascination of the woman. She was in love with her abusive husband. She was married, bound by a contract to the Bratva's hitman. She was off-limits. But when Zefiro wanted something, it was with an intensity that bordered on madness. He obsessed, possessed, owned. There'd be bloodshed if he touched her, but the sight of blood always did fascinate him. * When Susanna flees from her husband, she stumbles right into the arms of her devilishly handsome neighbour with a brooding glare. He couldn't stand her, but she needed him, if she was ever going to escape her husband who now wanted her dead. Better the devil you know than the angel you don't. She should have recalled that before hopping into Zefiro's car and letting him whisk her away to Italy. Maybe then, she wouldn't have started an affair with him. He was the only man who touched her right, and the crazy man took no small pains in ensuring he would be the last.

Chapters
Read Now
Download Book