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Читать онлайн «A Most Suitable Wife»

Автор Jessica Steele

But she had a feeling that any approach to the agent to check might see Wally, Warner and Quayle saying that there was a ‘no flat-share sub-let’ clause—and that caused Taye to hesitate to approach them. Yes, she knew that she should approach them. That she ought to go and see them and explain that Paula Neale had left the area. Fear that they might say that she would have to leave too, caused Taye to hold back. Should they be even likely to enquire into her suitability to be a tenant—her financial suitability that was—they would know straight away that by no chance could she pay the high rent required on her own.

Burying her head in the sand it might be but, bearing in mind that she had been Paula’s sub-tenant, Taye preferred to look on it from Paula’s viewpoint: that as long as the rent was paid they would not care who lived there provided they were respectable and paid the rent when due.

All the same, when considering her options—pay up or leave—Taye knew she did not want to leave and go back to the way she had up until three months ago been living.

Which left the only answer—she must get someone else to pay half the rent the way she had paid half the rent to Paula. And how to go about that? Advertise.

The only problem with that was that Taye felt she could hardly advertise in the paper. Without question she suspected that any agent worthy of the name would keep their eyes on the ‘To Let’ column of the local paper. Which meant—Her thoughts were interrupted when someone rapped smartly on the wood panelling of the door. Anticipating it would be one of her neighbouring apartment dwellers, Taye went to answer it.

But, although she thought she had met all of the other tenants in the building in the time she had been there, she would swear she had never caught so much as a glimpse of the tall dark-haired man who stood there before her.

‘How did you get in?’ she questioned abruptly when for what seemed like ageless seconds the man just stared arrogantly back at her.

She thought she was going to have to whistle for an answer. Then Rex Bagnall, who had a flat on the next floor, rushed by. ‘Forget my head…’ he said in passing, making it obvious he had just gone out but had dashed back for something he had forgotten—and that answered her question. The man who had knocked at her door had slipped in as Rex had gone out.

Then suddenly it clicked. ‘You’ve come about the flat?’ she exclaimed.

For long silent minutes the stern-faced man studied her, and she began to think she was going to have to run for any answer to her questions. But then finally, his tones clipped, ‘I have,’ he replied.

Oh, grief! She had been thinking in terms of a female to flat-share with! She could not say either that she was very taken with this grim-expressioned mid-thirties-looking man, but she supposed even if she had no intention of renting half the flat to him that there were certain courtesies to be observed.

‘That was quick,’ she remarked pleasantly. ‘I’ve only just returned from putting the ad in the newsagent’s window. ’ She might have gone on to say that she had been looking for someone of the female gender but Rex Bagnall was back again, dashing along the communal hallway. Not wanting him to hear any of her business, ‘Come in,’ she invited the unsuccessful candidate.