almost unbearable.
He had promised her freedom from his interference, and it was a promise he had certainly kept. He had made a contract with her for certain services and then, surprisingly, he had scrupulously kept to its terms—terms that she had never believed he would be able to adhere to. She had expected to be courted, and instead he virtually ignored her existence.
She had occupied her time and energy during those weeks in staffing and furnishing the elegant mansion he’d purchased. Although her instructions had been carried out to the letter, the task of seeing that they were had been left to Mr. Reynolds, Raven’s very efficient man of business, and his start.
Her husband had taken no part in choosing the nearly priceless items she’d retained from the original furnishings, which she’d found stored, as he’d promised, in a vast warehouse near the East India docks. She had discovered that the warehouse was one of many London properties he owned, most of its space devoted to the temporary storage of goods that he imported from the Orient for the insatiable English market.
She had also been allowed to choose the finest of those imports for her new home. She had spent hours wandering among the bolts of newly arrived silks, the porcelains still in their straw-packed crates. Her skirts brushing against the Holland covers, she had examined countless pieces of furniture, paintings and objets d’art that had been purchased with the mansion, and which Mr. Reynolds’s clerks uncomplainingly uncovered for her inspection.
She was conscientiously trailed by one of the banker’s staff, and almost by magic, the pieces she had chosen from the warehouse, plus the additional ones she purchased from the manufacturers on Bond or Oxford Streets, arrived at the Mayfair residence and were set up in the rooms they were intended to grace.
And grace them they did, she thought with satisfaction, glancing around the small salon in which she was sitting. It was almost certainly the finest house in the capital. As it should be, considering the sums she had spent. But if she had been hoping for some comment on that almost deliberate extravagance from the man who paid the bills, she had been disappointed.
Конец ознакомительного фрагмента.
Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес».
Прочитайте эту книгу целиком, купив полную легальную версию на ЛитРес.
Безопасно оплатить книгу можно банковской картой Visa, MasterCard, Maestro, со счета мобильного телефона, с платежного терминала, в салоне МТС или Связной, через PayPal, WebMoney, Яндекс.Деньги, QIWI Кошелек, бонусными картами или другим удобным Вам способом.
