Page 21 of Bad Luck Bride (Scandal at the Savoy #3)

“Cairo is where the vast majority of my business interests are, Pam,” he felt compelled to remind her. “So that’s where we’ll have to live. I told you that when I proposed. Surely you remember?”

“Of course,” Pam agreed. But though she’d finished fiddling with her glove, she didn’t look at him, and when she started to turn as if to resume their walk, he put his hands on her shoulders, stopping her and turning her once again to face him.

“Afraid you’ll be homesick?” he asked gently.

That made her smile a little. “How well you understand me. I suppose it stems from being in England again after so long away. Seeing all my friends, knowing it may be a long time before I see them again… well, it’s giving me a bit of a pang to think of leaving them so soon.

We were only in Egypt a couple of months during our tour, you know.

It wasn’t long enough to make any real friends there. ”

“Don’t I count?”

“You know what I mean,” she said, her smile widening a bit at his teasing. “I didn’t make any female friends.”

“But you will,” he assured her. “There’s a substantial number of British people living in Cairo these days.

You’ll have a whole coterie of bosom companions before you know it.

And we British love to spend our winters in warm climates.

You know that yourself. Remember what it was like for you and your parents when you were staying at my hotel there?

You were always running into people you knew. ”

“True. But they weren’t staying. Like me, they were on holiday. Besides, we won’t be living in your hotel.”

“No, but we’ll only be a short carriage ride away. And you’ve seen my house several times already, so you know it is every bit as luxurious as my hotel. Electricity, hot and cold laid on in the bathrooms, and plenty of servants for you to boss around.”

Unexpectedly, she laughed. “I remember thinking the first time we dined there how much more modern your house is than any of Papa’s estates here.”

“And the first time I saw you coming up the steps of the veranda there, do you know what I thought?” Despite the fact that he could feel her mother’s disapproving gaze boring into his back from the other side of the flower beds, he moved closer to Pam, close enough that her skirt hem brushed the toe of his boot.

“I remember thinking that with you there, my house finally felt like home.”

“You did?” she asked, looking surprised, her voice wistful. “Did you really?”

“Really. You won’t be homesick, at least not for long. And it’s not as if we’ll never come back to England again. I shall have to come home occasionally to tour the hotels with Simon, see how things are going, that sort of thing. When I do, I daresay you’ll want to come with me.”

“Can I?”

“Of course you can come with me, darling. I’d be lost without you. So you see? There will be opportunities for you to see your family and your friends. But, to return to the subject that started this discussion, we don’t need a house in London.”

“No,” she agreed. “Not yet. But…” She paused, smiling, slanting him an unmistakably flirtatious look even as she blushed. “We will need one when the children come.”

As agreeable as the thought of making babies might be, his uneasiness once again came to the fore. “Why,” he asked, treading carefully, wondering if he was about to get into deep waters, “should the children make any difference there?”

Her eyes widened, flirtation giving way to surprise at the question. “Because we’ll want our sons educated at Eton and Oxford, of course. Surely you agree, being an Etonian yourself?”

He thought of his Eton education, an education that had proven of little practical use.

Hell, if he hadn’t insisted on breaking with family tradition and enrolling in London’s Royal School of Mines to study mining engineering, he’d probably still be stone broke, and Pam would be marrying some other chap.

Pam, however, gave him no chance to express his opinion. “They’ll scarcely be twelve before Eton,” she went on. “We can’t just ship them off halfway around the world on their own at that age.”

“Of course not. We’ll come with them to see them settled at school, of course, but that doesn’t mean—”

“And what about our daughters?” she interrupted. “When they are ready to make their debut, what am I to do? I can’t bring them out from Cairo. If I do that, their marriage prospects will be dismal.”

The marriage prospects of his as-yet nonexistent daughters had never occurred to him, though admitting that fact was clearly not going to score him any points with Pam.

“Perhaps you’re right,” he said instead. “But all that’s a long way off, and even if we do decide to live here during that period, it won’t be permanent, no matter what happens.”

“Oh, no,” she agreed quickly. “Of course not.”

“Then aren’t we getting a bit ahead of ourselves, talking about things that won’t be happening for at least a dozen years?”

“Hmm… perhaps you’re right. And if you’d rather wait, of course we will. But the more time that goes by, the higher the prices on London properties will become.”

That was an irrefutable point. “So you think we ought to buy a house now?”

“That’s up to you, darling. I just thought it would be an excellent business investment, even if we only rarely use it ourselves.”

He almost laughed at that, for he’d never known Pam pay any attention to business investments before, his or anyone else’s. Nonetheless, she wasn’t wrong, and as he considered her idea, he appreciated that acquiring a London property did make a certain amount of sense.

“It’s not necessary for us to purchase something now, of course,” she went on when he didn’t reply. “As you said, the possibility of living here is a long way off.”

“If we did buy something now,” he said slowly, thinking it out as he spoke, “we could lease it. That is, if we can find a decent one.”

“It’s amazing how we think so much alike!” she cried, giving him a delighted smile. “Because that’s just what I thought, too. So…” She paused, reaching into her skirt pocket and pulling out a folded sheet of paper. “So I took the liberty of finding some we might look at.”

“Did you, now?” he murmured, her words of a few minutes ago flashing through his mind.

I thought you’d want to stop on here for a bit longer than we’d originally planned.

How long, he wondered suddenly, before she was pointing out other London investments that he might wish to consider?

Studying her face as she looked down at the sheet in her hand, he thought of her ready acceptance of his business investment with Kay’s fiancé, and he wondered suddenly if her encouragement and approval there stemmed not from business and social considerations but from a desire to tie him to England in as many ways as possible. But what about Kay?

Lady Kay is no threat to me.

The memory of those words in the flower shop deepened the uneasy feeling clenching his guts.

“Do you want to look over this list?” she asked, bringing him out of his reverie.

“You seem to have put some serious thought into this, my dear,” he said, watching her, trying to tell himself he was being absurd.

“It’s always best to plan ahead, don’t you think?” she asked serenely and returned her attention to the sheet in her hands. “Most of the prospects are from house agents, of course.”

“You’ve been visiting house agents? Without consulting with me first?”

She looked up, her eyes innocently wide.

“Only because I have so much more free time than you do. But it hardly matters, anyway, since the best prospect is one I learned about quite by accident. It’s Lord and Lady Shrewsbury’s house in Eaton Square.

They want to sell it, Lady Shrewsbury told me, once the season is over.

She said we were welcome to see the place any time we like.

But I’m not sure you’ll like it, though. ”

“Does it matter if I like it?” he countered, wondering what she’d say. “Since we’ll be leasing it?”

Her eyes widened further. “Of course it matters. You are a far better judge of investment property than I am, darling. And prospective tenants aside, if we ever do decide we want to live in it for a few years while our boys are in school and our daughters do the season, it will have to suit us as well. So it’s important that we both like it. ”

Devlin was only slightly reassured by her use of the words “if” and “we,” and he felt compelled to be blunt. “You aren’t changing your mind, are you, darling? About living in Egypt? Because marrying me requires that, you know. Or perhaps it’s me you’re having second thoughts about?”

The astonishment in her face turned to dismay. “Changing my mind? About you? Heavens, no! Goodness, if I ever thought you’d think my little jaunt around London with house agents was motivated by that, I’d never have done it. Darling!”

With those words, Devlin forced aside his alarming speculations about her motives, speculations, he reminded himself, that had no basis in fact.

His past experience with Kay was just making him imagine the worst, that was all.

Pam wasn’t Kay, nothing like, and it was stupid to worry about his future with her based on the nightmare experiences of his past.

“Eaton Square, eh?” he said. “Sounds all right, I suppose. Why do you think I might not like it? No bathrooms? Bad drains?”

“No, no, all that’s all right. But the furnishings…” She paused and shuddered. “Ghastly. And the drapes are rotting, they’re so old. Even so.” She paused again, biting her lip with an apologetic look. “They want the earth for the place, I’m afraid.”

“Anyone selling a London house in Eaton Square would want the earth for it. And in that location, the furnishings won’t matter all that much if we’re leasing it out.”

“I’m sure you’re right. It ought to bring a very high rent, don’t you think?”

“Obscenely high, I daresay.”