Read Online An Eligible Bachelor by Veronica Henry - Free Book Online

party, and she’d taken a long time to get over the trauma and the stigma.
    Today, however, was clear of commitments. Honor breathed a sigh of relief, then looked along the squares of the calendar to the weekend ahead. In big red letters on Saturday was written CHARITY BALL. Her heart sank and rose simultaneously. She couldn’t help feel excited by her first proper social engagement for nearly seven years. She’d been something of a recluse since she’d had Ted, and to be honest, once you got used to not going out, you didn’t miss it. Which was why the prospect of the ball was so terrifying. Once, glittering social occasions had been the norm for her. The rails in her wardrobe had groaned with appropriate outfits. She had at one time suffered from ball fatigue, swearing that she couldn’t face another evening of Buck’s Fizz, chocolate roulade andinsincere toastmasters raffling off trips to the local beauty salon. Those days, however, were long gone.
    It was Henty Beresford who insisted she come and join their table. The moment Honor had met Henty at the school gates on Ted’s first day at school the previous September, she’d known she was a kindred spirit. Henty was small and curvaceous and bubbly and spoke like someone out of a Famous Five adventure – ‘golly’ and ‘crumbs’ and ‘crikey’. But her sweet nature was saved from sickliness by an acute observation and a wicked sense of humour. Ted and Henty’s son Walter were as thick as thieves. They looked as if they’d stepped out of a cartoon strip: Walter with his white-blond pudding-bowl hair cut and wide blue eyes, and Ted with a thatch of red curls and freckles that looked as if they had been painted on.
    Henty had been gently persuasive at first, then positively begged her.
    ‘Please! I need someone to have a giggle with. Everyone takes these dos so seriously. And it’s in a really good cause – the children’s holiday farm. They give terminally ill kids and their families a chance for a break they’d never have otherwise.’
    The emotional blackmail had clinched it, and Honor had given in, even though the fifty-quid ticket was more than she could really afford. Somehow Henty had sensed that, but she hadn’t patronized Honor by offering to pay for her ticket. She’d ordered two cakes instead – one for her eldest daughter Thea’s fourteenth birthday, in the shape of a sweetheart with ‘Text Me’ written in sugary pink, and one for her motherin-law – which had coveredthe fifty pounds. Ted was to stay the night at the Beresfords’, on a camp bed in Walter’s room, and was unfeasibly excited. Honor hoped that the babysitter would cope, but – as Henty reassured her – they had mobiles and were only three miles away, and if anyone was going to cause trouble it was Thea.
    Honor had contributed a prize to the auction as well – a bespoke cake done to the bidder’s specification –because everyone who donated a prize had a free advert in the programme and as Henty pointed out it wasn’t often that one had a roomful of potential customers.
    ‘All these mothers buy their children’s birthday cakes from Tesco, and wouldn’t mind forking out a bit extra for something special.’
    As she pulled on her duffel coat, Honor couldn’t help feeling that the ball represented a turning point for her. With the cake business flourishing, her friendship with Henty, and Ted becoming more independent as each day passed, Honor found that after years of self-imposed isolation she was growing in confidence.
    All she had to worry about now was what to wear…
    As she approached the gates of St Joseph’s, her heart sank. The only other mother waiting was Fleur Gibson, and she’d already seen her, so she couldn’t turn round and go into the post office in order to avoid standing with her. Honor wasn’t one to judge, but she’d taken an instant dislike to Fleur.
    Fleur had opened a florist’s in the nearby town of Eldenbury two years ago. After a