Read Online Happily Ever After by Harriet Evans - Free Book Online Page B

of the class, because one day, just one day, you might get better.
    “Come!” the voice from inside the office boomed, and as she opened the door, Elle was surprised bats and groveling henchmen didn’t fly out to greet her.
    She peered inside. “Ah, Eleanor,” Felicity Sassoon said, behind her vast mahogany desk. “Come and sit down.”
    “Miss Sassoon—I’m so so sorry,” Elle began, shutting thedoor behind her. She sat down and took a deep breath. “Are you—all right?”
    “Yes, of course I’m all right,” Felicity said impatiently. She fiddled with the ring that was always on the second finger of her left hand, a huge antique amethyst in a claw setting. She was wearing a different jacket. Elle’s eye strayed to the locked cupboard behind her, containing, she knew, the fully designed layouts of the Illustrated Queen Mother Biography, ready to go to press the moment the Queen Mum died. No one had seen inside it for years. What else did Felicity have in there, aside from several Harris Tweed ladies’ jackets? A policeman’s uniform, a sexy maid’s outfit?
    Elle blinked. Felicity wasn’t the kind of person who you imagined having a romantic life. Though she had been married to Rory’s father, Derek, no one knew his surname, and she was always referred to as “Miss Sassoon.” Office legend had it that Felicity had given Derek a heart attack, and that, according to Jeremy, “He was glad to get away from her. Died with a smile on his face.”
    “Elle,” Felicity said firmly, looking down at her jotter. Elle suspected she had her name written down there. Eleanor Bee. Mousy. Moronic. Shy. Skirts too short. Scalded me Monday 1st September 1997. “I wanted to ask you something. I noticed earlier, as you were attempting to mop the contents of a paper cup of boiling coffee from my person, that you had the manuscript for Polly Pearson in your bag. Have you read it?”
    “Er…” Elle was blindsided by the directness of the question. She swallowed. “Yes, almost all of it.”
    “Did you like it?”
    “Um—” She hadn’t had time to come up with the apposite, one-line summing-up. Elle cleared her throat and sat on her hands, breathing deeply. She had to tell the truth, otherwise it’d be obvious.
    “Well… I actually quite enjoyed it.”
    Felicity frowned. “Why?”
    Elle fidgeted. “It’s romantic, it’s funny, it’s really readable,” she said, trying to explain.
    “I don’t understand how that’s different from a MyHeart book,” Felicity said.
    “It’s very different,” Elle replied. “I like MyHeart,” she added nervously. “But they’re… sometimes… maybe they’re a tiny—a bit old-fashioned. Um—”
    She slumped down in her chair again, afraid she’d gone too far, but Felicity leaned forward. “Go on.”
    “Well, one of the last MyHearts I had to check over, the nurse who had the affair with a doctor had a baby by him and she ran away and never told him because of the shame and now he’s all wounded and thinks she hates him,” Elle said. “That wouldn’t happen nowadays. If I got knocked up by someone at work, you know”—she waved her arms around, getting into her stride—“say Jeremy, I wouldn’t go into hiding, I’d say, ‘Er—hey, Jeremy, what are we going to do about this then?’” She paused, as Felicity’s eyebrows shot together. “Or—or anyone! You know.” She could feel her old enemy, the blush, spreading over her collarbone. “It’s just a bit unrealistic. Like a Ladybird fairy story where everything’s fine in the end. Women aren’t idiots. I mean, those books are really good, but…” She trailed off again. “That happy ending business—it’s all a bit contrived. I don’t ever believe it.”
    “You don’t believe it?” Felicity smiled, and her eyes searched Elle’s face. “How unromantic of you, Elle, what terrible talk for a young girl.”
    It wasn’t true either. The truth was, Elle wanted to believe in happily ever after,