Read Online Summer at the Lake by Erica James - Free Book Online Page A

spend some of the weekend sorting through the storage boxes on top of her wardrobe, put there temporarily when she moved in and which had stayed there untouched ever since. But the thought of climbing onto a chair to get them down had been beyond her yesterday. Maybe later, after she’d rung her sister, she would summon the energy to face the job.
    Her breakfast finished, she heard a knock at the door.
    Floriana ushered her unexpected visitor in from the cold.
    ‘Normally I wouldn’t dream of calling unannounced,’ said Miss Silcox, ‘especially not on a Sunday.’ Her cheeks were flushed from the cold, her eyes a little watery and her words tumbled from her lips in a breathless flurry. She sounded quite different to how Floriana had remembered her, not at all the authoritative figure giving orders.
    ‘I would hate to be guilty of a breach of manners,’ her visitor went on, ‘but I wanted to put my mind at rest and see for myself that you really were on the mend.’
    ‘Seeing is believing,’ Floriana said with as much of a smile as her sore face would allow, ‘so I hope your mind is at rest now. What’s more, I’ve put away my self-pity and have officially rejoined the human race today. Yesterday I was a lazy couch potato; I didn’t do a thing. Let me take your coat.’
    The coat hung up on the hook in the hall, she led her guest through to the sitting room. ‘I take it Adam passed on my message to you yesterday?’
    ‘Oh, yes, it was most kind of you to ask him to thank me,’ Miss Silcox said, removing the fabric cover from the basket she was carrying. ‘Very thoughtful indeed. I brought these for you, a small offering to cheer you up. But I’m delighted to see that you’re already remarkably chipper, considering what happened to you.’
    ‘Oh,’ cried Floriana, ‘how sweet of you. But really, I feel such a fraud. First Adam bringing me cakes and now you with chocolates and flowers; I should get run over more often.’
    ‘Perhaps that’s a little drastic, my dear. Where would you like the cyclamen?’
    Floriana took the pot from her guest and surveyed the small room. ‘I think here on the window sill would be perfect, don’t you?’
    ‘You’ll have to find something for it to sit on, or it will make a terrible mess.’
    ‘No problem, I’ll fetch a saucer while I make us a drink. What would you like, tea or coffee? Or, seeing as it’s so cold, shall we be very indulgent and have hot chocolate to go with one of those delicious truffles you’ve brought?’
    Settled with their drinks, Floriana was thinking how pleased she was that this elderly, doll-sized woman had come to see her. The more snippets of information she winkled out of the old lady – she had lived in Oxford all her adult life, had worked as a librarian at Queen’s, then an archivist at the Bodleian, and had never been married – the more Floriana itched to know. She also realised that she recognised Miss Silcox, had seen her about since moving to Church Close, very likely at the shops in North Parade.
    Composed and perfectly at ease in the chair where her guest yesterday had looked anything but comfortable, Miss Silcox was dressed in a smart navy blue two-piece suit with a cream silk blouse, her stockinged legs placed neatly together at the knees and ankles and tucked to one side in a very ladylike fashion. Her patent court shoes with a two-inch heel were blue to match her outfit, along with her handbag and gloves. Her silver hair, elegantly pinned up, was surprisingly thick and luxurious for a woman of her age, which Floriana guessed was late seventies. Her eyes were blue and alert, and probably missed nothing, and were surrounded by a tracery of fine lines.
    She must have been a very attractive woman when she was young, Floriana found herself thinking, mesmerised by the old lady. She watched her wipe the corners of her pearly-pink lipsticked mouth with the paper napkin from the packet Floriana had dug out from the bottom of the