Her dressing table was a wide antique pine chest of drawers with a reproduction pine mirror on top. She only owned the mirror and the battery clock next to it. It was 8.35 a.m. and she was going to be late for work.
In the circumstances, late would be a good thing. But not too late, she couldn’t afford trouble at the office as well. She padded into the bathroom, pulled off her knickers and threw them into the corner with the rest of the week’s laundry. She ran the hot tap until the water flowed warm, and meanwhile damped down her short, ash-blonde hair, working her fingers through the feathered strands at the back so they lay close to the nape of the neck.
She dressed quickly and chose Warm Mocha lipstick. She ran it back and forth across her lips, then dabbed it on to her cheekbones, rubbing it in to give the approximation of blusher. That would do.
She checked her reflection, aware that the skim of freckles across each cheek and a lucky gap between her two front teeth gave her face more character than any layer of make-up.
She grabbed her bag and hurried downstairs. As she reached the bottom stair, she could see other letters buried under the brochure.
Five pairs of her shoes were lined up beside the door; in two-inch heels she made five foot five. Just.
She reached for the post, slipping her feet into her highest shoes as she turned the envelopes over. There were four. She flicked through them. Mobile phone bill, bank statement, credit card bill. Then the fourth. White, A5, and emblazoned with an advert for a bank loan. But it was the addressee’s name which caught her eye. Miss H. Sellars.
Lorna frowned. A chill tickled her scalp, then vanished. How strange, she thought. She shook her head and smiled. What an amazing coincidence. She suddenly wondered whether the holiday brochure was similarly addressed. She slid it from under the other post.
The black print on the white label jumped out at her. Instant fear washed the smile from her lips. She recoiled and the post scattered, tumbling from her fingers on to the floor. The corner of the clear envelope hit the mat, bounced and landed, slapping down flat on its face.
She opened the front door and hurried away down the street. Behind her, the hall tiles stayed cold, rebuffing the unanswered ring of the telephone upstairs.
Copyright
This book is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents, and dialogue are drawn from the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Excerpt from Prince copyright © 2011 by Rory Clements.
Excerpt from Cambridge Blue copyright © 2008, 2009 by Alison Bruce.
THE GREEN MUSE. Copyright © 2015 by Jessie Prichard Hunter. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
EPub Edition FEBRUARY 2015 ISBN: 9780062354563
Print Edition ISBN: 9780062354570
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