Lessons in Love. Kate Lawson. Читать онлайн. Newlib. NEWLIB.NET

Автор: Kate Lawson
Издательство: HarperCollins
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Жанр произведения: Зарубежный юмор
Год издания: 0
isbn: 9780007328963
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      KATE LAWSON

       Lessons in Love

       Copyright

      This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

      AVON

      A division of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd. 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF

       www.harpercollins.co.uk

      First published in Great Britain by HarperCollinsPublishers 2008

      Copyright © Kate Lawson 2008

      Kate Lawson asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work

      A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

      All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this ebook on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, 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 hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins ebooks.

      HarperCollinsPublishers has made every reasonable effort to ensure that any picture content and written content in this ebook has been included or removed in accordance with the contractual and technological constraints in operation at the time of publication

      Source ISBN: 9781847560926

      Ebook Edition © 2008 ISBN: 9780007328963

      Version: 2018-06-12

       Dedication

      To the men in my life—Phil, Ben, James, Joseph, Sam and Oliver, who between them continue to give me all the lessons in love a girl could ever need.

      Contents

       Title Page

       Copyright

       Dedication

       Chapter One

       Chapter Two

       Chapter Three

       Chapter Four

       Chapter Five

       Chapter Six

       Chapter Seven

       Chapter Eight

       Chapter Nine

       Chapter Ten

       Chapter Eleven

       Chapter Twelve

       Chapter Thirteen

       Chapter Fourteen

       Chapter Fifteen

       Chapter Sixteen

       Epilogue

       Acknowledgements

       About the Author

       By the Same Author

       About the Publisher

       Chapter One

      ‘Dear Ms J. Mills, we are delighted to inform you…’ Jane Mills read the letter again. Apparently she had won an all-expenses-paid trip-of-a-lifetime for two to a destination of her choice from one of the following…

      Or at least she would have done if the letter had been delivered to the right Ms J. Mills at the correct address. It had arrived, along with a new cheque book and card, three store-card bills—the other J. Mills appeared to have a penchant for shoes and handbags, so they did also have that in common—and a dental appointment for two fifteen, Thursday week.

      Jane hadn’t meant to open them. The post had arrived first thing Saturday morning, while Milo and Boris, her cats, had been mugging her with a mixture of impatience, persistence and some very overdone fawning, and she had been caught in the no man’s land between a can of Felix, the kettle and tea bag dunking, and most certainly not within striking distance of her glasses. So, while the kettle was boiling she’d opened the letters with a paper knife. Someone else’s letters. All of them.

      The paper knife, with its plump little kissy Cupid for a handle, and a blade meant to represent his bow and arrow, had been a Christmas present from Steve and still had a phoney evidence tag tied to it with white string. It read:

      Steve Burney, in the library with the dagger.

      Merry Christmas, Sweetie.

      I will love you for ever. S. xxx

      Which he had to have given to her at around the same time he had been sleeping with Lucy Stroud and Carol what’s-her-face from Requisitions, and very possibly Anna, although nobody was quite sure if that was just Steve’s wishful thinking, and as Anna had now moved to Shrewsbury they might never find out. It had occurred to Jane that he had probably bought the knives as a job lot and had the evidence tags photocopied to save time.

      She glanced down at the paper knife on the kitchen table. Damned shame she hadn’t stabbed him in the library.

      She had found out about Steve a couple of weeks ago, actually 11 days, 18 hours and 51 minutes ago, when Lucy had taken