A Fine and Private Place Read Online Free Page B

A Fine and Private Place
Book: A Fine and Private Place Read Online Free
Author: Ellery Queen
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this.”
    â€œHe really has you petrified, hasn’t he? Well, he doesn’t petrify me!”
    â€œI know, dear, you’re old lion guts, while I’m the original chicken. Besides, there’s daddy to consider.”
    Peter’s really sexy mouth drooped. Daddy is a subject we try not to kick around. Peter knows how I feel, and he does what he can to respect my feelings, but he never makes a very good job of it. Peter’s trained himself to be the unobtrusive backgrounder, like Winstons and confidential secretaries should, but he’s just too beautifully tall and broad and dark-gold-blond and God-bless-American good-looking and gray-blue-green-eyed (depending on what’s going on in his glands at the moment) to get by unnoticed all the time; I mean I at least can read him like a traffic signal. There was a big red light coming up.
    So I suppose in trying to avoid it I stepped on the gas too hard and blabbed what I’d never told anyone, especially Peter. And did it the worst way—jokingly, as if it were some belly buster, the yuk of yuks.
    â€œOh, let’s stop talking about daddy,” I said cutely. “Do you know I have a pet name for my husband?”
    Peter reacted as if I’d shot him. “A pet name? For Nino ?”
    â€œSickening, isn’t it?”
    â€œYou’ve got to be kidding. I mean, you are, aren’t you?”
    â€œNot a bit of it.”
    â€œBut how could you? What is it?” Peter asked grimly.
    â€œIt’s a diminutive of Importuna.”
    â€œDiminutive. You mean like Import? Look, Virgin, you’re trying to sidetrack me—”
    â€œShorter than that.” Something kept egging me on. A demon, what else? No other explanation is sane.
    â€œShorter than Import?… Imp? That’s about as appropriate for him as Cuddles would be.”
    â€œIn between,” I said. You know. Sprightly. A little boy-girl game. How stupid can you get?
    â€œIn between Import and Imp.” Peter’s blond-silk brows made like a frown. “You’re putting me on. There’s nothing between Import and Imp.”
    â€œOh, no?” Big Mouth babbles. “How about Impo?”
    The moment I said it I’d have bitten my tongue off at the roots if my teeth could have reached that far. Because what it gave Peter was newborn hope. I saw the infant burst into life in his eyes, ready to yell.
    â€œImpo!” he said. “You can’t mean Nino-the great Nino—is incapable of …?”
    â€œIt’s not worth discussing,” I said, fast. “I don’t know why I brought it up. Don’t you think we’d better order?”
    â€œNot worth discussing ?”
    â€œPeter, keep your voice down. Please .”
    â€œMy God, baby, don’t you know what this means? If your marriage has never been consummated, it’s not a real marriage. That’s grounds for an annulment!”
    In his exuberance Peter didn’t think to pursue the subject of exactly what my marital life did consist of. Which was just as well. I don’t want to think of what might have happened. It turned out badly enough as it is.
    So I went through the whole dreary recitation of no-noes. How it didn’t matter what I could or couldn’t do to have the marriage dissolved, legally, religiously, or any other way if such existed—how because of daddy Nino had me by the short hairs, now more than ever, because the Gay Controller had not learned his lesson in 1962, the lesson I’ve already paid for with almost five years of my life. Although he hasn’t dipped into the till again and played more hanky-pank with the books—Nino’s made sure of that—he hasn’t stopped plunging on speculative stocks in the market or betting on long shots at the track, either. He keeps losing and going into debt to the loan sharks and Nino, kind, generous Nino, keeps bailing him out … his suocero , his
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