He Sent Me Overseas to Marry Her, I'm Staying Overseas to Never See Him Again novel · Chapter 6 of 32

Chapter 6: Sixty Trunks

Oliver crouched and put his palm flat on the hide.

He didn't say anything for a long time.

"You told the bank there was nothing left," he said finally.

"I told the bank to sod off," Peggy said. "Different thing."

"Gran, that's fraud."

"It was your grandad's leather, bought with your grandad's money, and the bank had the house. They weren't having his hides as well." She sniffed. "Statute of limitations. I looked it up at the library."

Zoe had come down the stairs behind us in pajamas with a slice of toast.

"Is this a crime cellar?" she whispered. "I love it here."

I knelt beside Oliver and ran my thumb along the edge of the roll.

"How many trunks does forty hides make?"

He did the math without looking up.

"Full-covered steamer trunks, lined, brass corners. Sixty, if nobody wastes a scrap."

"Then we need someone who wants sixty trunks."

On Monday I found them.

A hundred-year-old hotel on Piccadilly was reopening its suites at Christmas after two years of renovation.

It had been in the trade press for months.

Zoe found the general manager's email in ten minutes, which she said was a personal worst.

I wrote him four lines.

He wrote back in one.

"Thursday, ten o'clock. Bring something."

We brought Peggy's sample trunk.

It was a full-size steamer she'd made for an exhibition in 1979, oak frame, brown bridle leather, brass corners gone soft gold with age.

It weighed as much as I did.

Oliver and the old cutter lifted it into the back of the van on Thursday morning.

Then Oliver went upstairs to his flat over the office and came down in a suit.

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