And Then He Kissed Her Page 5

  The expression on her face was so at odds with her usually cool, unruffled demeanor that he was startled. “Miss Dove, are you all right?”

  “You don’t know who Mrs. Bartleby is.” She said it in the strangest way, as if trying to accept something impossible. Harry began to feel uneasy.

  “Should I know of her?” He gave her a smile. “You must refresh my memory, for I cannot recall ever hearing of any such person. One of my competitors publish a book by her I don’t know about?”

  “No.” She swallowed hard and gazed past him, still as a statue.

  Harry’s uneasiness deepened into worry. Was she going to faint? He couldn’t imagine Miss Dove fainting, but there was a first time for everything. “You’re white as chalk. Are you ill?”

  “No.” She shook her head, coming out of her daze. She seemed to regain her usual poise, almost making him wonder if he had imagined that shocked, frozen look. “Thank you for your opinion about my manuscript,” she said. “Since today is Saturday, and it is now well past noon, I shall be on my way, if there is nothing else?”

  She didn’t wait for an answer, but started for the door.

  “Miss Dove?” he called after her.

  She halted. Her head turned slightly back over her shoulder, but she did not quite look at him. “Yes, sir?”

  “Who is Mrs. Bartleby?”

  It was several seconds before she answered. “No one important,” she said and departed, closing the door behind her.

  He frowned, staring at the closed door, still uneasy. No doubt she was disappointed, but what some woman named Bartleby had to do with it, he couldn’t fathom.

  With a shake of his head, Harry dismissed the strange conversation from his mind. It always hurt Miss Dove’s feelings when he rejected her work, but she’d get over it. She always did.

  He’d never read her books. Emma repeated that fact over and over as she strode up Chancery Lane, but she still could not seem to take it in. He had not read a single one of her books.

  It occurred to her that she might be mistaken, but even as that thought crossed her mind, she knew it wasn’t possible. If Marlowe had read her work, he’d have known Mrs. Bartleby was Emma’s pseudonym and the fictional author of all her manuscripts. Heavens, the woman’s name was typed right on the title page. How could he miss it? And there were references to the late Mr. Bartleby sprinkled throughout the text. No, there could be no mistake.

  All her time, all her hard work, all her duties for him loyally fulfilled, and he couldn’t even be bothered to read the title page?

  Emma’s shock gave way to rage, a deep, burning fire in her belly. Never had she felt so close to violence. All this time, all these years, he’d only been pretending to consider her work. It was all a lie.

  She wanted to confront him. She should have, but at first she’d been too stunned. Standing there by her desk, looking at his face, realizing the horrible truth, she’d been numb. Only now, long after she’d left the building, had the fog of numbness disintegrated, and now it was too late.

  No, it wasn’t. She halted at the corner of High Holborn, turned on her heel, and headed back toward Bouverie Street. She would do it. She would confront him, fling his lie in his face, tell him just what she thought of his duplicity.

  The moment she imagined such a scene, Emma knew how stupid it would be. He’d sack her. Any employer would, for impertinence like that.

  It wasn’t worth it. Emma stopped again, this time earning herself an indignant exclamation from a young man walking behind her. Out of breath, she stood there on the sidewalk as the young man walked around her, and she knew she couldn’t confront Marlowe. No matter how momentarily satisfying such an action might be, she couldn’t afford to sacrifice her job for it.

  Thwarted by her own common sense, Emma clenched her hand into a fist and ground it into the palm of her other hand with a sound of frustration. She was angry, by heaven, and she wanted an outlet for her feelings. She wanted to scream, to cry, to throw things, but that was out of the question. She was in a public thoroughfare, surrounded by people, and a lady never gave way to her emotions in front of others.

  She’d go home. Emma turned back around and retraced her steps to the corner. At home, she could throw things, cry, and scream to her heart’s content. Except, of course, that she’d throw something she loved and break it, and she’d regret that later. And her landlady would hear the noise and think some lunatic had gotten into the building. She might even send for the police. What a horrible thought.

  Given no other way to vent her frustration, Emma took several deep breaths and settled for walking. She strode along High Holborn, her boot heels drumming on the pavements like the rhythm of a fast and furious engine.

  She’d resign, she decided. First thing Monday, she’d walk in, announce her resignation in a quiet, dignified fashion, give the proper fortnight’s notice, and swallow down her anger long enough to request a letter of recommendation. That was the sensible thing to do.

  No, it isn’t, an inner voice cautioned. Resigning wasn’t sensible. She earned seven pounds and six a month. Where on earth could she earn that sort of money working for someone else? Men like Marlowe, who felt a female secretary should be paid the same as her male counterpart, were rarer than unicorns. She had a snug, comfortable flat in a very respectable neighborhood, the security of a post that would be hers for a long time to come, and an ever-growing nest egg sitting in the bank earning three and one-half percent per annum, her protection against the ravages of poverty when she was too old to work.

  Emma stopped again and turned to lean back against the wrought-iron railing that surrounded the Royal Music Hall. She sighed. There were times, like now, when being sensible was a terribly aggravating thing to be. She stood there for some minutes, not knowing what to do, dithering in a way that would have made her stern military father quite cross.

  One shouldn’t be sensible all the time. Surely there were times when she ought to be able to give in to reckless impulse, be carried away by the spontaneity of the moment, but she could never seem to manage it. Oh, how she wished she could.

  She straightened away from the railing and stepped forward to the curb, preparing to hail the first passing omnibus. For once in her life, she was not going to be sensible. She was going to go to Mayfair and buy that peacock fan, and she wasn’t going to care how much it cost. Every woman ought to feel beautiful and exotic on her birthday.

  The little bell above the door of Dobbs’s Antiques and Curiosities jangled as Emma entered the shop, but Mr. Dobbs didn’t even notice. He was hovering with anxious solicitude near a group of young ladies gathered around the counter in the center of the room.

  Emma froze by the door. One of the ladies, a pretty girl with blond hair in a dress of rose-pink swiss, was holding that peacock fan. Her fan.

  The girl waved it at one of her companions. “Will this suit for Wallingford’s ball, do you think?” she asked, laughing as she playfully curtsied.

  Everything within Emma cried out in protest. She took a step forward, then stopped. Short of ripping the fan out of the younger woman’s hand, there was nothing she could do. She could only watch and wait.

  Like beautiful butterflies, these girls, as they floated around the room in their pretty pastel morning dresses, each playing with the peacock fan in turn, while Emma hovered by the door, fingers crossed behind her back, hoping against hope they would put it down and depart. She listened as they talked gaily of their upcoming ball, their various suitors, and the fullness of their dance cards.

  “So, should I buy it or not?” the blonde finally asked, raising her voice a bit to be heard above the chattering of her companions. At once it was agreed by all that peacock feathers would be the perfect thing to set off the blonde’s ball gown of turquoise silk.

  With a sinking feeling of misery in her tummy, Emma watched the girl pay for her purchase. She knew her feelings were all out of proportion to the situation, and she tried to be reconciled to the los
s. It was just a fan, she told herself, and that young lady surely had more reason to own it than she ever would. Even had she bought it, Emma didn’t know what she would have done with the thing. Hang it on the wall, she supposed, where it would only collect dust.

  It’s the springtime of that girl’s life, Emma reminded herself. A time when a peacock fan was of some use to a young lady, a time of parties and dancing and romance, a time of hopes and dreams and plans for the future—a future that was exciting and fun and full of possibilities.

  Her own springtime had passed by years ago, if it had ever existed at all.

  Emma’s mind flashed back over the past dozen years. She thought of herself at eighteen, nineteen, twenty—of being desperately in love and hoping Mr. Parker felt the same, waiting for a declaration of love and a proposal of marriage that had never come, watching him marry someone else.

  Then dear Aunt Lydia had gotten sick. Emma thought of the five years she’d spent caring for her, waiting and hoping so desperately that the old woman would get better, and then watching the casket as it was lowered into the ground.

  And now there was Lord Marlowe, who had no intention of publishing any of her books, who hadn’t even read them. Five years of hope and hard work, slaving over a typewriting machine every night, had come to naught.

  Such was the pattern of her life. She had spent her entire youth waiting and hoping for things that never happened. Now she was thirty.

  The young ladies were coming toward the door. Emma stepped aside and turned, watching that absurd, extravagant peacock fan go out the door with its new owner, and something cracked inside of her.

  Too late, she realized. She’d spent so many years putting off what she wanted until it was too late.

  With that thought, all the emotions she’d been holding back since leaving the publishing house surged up within her like floodwaters rising. She pressed her gloved fist over her mouth, trying to maintain her composure, but it was a futile attempt. Like water breaking a dam, all her outrage and all her despair came flooding out. Much to her mortification and horror, Emma started to cry.

  Chapter 4

  Men wonder why women cannot behave in a rational fashion. What they fail to understand is that we do.

  Mrs. Bartleby’s Essays on Domestic Life, 1892

  In regard to his family, Harry considered himself a tolerant man, but by God, there were limits. Four days of his sisters lauding the talents and charms of their house guests at every opportunity, and Harry’s tolerance was gone. Melanie’s woeful hero worship, Nan’s mediocre singing, Felicity’s marriage-minded eyes, and Florence’s inane conversation were threatening to destroy not only his good humor, but his sanity as well.

  By Monday morning, when he was informed their house guests would be accompanying them aboard Rathbourne’s yacht, where he would be trapped in their company for an entire day and evening with no place to hide, Harry knew something had to be done. But he didn’t know what.

  He couldn’t send the silly girls packing back to Dillmouth. His mother would cry, a dreadful prospect. His sisters would simply set about finding a fresh lot of potential marriage partners for him, which was even worse. Their social standing would dip yet another notch, for Dillmouth would do Harry some sort of injury for the slight to his daughters and nieces. In short, the whole thing would become a sorry mess, and Harry tried to avoid those whenever possible.

  Unfortunately, sorry messes did not always avoid Harry. When he stopped by his offices to sign those Halliday contracts before departing for Rathbourne’s water party, his plans went awry, his day went to hell, and Harry found himself in a very sorry mess indeed.

  It all started with Mr. Tremayne. In charge of the newspaper side of things, Tremayne was a rubicund, cheery soul, able to handle almost any crisis with ease. Not today. He was at the front doors of the building when Harry came in, and the look on his face indicated something was very wrong.

  “God, Tremayne, what’s happened? You look the picture of misery.”

  “I don’t have Miss Dove’s operations schedule for today.”

  “She didn’t send it down yet?” Harry asked in some surprise as he crossed the foyer, passed the newsrooms where clerks were busily typing away, and started up the stairs.

  The other man followed him. “Miss Dove is not here.”

  “What?” Harry paused with one foot on the stair and pulled out his watch. “That’s impossible. It’s half-past ten. Miss Dove’s about somewhere. She has to be.”

  “Mr. Marsden—he sits at the front desk, sir, you know…” Tremayne paused to indicate Marsden’s desk at the other end of the foyer by the front doors. “He says Miss Dove has not arrived yet today.”

  “He probably missed her coming in, that’s all.” Unworried, Harry tucked his watch back into his waistcoat pocket and resumed walking up the stairs.

  “Yes, sir,” Tremayne replied, as he followed Harry up to the third floor. “I thought so as well. I sent my clerk to investigate, but when Carter went upstairs, he observed that Miss Dove’s bonnet and umbrella were not on the coat-tree by your office doors. We conducted a search, and she is nowhere within the building. Perhaps she is ill.”

  “Miss Dove is never ill. That’s a scientific fact, Tremayne, much like gravity and sunrises.”

  “She’s never late, either, sir. Yet she is not here, and I do not have a schedule.”

  The two men entered Harry’s office suite and paused beside Miss Dove’s desk. Harry observed that the desktop was devoid of anything save the inkstand and blotter which sat precisely in the center of the polished oak surface. Her typewriting machine was still cloaked in its leather cover. The hat rack was empty.

  “You see, my lord?” Tremayne spread his arms wide. “It doesn’t look as if she’s been here at all.”

  “Well, have Marsden ring her up and find out why she isn’t in.”

  “I don’t believe Miss Dove has a telephone,” the other man said doubtfully. “If she does, Marsden wouldn’t know what number to give the exchange.” He paused, then gave a cough. “Sir, what shall we do? I have to have that schedule.”

  Before Harry could address the problem, the door opened and Mr. Finch, in charge of the book division, entered the room. “My lord, Mr. Tremayne,” he greeted the other two men, then glanced at the desk behind them. “Miss Dove on an errand?”

  “My secretary is not here yet this morning, Mr. Finch,” Harry told him.

  The other man looked surprised, a feeling Harry understood quite well at this moment. “My lord, Miss Dove is always here first thing.”

  “Not today, it seems. I suppose you need something as well?”

  “Yes, sir. I’m in need of the book schedule for next year. Miss Dove brings it up to date every month. She’s so good at making certain the authors meet their deadlines, you know.”

  “Do you really need—”

  The door opened, interrupting Harry’s question, and Mr. Marsden came in. “There is a clerk from Ledbetter & Ghent downstairs, my lord. He says he is here to pick up some signed contracts?”

  “Hell!” Harry cast another look at his secretary’s desk, but there were no papers lying about. Miss Dove was supposed to have read those contracts over the weekend and have them ready for his signature this morning. “Wait here,” he told the other men and went into his office. Sure enough, the contracts were there, sitting in a neat pile in the center of his desk. An envelope, addressed to him in Miss Dove’s handwriting, lay atop them.

  Relieved to find those crucial contracts, Harry shoved the envelope aside and flipped through the pages of the legal documents to those lines requiring his signature. He signed them, then went back to the outer office. Dropping one copy on Miss Dove’s desk for her to docket it, he handed the other to Marsden. “Give that to Ledbetter’s clerk,” he ordered and returned his attention to the other two men.

  Tremayne spoke first. “My lord, I have to get the five evening editions assembled and ready to print by three o’clock. I can
’t do it without that schedule.”

  Harry rubbed a hand over his face, trying to think of a solution. “It might be in her desk somewhere. Go through the drawers and see if you can find it.”

  “What about my book list?” Finch asked. “If any author is going to be late completing a book, which they always are, you know, I need to know about it.”

  “Yes, yes, but do you really need to know today? Can’t this wait?”

  Finch began a long, involved explanation as to why waiting was not possible. In the midst of it, the door opened again, and in came Diana. “Harry, we have been waiting in the carriage forever. What on earth is taking you so long?”

  “It’s not here,” Tremayne said, shutting the bottom drawer of Miss Dove’s desk. “I’ve looked in every drawer and pigeonhole.”

  “My lord,” Finch said, “I am supposed to meet with the book publishing staff in a quarter of an hour.”

  “Harry,” Diana said, “Edmund’s yacht is to set sail at eleven o’clock. If you don’t hurry, we’re going to miss the party.”

  “Sir, I need Miss Dove’s schedule.” Tremayne rose from the desk. “Without it, I can’t—”

  “Enough,” he interrupted the flood of voices and turned his attention first to Tremayne. “There was a time when we managed to get our newspapers out in a timely manner without Miss Dove. I’m sure we can do so without her daily schedule. Go back down to the newsrooms and find a way to get those evening editions out on time, and I don’t care how you do it.” He turned his attention to the other man. “Mr. Finch, you don’t have to have the updated book schedule today, so go back down and postpone your meeting. And one of you find someone to locate Miss Dove.”

  As the two men departed, his sister spoke. “Miss Dove is missing?”

  “So it would seem.”

  “How very odd. It’s so unlike her, isn’t it? I hope nothing untoward has happened. She left no word she would not be working today?”