And Then He Kissed Her Read online

  “No. At least—” Harry broke off, remembering the letter on his desk. “Perhaps she did.”

  He returned to his office. Leaning over his desk, he picked up the envelope and broke the wax seal, then scanned the lines of the note Miss Dove had left for him. Its message was clear, concise, and completely unbelievable.

  “What on earth?” Harry read the missive again, but there was no misunderstanding the message contained in the five lines typed on the sheet. Her neat signature was penned in ink at the bottom.

  “What is it?”

  He looked up to find Diana standing in the doorway. “She resigned,” he said, unable to believe it even as he said it. “Miss Dove resigned.”

  “She did? Let me see.” Diana crossed the room, took the letter, and read it. Then she looked at him, and to Harry’s irritation, she was smiling. “You seem shocked, dear brother.”

  “Of course I’m shocked. Should I not be?”

  “Well, Harry, not to be critical, but I wouldn’t want to work for you.”

  “Miss Dove never complained.”

  “Yet she was unhappy enough to resign.”

  “What does her happiness have to do with anything? I don’t pay her to be happy.” He snatched the letter back. “She came here originally to apply for a post as a typist. In giving Miss Dove the position as my secretary, I did her a great favor. I hired a woman, and a woman with no experience in secretarial duties, at that. I pay her a salary far greater than she could ever expect to receive anywhere else. She can be happy on her own time.”

  “You only hired her to prove a point in the House,” Diana reminded him. “Remember? You were suggesting how society might solve the problem of surplus women by promoting that radical idea of yours that my sex be allowed to earn our way in the world so men don’t have to marry us and take care of us. So absurd.”

  “It is not absurd. It’s a sound idea, with—”

  “And why?” she went on, ignoring him. “All because you are cynical about the institution of marriage.”

  “I am not cynical!” he shot back before remembering there was just no arguing with Diana about this topic. He returned to the matter at hand. “The point is that I gave Miss Dove an opportunity no one else would have given her. I picked her at random out of a host of applicants. And after five satisfactory years, she up and resigns. With no reason, no warning, no notice.” Harry began to feel quite nettled. “How could she do this to me after all I’ve done for her? Where is her loyalty?”

  “I don’t see why this is such a problem for you. Get another secretary. You should easily be able to find one. Ring up an agency or something.”

  “I have no intention of finding another secretary. I am quite satisfied with the one I have.”

  “Had,” his sister corrected. “She resigned.”

  “I refuse to accept her resignation, and when I find her, I’m going to tell her so. She’s not allowed to leave me.”

  “Bullying her? Oh, yes, that’s sure to bring her back straightaway.”

  Harry glared at his sister’s smiling face. “Do you have a better suggestion?”

  “Since I can’t imagine any woman with sense working for you in the first place, I’ve little advice to offer. But you might start by determining why she resigned. There must be a reason to make her do so without giving notice.”

  “A reason?” That took Harry aback. He paused, considering the matter. “I did reject her new manuscript.”

  “You’ve done that before, haven’t you?”

  “Yes, but this time she seemed to take it particularly hard. I’ll wait a day or two, then I’ll go see her. That should give her enough time to get over her hurt feelings.”

  “If that’s her reason for resigning.”

  Harry paid no attention. He was following out his own train of thought. “She’s a sensible sort of person,” he reasoned, tapping the letter against his palm as he spoke. “Not at all prone to irrational, spur-of-the-moment decisions such as this. Two days should give her enough time to realize she made a mistake. She’ll probably be relieved I’ve come to offer her back her post. She’ll be grateful for the chance to rectify her mistake.”

  “Grateful?”

  “I’ll tell her there’s no hard feelings, offer her a raise, and that should settle things.”

  Diana burst into merry laughter. Turning away, she started for the door.

  “What is so amusing?” he demanded.

  “Let me know how well your plan succeeds, will you?” She reached for the door handle. “I take it you’re not coming to Edmund’s water party?” Without waiting for an answer, Diana departed, closing the door behind her.

  Emma told herself not to be nervous. She kept her hands folded firmly on top of the stack of Mrs. Bartleby manuscripts in her lap, tried not to fidget in her chair, and refused to think about the fact that her entire future could hang on what happened today.

  This was not the safe thing to do. It was not the sensible thing to do. But she was over being safe and sensible.

  Two days ago in that little shop on Regent Street, she had fallen apart. After spending the night of her thirtieth birthday hugging her pillow and crying on Mr. Pigeon’s furry shoulder, she had put herself back together. By Sunday morning, she’d known just what she had to do. After church ser vices and some serious prayers for divine assistance, she had gone to the publishing house, typed her letter of resignation, and put it on Marlowe’s desk.

  It was wrong, she knew, not to have given the proper fortnight’s notice, but fourteen days would have given her too much time to think things over, too much time to talk herself out of her decision and let Marlowe talk her into staying. Now it was Monday, he had the letter, and there was no going back.

  This was the dawn of a new day, and a new Emma Dove. Never again was she going to sit by while life went on around her. Never again was she going to wait for fate to hand her what she wanted. From now on, she was going to reach out and grab her dreams and not let go.

  She had never been more scared in her life.

  “Miss Dove?”

  She looked up. The clerk she had spoken with upon her arrival was standing by the stairs, waiting for her. “Follow me.”

  Emma rose to her feet, trying to quell the jittery quivers in her tummy. One arm wrapped around her manuscripts, she followed the clerk up the stairs and into a reception room, where another man, clearly a secretary, was seated behind a desk. The clerk departed, and the secretary stood up. He gestured to an open doorway behind his desk. “You may go in, miss.”

  She stared at the doorway for a moment, then took a deep breath and stepped past the secretary into a large office every bit as expensively furnished as Marlowe’s, though perhaps it was a bit too overcrowded to be a truly efficient place to work.

  “Miss Dove?” A tall, exceptionally handsome man came around his desk and walked toward her, smiling. “It is a pleasure to meet you at last.”

  “At last, sir?” She watched in astonishment as he bent over her hand and kissed it.

  “Everyone around Fleet Street knows of Marlowe’s extraordinary female secretary. I’ve heard a great deal about you, Miss Dove,” he added, retaining her hand in his, “and all of it has been complimentary.”

  Emma was growing more astonished by the moment. “I wish I could say the same,” she murmured, “but though I have heard a great deal about you from Lord Marlowe, sir, none of it has been complimentary.”

  Lord Barringer threw back his head and laughed. “Of that, I have no doubt.”

  Chapter 5

  When it comes to women, a gentleman must learn to expect the unexpected. It’s what so often happens.

  Lord Marlowe

  The Bachelor’s Guide, 1893

  Miss Dove’s lodgings were in Holborn, where blocks of flats formed a respectable neighborhood along Little Russell Street. Harry paused in front of number 32, a tidy brick building with lace curtains. A small, hand-painted sign in the window declared that a parlor flat was
available to be let, but only to women of good character. A pair of potted red geraniums flanked a freshly painted door of dark green. The door’s brass knocker and handle gleamed in the late afternoon sunlight.

  Just the sort of place where a paragon like Miss Dove would live, he thought as he entered the building. The foyer seemed a bit dark after the brightness outside, but the pleasant scent of lemon soap told him the inside was as pristine as the outside. As his eyes adjusted to the dim interior, he could see that to his left was a parlor. To his right, a staircase with a wrought-iron railing curved upward, forming a sort of alcove where there was a large oak desk. Behind it, on the staircase wall, numbered cubicles held messages and letters for the tenants.

  No landlady or servant seemed to be about, but Harry needed no assistance. He confirmed the number of Miss Dove’s flat from the cubicles on the wall, then ascended the steps to the fourth floor and emerged onto a landing where the doors to flats 11 and 12 stood opposite each other and another set of stairs led to the roof.

  Behind number 12, he heard the familiar rhythmic tap of a typewriting machine. When he knocked, the typing stopped, and a few moments later the door opened.

  “Lord Marlowe?” She seemed surprised to see him, though why she should be surprised, he had no idea. She must have known the impact her sudden departure would have. Even if she didn’t appreciate the havoc that had ensued after her departure, Harry certainly did. Throughout the day, members of his staff had come to him in a constant stream, clamoring for schedules and reports and all sorts of other things Miss Dove usually provided for them, things Harry didn’t even know existed but which his staff couldn’t seem to function without. He’d intended to wait a couple of days before coming to see her, but after only eight hours, it had become clear waiting wasn’t going to work. He needed her back at her desk first thing tomorrow, or his staff would likely mutiny.

  He doffed his hat and bowed. “Miss Dove.”

  “What are you doing here?” She glanced at the watch pinned to her starched white shirtwaist. “It is now half-past six. Did Lord Rathbourne’s yachting party end early?”

  “I didn’t go.” He held up her letter. “My secretary resigned. Because of that, my offices are now in utter chaos, the evening editions were late getting out, and I missed the boat, so to speak.”

  “I am sorry to hear that.”

  She didn’t look sorry. She looked…damn it all, she looked pleased. There seemed to be a tiny curve to one corner of her mouth, indicating she was actually taking pleasure in his difficulties. Harry thought of the hellish day he and his staff had experienced, and he could not share her amusement.

  “I can see you find our distress at your absence gratifying, Miss Dove.”

  “Not at all.” A polite, perfunctory response, and also a lie. She was pleased as punch.

  “If you’re not gratified, you should be,” he told her as he tucked the letter back in the breast pocket of his jacket. “All the other members of my staff were running around like panicked rabbits without you.”

  “But not you, I am sure.”

  “I was too astonished to panic. Your resignation was most unexpected.”

  “Was it?” That glimmer of satisfaction in her expression vanished, and a queer sort of hardness took its place.

  “Yes.” He gestured to the interior of her flat. “Might I have a moment with you to discuss it?”

  “It’s a straightforward resignation. What is there to discuss?”

  “After five years, does not courtesy allow at least a conversation on the topic?”

  She hesitated, and her lack of enthusiasm was not an encouraging sign. He might have been precipitate, he might not have given her enough time to think over the consequences of her action, but it could not be helped.

  “Did anyone see you come up?” she asked, glancing past him. “My landlady? A servant?”

  “No.” He remembered the sign in the window, and the implications of her question dawned on him, but the impression his visit might leave on an overly inquisitive landlady or her servants or any of the women who lived here didn’t concern him half as much as losing his secretary. “No one saw me, Miss Dove. But if I linger out here in the corridor, someone eventually will.”

  She opened the door wider to let him in. “Very well. You may come in for a few moments, but when you leave, please try not to let anyone see you. I do not wish anyone to think…think things.”

  The parlor of her flat surprised him, for it was unlike any he’d ever seen. It was unconventional, to say the least, with a hint of the exotic about it. Brass incense pots decorated the mantel, a copper boiler pot held coal, a big round basket overflowed with colorful pillows, and a Turkish carpet covered the floor. There were two overstuffed settees of cream-colored velvet, and between them a round leather ottoman which, oddly enough, seemed to act as a tea table, for reposing upon it was an enameled tea set.

  Bronze chintz draperies bracketed a pair of windows that lit the room with afternoon sun. Between those windows stood a glass-fronted bookcase lined with volumes and a dark walnut cabinet with an inordinate number of drawers and compartments. At the far end of the room, an elaborately carved oak door led into another part of the flat. Beside it, a French window led to the fire escape and a drop-leaf table held a typewriting machine. The parlor was separated from a small alcove by a painted wooden screen. Though the flat was small, the effect was one of almost sumptuous comfort, not at all the sort of living quarters he would have imagined for the no-nonsense Miss Dove.

  Something brushed his leg and he looked down to find an enormous cat at his feet. Too chubby to walk between his ankles, it twined around him, rubbing its body against his legs, no doubt depositing quantities of orange cat hair all over his gray wool trousers.

  Harry eyed it with dismay. “You have a cat.”

  “That’s Mr. Pigeon.” She sat down on one of the settees and gestured for him to sit opposite her.

  The moment he sat down and put aside his hat, the animal jumped into his lap. Rather amazed that such a huge cat could jump anywhere, he watched as it curled up in his lap and began to purr with gusto.

  “He likes you,” Miss Dove said, sounding surprised.

  “Yes,” Harry answered with an unhappy sigh. He had long ago accepted the fact that cats adored him. The reason, of course, was because both God and cats had the same perverse sense of humor. When the animal buried its claws in his thigh and began to knead with happy abandon, he set his jaw and bore it. “Mr. Pigeon? Rather fitting for you to choose that name, Miss Dove. Both birds, you know.”

  “Oh, that isn’t why I named him Mr. Pigeon. It’s because he stalks the pigeons on the roof. Always has, even when he was a tiny kitten. Whenever he catches one, he brings it down the fire escape for me.”

  “How sweet.” What bloodthirsty creatures cats were, really. He tried to adopt a jovial attitude. “Eats quite a few of those pigeons, too, by the look of him.”

  “Are you saying my cat is fat?”

  “Not at all,” he lied and decided a change of subject was in order. “Miss Dove,” he said, pushing the terror of the rooftop pigeons off his lap as gently as possible, “I have come to offer the olive branch, as it were. I know you must be upset by my rejection of your manuscript, but you know I have to be true to my instincts in matters of this kind.”

  “Of course.”

  “I cannot publish what I do not believe will make a profit.” He smiled gently. “I would be a sad man of business indeed, if I made such unwise decisions.”

  “Certainly.”

  There was a long silence, and Harry began to feel as if he were pushing a boulder uphill, but he persevered. “I appreciate that you are upset in your feelings and perhaps discouraged by my response to your writing, but surely that does not warrant resigning your post.”

  “Amazing that you possess such an intimate knowledge of my feelings.”

  Harry decided to change tactics. “What will you do now? Where will you go? Resp
ectable employment, particularly for women, is not easy to come by nowadays.” He gestured to their surroundings. “It is certain no other employer in London will pay you enough to afford you a parlor flat like this one.”

  “My lord—”

  “But even should you find another post at a wage that does not force you to move, what if you are unhappy with your next situation? Or your employer does not treat you well?” He put on an air of gentlemanly concern. “The world can be a hard place for a woman alone, Miss Dove. What will happen to you? Without me, your future is very uncertain, you know.”

  “How kind you are to be so concerned about my future.” The inflection of sarcasm in her voice was becoming more pronounced.

  “I am concerned for both of us if you do not come back,” he replied. “And I am concerned for my staff. They value you as much as I.”

  She smiled at him. “There is no need for you or anyone else at Marlowe Publishing to worry about me or my future. You see, I have already secured a new position.”

  Harry sat up straighter on the settee. “What? Already?”

  “Yes. I am now working for Lord Barringer.”

  “Barringer?” He was appalled. “That pompous, self-righteous hypocrite?”

  Her smile widened into what he could only describe as a smug, satisfied grin. “The very one.”

  He shook his head, knowing full well what she said was impossible. “Barringer hired himself a female secretary? I don’t believe it.”

  “He did not engage me to be his secretary. He is going to publish my writing.”

  Harry began to laugh. He couldn’t help it, the idea was so absurd.

  Miss Dove, of course, did not appreciate the humor as much as he did. She stopped smiling, her eyes narrowed, and he smothered his laughter at once. “Forgive me. I fear you have misinterpreted the reason for my amusement, Miss Dove. It stems from the irony of the situation.”