And Then He Kissed Her (10 page)

Neither of them spoke as he escorted her out of the office and down to the foyer. They paused by the front doors.

“I am going across the street to my offices,” he said, “but I can arrange for a hansom to take you home.”

“That isn’t necessary. I am sure the
Social Gazette
will do very well under your leadership. I hope so,” she added and meant it.

“Thank you. And I am confident you will easily find another publisher for your column.” He opened one of the front doors and after she had walked through, he followed her outside. “I shall see that you are compensated for the column you gave me today. I wish you every success, Miss Dove.” He bowed to her. “Good-bye.”

Emma watched Marlowe’s broad-shouldered back as he turned and walked away, and a heavy tightness pinched her chest. She told herself she had made a sensible decision. If she had agreed to write for him, allowed her work to be edited by him, it would have been a disaster, for they were like chalk and cheese. They should never agree on anything. She’d been very sensible to refuse.

There it was. That horrid word again.
Sensible
.

“Wait!” she cried and started after him.

He paused and turned at the corner, waiting as she approached and halted before him. “If we do this, what would be my compensation?”

This abrupt turnabout caused him to raise an eyebrow, but he didn’t question her sanity. “You would receive ten percent of the net advertising revenue for your section,” he answered.

She thought of all the times she’d negotiated merchants down to a reasonable price and decided this was no different. She decided she was going to ask for what she really deserved. “Fifty percent would be fair.”

“Fair is not a consideration. I am taking all the risk.”

“I’ve heard you say many times the higher the
risk, the higher the potential reward. And you love risk. You thrive on it. Besides, the
Gazette
has had a significant increase in popularity because of my writing, and I deserve to be rewarded for that.”

“Believe me, I have already paid dearly for that popularity, which might not last. The public has taken a fancy to you, granted, but that could be a transient thing, here today and gone tomorrow. If that happens, I’m the one who loses thousands of pounds. I’ll give you twenty percent.”

“Forty,” she countered. “I think I can keep the public’s interest for a long time to come.”

In for a penny, in for a pound, Emma.

“And since we are negotiating terms,” she rushed on, “I want it understood that regardless of your station or mine, regardless of our history, you will treat me as if I were your equal from this point on. I won’t make you coffee, and I won’t buy gifts on your behalf, and I won’t be responsible for whether or not you make meetings on time, ours or anyone else’s. And when it comes to the editorial decisions, you will have to trust my instincts, not yours.”

“I promise to keep an open mind, but if I feel you’re rambling on too long about tableware or printing too many pieces about Afternoon-at-Homes, I will have no compunction about saying so. I’ve never really critiqued your work as an editor would, but from now on you’ll receive detailed, honest criticism from me. I might seem glib to you, but I can be brutal when I need to be, so be prepared to take it on the chin, Miss Dove.
If you can do that, I’ll give you twenty-five percent. Are we agreed?”

She looked down at the hand he held out to her, a big hand with long, strong fingers. She might not like him much or approve of the way he lived his life, and she thought half of what he said was utter nonsense, but she knew one thing. When Marlowe shook hands on something, he kept his word. She clasped his hand in hers, and in doing so, she grabbed on to a dream bigger than any she could have imagined for herself. “Agreed.”

There was a reassuring strength in his grip, but she felt dizzy. This had happened so fast, she found it hard to take it all in.

He let go of her hand. “We’ll continue to adhere to a Saturday publication date. I’ll need four full pages of content from you each and every week. Can you do that?”

“I can do it.” With those words, all the exhilaration she’d felt upon first hearing his plans came flooding back. “What I can’t do is believe this is really happening.”

“Believe it, Miss Dove. I want to put out the first issue of the new
Social Gazette
three weeks from Saturday. Since your last column’s gone to press, and you just gave me one for the following week, I’ll need one more ordinary column for the interim period.” When she nodded, he went on, “I’ll also need an outline of your proposed content for our first issue by Monday. Once I approve it, you’ll have one week to give me the articles. I’ll need two days to go over them, so we’ll
meet on Wednesday to discuss my edits. Get your revised content to my secretary by Thursday night. I’ll approve it the following day before it goes to press. And bring me your outlines for the next issue the following Monday. Does all that make sense?”

She nodded.

“Good. From then on, we’ll meet on Mondays so you can submit your work and outlines, and on Wednesdays to discuss revising them. I hope that suits you?” Without waiting for an answer, he continued, “We’ll go over your first edits a week from Wednesday. I don’t have any engagements or appointments scheduled for that day as yet.” His brow creased with a frown. “At least, I don’t think I do. With the secretary I have now, I can never be quite sure.”

“What time shall we meet and where?”

“Nine o’clock in the morning. My office.”

She laughed. “Don’t be late.”

“Without you, I’m late for everything nowadays.” He glanced up and down the street, looking for a break in the heavy traffic so that he could cross. “But I shall do my best to be punctual, if only to improve your opinion of me.”

She turned away, but she’d barely taken half a dozen steps along the sidewalk before his voice called to her.

“Miss Dove?”

She looked over her shoulder to find him smiling at her.

“If you had stuck to your guns,” he said, “I’d have given you fifty percent.”

“If you had stuck to
your
guns,” she answered at once, “you’d only be paying ten.”

Harry gave a shout of laughter. By God, Miss Dove had wit. Who’d ever have thought it? He watched her as she started down the sidewalk, and he realized that was another facet of her character he’d never seen until now.

She’d been spot on about his assessment of her. He
had
thought her dry as dust, but her words of a moment ago and the grin that had accompanied them told Harry he’d been wrong about that, too. And about the appeal of her writing. In fact, he’d been wrong about a lot of things.

He’d always thought her rather plain, at least until the day she’d resigned and he had discovered there were red glints in her hair and gold sparks in her eyes. He thought of how she’d looked moments ago, breathless and laughing as she’d told him not to be late, and he realized that he’d never seen her laugh before. A great pity, that, for when laughter lit up Miss Dove’s face, she wasn’t plain at all.

One thing was clear. She didn’t like him. That took him back, rather. Women usually liked him. Without being unduly conceited, he knew that. On the other hand, Miss Dove was giving him cause to doubt a lot of the things he thought he knew.

It was obvious she had drawn some strong conclusions about his character over the years—his flaws, in particular, and he’d had no idea of
it. She disapproved of him, yet she had worked for him for five years. Why?

Intrigued, Harry studied her slim, straight back as she walked away, and it occurred to him that in this new equal relationship they were supposed to have, he was at a distinct disadvantage. She had made a far greater study of him than he had of her.

It was clear he was going to have to even things up in that regard and do some studying of his own. His gaze lowered speculatively to the curve of her hips. All in the name of equality, of course.

M
iss Dove was always efficient, and Harry was not surprised when he received all her articles for their first issue three days early. After reading them, he realized two things. First, she truly could write. Second, no matter how excellent her descriptions, no matter how warm and friendly her narrative, he would never, ever understand why napkin rings made out of lavender fronds or what young ladies were allowed to eat at dinner parties made for interesting reading.

Still, because of her already-proven success, he
used as light a hand as possible in editing her work, and he tried to keep an open mind about the content, but he did have some definite criticisms for her that needed to be addressed, as well as some significant changes he wanted made, and he decided to return her work to her for revision as quickly as possible to give her more time. He could have accomplished this by messenger, but he decided it would be much better for their new spirit of cooperation if he explained his opinions and suggestions in person.

When he called at her flat Saturday afternoon, however, he found that a meeting to discuss her work might not be possible. She appeared to be in the midst of redecorating. The door leading into her flat was open, and the smell of fresh paint was in the air. When he paused in the doorway, he found that the walls were now a pale robin’s-egg blue with cream-colored moldings, and a new carpet of gold, cream, aubergine, and teal had been laid over the center of the wooden floor. She had removed one of the settees and rearranged her furnishings in order to make room for a cherrywood desk and matching chair.

During this redecoration, however, she had not abandoned her flair for the exotic. A small teak table, its base carved in the shape of an elephant stood beside her desk, and on it reposed an enormous vase filled with peacock feathers.

As for Miss Dove herself, she was standing on a ladder before one of her front windows, hanging a length of heavy teal-blue silk onto a cherry-
wood rod. The other window along that wall was open and already boasted a similar drapery, which rustled in the warm June breeze.

She made a sound of vexation, and Harry watched her as she rose on her tiptoes and lifted her arms overhead. Curling one hand around the rod to keep herself steady, she used the other to tug at the drapery, which had caught somehow on the bracket. Her efforts, however, seemed to be in vain. Harry set down his dispatch case and started toward her, thinking to assist, but something stopped him halfway across the room.

Her position in the tall window, with her arms raised above her head and the late afternoon sun pouring in, made the silhouette of her upper body plainly visible through the white linen of her shirtwaist. He could see the lines of her torso tapering to her narrow waist. When she turned sideways on the ladder and stretched her arm toward the edge of the rod, he caught a glimpse of her body in profile, including the small, unmistakable swell of her breast.

Suddenly Harry couldn’t move. He felt riveted to the floor, and he could only stare at her as the slow burn of arousal began spreading through his body. Before he knew what was happening, his mind was conjuring up images of Miss Dove that were far more specific than the silhouette framed in the window. He’d always preferred voluptuous women, but the modest curves Miss Dove possessed began to seem damned luscious in his imagination.

He tried to collect his wits. He reminded himself this was Miss Dove he was looking at. Miss Dove, who was straitlaced and buttoned-down and smothered in rules. Miss Dove, who didn’t like him, who disapproved of him, who thought him dissolute. He couldn’t refute that description at this moment, for some very dissolute thoughts were going through his mind.

His gaze skimmed down the length of her dark brown skirt, then traveled slowly back up. She had to have beautiful legs. If they were long enough to need that much fabric to cover them, they had to be quite fine. He’d speculated about her legs once or twice since she’d first come to work for him, but this time Harry allowed his thoughts to become much more detailed. He began to envision shapely thighs and pretty knees.

She shifted her weight on the ladder, her skirt swaying with her effort to free the drapery, and Harry took a step closer, giving her backside a most ungentlemanlike study. With all the froufrous women wore under their clothes, it was hard to be certain, but after due consideration, Harry decided the curve of Miss Dove’s hips wasn’t due to any sort of padding.

“Oh, hell and damnation!”

Her frustrated exclamation was so unexpected, it shattered the fantasies Harry’s imagination had been conjuring, and it was so out of keeping with her strict notions of propriety that he laughed in surprise.

She turned sharply at the sound, the ladder rocked, and she almost fell off. “Careful, Miss
Dove,” he admonished, and came to her side. He put a hand on the ladder to steady it.

“The curtain is stuck,” she said and moved as if to have another go at loosening it.

“Don’t,” he ordered. “Come down from there, and let me do it.”

Before she could descend on her own, he put his hands on her waist, thinking to be chivalrous and lift her down. But the moment he touched her, he forget that intent and his thoughts became much less noble. His forearms brushed the sides of her hips, and another wave of desire shimmered through his body. He’d been right. She was wearing a petticoat or two, maybe, and a corset, definitely, but no padding. He slid his hands down an inch or two, grasping her hips, and his thumbs brushed the base of her spine. There might not be much to Miss Dove, but what she had was genuine.

His hands tightened, and he leaned closer, breathing deeply of talcum powder and fresh cotton, pristine, maidenly scents he’d never dreamt could be erotic until now. If he moved one inch closer, he’d be kissing—

“My lord?”

Good God, what was he doing? Harry shoved lusty thoughts of kissing Miss Dove’s backside out of his mind at once and reminded himself that he was a gentleman. He lifted her down from the ladder, set her on her feet, and then, reluctantly, he let her go.

She turned around, but she didn’t look into his eyes. She stared straight ahead, looking at
his chin. Her cheeks were pink, and she was frowning.

Probably because she wanted to slap his face for manhandling her as if she were a wench in an East End pub and he were a longshoreman. He’d deserve the reprimand, no doubt, but he couldn’t regret the cause. Harry gave her another long study, from the coppery sun-glints in her brown hair all the way down to the toes of her hideous, high-button shoes, then back up again, ending his perusal at the tip of her freckle-dusted nose. No, he didn’t regret it a jot. He wished he could manhandle her again. And that was stupid.

Five years of having a female secretary, and he’d always been able to shove away any lascivious thoughts about Miss Dove that had occasionally crossed his mind. He’d managed to do it, in fact, without any serious effort. But at this moment it was proving far more difficult. He couldn’t explain it, but something had changed between them.

He knew he had to put aside these inexplicable new notions about Miss Dove and get his priorities back in order. She wasn’t his secretary any longer, but they were about to engage in a venture that could be highly profitable, and he had no intention of messing that up. He took a deep breath and pointed to the ladder behind her. “If you move aside, I shall endeavor to solve your problem.”

She finally looked into his eyes. “Hmm? What?”

Instead of repeating himself, he put his hands on her arms and gently moved her out of the way, then he ascended the ladder and freed the drapery ring from where it had gotten hung up on the bracket. When he came back down, she was still frowning, and he decided a bit of levity might not go amiss.

“Hell and damnation?” he teased, ducking his head to look into her face.

“I beg your pardon?”

“Hell and damnation. That’s what you said.”

She gave a huff of vexation, her frown deepening. She pulled at the cuffs of her shirtwaist rather in the manner of a disapproving nursery governess. “Don’t be ridiculous. I didn’t say any such thing.”

“You did. I heard your words distinctly.” He shook his head and made a sound of
tsk-tsk.
“Such language from London’s greatest arbiter of proper decorum. What would people say?”

“Well, I didn’t know you were standing there!”

“You only swear when you’re alone, then?”

“I don’t swear.” The absurdity of that statement made him grin, and she went on, “Well, I don’t! Not usually.”

“Your secret is safe with me,” he went on in breezy disregard of her denial. “I won’t tell anyone you curse like a Blackpool sailor.”

“It was just that the curtain wouldn’t move, and I couldn’t reach it where it was caught, and I was so frustrated and then…and then…Oh, dear.” She pressed three fingers to her forehead,
looking thoroughly unhappy with herself. “It was very wrong of me,” she said on a sigh. “Very wrong.”

Harry couldn’t imagine what it would be like to be wound so tight that an occasional slip of the tongue could be cause for such self-reproach. “Enough of this, Miss Dove. You take things far too seriously, you know, and really need to laugh more. To advance that end, I could make jokes. Oh, but no, that won’t do,” he added, tongue in cheek. “My jokes are not amusing. At least, so I’ve been told.”

She gave him a wry look, but there was a promising curve to one corner of her mouth. Encouraged, he went on, “Perhaps you should tell jokes to me.” He leaned a bit closer to her, adopting a confidential air. “Know any naughty ones?”

She looked away, pressing the smile from her lips before she returned her gaze to his. “If you’ve teased me enough for one day,” she said in the brisk, no-nonsense fashion he was used to, “perhaps you should tell me why you are here.”

“I have finished reading your work, and I wanted to discuss it with you.”

“Oh.” She shifted her weight from one foot to the other, looking uncomfortable. “I thought our meeting for revision was to be on Wednesday. In your office.”

“It is, but I was so overcome by curiosity, I couldn’t wait.”

“Curiosity?”

“Yes. I have to know why young ladies are only allowed to eat the wings of a chicken at dinner.”

“At dinner parties,” she corrected.

He pretended to be enlightened. “Ah, that explains it. Now I understand.”

She bit her lip, studying him in obvious uncertainty. “Are you teasing me again?”

“I’m not, I assure you. I’ve been racking my brain trying to think of a reason for this custom, and I’ve given up in despair.”

“You came all the way across town so that I could explain why young ladies eat chicken wings?”

“And because the revisions I am going to suggest are fairly extensive and might take some time. Not that I’m going to shred you to ribbons or anything,” he added, noticing her expression of uncertainty deepening into worry. “But I did think you might be glad of some additional time to complete them.”

“I see.” She glanced past him, then walked to the door and closed it, reminding him of her nosy landlady.

“No one saw me come up,” he said before she could ask.

“Good.” She turned around, flattening back against the door. “This is a lodging house exclusively for women. You shouldn’t really be up here.” She gave an awkward half laugh. “People can be so silly, you know. Ladies, especially. They gossip, and think things. I should hate for anyone to see you and think…that you and I…
that we are…” She straightened away from the door and her chin came up. She met his gaze. “I should not wish anyone to believe I entertain men in my rooms. I am not that sort of woman.”

At this moment, Harry rather wished she were just that sort of woman, but he didn’t think it would be wise to say so. “Does it matter what other people think?”

“Of course it matters.” She stared at him in disbelief. “Don’t you think it matters?”

“No. Why should I? More to the point, why should you? You just said people are silly to be thinking things and gossiping about nothing. Why are you are wasting a moment caring about their opinions?”

“Because…well…because…oh, it just matters, that’s all. They might think we’re having a…an amour!”

She looked so appalled, Harry didn’t have the heart to tell her that dozens of people in London had come to that conclusion long ago about Viscount Marlowe and his female secretary. “If that sort of gossip got to your landlady, would she toss you out?”

Miss Dove considered that for a moment. “No, but she would have a long, heart-to-heart talk with me.”

“She takes quite a keen interest in your affairs.”

“Mrs. Morris is a bit of a fussbudget, and overly protective, but she was a dear friend of my aunt, and she has known me for years. I have a care for her opinion.”

“If she’s known you for years, then she ought to be convinced of your good character by now. If she’s not, the worst that happens is that you have to abandon a friendship with someone who clearly wasn’t much of a friend to begin with. And find a new flat, too, of course.”

“That’s bad enough,” she said with a touch of humor. “Do you know how difficult it is to obtain an affordable flat in London nowadays?”

“You and I are going to be making so much money, you won’t care.”

She tilted her head, giving him a thoughtful look. “What if we don’t make any money?”

Harry dismissed that notion with a laugh. “We will make money. Trust me on that.”

“How can you possess such confidence?” Before he could answer, she went on, “I’ve seen you lose money before.”

“I’m not saying it never happens, but I don’t think it will in this case.”

“You never think it will. That’s my point. And when it does, you always shrug it off as if it doesn’t matter.” She gestured to him with an up-and-down wave of her hand. “I’ve seen you lose thousands of pounds on a deal without letting it affect you. You always think you’ll make it up somewhere else.”

“I always do, don’t I?”

“Yes, but that won’t be of any use to me.”

“You worry too much.” He walked over to her and put his hands on her arms. “It never does any good to dwell on what could go wrong. There is risk in everything.”