And Then He Kissed Her (6 page)

“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.”

M
iss 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? Respectable 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.”

“Irony?”

“Yes. I can see I must explain Barringer to
you. Though he is an earl and displays the pretense of being a gentleman, he is not. For all the high-minded airs he puts on, he is notoriously immoral in his private life. Barringer publishing etiquette books is like the devil giving a morality lecture.”

No hint of a smile, no appreciation of the irony crossed her face. “Your private life being such an excellent moral example, there would be no such irony if you published etiquette books?” She gave him no chance to reply to that. “In any case, Lord Barringer is not publishing my work as a book. I shall be writing a column for his weekly periodical, the
Social Gazette
. And though matters of etiquette will be of paramount importance in my dialogue, it is not the only topic I shall be discussing.”

Before she had even finished, Harry had already figured out what Barringer was up to. “He’s hired you to thumb his nose at me, of course. He loathes me, and knowing how much I depend upon you, he is enjoying the notion of stealing you away from me. A column allows him to flaunt his victory on a weekly basis.”

“I don’t suppose it’s possible his decision has nothing to do with you? That he has decided to publish my writing because it’s good?”

“Barringer wouldn’t know good writing if it bit him. He went to Oxford.”

She did not find that amusing. “The fact that you belittle Barringer’s ability to appreciate good writing does not surprise me. But I am baffled
by how you can denigrate my writing as not being good when you haven’t even read it!”

Harry had the feeling he was digging himself deeper into a hole with every moment, but he wasn’t going to lie to her about her work in order to extricate himself. “I read enough of it to know I wasn’t interested in publishing it.”

She rose to her feet, implying their conversation was at an end. “Then it shouldn’t bother you in the least that Lord Barringer chooses to do so.”

“That is not what bothers me.” He also stood up. “What bothers me is losing my secretary, a secretary who had no experience, no references, not even a letter of character when she first came to me, but to whom I gave the chance to prove her abilities.”

She gave an indignant huff. “How generous of you.”

“Damned right it was generous. Who else would have hired you? Who else would have paid you the same wage as a man? Who else would have given a mere secretary yearly bonuses at Christmas and Saturday afternoons free? No one. Barringer wouldn’t, that’s certain.”

“And in exchange for your so-called generosity, I have fulfilled my duties in exemplary fashion for five years! You’ve nothing in my conduct with which to find fault.”

“Nothing? You up and resign, having given no indication you were dissatisfied with your position, having told me nothing of your discontent.
You accept employment with my fiercest competitor, a man who despises me and would love nothing better than to worm confidential information out of my former secretary.”

“No one worms anything out of me, I can assure you!”

“And,” he went on, paying no heed to her words, “you commit this disloyalty without even having the good manners and sense of
etiquette
to give the customary fortnight’s notice of your departure.”

For the first time, Miss Dove had the grace to look a bit ashamed of herself. As well she should. “I regret that circumstances forbade my giving notice.” She turned and walked away. “I can only say,” she added over her shoulder as she paused by a window, “that my actions were dictated by the certain knowledge you will have no trouble replacing me.”

“Replace you? Woman, have you not yet comprehended why I’m here? Haven’t I made it plain enough? I don’t want to replace you. I want you to give up this notion of writing silly etiquette stuff for Barringer and come back to work for me where you belong.”

“What I write is not silly!” She whirled around, and her chin came up. The sun glinted off her hair. “Since you are speaking plainly, so shall I. What I write is important and useful, and I will not allow you to disparage it. As for where I belong, I have decided that it isn’t working for you! And who could blame me? I have been a loyal, reliable employee, doing everything required of
me and more, but in return I have been rewarded with nothing but more work.”