No Nice Girl (16 page)

“And thoroughly enjoyed it,” said Kenyon shamelessly. “After the way she has behaved toward you, it was a pleasure.”

Anice turned her eyes away, lest he see in them more than she was as yet willing to reveal.

“But—but—oh, darling, I've brought you so much worry and bother,” she stammered, her voice soft with unshed tears. “I know how you loathe jilting Mrs. Lawrence. And Phyllis was such a good secretary, how can you manage without her?”

Kenyon laughed indulgently and patted her knee again.

“Bless your little heart, Miss Gordon was not essential—by no means indispensable—and I do not wish to employ a woman whose morals are loose.” He broke off and said tenderly, “And if I had to close my offices and retire, I'd rather do it than keep a woman on who had been as despicable to you as she has been.”

Anice smiled at him dewily, and said huskily, “I shall just have to be terribly sweet to you all my life, darling, to make up for being such a bother.”

“That's a promise,” said Kenyon youthfully, and parked the car in front of the austerely beautiful apartment house whose two top floors were his town house.

A bellboy, looking pained at seeing the building's most important tenant belittling his dignity by carrying a small, shabby suitcase, whisked it from his hand and ushered them into an elevator. In front of the door of the apartment, Kenyon pressed his finger on the bell, turned and lifted Anice into his arms. The door opened and the butler almost forgot his years of training as his usually dignified employer stepped across the threshold, carrying in his arms a slight blond girl in a simple dark frock.

Kenyon had no shame, the butler discovered, as pained at his employer's lack of dignity as the bellboy had been. Kenyon kissed the blond girl before he set her on her feet, and then turned to the butler and said, with a youthful air that struck the butler as bordering on the
gruesome, “Somers, this is Mrs. Rutledge, my wife. Hereafter, you will take your orders from her.”

Somers maintained his imperturbable air with an effort that made the sweat break out upon his plump, well-fed body, but he managed a faint, “Yes, sir—very good, sir.”

“Convey the news to the staff, Somers,” said Kenyon crisply. “And ask Mrs. Clarke to come in.”

Somers all but tottered away. In the servants' hall, he mopped the sweat from his brow and faced his subordinates with the air of one who delivers a bombshell to make the atom bomb sound like a five-cent firecracker.

“The master is home for lunch,” he announced solemnly. “And he's brought the new Mrs. Rutledge with him.”

There was a moment of stunned silence, and then Mrs. Clarke demanded sharply, “You mean he and Mrs. Lawrence
eloped
?”

Somers, who disliked her heartily and had conducted a somewhat acrimonious feud with her for so long both would have missed it if they had ever ended it, said grimly, “The new Mrs. Rutledge is not the former Mrs. Lawrence. She's the—er—young person you put to sleep in the maid's room, Mrs. Clarke, and asked to breakfast with the servants. The master would like you to come to the library, Mrs. Clarke. I wouldn't stop to pack. He'll probably give you long enough notice to do that before you leave. You, too, Gertie. I remember how much you enjoyed ‘telling the little tramp off' when the—er—present Mrs. Rutledge was here last.”

Mrs. Clarke stared at him as though she could not believe her ears; then she went out of the room, the swinging door rocking behind her.

Gertrude said, wide-eyed, “So the boss married the little chippie.”

Somers drew himself erect, and his tone and his manner were both severe.

“Gertrude, you will kindly refrain from speaking disrespectfully of the mistress!”

“Gawd!” said Gertrude simply.

In the doorway of the library, Mrs. Clarke said coolly, “You sent for me, Mr. Kenyon?”

Kenyon, his arm about Anice, looked up and frowned.

“Yes, I did. This is Mrs. Rutledge, Mrs. Clarke. You will take your orders from her in the future,” said Kenyon curtly. “And I expect you to do everything possible to make her completely comfortable.”

Safe in the circle of his arms, her face turned toward Mrs. Clarke so that Kenyon could not see her expression, Anice gave Mrs. Clarke a long, significant glance and her red mouth curled in a little satisfied smile, while her eyes glinted with malice.

And Mrs. Clarke, looking into that lovely, spiteful face, knew that she was defeated before ever she began to fight.

S
PURRED BY THE WHIPLASH
of anger against Kenyon's injustice, Phyllis made short work of clearing out her desk. She did not stop to think how little of herself she had brought into the office where she had given of her strength and her devotion and five years of time. She did not stop to think of anything except giving any of the curious thirty or forty people in the big outer office any inclination of the reason for her going.

For the last time she went down in the elevator, out into the street. Behind her the outer office thought nothing except that she was going to lunch, a little late but nothing out of the ordinary.

Her apartment was like a haven of refuge, though she was unaccustomed to it at that hour of a weekday. She went about opening windows, turning on the electric fan to freshen the air. She went into her bedroom, got out of her office clothes, and had a brisk shower. Clad in a thin, cool housecoat, she rummaged in the icebox for food. A salad, a glass of iced tea—anything. It was quite sufficient, for she had no idea what she was eating.

She was still dazed and incredulous. Anice married to Kenyon! Married to him! It was incredible, yet it had happened. For the first time, with a feeling of letting an active dog off a leash, Phyllis gave full rein to her thoughts, and the puzzle deepened.

How in heaven's name had Anice managed it? Working in the big outer office, one among a dozen or more girls, how had she so impressed herself on Kenyon's consciousness that she had succeeded in marrying him? And with the further complication of his engagement to Letty, in every way so suitable for a position in society as Mrs. Kenyon Rutledge? Phyllis had looked upon Letty's beauty, her sleek sophistication, her inherent charm, and had felt her own love for Kenyon completely and utterly hopeless. Yet Anice had married him!

Out of her bewilderment came the memory of things Kenyon—his voice hard with anger, his face cold and set—had said to her.

“Did you know that I found her here in my office one night, because she had no place else to go?”

Startled, Phyllis went back over that statement. She had been too dazed, too stunned to take in all its implications when Kenyon had hurled the accusation at her. He had said something, too, about Anice spending a night riding in the subway. Phyllis could not believe that. She knew that Anice had gone straight from her apartment to the woman's hotel where she had stayed ever since. Yet she had managed to convince Kenyon that she was homeless, and that she had
had
to take refuge in his office. Phyllis nodded to herself thoughtfully. That must have been where Anice had got in her winning work. She and Kenyon had been alone in his luxuriously furnished office—perhaps Anice had been in some revealing garment. Phyllis nodded slowly. Yes, she knew Anice so well she could all but visualize that scene. And Kenyon, his sense of chivalry aroused by this pathetic child…“Oh, the damned fool!” said Phyllis furiously. “The utter damned fool! To be taken in by her.”

Yet that was not quite fair, either. Few men could
have resisted Anice; Phyllis herself had been taken in by her over and over again. It would be child's play for Anice to wind an impressionable man around her finger—and for all his wealth and his social prominence, Kenyon
was
a bit of a fool where women were concerned. If Anice could convince him that she was forlorn, friendless, penniless…Yes, of course, that must be the way it had happened.

Phyllis examined her own emotions now in the light of that day's thunderclap of revelations. She had gone on for so long believing herself hopelessly in love with Kenyon. She knew now that it was nothing more than a physical appeal; he would have bored her to tears eventually. She admitted now, as she had admitted before, that the only man she really loved, or wanted to marry, was Terry McLean. And her pretty mouth curled bitterly at the thought. When she had had Terry, body and soul and heart and mind, she had turned away from him and gone crying after Kenyon. But the moment Terry had told her of Eleanor Adams and his hope of marrying the girl, Phyllis had awakened with a bitter shock to the truth—too late! It served her right, she told herself furiously; she had only her own stupidity, her bewildered heart to blame! But that didn't make her any happier about it!

When, in the early evening, she opened her door to the sound of the doorbell, she was not surprised to find Terry there. He had been in her mind and in her heart so vividly that seeing him there was only to be expected.

She did not know that she blushed or that her eyes sparkled as she said eagerly, “Why, Terry, how nice. Come in.”

She went about the room switching on the shaded lamps, and Terry stood just inside the doorway watch
ing her. When she turned to him, surprised that he had made no move, he said grimly, “Sitting in the dark, were you, eating your heart out? It's about what I expected.”

Phyllis' eyes widened.

“I don't know what you mean.”

He held up a copy of an afternoon tabloid with the tall headline she had expected—and dreaded. The tab had made a Roman holiday of the marriage of the multi-millionaire to a lovely blonde in his own office, while his socially prominent fiancée had been forgotten.

“I thought perhaps you'd be here by yourself, crying your eyes out,” he said, and flung the paper from him with fury. “So the little bitch put it over! I hand it to her—she's
good
!”

Phyllis laughed, but it was a rather unsteady laugh.

“Of course, Terry—she's good. She's a very nice girl—remember? She told us so,” she reminded him.

Terry studied her with a curious intensity.

“Rough on Mrs. Lawrence,” he commented.

“I suppose so,” admitted Phyllis slowly. “But she's a very grand person, Terry. If Kenyon Rutledge could do a thing like this to her, then it's better that she should know before they're married.”

Terry said shortly, “I hope she can realize that, and you, too.”

Phyllis looked at him, wide-eyed.

“What's it got to do with me, except that I lost my job because of it?” she asked mildly.

Terry's eyebrows went up, and his eyes widened.

“You mean you cared so much you can't bear to go on working for the big lug?” he snapped sharply.

“I mean Anice did such a perfectly swell job in selling herself to him that she sold me out!” she told
him. “Kenyon fired me the moment he got to the office this morning.”

“Why, the—” Terry's profanity was rich, varied, picturesque and blistering. When he had subsided a little, he asked cautiously, “Well, of course, you can easily find something else, with your ability.”

“I think I'll go out to Hollywood and see if I can get a job working for one of the movie companies. It ought to be fun being a private secretary to a movie star,” she said slowly, considering it as she spoke.

Terry looked alarmed.

“You can't go that far away. Good grief, just when I got a promotion and a raise in pay that makes me almost a substantial citizen, I couldn't give it up to go traipsing after you, and maybe wind up a bum while you become rich and powerful.”

Phyllis stared at him, wide-eyed, and felt as though her heart were being squeezed so tightly that the blood stood still throughout her body.

“But why should you follow me? Oh, Terry, what arrant nonsense,” she protested when she could speak.

“I always have—remember?” he said quietly.

“I know,” said Phyllis as quietly, her hands tightly clenched. “But that was in the days B.E.”

“B.E.?” Terry repeated, puzzled.

“The days Before Eleanor,” Phyllis reminded him.

There was a silence that seemed to stretch out endlessly, while a tiny frown drew Terry's eyebrows together. After a little he said as though he had just remembered, “Oh, yes—before Eleanor.”

Phyllis let out the tiny breath that she had held, and clutched for something casual and matter-of-fact to say. “Oh, well, I'm entitled to a bit of a holiday. I haven't
had a vacation this year. I think I'll take one before I start looking around for another job.”

“Good idea,” said Terry politely. “Shall you go away—mountains, I suppose, or the beach?”

Phyllis looked about her at the apartment, which was cool and restful, and shook her head. “No, I think I'll stay right here at home and get acquainted with my own place. I see it so seldom, rushing to and from my job. I think it would be fun just to sleep late, dawdle through breakfast, see a lot of movies.”

There was something in the way Terry was looking at her that made her heart beat faster, and so she broke off and said gaily, “Oh, well, let's have a bite to eat and discuss my vacation later. Have you had dinner?”

“I don't think so. The paper knocked me for a loop and I couldn't get here fast enough. I was afraid you'd—er—do something silly like…like an overdose of sleeping pills or something,” he admitted frankly.

Phyllis gasped, and her eyes were wide.

“But, for goodness' sake, Terry, what a perfectly crazy idea!” she said in honest amazement. “Why on earth should I do such a fool thing—just because my poisonous little cousin has copped herself a millionaire?”

Terry moved unexpectedly, caught her by the shoulders and shook her hard. His face was set and his eyes were angry.

“Cut out the damn foolishness,” he snapped at her roughly. “I don't deserve that you should put up a front with me. I'm Terry, remember me? I know you better than anyone else on earth, and I know how crazy-mad you were about Kenyon Rutledge.”

“
Were
is right, Terry,” she told him levelly.

He studied her, his hands still on her shoulders, and
there was in his eyes an almost desperate need to believe her, and yet a fear that he dared not.

“Are you trying to tell me that you stopped being in love with him just because he gave you the grand bounce? Oh, no, Phyl—that won't wash! Maybe you're sore as a pup at him now—that's the shock. But it will wear off, and by morning, you'll be grieving—” He broke off as she laughed in his face.

It was a small but quite honest laugh of genuine amusement.

“Terry, my pet, I stopped being in love with Kenyon ever so long ago,” she told him in a tone that forced him to believe her. “I was never really in love with him. It was—well, just an hallucination. I think the night we worked late—” She broke off and the hot color flowed into her face, and her eyes fell before his.

“The night you planned to sleep with him and Mrs. Lawrence intruded,” he finished for her almost contemptuously.

Her face burning, she met his eyes bravely.

“Yes, Terry, that night,” she told him simply. “I knew that I'd made a terrific mistake and I've realized it more every day.”

Terry said swiftly, “Then you were not sitting here moping because he had married somebody else?”

“Of course not.” And there was conviction in the very simplicity of her words.

For a long, long moment, Terry held her, his hands gripping her shoulders so tightly that she winced a little. And then he said, in a tone of awe and wonder, “Then—thank the good Lord!”

She was in his arms then, held so closely that he could feel the exciting pressure of her firm, pointed breasts through the thin silk of her housecoat. For a
moment she rested in the utter heaven of his arms, joying in the perfection of it—until he lifted her face, one hand cupping her chin, and set his mouth on hers in a kiss that seemed to rock the very floor beneath their feet.

She clung to him in wordless ecstasy and gave him back his kiss with an ardor that was beyond belief. And then, tears in her eyes, reluctant, her heart crying out, she drew herself away from him and said unsteadily, trying to smile, “Careful, Terry—I doubt if Miss Adams would approve.”

Terry's arms would not let her go, and there was an impish twinkle in his eyes as he asked, “Miss Adams? Who is she?”

“The girl you're going to marry—” Phyllis broke off and stared at him.

“Miss Adams?” Terry repeated the name as though he had never heard it before in his life, and then he shook his head and said firmly, “Never heard of her.”

Phyllis was staring up at him, her face white, her eyes enormous.

“Terry McLean!” she gasped at last, in a tone of accusation. “Are you mad? You said you met her upstate and were going to marry her.”

“I was lying through my pearly teeth,” said Terry and grinned.

A wave of such exquisite delight as to make her a little dizzy flowed over Phyllis, and her heart was beating so fast and so loud that she felt sure he must hear it.

“Terry!” she gasped at last, when she could manage her voice. “Terry, are you trying to tell me that you just…just made up a fiancée—But, Terry,
why
?”

Terry held her a little away from him and looked down at her sternly.

“Now that's a damned fool question if ever I heard
one, and I've heard plenty,” he told her sternly. “Why
would
I invent an almost-fiancée, except to try to make you realize what a darned good matrimonial bet you were passing up in one Terence O'Malley McLean, who had asked you to marry him so many times he'd lost count, and who was ready to try any desperate measures to see if he couldn't make you notice him?”