And Then He Kissed Her (4 page)

“Enough!” Harry dropped his knife and fork onto his plate with a clatter, at the end of his tether. “Will all of you stop this? No woman on
earth will inspire me to make a second attempt at matrimony. I shall never marry again. Ever! Is that clear?”

In the wake of his outburst, the five women he loved more than anything else in the world stared at him like a litter of wounded kittens. He hated it when they did that.

He pushed back his plate, and since everyone else had also finished eating, he gestured to the waiter to begin clearing the table. “I don’t know why we’re discussing me anyway,” he said. “It’s Phoebe’s birthday. I think it’s time for her to open her presents. Speaking of which…”

He reached into his pocket and pulled out the tiny, tissue-wrapped package. He presented it to his baby sister with a flourish. “There you are, Angelface. Happy birthday.”

She looked up at him, and her blue eyes were shining. “It’s a Limoges box, isn’t it? It must be. It’s so small, it can’t be anything else. Am I right?”

“Open it and see.”

She untied the ribbon and pulled off the wrapping paper. When she opened the paperboard box and saw what was inside, she began to laugh. “It has the faces of angels painted on it.”

“So it is Limoges?” Vivian craned her neck, trying to have a look.

“It is. Look.” Phoebe held it up so the others could see.

Miss Dove’s description came back to him, and he leaned over his youngest sister’s shoulder. “I
say, those boxes open, don’t they?” he asked in pretended innocence.

Phoebe fell for the ploy. “Yes, they do,” she said and demonstrated by pulling back the small, hinged lid. “See how they—Oh, my!”

She tumbled the ring into her palm. “A sapphire! Look, everyone, it’s a sapphire.” Setting aside the Limoges box, she held up the ring only long enough for everyone to get a glimpse, then she slipped it on the finger of her right hand. It fit perfectly. Of course. Miss Dove, heaven bless her, would never let it be otherwise.

“You’re twenty-one now,” he said, “and sapphires seem right. Go with your eyes, you know. Like it?”

“Like it?” Phoebe turned to wrap her arms around his neck. “I love it,” she declared and gave him a smacking kiss on the cheek. “It’s perfect! And the Limoges box is perfect. You give us the best presents always!”

“That’s all right, then,” he said and pressed a kiss to her forehead.

Her mother, her grandmother, and Vivian gathered around Phoebe to admire her present, but Diana did not join them. Instead, she remained where she was and leaned closer to Harry. “That Miss Dove is amazing,” she whispered. “She always finds us the perfect gifts.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Don’t worry, dear brother. I’m the only one who’s figured out your secret, and I won’t tell.”

“You’re a brick, Di.”

“Well, you may not say that after I confess what I’ve done.”

He turned to look at her.

She told him.

“What?” His roar silenced the room, and the four other women looked at him in alarm. Diana grimaced at the expression on his face.

“I was carried away by a spirit of compassion,” she explained and bit her lip, trying and failing to look contrite.

“Compassion, my eye!”

“Heavens,” his mother spoke up, “what ever is the matter?”

It was Diana who answered. “I told him about the invitation.”

“Oh, dear.” Louisa frowned with concern, studying him for a moment. “He doesn’t like it, does he?”

“How could you think I would?” Harry demanded, his voice rising.

“Well, it’s done now,” Diana said.

Louisa’s face brightened at those words. “Yes, and it was the right thing to do, after all.”

“Right thing?”

“Harry, darling, don’t shout. Those poor girls came to London with only crotchety old Dillmouth to watch over them. I mean, really! Awful to bring them for the season without a proper chaperone. What was he thinking?”

“No.” Harry shook his head. “I refuse to allow it.”

He might have been talking to the wind.

“All I can say is that losing his dear wife all
those years ago has finally unhinged his mind,” Louisa went on. “Heavens, those poor girls wouldn’t have been able to go about at all. So dull for them.” She looked at him with a queer sort of defiance. “I still say Diana did the right thing.”

The idea of having four additional women living in his house for the next six weeks, all of whom were his sisters’ notion of marriage prospects for him, filled Harry with dismay. He thought of the weeping Lady Melanie, and his dismay deepened into dread. “Get a gun,” he muttered. “Put me out of my misery now.”

“What is all this about?” Antonia demanded. “Explain yourself, Diana.”

“Mama and I saw Dillmouth, his daughters, and their two Abernathy cousins during the intermission when we were at the opera. They have no chaperone but Dillmouth, and once I understood their situation, I issued an invitation for all four girls to come to us for a six-week visit. It never occurred to me that Harry would mind.”

“The hell it didn’t.” Harry scowled at her.

“I issued the invitation in front of Dillmouth,” she went on serenely, “and he accepted for them. I cannot retract it now.”

“I should say not!” Antonia frowned at the very idea. “That would be abominably rude.”

Harry groaned, knowing he was trapped. Though Dillmouth was severely in debt, he was a marquess, well above Harry in rank, and very powerful in the House. He was not the sort to forget a snub. With his sisters’ social prospects severely curtailed by his divorce, they could not
afford to snub a man like Dillmouth. He didn’t know whether to throttle Diana or go pound his head into a wall.

“It’s settled, then. They come in a week, just in time for your return from Berkshire.” Diana smiled at him. “By the way, Harry, you have never met Lady Felicity. Beautiful girl.”

He looked at his eldest sister, saw the little smile playing at the corners of her mouth, and he realized she’d had Felicity Abernathy in mind all along.

“She is lovely, isn’t she?” Vivian chimed in. “She has black hair, if I remember. And dark eyes. That sort of coloring makes jewel tones so stunning on her.”

“She’s hot-tempered, though,” Phoebe cautioned, but even in profile, Harry could see the smile she was trying to hide. “Latin blood in that side of the family, so they say.”

Sisters were the very devil. They knew all a man’s weaknesses. Harry wondered if he could go off and lease a cottage in America.

During the week that followed, Emma did not dwell much upon her impending birthday, but the night before it arrived, she dreamt of silk. Rich and shimmery silk taffeta, made up in a sumptuous ball gown that rustled when she moved and had those enormous puffy sleeves so fashionable just now. Green silk, it was, with a figured design of blue and green beads on the skirt that shimmered in the light from the chandeliers overhead.

Chandeliers? Yes, she was at a ball, and a waltz was being played. She was dancing with a man. Odd how she couldn’t see his face—that was a blur—but he was making her laugh, and she liked that. Suddenly there was a fan in her hand, a lavish, exotic fan of peacock feathers. She opened it and gave the man a flirtatious glance over the top, delighting in the feel of the feathers tickling her nose.

Emma woke up to find Mr. Pigeon’s face inches from hers, his long cat whiskers brushing her nose. He gave a loud meow of greeting, and this abrupt change of scene made her close her eyes, but when she opened them again, there was no mistaking the orange tabby curled up beside her on the pillow.

She’d been dreaming, she realized. And such an absurd dream when all was said and done. Why, silk taffeta was outrageously expensive! And how on earth could one waltz with a man and wave that enormous fan about at the same time? Still, she couldn’t help feeling a wistful little pang that the beautiful gown and handsome man were not real.

The fan, though…the fan was a different matter. It was real. Such a lovely thing, with its long feathers, carved ivory handle, and blue silk tassel. She’d seen it in that little curiosity shop on Regent Street, the same shop where she’d found Lady Phoebe’s Limoges box. It was the sort of shop where sham lapis beads for three pence a strand sat beside bejeweled Charles I snuffboxes worth hundreds of pounds, just the sort of shop
that would possess a fan like that. A fan that cost two guineas, she reminded herself. An outrageous price for such a frivolous thing.

Emma turned onto her back and stared up at the ceiling, her gaze moving beyond the butter-yellow walls of her flat on Little Russell Street to the far-flung outposts of the Empire. She thought of the stories of the
Arabian Nights
and places with names like Ceylon and Kashmir, where the air was full of spices and the sound of sitars, where there were marketplaces filled with thick Persian carpets and colorful China silks. Looking at that fan through the dusty glass of a display case in a Regent Street antique shop had made her feel, just for a moment, as beautiful and exotic as Scheherazade. Emma gave a dreamy sigh.

Mr. Pigeon nuzzled her ear, purring loudly, and she gave up on fantasies of being Scheherazade. Instead, she gave the animal an affectionate rub with the side of her face, liking the feel of his soft fur against her cheek. Then she sat up, pushing aside the counterpane.

The cat made a protesting meow as she got out of bed. “I know, I know,” she said in reply, “but I have to go to work.” She gave him a glance of mock sternness over her shoulder as she padded across the wood floor in her bare feet. “I cannot laze about napping all day like some.”

Unimpressed, Mr. Pigeon yawned and settled himself more comfortably on her pillow. As always, Emma allowed him to remain there while she went about her morning routine, leaving the making of the bed until the very last thing.

She poured water from the white stoneware pitcher into the bowl and reached for the jar of Pears’ Soap. After washing, she dressed in a crisp white shirtwaist, dark blue skirt, and her black leather high-button shoes, then drew back the curtains.

After sitting down in front of the washstand, she unraveled the long braid of her hair and picked up her hairbrush.

In the mirror, Emma watched the brush move through her waist-length hair, and the sight of its mother-of-pearl back was always a bittersweet reminder of her aunt. One hundred strokes to make it shine, Aunt Lydia had told her from the time she was fifteen. Papa, had he been alive by that time to hear his sister-in-law’s advice, would have deemed such time in front of a mirror sinfully vain.

Perhaps it was vain, but Emma did like her hair this way. Most of the time it just looked brown, rather the color of bread crust. But loose like this, a little wavy from the braid, with the sunlight shining on it through the window, the color seemed coppery red, not humdrum brown.

That green silk dress, she thought, would have been lovely. Ah, well.

Emma twisted her hair into a chignon at the back of her head, pinned it, and added a pair of pewter combs to be doubly sure the heavy knot would stay in place all day. Satisfied, she started to stand up, then stopped, remembering.

Today was her birthday.

Sinking back down, she stared at her reflection in the mirror. She was thirty.

She told herself she didn’t look as old as that. She told herself the freckles across her nose and cheekbones, freckles no amount of lemon juice could ever remove, made her seem younger. Ordinary hazel eyes in a long, oval face stared back at her, eyes surrounded by lashes that weren’t dark enough to matter and bracketed by tiny lines that hadn’t been there a year ago. She lifted her hand and traced her fingertips over the three faint parallel grooves across her forehead.

Discontent returned again to plague her, and Emma jerked her hand down. Any more of this mooning about, and she’d be late. She got up and left the bedroom. Since it was already past eight o’clock she’d missed breakfast in the dining room downstairs, but if she was quick about it, she’d have time to make herself a cup of tea before catching an omnibus to work.

After drawing back the curtains of her parlor, she heated water from the pitcher on her tiny stove-lamp and nibbled on shortbread as she waited for it to boil. She made her tea, and as it steeped, the scent of jasmine and orange peel wafted up to her nostrils.

Ceylon. Kashmir. Green silk. Scheherazade.

Absurd, she scoffed, to pay two guineas for a peacock fan, even on her birthday. More than half a week’s wages for something she would never have the opportunity to use? Ridiculous.

But she thought about that fan all the way to work.

N
ewspapers were not only a significant part of Harry’s livelihood, they had other uses as well, refuge being the most important this morning.

It was terribly rude, he supposed, to hold up a newspaper as a wall between oneself and one’s house guests, but he didn’t care. There were limits to what a man could endure, and with four additional women at his breakfast table, women his sisters considered marriage prospects for him, a
man had to hide somewhere. The morning after his return from Berkshire, Harry chose to hide behind a copy of Barringer’s
Social Gazette
.

Fortunately, breakfast in his house hold was a casual affair of warming dishes on the sideboard and everyone helping themselves at their leisure. Even though it was becoming more acceptable to conduct the first meal of the day in this manner, his house hold had been doing it this way for years. His mother had long ago given up any hope he would keep to a regular house hold routine. Today, the casual atmosphere enabled Harry to both ignore his guests and get work done at the same time.

It was really no wonder the
Gazette
and its owner were in financial trouble, he thought as he munched on a slice of bacon. For such staid, dull stuff as this, one might just as well read the
Times
.

A single feminine voice rose just enough to be heard above the rest. “What is your opinion, Lord Marlowe?”

The room fell silent, and Harry pulled down the newspaper just far enough to meet the melting dark gaze of Lady Felicity. She was beautiful, no denying it, but then, Diana knew his tastes well enough. If Felicity were not a young lady, his interest might be sparked, but young ladies were dangerous creatures. They expected marriage.

He gave her a polite smile. “My apologies, but I was not paying attention to the conversation.” He rustled the
Gazette
. “I am engaged in a most important task at present.”

“An important task?” She gestured to the paper in his hands. “Is the day’s news so important, then?”

“To Harry it is,” Vivian told her, laughing. “He’s always reading the papers of his competitors.”

“Though not usually at breakfast,” his grandmother pointed out, her voice heavy with disapproval which Harry chose to ignore.

He took another look at Felicity over the top of the
Gazette
. “You see, Lady Felicity,” he explained, “reading the newspapers of my competitors is crucial to my financial success. Staying one step ahead and that sort of thing. I am a man of business, and I enjoy it.”

“Enjoy it?” Felicity began to laugh. “You tease me, Lord Marlowe.”

“Indeed, I do not. I enjoy it far more than my estate. Collecting land rents is a bore. And very unprofitable. I prefer business.”

She knew she’d made a blunder, and she attempted to smooth it over. “You prefer your business affairs to your estate? How…” She paused, floundering for a moment. “How very modern.”

Harry saw Diana wince, and he lifted his newspaper again, grinning. So she’d thought Lady Felicity the perfect wife for him? He was really going to enjoy ragging Di about this later. “Yes, well, I am a very modern sort of fellow,” he murmured in his best self-deprecating fashion.

Ignoring his grandmother’s sound of exasperation, he glanced at the clock on the mantel and gave an exclamation of mock surprise. “Half past nine already?” He folded the paper and
stood up, doing his best to look apologetic. “Forgive me, ladies, but I must go earn my living.”

“Don’t be late this evening, dear,” his mother said as he gathered the stack of newspapers and the morning post the butler had placed beside his plate. “We’re having music after dinner. Nan is going to sing for us.”

He gave the musically inclined Lady Nan a smile. “How lovely, Mama. I shall do my best, but I’m afraid I can’t promise something won’t come up to detain me.” He bowed and was out the door before Louisa could reply. Giving a deep sigh of relief, he walked from the dining room to the foyer.

“My carriage, Jackson,” he instructed, “and fetch me when it arrives. I’ll be in my study.”

“Very good, my lord.” The butler signaled for a footman, and Harry crossed the foyer to his study, where he promptly dropped the
Social Gazette
into the wastepaper basket. He’d read as much of its pompous self-importance as he could stomach for one morning. First thing he’d do when he bought the thing was liven it up. And he was determined to buy it. He was convinced if he gave it a more modern slant, he could make it profitable. And its location, a four-story brick building right across from his own offices, was perfect for expansion. Of course, scoring over Barringer had a sweet satisfaction all its own. Sooner or later, the earl would have to give in. It was only a matter of time.

He opened his dispatch case, intending to
place the newspapers of his other competitors inside so that he could read them on the way to his offices, but he paused at the sight of a stack of manuscript pages tied with twine.

Miss Dove’s new book.

He’d promised to look the thing over while in Berkshire, but upon his arrival there, he’d promptly forgotten all about it, deeming fishing a far more amusing pastime than anything written by Miss Dove. It would take about ten minutes for his driver to bring his carriage around front from the mews. That, he knew from previous experience with Miss Dove’s manuscripts, was about nine and one-half minutes more than he needed to keep his promise and verify what he already suspected.

He pulled the manuscript out of his dispatch case, sat down at his desk, and untied the twine. Then he curled his fingers under a section of the stack and opened it to a random page.

Harry closed the manuscript. Dull as a scullery maid’s dishrag, just as he’d known it would be. Poor Miss Dove just couldn’t seem to understand that nobody wanted to read this sort of piffle.

He tied up the twine, put the manuscript back
in his case, and pulled out his appointment book, which had been delivered to his doorstep yesterday in anticipation of his return, with all his engagements listed in his secretary’s perfect copperplate script.

He grimaced at the first notation. A meeting with his book editors. That monthly conference was always such a delight. Harry thought about giving it a miss altogether—after all, he did own the company. But if he wasn’t there to keep them in line, his editors would run amok, deciding to publish God only knows what. It didn’t bear thinking about. When Jackson announced his carriage was out front, Harry accepted his hat, resigned himself to the inevitable, and went to his offices. Because of his hasty departure from the breakfast table, he arrived at his offices on Bouverie Street well ahead of his meeting.

Miss Dove stood up when he came in. “Good morning, sir,” she greeted him. “You are early today.”

“Shocking, I know,” he said. “Domestic difficulties, Miss Dove.”

“I am sorry to hear that. There are several good agencies, if your house keeper or butler is short of domestic staff. I can—”

“Not that sort of domestic difficulty. This particular problem won’t be solved by an agency, I fear, unless you can find one that will locate husbands for all my sisters and get them out of my house.” He paused, as if considering the matter. “My mother, too, now that I think on it. She could be
married off. A Scottish peer, for choice. Scotland’s a long way from here, two days’ train, at least.”

“Overnight, if one takes the express.” Miss Dove always accepted everything he said at face value and responded accordingly, a fact which had long ago forced Harry to conclude his secretary had no sense of humor.

“I believe there are one or two agencies that facilitate the finding of a spouse,” she went on doubtfully, “but I would not have thought your sisters needed assistance of that sort. And isn’t your eldest sister already affianced to Lord Rathbourne?”

Smiling, he leaned a bit closer to her over the desk. “I was having you on, Miss Dove.”

“Oh.” Her expression did not change. “I see,” she said in the tone of one who clearly didn’t.

Harry gave it up. Teasing his secretary was pointless, for she never understood it. In any case, he was only trying to stave off the bad news he had to give her as long as possible.

Taking a deep breath, he set his leather dispatch case on her desk, unfastened the buckle, and opened it. “I looked at your new book,” he said as he pulled out her manuscript, “but I’m afraid this one still has the same problem as the others. For one particular etiquette book to make a profit, it has to be fresh and different, it has to stand out.”

“Yes, sir.” Her lips pressed together in disappointment, and she ducked her head to hide it. “I understand, but I had hoped—”

“Yes, I know,” he cut her off, wanting this
over as quickly as possible. He held out the twine-tied stack of paper. “I’m sorry.”

She stared at it for a moment, then took it from his hand and put it in a drawer of her desk. “Would you like your coffee now?”

“Yes, thank you.”

She duly brought his coffee, just the way he liked it, strong, hot, and with no milk or sugar. After that, he dictated some correspondence to her until the editors came upstairs for their meeting with him. Three hours later, he ushered the other two men out into the corridor, acting genial even as he wondered in exasperation why editors could never seem to grasp the financial considerations of publishing. They unerringly passed up the salable book for the book of literary brilliance, a trait that always left Harry baffled at the end of each monthly meeting. If a book didn’t have mass appeal, he didn’t care how beautiful its metaphors or how subtle its literary allusions or how profound its theme, he wasn’t going to publish it.

As he came back into his own suite of offices, he found his secretary putting on her hat.

“Going now, Miss Dove?”

“Yes, sir.”

He ducked his head to peer beneath the wide straw brim of her bonnet. “No hard feelings, I hope?” he asked, looking into her face.

“Of course not,” she answered with a bright, forced sort of cheerfulness. “I comprehend your reasons for rejecting my work, but I shall not be discouraged.”

He didn’t have the heart to tell her not to bother. “That’s the spirit. Persistence pays off, so they say.”

“I intend to regard this as just one more no out of the way,” she went on as she put on her gloves. “Getting all the no’s out of the way will eventually lead to a yes, as Mrs. Bartleby says.”

“Who?”

She paused, looking at him in puzzlement. “Mrs. Bartleby,” she repeated, her tone conveying that he was supposed to know the name.

He frowned, trying to remember if he’d ever heard of any woman named Bartleby. After a moment, he shook his head. “Sorry, Miss Dove, but I don’t know her.”

“But—” She broke off and stared at him, her hazel eyes wide and her lips parted, her puzzlement replaced by what seemed to be utter astonishment.

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.