* * *
The second feisty letter from Honoria Tyler Abercrombie arrived a few days later. Amber spotted it immediately in the morning mail and called out to Gray, who was in the kitchen making tea.
“Your nemesis, Ms Abercrombie, has struck again.” She waved the letter at him in triumph as he sauntered back into the office.
“Is that right? What does she want to argue about this time?”
Amber eagerly scanned the contents of the letter. “She says she intends to go toe-to-toe with you in print over the matter of your interpretation of the last two stanzas of ‘The Ballad of Billy Ballantine.’ She’s going to make you admit that the lines dealing with Bully’s shootout with Big Jack Bonner are indeed sexual metaphors and that Twitchell had sex on the brain in almost every poem he wrote. Furthermore, he severely distorted history. According to her research, Ballantine never met up with Bonner in Texas or anywhere else.”
“Hah. I can prove he did. There are newspaper accounts of the event. Ms Abercrombie’s in dangerous territory now. Twitchell may have taken a few liberties with the truth, which was certainly his right as a poet. But he never distorted history to the extent of faking an entire shootout. Who does Ms Abercrombie think she is to say the last two stanzas of ‘Billy Ballantine’ are mere sexual metaphor? What kind of sex, anyway? It wasn’t Twitchell who had sex on the brain, it’s Honoria Tyler Abercrombie. She’s undoubtedly a frustrated woman as well as a frustrated poet.”
Amber was suddenly incensed. “That’s not true! How dare you say that! Typical of a man to fall back on that sort of criticism when he can’t find any real literary counterarguments.”
“You want to bet Honoria Abercrombie is an eighty-year-old lady who gets her kicks out of arguing with me?”
“You’re just jealous because she’s got a copy of the Collected Works,” Amber announced. “Maybe she has a copy of Cactus and Guns, too.” Her eyes lit up. “Wouldn’t that be something? Better hurry and write your article authenticating those poems as Twitchell’s, or she’s liable to beat you into print.”
Gray smiled deliberately. “She’d better not try to beat me into print with an article on Cactus and Guns.”
“Oh, really?” Amber sniffed. “Why shouldn’t she? There wouldn’t be much you could do about it except go through the roof.”
“Don’t count on it. If Ms Abercrombie provokes me too far, I might be tempted to teach her a thing or two about the proper use of sexual metaphor.”
There was a beat of absolute silence in the room. Amber blinked slowly. “What exactly do you mean by that, Cormick Grayson?”
“I mean, Ms Honoria Tyler Abercrombie, that if you have any common sense at all, you won’t dare try to scoop me with an article on Cactus and Guns. You haven’t seen anything until you’ve seen the world’s only legitimate Twitchell scholar explode.”
Amber continued to stare at him for a long moment and then she collapsed back into her chair with a sigh of amused resignation. “How long have you known?”
“That you were Honoria Tyler Abercrombie?” Gray leaned back in his chair, steepling his fingers and gazing thoughtfully at the ceiling as he considered the question. “From the beginning, of course.”
“Impossible! I covered my tracks too well. You couldn’t have known. I had the letters forwarded from the publisher so they wouldn’t have a local postmark. I made sure the article that got published mentioned that Honoria was from another state. You couldn’t have known.”
“Never underestimate the intelligence of your employer, Amber. He may be slow at times, but he’s not stupid.” Gray was showing his teeth in a very masculine grin. “It was all the emphasis on big irons and smoking guns that gave you away. You were a little too determined to support Ms Abercrombie’s point of view. If you want to know the truth, it gave me hope. I figured you wouldn’t be so interested in the subject of poetic sexual metaphor if you weren’t also somewhat interested in sex. Specifically, sex with me.”
Amber grinned unabashedly. “I give up. I admit I couldn’t resist creating Ms Abercrombie. I had a lot of fun with her. What’s more, I think I shall go on having fun writing pedantic little articles arguing about Sherborne Ulysses Twitchell. You’ve had the field to yourself far too long. A little competition will be good for you. It will further the cause of Twitchell scholarship, if that isn’t too much of a contradiction in terms.”
“I shall look forward to your next article, Ms Abercrombie,” Gray said with a gravely polite inclination of his head. He got to his feet and came around the corner of the desk. “In the meantime, I think we should explore your theories of Twitchell’s use of sexual metaphor.”
“Explore them where?” she asked demurely. “In print?”
“No, in the bedroom.”
“Never let it be said,” Amber murmured as she went happily into his arms, “that I’m not always ready and willing to meet the stringent demands of sound literary scholarship.”
She allowed her poetically inclined ex-gunslinger to lead her off to bed.
The Ties That Bind
The Ties That Bind
Jayne Ann Krentz
Available here: http://www.jayneannkrentz.com/ebooks.html
A Jayne Ann Krentz Classic. First time in eBook. Shannon Raine's Mendocino cottage offers a peaceful view of the Pacific ocean and the inspiration she needs to create her silkscreened artistic treasures. The only problem with her quiet, creative existence is the neighbors. Last year, the rental next door was occupied by two visiting mothers and their noisy brood. This year, however, seems much more promising. The new neighbor is a very interesting -- very sexy -- mystery man. Garth Sheridan rented the cottage in Mendocino as an escape. The last thing he expected was a very curious neighbor who threatens to disrupt his carefully planned life. Still, an invitation to dinner seems harmless enough. And a weekend affair ought to be manageable... But Shannon Raine is about to turn his world upside down...
About the Author
Jayne Ann Krentz
The author of over 50 New York Times bestsellers, JAYNE ANN KRENTZ writes romantic-suspense, often with a psychic and paranormal twist, in three different worlds: Contemporary (as Jayne Ann Krentz), historical (as Amanda Quick) and futuristic (as Jayne Castle). There are over 35 million copies of her books in print. Building on the success of her Arcane Society Series, Jayne is kicking off three new paranormal series in 2012. The Dark Legacy books are set in present day Washington state and delve into the paranormal crystal mining world and the Coppersmith Family. The first book, COPPER BEACH is available now. The Ladies of Lantern Street novels are set in Victorian England and follow the adventures of the Flint and Marsh Agency employees. These ladies are not your average paid companions. The first book, CRYSTAL GARDENS is available now. The Rainshadow novels started, unofficially, with the release of CANYONS OF NIGHT. These stories are set on a small island on the planet Harmony in the not so distant future. The second novel in this series, THE LOST NIGHT, is available now.
Between the Lines Page 19
