“Lord Galbraith, it’s clear you and I do not see eye to eye on this subject, so perhaps we should set it aside and discuss why you are here. You have stumbled upon my secret. What do you intend to do about it?”
“Hmm . . .” He paused as if considering. “That is the question, isn’t it?”
She worked to muster her dignity. “If you do indeed have such goodness in your soul as you claim, then I hope you are willing to demonstrate it by keeping Lady Truelove’s identity to yourself.”
“One could argue that in this case goodness is best demonstrated by warning people. You’re fond of that particular activity, after all.”
“Warning people? Of what, in heaven’s name?”
“That the woman dispensing all this knowledgeable advice about love and romance is really the daughter of the publisher, perhaps? That she is unscrupulous enough to eavesdrop on private conversations, and meddlesome enough to interfere—”
“It’s my scruples that impelled me to interfere!”
“To interfere,” he went on as if she hadn’t spoken, “in affairs that do not concern her, and to offer her advice even to those who have not asked for it.”
“You have no proof that I am Lady Truelove.”
“I may not move much in respectable society, Miss Deverill, but I have many influential friends who do, and with the exception of Lionel two days ago, not one of my friends has ever had cause to question my word. If I were to tell them you are Lady Truelove, they will believe me. If I were to warn them about you and how you use private conversations as fodder for your newspaper, they will warn others.”
“And if your friends ask how you have come by this information, you will have to reveal your part in what happened, as well as Lionel’s illicit relationship. He is a Member of Parliament, and such news would hardly impress his constituents favorably. He is your friend. Would you really be such a cad as to expose him?”
“I don’t have to reveal the source of my information. I merely have to assure my friends that my source is reliable. You may be the sister-in-law of a duke, but Torquil and his family are not being viewed with favor this season, so that connection will do you little good. And you may be the granddaughter of a viscount on your mother’s side, but on your father’s, you come from a line of newspaper hawkers. In addition, you are presently in charge of your paper’s operations. All these things will come back to hurt you if what you did is exposed. I am the son of an earl, and my friends know me to be a discreet and loyal friend. If I warn them about you, they will accept my word without questioning the source of my information. And once that happens, your debut in society will come to an abrupt and ignoble end.”
She glared at him, hating that he was right. “With that, I think we can put paid to any notions of goodness in your soul.”
That shot seemed to hit the mark, for a trace of his earlier anger flashed in his blue eyes and tightened the corners of his mouth. “My friends are brokenhearted wrecks because of you. I can think of no reason not to tell my entire circle of acquaintance about you.”
Clara began to feel desperate. The notion of being conciliatory with this man flicked her decidedly on the raw, but what else could she do? “Lady Truelove is the Weekly Gazette’s most popular feature, and the main reason for our advertising revenue and our income. Shall you enjoy taking away a family’s livelihood?”
He made a scoffing sound. “Do not make me out to be the villain here. I think I would be quite justified in warning others about your so-called advice column. And since your brother-in-law is a duke, I hardly think you and your father will be turned out into the street if your identity is exposed.”
“That’s not the point—”
“One of my best friends, a man who has known me since we were boys at school, has questioned my discretion, accused me of betraying his trust, and struck me in the face. The latter action not only gave me a black eye, knocked me unconscious, and gave me a concussion, it also seems to have appalled my great-aunt, who has been chomping at the bit the past two days for the chance to give me a sound lecture on the subject.”
“The desire to lecture you is one your aunt no doubt experiences with tiresome regularity.”
“Either way, Miss Deverill, I’m finding it hard to care about how your decision to meddle affects you.”
“You meddled as well.”
“I was asked by my friend for my advice. I gave it. You can claim no such high ground. As Lady Truelove, I’m sure you adore offering your advice to all and sundry, but in this case, your advice was catastrophic for all concerned.”
She grimaced, fearing this episode might very well be a metaphor for her future as the famous advice columnist. Unless—
“Lord Galbraith,” she said abruptly, “do your friends often ask you for advice?”
He blinked, startled by the abrupt question. “Yes,” he said after a moment, “I suppose they do.”
“Why?”
He laughed a little, as if bemused. “I suppose because I’m a good listener? Or perhaps it’s because I have a knack for finding solutions to problems? I don’t know, really.”
He might not know, but she did, and suddenly, she also knew how she could persuade him to keep Lady Truelove’s identity a secret. The idea in her head was wild, downright mad, in fact. On the other hand, she seemed to be developing quite a talent of late for wild, mad ideas.
Her gaze slid to the stack of newspapers on her desk. And it wasn’t as if she didn’t have leverage—
“Miss Deverill?”
The prompt brought her attention back to him, and she lifted her hands in a gesture of seeming capitulation. “You’ve uncovered my secret, but I’m still not quite sure what you want from me.”
“What makes you think I want anything?” But even as he asked the question, she knew she was about to be offered a bargain. That boded well for her own crazy plan.
“Because you wouldn’t have come here otherwise,” she answered. “If your intent was to reveal Lady Truelove’s identity to the world, you’d simply have begun doing so. Warning me of what you are at present only thinking to do seems to serve no purpose. I can only conclude that you want something from me, in exchange for which you will keep my secret.”
“I applaud your perspicacity, Miss Deverill.”
She gestured to the chair opposite her own. “Perhaps we should sit down and discuss it, then?”
He frowned, looking understandably skeptical of this sudden show of amiability on her part, but when she sat down behind her desk, he took the offered chair opposite her. “There is very little to discuss. There is only what I require you to do.”
“And what is that?”
“Lionel is no longer speaking to me because of you. When I paid a call on him today, he refused to see me. I want you to go to him and tell him the truth. You will explain who you really are, what you did, and why you did it, and you will assure him that I did not betray his confidence in any way.”
It was bad enough that circumstances required her to trust Galbraith with her secret, but Clara knew she could not afford to trust the discretion of his friend. Nonetheless, she pretended to consider his demand. “If I tell your friend the truth,” she said, straightening the stack of newspapers on her desk as her mind raced to consider the ramifications of the idea rattling around in her head, “he’ll never be convinced.”
“He might, if you underscore the fact that you are sharing a piece of information that would damage your column’s success if it came out publicly. Lionel, you see, is rather susceptible to women in distress, especially those with big brown eyes, and he might soften enough that he’ll let me talk to him.”
“If I tell him the truth, I have no guarantee he will keep my secret.”
“True, but if you don’t tell him the truth, I definitely won’t keep your secret. What he does with the information,” Galbraith went on before she could reply, “I cannot predict. Nor do I care. Your choice is simple: you have a slim chance of keeping your column
ist’s identity unknown, or you have no chance. You must decide which possibility you prefer.”
She left off fiddling with the newspapers, her mind made up. “I cannot do what you ask, Lord Galbraith. I do not know your friend, and I cannot afford to trust to his discretion. But . . .”
She paused, taking a deep breath and shoving down any misgivings over what she was about to do. “But I would like to offer you an alternative proposition.”
Chapter 7
Rex couldn’t quite believe what he was hearing. He had her backed into a corner, and she wanted to negotiate? She had gumption, he’d give her that. “An alternative proposition? Is that a joke?”
“Not at all. You know my secret.” She paused, her gaze narrowing on him, a look he was coming to know well. “Though that is only because you goaded me into revealing it.”
He donned an air of false modesty, brushing at an imaginary speck of dust on his waistcoat, smiling a little. “Yes, that was rather a neat trick, if I do say it myself.”
If his words aggravated her, she didn’t show it. “Either way,” she said, leaning back in her chair, “telling that secret to yet another person presents a risk I am not willing to take.”
“That’s a pity.” His smile vanished, and he gave her a hard, level stare across the desk. “Since it’s not as if you have a choice.”
“My only choice,” she went on, ignoring his point completely, “is to convince you not to carry out your threat to expose me.”
He had no intention of carrying out his threat, but he wasn’t about to let her know that. “I doubt there’s anything you can say to convince me.”
“I think perhaps there is. You see, I’m prepared to offer you something that would make keeping mum worthwhile.”
She hadn’t meant her words to be suggestive, but Rex couldn’t resist speculating on some provocative possibilities. He glanced over her, his gaze skimming the long, delicate column of her throat, moving past the prim collar of her shirtwaist, over the gentle swell of her bosom, pausing at her absurdly tiny waist. Though the desk blocked any further study of her body, that didn’t matter, for he already knew her shape. He’d had plenty of opportunity to form that picture the other night during their dance, and as he envisioned the slender hips and long legs that were presently hidden from his view, as he remembered the brief, tantalizing brush of his arm against the small of her back, the baser side of his masculine nature began imagining some of the naughtier means of persuasion she could employ, and his body began to burn.
But when he looked up again into her face, the delicate flush of pink in her cheeks told him she’d perceived the direction of his thoughts—at least to the extent an innocent lamb like her could do—and reminded him that the delicious picture forming in his mind had no chance whatsoever of becoming reality. And despite her opinion of his character, he was—sadly—a gentleman, which meant even if she were of a mind to offer such things, he could not accept. Innocent young ladies were not his line of country. Shoving down reprobate images of what Clara Deverill looked like without her clothes, he spoke. “What exactly are you offering?”
“A job, Lord Galbraith. I’m offering you a job.”
That was so unexpected, so absurd, and so damnably different from what he’d been imagining that Rex couldn’t help a laugh. “Doing what, in heaven’s name?”
She gave a shrug of nonchalance, but he could see the tension in her slim shoulders, and he knew she wasn’t as nonchalant as she wished to appear. “I want to hire you to write the Lady Truelove column for me.”
This was sliding from absurdity into farce. He laughed again, confounded. “Now I know you’re joking.”
His amusement seemed to vex her, for a tiny frown knit her brows. “I’m quite serious. I don’t see why you think I’m not.”
He took one more glance over her body with a sigh of profound regret. “Let’s just say my mind was traveling in a wholly different direction.”
The blush in her cheeks deepened to absolute scarlet. “I am making you a bona fide offer of employment. It would only be temporary, until my sister returns from her honeymoon. She is expected home in about two months’ time.”
“She married in March, if memory serves. Four months is quite a long honeymoon.”
“You have no idea,” she agreed with a sigh. “Once she returns, she will find someone to take charge of the column on a permanent basis. In the interim, I’d like to hire you to do it.”
She really was serious. He leaned back, rubbing a hand over his face, thinking a moment. “Setting aside the fact that I have no need to earn my living—thank God—why would you want someone else to do it for you? And even more baffling, why choose me, of all people?”
She made a rueful face, her wide mouth twisting a bit and her button nose wrinkling up. “You find that odd, I take it?”
“Odd? Hell, no. I find it incomprehensible. Aside from the fact that I loathe newspapers and can’t imagine working for one, you think I’m a cad, a disreputable rakehell. Why,” he added, driven by curiosity, “would you want me to take on the task of penning advice to the lovelorn?”
“Because I’m no good at it.”
He laughed at that nonsensical admission, but before he could remind her of her well-established success, she rushed on, “You, however, have a certain insight, shall we say, into matters of romance. I am prepared to employ you for that insight. In a literary sense,” she added as he raised an eyebrow.
“And you think I would find such an offer of interest? I am a gentleman, Miss Deverill—”
He was interrupted by a derisive snort that told him what she thought of that contention.
“Gentlemen,” he went on, emphasizing the word, “don’t have jobs.”
“You’d be surprised, Lord Galbraith, if you knew the number of gentlemen who work for newspapers. I know of at least five who secretly write articles for our competitors under assumed names. And at least a dozen have given their endorsement to various products advertised in our newspaper, recommending everything from shaving soap to patent medicines in exchange for a fee.”
“Then perhaps you should hire one of those good gentlemen?”
“Why should I do so, when I have you?”
“You don’t ‘have me,’ as you put it.” Even as he made that point, he saw her straight brows arch as if disputing that contention, and when he looked into those dark eyes of hers, he felt a sudden, vague uneasiness. “I’m the one with the leverage here, Miss Deverill,” he said, feeling the need to remind her of that point.
“Are you?” She straightened in her chair, and with that abrupt move, something changed between them, something that only deepened his uneasiness.
“My leverage,” he went on, ignoring her question, “would vanish if I were to accept this offer. If I took on the job of being Lady Truelove, I could hardly start revealing to our acquaintance that you are she.”
“Yes,” she agreed, sounding quite pleased by the prospect. “Exactly.”
“So that is your true intent in offering me this position? Buying my silence? What makes you think I would agree?”
“Because it’s a winning arrangement for both of us. I am prepared to pay you a generous salary, and your perpetual lack of money is well-known. You will be obliged to keep my secret, as you have already appreciated, and I can stop writing an advice column I am obviously ill-equipped to compose—”
“Why obviously?” he cut in, diverted for the moment. This was the second time she’d disparaged her abilities as the famous columnist, and he couldn’t help wondering why. “You’re quite good at the job, from what I hear. The column is wildly popular.”
She squirmed a little in her chair, making him even more curious. “Why would you disparage yourself in this way?” he asked. “Surely your success speaks for it—”
“I’m far too busy nowadays to write it properly,” she said, cutting him off. “Now that the season has begun, I wish to move more in society, and with all the other duties of t
he newspaper that require my attention while my sister is away, I wish to hand off the task of writing Lady Truelove to someone else.”
“Perhaps that’s true,” he conceded, “but that’s not what you first said. You said, ‘I’m no good at it.’”
“You were right,” she muttered, rubbing four fingers over her forehead. “You are a good listener.”
He didn’t reply. He simply waited, and since he knew or had guessed most of the facts already, she capitulated with a sigh. “My sister used to write it. She prepared enough columns to cover the time she originally anticipated she’d be away, but then, she and Torquil decided to extend their honeymoon, and she cabled me, asking that I take it over until she returns.”
“In addition to managing the paper? That’s a lot to ask.”
“Since my mother died, my sister has always protected and cared for me. In return, I am happy to do whatever I can for her at any opportunity. But when it comes to Lady Truelove—” She broke off, lifting her hands in a hopeless gesture, then letting them fall to her desk. “I am utterly lost. Offering advice to the lovelorn,” she added with a little laugh, “is hardly my forte.”
He studied her face for a moment, noting its lack of conventional prettiness. No rosebud mouth here, no Grecian nose, no delicately-arched eyebrows. But it was an agreeable face for all that, with its own unique charm, though he doubted the young chaps gadding about town ever halted their gazes on her long enough to see it. She wasn’t, as he knew from his first cursory glance at her, the sort to draw masculine attention. “I see,” he said gently. “And how does your father feel about having someone else assume Lady Truelove’s mantle?”
“My father?” She stiffened, frowning, looking suddenly prickly. “What does he have to do with it?”
“He is the publisher, is he not? He is the owner?”
“Actually, no. He was, but his health has put paid to any involvement in the running of the Weekly Gazette. My sister now owns the paper, along with my brother, Jonathan. He was supposed to come back from America and take over, but circumstances forbade, and as a result, I have been obliged to assume the position of publisher until my sister returns. So, you see, it is within my purview to offer you this position. And with all my social obligations, I would be quite relieved to delegate Lady Truelove to someone else. This would also work to your advantage, since as I said, I’m prepared to pay generously. Say . . . one hundred pounds per column?”
The Trouble with True Love (Dear Lady Truelove #2) Page 9
