The Unsuitable Secretary (A Ladies Unlaced Novel)

by Maggie Robinson

  Sweet! He spat into his father’s brass spittoon. As if that were at all helpful at this juncture in his life. How could he confess to his cronies that at the age of twenty-seven he had never removed a woman’s stocking or anything else?

  Of course, he’d seen plenty of women in the altogether—thin, not thin, blondes, brunettes, some who were both depending where you looked. To them, he was like an indulgent cousin sitting in a corner. They changed out of their costumes as if he didn’t have eyes, chattering away about their days. Sometimes they took pity on him and removed some of his clothes. What they did with their talented mouths and hands beggared description, but brought him no closer to losing his virginity in the customary way.

  The girls simply thought he preferred what they did to the other. At this point, it was too late to say otherwise.

  He sighed. Just thinking about women in all their delightful variations had made him hard as stone, and it was in the middle of the day. It was as if his adolescence had no obsolescence—he was a randy victim of his own inconvenient innocence.

  Damn and blast. He needed a different sort of tutor than those he’d had as a youth, but Thomas was afraid he’d be ridiculed. His friend Nicholas Raeburn had disappeared into the wilds of Scotland on a permanent honeymoon, so he was of no use in the education department.

  Lord, but Nicky would laugh if Thomas told him the truth, and Thomas would laugh right along with him, hapless devil that he was. Thomas felt as ignorant as a debutante, but then a woman’s ignorance was a prized commodity.

  Thomas knew he could have hired a prostitute at any time these past six years or more, but the idea had very little appeal. He was fastidious, and also didn’t want to become the butt of jokes. Word might get around he didn’t know what he was doing. Women did talk. He’d heard some very disparaging things as their blind-cousin-confidant.

  Was he saving himself for marriage? That was equally unappealing. He didn’t plan on marrying for ages, and he’d not yet met a woman he thought he could spend the rest of his life with.

  Apart from his embarrassing coup de foudre last week. He’d briefly lost his head over Miss Benson. Harriet. He’d ruthlessly shoved her right out of his mind once he’d been compelled to hire her, and now could speak to her without stuttering. No more daydreaming about her elegant bosom and endless legs, though he had no control over his dreams at night. Thomas had been completely bowled over the moment he’d seen her. However, it was completely unsuitable for him to think of her as a woman. As the woman he’d always fantasized about.

  She was “just” his secretary.

  Her image would be at home on the prow of a ship or in an Italian Renaissance painting. She was a pearl beyond price, a capable sort, a regular Valkyrie, but he could hardly ask her to get him a sexual instructor. The agency she’d come from had the reputation of solving all sorts of problems, though he very much doubted draconian Mrs. Evensong would be amenable to procuring him a sexual partner.

  Thomas found Harriet to be . . . refreshing. She was devilishly organized. Sensible. She grounded him when he got carried away in ambitious schemes, but not at all in a school mistress-y way. She was warm and friendly without being obsequious, although she began nearly every sentence with “It’s not my place to say.” All in all, a perfect balance for his flights of fancy. It was too bad that, despite her luscious curves, she was sickly and couldn’t spend more time in her “office.”

  He was in the library now across from her desk, with the remains of his lunch in front of him and a cigar clutched between his fingers. There was no one to tell him he couldn’t smoke in the house—his poor father had been cowed by Lady Featherstone and spent a great deal of time in the back garden in all sorts of weather. But Thomas was comfortable before a roaring fire, not standing outside by the frost-laden bushes.

  His mother had been a bit of a Tartar, but had died when Thomas was fourteen, a year before his ignominious expulsion from school. He hadn’t meant any harm crafting an intricate fleet of paper boats which somehow got stuck in the drains and necessitated expansive plumbing renovations in his dormitory. It was Thomas’s opinion that the pipes were rotten long before his boats sailed into the sewer system. His father had not been amused once he received the bill, but at least his mother had been spared the embarrassment of her only child’s ridiculous downfall. How much better it would have been to be thrown out of school for seducing the headmaster’s daughter or blowing up the laboratory or climbing to the top of the clock tower stark naked.

  Thomas dropped his cigar into a crystal ashtray and examined his hands. Once he’d done clever things with them, but his father had destroyed all his art supplies, even writing paper, lest Thomas start fiddling with it. He’d been forced to do all his examinations and reports orally, becoming in the process an effective speaker. He was now most persuasive when he had to be, though some people flummoxed him a bit.

  Like Miss Benson. She had a habit of looking at him through her spectacles as if she could see right inside under his skin. Messy things, bodies. Blood and organs and sinew and whatnot. He’d had to memorize everything once but put it all behind him years ago. Through the ages, some artists had used stolen cadavers to assist them in their knowledge of the human form, but Thomas never mentioned that to his investors.

  He had attracted a small cadre of them to his cooperative, men and women with deep pockets and a pretension to the advancement of the arts. But before civilization could be embellished by his protégés, there had to be heat and adequate lighting, supplies and equipment and a modicum of peace—assuming his pianist didn’t pound away at the ragtime music too hard and incur the wrath of his fellow boarders.

  Sir Thomas would have to arrange to muffle the sounds in the musicians’ rooms. But now that he wasn’t rehabilitating a derelict mill, there should be funds enough. There had to be a decent property somewhere—this was London, after all, the most magnificent city in the world.

  He rose and strolled over to Miss Benson’s desk. The dossiers of the six young men they’d chosen were there, in alphabetical order, of course. A hundred other applicants were under lock and key in the filing cabinet—someday he’d get to them. Thomas wondered about acquiring a large property in the country, but then most of the artists he knew would go mad without the amusements to be found in the city.

  The museums, the music halls, the pubs. Plays and concerts.

  The women.

  There he went again. Thomas snatched up the folders and returned to his own desk.

  File Number One was Raphael Conyers, a sculptor of rather massive subjects; or at least he wanted to be. He’d need to be put somewhere where his work could be removed easily—a ground floor or a stable in this not-yet-existent building. Rafe was half Italian, a handsome charmer who had no difficulty getting his female models to disrobe for him or sweet-talking his landlady from noticing the ceiling was sagging underneath hundreds of pounds of clay.

  File Number Two was Frederick Emerson, a painter. Fred was decidedly not that handsome or charming, but his colorful Impressionistic work gave Thomas such a visceral thrill he forgave the fellow his taciturn mumbles.

  Brian McMartin was Number Three, a fiery Irish poet whose work was rather political beneath its powerful turns of phrase. Camden Oliphant, Number Four, was also a painter, whose family had disowned him for reasons too numerous to elaborate. Kenneth Pierce played a mean piano, although the poor boy didn’t even own one at the moment, and he too had been kicked out of his house. Thomas would fix that for Number Five.

  And last was Ernest Stoddard, a blind cellist and composer. Older than the others by a few years, he had a young daughter who assisted him. Constance was only twelve, so should pose no temptation to the rest of the new household.

  Thomas was not unaware that some gentlemen—if you could call them that—preferred young girls. There was that temptress Evelyn Nesbit in America who attained a certain amount of fame when she was little more than a child—her face had been everywhere, and
rumor had it her mother had lied about her daughter’s age to secure work. But he and Miss Benson had thoroughly interviewed the candidates and their references. There had been no hint of any irregularity beyond the usual to be found with creative people. Some drinking, certainly. A bit of hashish and opium when the occasion arose. Sexual exploits that far outdistanced Thomas’s own. But no one was a total pariah.

  Right now, Thomas was sponsoring them individually, along with at least a dozen other creative people. He’d lost count, but Miss Benson would know. They were scattered all over London in less than ideal dwellings. Fred’s room was so dark he was never sure he’d mixed his paint correctly. Camden was sleeping on friends’ sofas and working when he could find an empty corner. Brian was about to be evicted from a wretched hovel. Each of these men was so talented, in Thomas’s opinion, that it shouldn’t take long for them once they had a showcase to make their mark and move off, freeing up space for a new crop of struggling artists.

  Thomas knew his idea had merit—why, even some of the members of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood had tried to live communally fifty years ago. Then there were those philosophers in New England who had set up a farm. But he didn’t want to waste his protégés time plowing and planting. Life was too short, and things could change in the blink of an eye.

  He picked up his smoldering cigar and gave a halfhearted puff. Smoking was a pretty filthy habit, and he wondered why he did it. Because he was bored? Because he could? It surely wasn’t healthy, and he vowed then and there to cease immediately.

  He’d given up things before that meant far more. Reaching for a twist of paper, he spent a few nervous minutes fashioning a plump pigeon which would never have the audacity to insult him or Miss Benson. He walked over to her desk again to return the files and put it in a place of prominence.

  Chapter 4

  Thursday, December 29, 1904

  The next morning Thomas woke up with a very sore head. Boredom had set in with a vengeance last evening, and he’d had far too much to eat and drink to try to escape the dullness. Holiday parties always seemed too festive. There was a false air of good cheer even amongst the most jaded members of society. Thomas had played his part, and the result was dispiriting, breakfast was inedible, and now, to make matters worse, Miss Benson was not at her desk.

  He stared out at the grim back garden, then pulled his watch from his pocket. The woman was half an hour late. That was simply unacceptable. He remembered his reservations about hiring her. Bad enough she was too gorgeous to look at; now she wasn’t even here not to look at. He’d gotten rather skilled at focusing just behind her right shoulder.

  Not that Thomas had anything for her to do. Unless she came with a vacant building up her sleeve for him to inspect, they were entirely caught up on correspondence. She’d only been with him a short time, and the difference she’d made was incredible. The files were actually filed. She’d consulted with Thurston, who was unalterably opposed to Thomas’s artists’ colony. Somehow she’d managed to cajole him into limited cooperation and had him turn over the books relating to the scheme to her.

  Miss Benson was now in the process of copying everything over in her own handwriting. She had elegant penmanship—far more decorative than Thurston’s crabbed scrawl. There was every chance Thomas might make sense of it all once she was finished.

  He was not stupid, he reminded himself. Though he’d been unable to earn any public school honors, his tutors had crammed a great deal of useless information into his head. He just didn’t think like the usual fellow—he was much happier staring at a painting searching for symbolism or watching the intricate coordinated steps of a line of dancers or not scanning a poem for its meter. Perfect words and imagery—that was the beauty of it all, not whether “bust” rhymed with “dust.”

  Thomas was a pleasure seeker. An aesthete. A sensualist, though he’d had damned limited firsthand experience. And he wished to bring the larger world along with him. That would be his legacy. The name Featherstone would signify art as Rothschild represented banking and Beatrix Potter meant bunnies.

  Where the hell was she? Perhaps he should arrange for her transportation every day. Send Josephson every morning to collect her and return her at the end of her abbreviated work day.

  Maybe Thomas had been a fool to hire her. But Nicky’s wife, Eliza, had vouched for the agency, and the formidable Mrs. Evensong had interviewed him before she placed Miss Benson in his household.

  What if she’d met with some sort of accident, or had been taken ill? How guilty he’d feel for resenting her tardiness.

  Thomas retreated to his desk and folded the edge of the front page of this morning’s newspaper into tiny triangles. He didn’t want to read it. There was nothing but Russo-Japanese War news. He did spot the ad for The Scarlet Pimpernel production opening the first week of January, but Miss Benson had already ordered the tickets. He’d seen its first iteration two years ago and had not been impressed, but supposedly the last act had been rewritten.

  He picked up one of the bone china coffee cups from the tray on of his desk. Cold. He and Miss Benson usually shared a cup as they discussed the morning’s business. Thomas was nothing if not a modern employer, treating his secretary with all the courtesy and coffee she deserved.

  And this was how she repaid him. He’d gotten up when he would much rather have stayed in bed nursing his head. Had his valet shave him to a millimeter so he would look presentable. Swallowed headache powder in the vain hope it might work.

  The newspaper was now one thick yet miniscule triangle, resembling the Christmas tree he’d refused to put up last week. Not his finest work. Thomas glanced over at the ridiculous pigeon he’d left as a sort of peace offering. He should remove it before the woman came to work. If she came to work.

  The library door opened just as Thomas clenched the thing in his palm. In rushed Miss Benson, hat askew, cheeks red, eyes bright, blinking back what surely looked like tears. All his gruffness dissipated.

  “I say! What’s happened? Are you all right? You’re crying!”

  Miss Benson shook her head. “No, no. It’s just the wind outside. Something in my eye. I’m so frightfully sorry I’m late. I was—I was unavoidably detained. My father—my father became ill just as I was about to leave.”

  Her voice sounded funny. Quivery. She had nothing of the cheerful, businesslike tone she usually used in their conversation, and her vowels weren’t quite right.

  “What’s wrong with him? I hope it’s nothing serious. I can send for my doctor to have a look at him, you know. Capital fellow.” Thomas had been at school with Paul Meadows before his expulsion. His friend had gone on to Edinburgh and was now a fully qualified physician. Thomas had assisted him in opening up his practice—charity was practically his middle name, wasn’t it? Right now Paul was the official doctor for a string of Thomas’s actress and model acquaintances, but Thomas knew the man would jump at the chance to have more respectable patients and income. A bank clerk would be a big step up.

  Miss Benson turned redder. “Uh, no, that won’t be necessary. He was well enough to go in to the bank. It was just a minor indisposition.”

  “Well, that’s good news,” Thomas said, feeling he was missing something vital. Miss Benson looked twitchy—she was not a very good prevaricator. It was one of the things he liked about her. Yesterday she could have told him that ramshackle mill was the perfect spot, but she didn’t. She risked her job to speak the truth, and that was just the sort of person he needed around him. He was almost glad she wore that horrible brown suit every day—it made it much easier not to look at her.

  “Well, get yourself settled then. I’ll just ring for fresh coffee, shall I? Have you eaten?”

  “N-no. I didn’t have the chance. But it’s not necessary—”

  “Don’t tell me what’s necessary at Featherstone House, Miss Benson. You won’t work well on an empty stomach. I’m not such a Scrooge that I expect my secretaries to starve to death.” Not that he’d e
ver had a secretary before.

  It would take a good long while to whittle down Miss Benson’s waist anyway. She was nicely upholstered everywhere. Soft. Plush. Delicious. Old Rubens would have had a field day.

  Stop thinking about her waist, Thomas, you rotter.

  “I—I—Thank you, Sir Thomas. That’s very kind.” She reached up to unpin her hat, a squashed-looking brown thing that did her no favors.

  Thomas remembered the last lady’s hat he’d bought. Not for any of his so-called paramours, but for Nick Raeburn to help woo his governess. Thomas had excellent taste—Eliza had married Nicky and they were now playing Happy Families in Scotland. The hat had pink flowers and green ribbons, and he imagined it on Miss Benson’s head. It wouldn’t be suitable for the season—winter was hard upon them—and Miss Benson did not seem like a flowery kind of woman.

  Nevertheless, he smiled at his mental image. Perhaps he’d surprise her with a new hat if she stayed with him for any length of time.

  Much better than a paper pigeon.

  Chapter 5

  Harriet’s hands were shaking. She’d never be able to take dictation later unless she steadied her nerves. It was hard enough to bring the warm roll to her lips and sip the sweetened coffee.

  She felt the scar tickling as if the black stitches were still there. This phantom sensation had never left her, and it had been months. Six of them, to be precise. When she was upset, she was particularly aware of her deformity, for that’s what she considered it to be.