When he had finished, he knew all about the giving of wedding breakfasts, but he still felt no more enlightened as to why she’d caught the public’s fancy than he had before. On the other hand, he knew his private opinion of her work no longer mattered.
Harry sat back on the bench and considered the situation as objectively as he could. Publishing was a cutthroat business, always shifting and changing. He could not afford to become closed-minded. Some of his most profitable ventures over the years had sprung from unexpected events that he turned into opportunities. Perhaps this was such a moment. Harry began to get an idea, and his innate optimism began to return.
After about an hour, he stood up, knowing there was only one thing to do. He’d meet with Barringer and accept the terms of sale the earl had outlined. He had to do it now. The way things were going, if he delayed, Miss Dove’s success would cost him another fifty thousand pounds.
Emma loved her new life. She loved spending her afternoons exploring London shops in search of information to share with her readers. She loved exercising her ingenuity, inventing ways to transform the commonplace into the unusual, so that even the most frugal matrons could arrange elegant meals for their families and even the busiest girl-bachelors could make their flats comfortable and cozy. She loved writing, and she loved seeing her compositions in print. She loved Mrs. Bartleby, because every morning when she sat down to work, when she typed the advice of that fictional character, she could hear dear Aunt Lydia’s voice again. It was almost as if Auntie were sitting beside her, helping her along, sharing her newfound success.
And she was successful, surprisingly so.
Despite her former employer’s rejections of her work, Emma had always felt that her particular knowledge and experience could be of use to others. But she was astonished by the extent of her popularity and the speed at which her success occurred. Within a month, she had become the talk of the town every Saturday morning, and when she asked for an increase in her wages, Barringer granted it, enabling her to stop dipping into her savings so that she could live comfortably on her writing income alone.
Within two months, she was receiving stacks of letters, so many that she couldn’t answer them all in a timely fashion. Sometimes she heard the name of Mrs. Bartleby while standing with others on a street corner waiting for an omnibus or while waiting her turn in a grocer’s shop. All this notoriety gave her a thrill, rather, although if the letter she received or the opinion she overheard was negative, she felt depressed for hours and was compelled to eat far too many chocolates.
Despite the occasional minor bout of depression over criticism and the resulting bilious attack, she had never been more content. What she was doing now was far more useful than making sure one erratic, thoughtless man got to his appointments on time. It was certainly more gratifying than buying his presents for him.
On the other hand, her new job was not an easy one. She had to accustom herself to writing under a deadline, and that was hard. She had to be painstaking in her research and judicious with her advice. She was also required by Lord Barringer to keep her identity as Mrs. Bartleby a secret, and that was hardest of all, for she was by nature a person of scrupulous honesty. However, as Barringer pointed out, secrecy whetted public curiosity, and that could only assist in her success. Even more important, she was dispensing advice under the guise of a matron, and her credibility would be hurt if it was discovered that she was unmarried. After all, no one wanted advice from a spinster, which was why she had adopted a pseudonym in the first place.
While she appreciated the reasons for the subterfuge, she didn’t understand how it would be possible to maintain it. Marlowe knew the truth and had every reason to reveal it publicly, but when she had pointed out this fact to Barringer, the earl had given her a strange little smile and assured her that Marlowe would be the last person in the world to give the secret away.
Though baffled by how the earl could be certain of Marlowe’s discretion, she had agreed to keep mum, and it was soon understood by all who knew her that she had left the employ of Lord Marlowe and had accepted a post as secretary to the now-famous Mrs. Bartleby. Emma felt a bit guilty about the deceit, but whenever she thought of Marlowe’s opinion that what she wrote was silly, her guilt was easy to vanquish.
With each week that passed, Emma found it a bit easier to play her part. On Sunday afternoons when she took tea with the other girl bachelors in the lodging house, she became quite adept at fielding their questions about the beloved etiquette writer without telling any outright lies. And Sunday afternoon tea had its rewards. Sitting in Mrs. Morris’s genteel parlor, with its faded, cabbage-rose wallpaper, potted ferns, and plum-colored mahogany furnishings, Emma listened to her friends discuss her latest column and saw first hand the results of her influence. Emma found Sunday afternoons most gratifying.
“Mr. Jones proposed.”
There was a delicate clinking of porcelain cups being set on saucers, followed by five exclamations of surprise as the women already enjoying their tea looked toward the doorway where Miss Beatrice Cole, always the last to appear for Sunday tea nowadays, had just entered the room.
“Oh, my dear Beatrice!” Mrs. Morris set her cup on the tea table beside her and turned toward the younger woman. “This is a happy day indeed.”
Beatrice took her usual place in a wingback chair of somewhat worn brocade stripe. Her face glowed with satisfaction, partly due to true love, no doubt, and partly due to the triumph of securing that item so rare in a girl bachelor’s life: a young man with prospects.
“To think it was all due to Mrs. Bartleby.” Beatrice hastened to pull off her gloves and show everyone her ring of engagement, a silver filigree band. “If it hadn’t been for her, my fate would probably be to die an old maid.”
Miss Prudence Bosworth and Miss Maria Martingale both winced at that, but they expressed their congratulations in the true spirit of friendship and tried to hide their understandable envy.
Mrs. Morris and Mrs. Inkberry set aside their tea and exclaimed over the ring with a happiness untarnished by any less savory feelings. Unlike their unmarried companions, they had no cause to worry about the security of their future. Mrs. Morris, a widow, had inherited the lodging house upon her husband’s death and did very well on her own. Mrs. Inkberry’s husband owned a bookshop near Fleet Street, and though the couple did have to live in the cramped quarters above the shop, their home was cozy, the shop was prosperous, and they’d managed to raise four daughters quite comfortably. Though Emma was firmly on the shelf at thirty and had rather given up on the notion of matrimony, she was not immune to the green-eyed monster. Nonetheless, the envy she felt upon hearing Beatrice’s news was nothing in comparison to her satisfaction at the part she had played in securing her friend’s present happiness.
“Beatrice, you must explain,” Mrs. Inkberry said and took a sip of her tea. “How is it that you give Mrs. Bartleby the credit for your engagement?”
“That’s right, you’ve been away at Yorkshire, so you don’t know how it all came about.” Beatrice accepted a cup of tea from Mrs. Morris and reached for a crumpet from the tray on the central tea table. “You know of Mrs. Bartleby, of course.”
Mrs. Inkberry nodded. “Of course! I’ve been trying to read her column whenever possible, but it’s much harder to get the Social Gazette in Yorkshire.”
“Well,” Beatrice continued, “Mr. Jones has been asking for ages if he could walk with me on my way home from the shop, but Mrs. Morris advised me it wouldn’t be proper for us to walk together, both of us being unmarried, you know. People might think things.”
“Quite right of you, Abigail, dear, to advise caution,” Mrs. Inkberry said with a nod to Mrs. Morris. “A young woman without family cannot be too careful in her relations with the male sex. She must have a care for her reputation.”
“I know, Josephine,” Mrs. Morris answered, “but I was in error. Mrs. Bartleby said in her column it was quite acceptable for Beatrice to walk with her young man.”
“She did?” Mrs. Inkberry was clearly dumbfounded. She glanced around the room, and all five of the other women present nodded in the affirmative.
“She wasn’t referring to me specifically, of course,” Beatrice said and went on to explain the rule Emma had outlined six weeks earlier. “So you see, Mrs. Inkberry, it was quite all right. I’ve known Mr. Jones four years now. I mean, we see each other nearly every day, with me closing up the shop for Mrs. Wilson at six o’clock most evenings, and him always leaving the barrister’s office at the same time, and us living two streets apart and always walking home the same way. As for his good character, Mr. Jones would have to have that, I should think, being a barrister’s clerk. And sometimes when we’re queued up at the costermonger’s cart for lunch, I’ve seen him buy two pork pies just so he can give one to that poor indigent woman who’s always rummaging in the alley rubbish heap. That says a great deal about a man, doesn’t it?”
Emma was in complete agreement. The entire reason she’d written that particular column, which did bend the rules just a bit, was solely so poor Beatrice could walk home with her chivalrous young man. Mrs. Morris had a kind heart, but she was a rather silly woman, truth be told, and inclined to be overly punctilious about these things. Even Auntie, who’d been Mrs. Morris’s friend for years, had always thought the other woman rather narrow.
“Well,” Mrs. Inkberry said, “if Mrs. Bartleby said it was all right, Beatrice, then that settles the question once and for all.”
“Reading that made me so happy,” Beatrice said, “and it so relieved my mind. I told Mr. Jones straightaway. If Mrs. Bartleby says it’s all right, I told him, then we can be sure it is. He and I have been walking home together every work day since, Mrs. Inkberry. Sunday afternoons, too, in the park. That’s where he proposed, not more than an hour ago.” She looked down at the ring on her finger and began tilting her hand this way and that so the silver would catch the afternoon sunlight through the windows. “We’ll be married before Christmas.”
Emma smiled to herself and took a sip of tea. Yes, she decided, her new life was a very satisfying one indeed.
She was still feeling quite happy with her new life Thursday afternoon when the delivery boy from the Social Gazette came to pick up her column, despite a four-day bout of what she believed was called “writer’s block.” Now, with young Mr. Hobbs knocking on her door, she typed the last paragraph with frantic fervor.
“Wait a bit, Hobbs,” she called to the closed door as she whipped the last page out of the typewriting machine. “I shall be with you in a moment.”
She folded all the pages of her column and shoved the sheets into an envelope, then she sealed the edge, dribbling wax on her desk in her haste. She ran for the door, opened it, and presented the envelope to the boy with a heart-felt sigh of relief. “Here you are, Mr. Hobbs.”
To her surprise, he did not take the envelope from her hand. Instead, he shook his head. “I’s been told to tell you you’re to bring your papers down to the Gazette yourself. I’m just here to fetch you.”
“But—” Emma broke off, frowning in puzzlement. This was a very odd and unexpected development, but Hobbs appeared to know nothing more about the matter. She fetched her bonnet and put on her gloves, then tucked her column into the pocket of her skirt and accompanied the lad to the offices of the Social Gazette on Bouverie Street.
When they arrived, the boy was dismissed, and a clerk with a harried expression on his face ushered her up to Barringer’s suite of offices. Emma’s astonishment increased further when she found Mr. Ashe, the earl’s secretary, engaged in the task of packing up his things.
“Good afternoon, Mr. Ashe,” she greeted him. “What is it you do here?”
The secretary placed his silver inkstand in the wooden crate on his desk before replying. “Lord Barringer has sold the newspaper,” he told her. “I was offered a post as secretary to the new owner, but I have been with Lord Barringer for many years and have chosen to remain in his employ, so I am packing up my things, as you see.”
“The Social Gazette has been sold? To whom?”
“To me, Miss Dove.”
The voice that came from behind her was appallingly familiar. She closed her eyes for a moment, praying that she was mistaken, but when she opened her eyes again and turned around, she found there was no mistake. Standing in the doorway, one shoulder against the doorframe and his arms folded across his chest, was her former employer.
Emma stared at Marlowe, and a little knot of dismay formed in her tummy as she felt her wonderful new life crumbling into dust.
Chapter 7
It is perfectly possible to form a satisfactory, mutually agreeable alliance with a woman. But only if you are not in a church at the time.
Lord Marlowe
The Bachelor’s Guide, 1893
“Lord Barringer has sold the Gazette to you? This is…” Emma paused, struggling to regain her poise. “This is most unexpected.”
“Barringer and I have been discussing a possible sale for several months. We came to terms last week and signed the documents yesterday.” He straightened in the doorway and gestured to the office behind him. “I should like to discuss the situation with you.”
She preceded him into what had been Barringer’s office. Though the furnishings were still intact, all personal traces of the former occupant had been removed. The bookshelf was empty, the elegant desk was bare, the paintings had been removed from the walls, no carpet covered the wooden floor.
Marlowe closed the door and moved to stand behind what was now his desk. He indicated the chair opposite his own. “Please sit down.”
Emma didn’t want to sit down. She wanted to get this over and depart. She pulled her latest column out of her skirt pocket. “For next week’s edition.”
She held out the envelope to him, though she fully expected him to refuse it. Her eyes met his across the desk, daring him to tell her that her silly little column was being dropped from the newspaper, and that she was now unemployed.
That would be quite all right with her. She wouldn’t write for Marlowe now if he were the last publisher on earth. Besides, she had gained some mea sure of success during the past two months, and she could surely find another publisher to take her on.
Fortified by these internal reassurances, she was able to speak with a mea sure of good cheer. “You don’t want it? Oh, but what am I thinking? Of course you don’t. It’s all about tableware. Runcible spoons and fish knives and that sort of thing. Dull as ashes. Who’d want to read that?
She started to put the envelope back in her pocket, but to her surprise, Marlowe held out his hand. She gave him the envelope and he set it to one side of his desk, then once again gestured to the chair. “Miss Dove, I’d like to be comfortable while we talk, but as a gentleman, I can’t sit until you do. Etiquette, you know.”
She lifted her brows in a skeptical sort of way that made short shrift of his expertise in that regard.
“I truly do have some knowledge of good manners.” Laugh lines creased the corners of his deep blue eyes, and a rueful smile curved his mouth. “Although, as someone recently reminded me, I do not employ that knowledge as often as I should.”
Emma reminded herself that self-deprecating charm was one of his greatest talents, one that had enabled him to get around her so many times over the years, and she did not smile back. Instead, she took a deep breath and decided she wasn’t going to wait meekly for the ax to fall. She took the offered chair, then she took the initiative.
“My lord, I am aware of your feelings regarding what Barringer has chosen to publish in the past. You have already made them quite clear to me. In light of that, I’m sure you intend to take the Social Gazette in a new and different direction.”
“That is true, but—”
“And,” she went on in a rush, “it’s obvious the silly, inconsequential stuff I write can have no place in your plans.”
“On the con—”
“If you do int
end to publish the column I just gave you, I would appreciate it if you would arrange for my compensation. Then you shall never have to see me again, read a single piece of my work, or endure any further lectures from me about your manners.”
She started to rise, but his amused voice stopped her.
“Miss Dove, I’ve just admitted I don’t always mind my manners, but I do know a few rules of decorum. For instance, I believe interrupting people is a violation of etiquette, isn’t it?”
Emma felt the heat rush into her face, and she tried to muster her dignity. “I wasn’t aware I was doing that,” she said. “My…my apologies.”
“Apology accepted.” His voice was grave, but there was still a suspicious curve to one corner of his mouth that made her stiffen in her chair.
He must have seen it, for his amusement vanished at once. “I wasn’t laughing at you. Well, perhaps I was,” he amended, “a little. It’s just that you always take these matters of etiquette so very seriously.”
“And we both know you don’t.”
“The only thing I take seriously is business, and even that had best be fun or it’s not worth doing.” He pulled a copy of the Social Gazette out of a drawer and unfolded it on top of the desk. Opening it to page three, where her column was located, he went on, “I admire your perspicacity in understanding my intentions. I do intend to make changes here. Sweeping ones, in fact.”
Emma wanted this business over. “If you are removing my column from the paper, just say so, please.”
“I have no intention of removing it.”
“You wish to keep it?” A lady was never supposed to betray surprise, but Emma couldn’t hide her astonishment. Perhaps she hadn’t heard him right. “But you hate my writing.”
“Hate is perhaps too strong a word.”
“You called it silly.” Emma folded her arms and glared at him. “You said it wasn’t any good.”
And Then He Kissed Her Page 9
