The Unsuitable Secretary (A Ladies Unlaced Novel) Page 19

  Thomas made himself shudder. “Certainly not! Why settle down when the world’s my oyster? Girls are throwing themselves at me left and right. But as you said, she’s a very good friend. Worth every . . . well, worth it. You wouldn’t believe what she knows how to do.” Pitman shorthand, for one thing.

  Morton cleared his throat. “Mr. Clinton is waiting for you in the other room, Lord St. Cuthbert. He wondered where you’d got off to.”

  “I hope he didn’t bring me such expensive rubbish. Doro isn’t worth it. See you around, Tubby. I can’t wait to meet such a deserving creature.”

  The thought of Alistair St. Cuthbert anywhere near Harriet was revolting. In fact, he’d want to keep Harriet away from any of his friends aside from Paul, Marcus Stanley, and Nicky, if he ever came back to London. The others would think she wasn’t good enough, but the truth was Thomas wasn’t good enough for her.

  Harriet wasn’t an actress or a dancer or a model or an accomplished courtesan. She was . . . Harriet, and Thomas lo—

  “Here you are, Sir Thomas. May I direct your attention to this one? Six and a half carats of Burmese ruby, with over a carat of diamonds haloing the center stone. Note the additional stones on the shank. If I may take the liberty to say so, the ring would go very nicely with the piece you purchased yesterday. Unless,” Morton colored, “this is for a different lady.”

  “No, no, of course not,” Thomas said absently. He’d forgotten he was supposed to be a fabled cocksman. The old Thomas would have claimed credit for a harem, ordered a dozen rings to pass out to his female friends.

  Maybe not quite the size or expense of this one. Thurston needn’t have a spasm; Thomas wasn’t totally profligate. He held the ring in the palm of his hand. It was glittery, yet simple in design. Kind of like Harriet when she got dressed up. Classic. He could see it on her long finger as she typed. Grasped his cock. She had lovely hands when they weren’t ink-stained. Even if they were ink-stained.

  “I’ll take it,” Thomas said. “Are there earrings to match?”

  Chapter 34

  Two more days and nights. Tomorrow Thomas had tickets to a play, and Harriet had decided she couldn’t possibly go out with him in public. It was one thing to accompany him about town as his secretary, but one did not take one’s secretary to the theater.

  So, subtract a few precious hours.

  Harriet had been alphabetizing files for ages, though they were alphabetized to begin with. She needed to keep her mind off her troubles, and there was nothing like a good purge of paperwork. Of course, she’d already purged when she was newly hired—Thomas’s files had been in a frightful mess. She had half an idea Thurston had deliberately sabotaged all foundation business.

  It wasn’t because he was a villain, no matter how much Thomas had complained. Harriet had met the elderly man several times and could not help but like him. But he was not supportive of Thomas “throwing his money away,” as he’d put it. It wasn’t until Harriet convinced him of her fiscally conservative bona fides that he’d allowed her to take over the part of his job he absolutely loathed.

  She told herself she was doing all this to smooth the way for Thomas’s next secretary. Harriet wondered if she should call Mrs. Evensong and arrange for interviews. But then, that canny old woman would ask why Harriet was leaving after so short a stint, and Harriet couldn’t give her an honest answer. The conversation might go like this:

  Mrs. Evensong: Poor dear. Are you ill again?

  Harriet: I’m feeling fine. Amazingly well.

  Mrs. Evensong: Is the man difficult to work for? I suspected as much. He had that look about him.

  Harriet: No, no. Thomas, that is Sir Thomas, is a dream to work for. He’s generous, kind, funny and an excellent kisser.

  No, not that last part.

  Mrs. Evensong: Why, then? Has your father finally convinced you a woman’s place is in the home? (This would be accompanied by a snort.)

  Harriet: Not at all. My father and I are not speaking currently. I—I’ve come into an unexpected inheritance and am retiring to the country.

  Mrs. Evensong: Oh, how dreadful. I’m so sorry for your loss. Who died?

  Harriet: Um . . .

  See? It was impossible. One had to have an airtight story to present to the world, and Harriet had nothing but air in her head. She still had yet to pick a place to live. At this point, she might as well open an atlas and stick a finger on some random page. She’d had no chance to do sufficient research, and knew no one who could help her. All she knew about the Cotswolds was that there were lots of sheep.

  She’d never seen an actual sheep in her life, though she did like to eat lamb on the rare occasions it had come her way.

  But Harriet was sure she could acquiesce to the customs of the country. She was, as Thomas said, a fast learner. But she’d better have a story. The villagers might not be as astute as Mrs. Evensong, but she wouldn’t want to start off on the wrong foot. After all, she couldn’t say, “Oh, I was a rich London gentleman’s mistress for a week—no, technically five days—and he gave me an enormous amount of money to settle somewhere.” That would go down a treat.

  Harriet pinched the bridge of her nose. The files and the thinking were giving her a headache. The thinking, mostly.

  She pulled Raphael Conyers’s file from the pile to make sure all was in order and opened it. Then stared. The morals clause he’d been asked to sign was right on top, and he’d written . . . she squinted.

  Michelangelo.

  The rotter.

  As if he were that good a sculptor. The man’s ego was the size of the pink marble slab Thomas had bought for him.

  Conyers wasn’t going to get away with that! How had she missed it before? Had she even then been so besotted with Sir Thomas Benedict Featherstone that she hadn’t checked the signatures?

  That question she could answer honestly: Yes.

  Quickly she went through the other folders. No one else had tried to play any tricks on Thomas.

  It was sleeting, and too late to go to Mount Street today, but tomorrow? She put a fresh sheet of paper in her typing machine and retyped the contract. Then she realized she needed another copy for Conyers, so she did one more. She was so angry her fingers flew across the keyboard, punching each key with a viciousness she usually reserved for thinking about people who mistreated children.

  That snake! Here was Thomas, generous to a fault, lifting Conyers out of the gutter, and how had the man repaid him? By deception. He was probably rutting with some model right this minute under poor Kenneth’s pimply nose. That young boy would be totally corrupted while living at the Featherstone Foundation unless Harriet interceded. Kenneth reminded her of her brothers—not that they were at all musical, or quite so spotted.

  Harriet heard Thomas’s footfall and shoved the new contracts in Raphael Conyers’s folder. She’d deal with him tomorrow. She looked forward to it, actually. It would be her last true professional accomplishment for Thomas.

  Aside from the . . . coupling. But that wasn’t professional. Harriet was rather proud of her sexual development, but it would all end tomorrow night. The tap would be turned off. The gate closed. The suitcase packed . . . Oh, enough with the analogies. She would revert to being the dried-up spinster Harriet, with no need for a name change.

  Could she pass herself off as a widow? She wasn’t that old, but people died left and right at young ages. There had been the war. There was disease and infection and influenza. But Harriet was too softhearted to kill off even an imaginary man.

  Could she have invented something which brought her an income? Written a novel? Been the companion of a kindly old lady who remembered Harriet in her will?

  That was it! Harriet thought back to her first job, fresh out of secretarial college. She’d worked for Lady Dane organizing her social life, which, truth to tell, had not been very social. Her grown children ignored her, and her sharp tongue had ensured she’d fallen out with most of her friends. But she’d liked Harriet, and even
left her a few pounds when she died, which Harriet had dutifully handed over to her father.

  Lady Dane had given her champagne when she turned twenty; Harriet’s first taste of the stuff. A good thing she didn’t become used to it. She wouldn’t get used to Thomas’s blandishments and gifts, either. Harriet needed to make a quiet, economical life for herself, and put this week behind her.

  Harriet switched the dates around in her head. Loyal companion. Perfectly understandable she’d be remembered in the will. Generous old lady. No, her family hadn’t minded—they’d so appreciated Harriet’s excellent care of their mother.

  The story was foolproof, and almost true. Harriet might even offer her services to a local charity, taking shorthand during committee meetings. She might come to be invaluable in her little village.

  Oh, that tall lady’s Miss Benson. We don’t know what we’d do without her. We bless the day she came to . . .

  Harriet opened up The Counties of England, turned to the Gloucestershire pages and closed her eyes. She swirled her finger over a page and stopped.

  Painswick. All right then. Not too far from Cheltenham Spa and Gloucester itself. She noted there were Roman ruins in Cirencester some miles below it. Perhaps she could develop an interest in ancient history. One had to have hobbies when one was a lady of leisure.

  The words blurred. Painswick. Somehow the very name was appropriate for what she felt in her heart.

  Chapter 35

  Harriet snapped a book shut when he entered the library. He was too far away to read the title, but he’d seen it absorbed her. Her desk held an avalanche of files, very unlike its usual tidiness. She wiped a speck of dust from her eye and smiled up at him.

  “I say, it’s quitting time. You should be getting dressed for dinner.”

  Harriet looked at her wristwatch. He should buy her something nicer; not that she’d have to worry about her time in the future. She could relax and do whatever a mistress did—long bubble baths, eyebrow plucking, fingernail polishing, and whatnot.

  “I just want to make sure all is in order when I leave.”

  She wouldn’t be leaving if he had any say about it. Thomas touched the velvet box in his pocket. He still hadn’t worked out his pitch yet. The few words he’d written before he’d encountered St. Cuthbert were burning up the page. He was looking forward to plying her with champagne tonight and making his proposition later, when he’d firmed it up.

  If he was honest, he was a bit nervous. But, he assured himself, it could only go one of two ways. She could say yes, and make him the happiest man on earth, or say no, and stab him with a fork.

  Or perhaps a hairpin. Maybe he should wait until they were in bed together, forkless and pinless. He was pretty confident in his abilities to satisfy her, and it was his privilege to do so. She was glorious with her head thrown back, her hair cascading loose, her mouth slightly open, her eyes dark with passion. Her breasts—well, one could write a book about her breasts and never run out of complimentary words. Who would have thought that beneath that horrible brown suit was such an exquisite body? Well, he had, of course, and her mind was a beautiful thing as well. So quick to see the forest, rather than the trees, while Thomas caught himself on the branches. She was ideal for him in every way.

  “Don’t worry about the files. Doesn’t everyone have their own system?”

  “They shouldn’t,” Harriet said. “That’s what got you into so much trouble.”

  “You are a gem. A . . . a ruby.” Thomas smiled at his own little joke.

  Harriet glared at him. “You haven’t bought me any more jewelry, have you?”

  “What? After you told me not to? Certainly not,” Thomas lied.

  “Good. I can’t accept any more, Thomas. It’s just not proper.”

  There was that damned word again. By God, he was sick of it.

  “How would I explain the fancy jewelry to the neighbors?” Harriet continued.

  “What neighbors?”

  “The ones I’m going to have near my cottage. I was so worried, but I’ve come up with the best plan,” she said. “The perfect disguise. No, not disguise. That’s not the right word. I’m not going to be masquerading in a mask and domino the rest of my life. But when I go to P—the village in the country, I have come up with a new persona to explain who I am.”

  Thomas looked at her blankly. “Won’t you be Harriet Benson?”

  “Yes, I suppose. I thought I might change my—but never mind. Harriet is who I am at heart. But what if someone asked me where I got the money to buy the cottage?”

  “Rubbish. Why would someone do that?”

  “Because that’s what people do, Thomas. They want to know all about you in the country.”

  “Bugger the country. It’s none of their ruddy business. I’m glad I don’t live there. Although”—he paused, seeing an advantage—“I have a house in the country. Quite a big one. It needs redecoration from top to bottom.”

  Harriet didn’t appear to be listening. “So I’ve made up a story, although it isn’t really made up. You know my first employer, Lady Dane?”

  Thomas didn’t.

  “When she died, she left me a tiny legacy. I’m just going to pretend it was much, much bigger. So that explains how I came to be a woman of independent means. That’s a respectable way to come into a fortune, entirely prop—”

  Thomas raised a hand. “Don’t say it.”

  “What?”

  “The P word.”

  Harriet looked confused.

  “Proper, Harry. I don’t want to hear it.”

  “All right; you’re the boss.”

  “Damn it! I don’t want to be your boss! I want to be your lover!”

  “Shh! Lower your voice. The servants will hear.”

  “I don’t bloody care if the whole bloody world hears! You don’t have to run off to wherever you’re running off and pretend to be some old lady’s companion. I want you for my companion.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean—I mean, oh hell.” Thomas wasn’t properly prepared.

  Harriet sat still behind the mess on her desk. But she didn’t sit still well. She was always straightening, organizing, shuffling. He watched as she stacked the papers in three piles, her hands shaking. “What do you want, Thomas?” she asked quietly.

  “I don’t want you to go,” he blurted.

  “But I have to. As of midnight, January fifth, our contract is ended.” She wouldn’t look at him.

  “Why? Because it says so on a piece of paper? What if—what if I refuse to let you go?”

  “Do you want to enslave me?” Harriet asked, appalled.

  Ah, damn her. He envisioned Harriet tied up with ribbons, the knots not too tight. Her endlessly long legs spread—

  “Of course not. I’m a modern man. If I can tie you up, you can tie me up.”

  “What?”

  He ran his hand through his hair. “I’m making a hash of this, I know. You are the only person in the world who can flummox me like you do. Not even my father—” Thomas shut his mouth. Hash didn’t begin to cover it.

  “I think you should sit down, Thomas. You’re agitated. No, over there where you aren’t so close.”

  Thomas obeyed, sinking into an old leather armchair. He stared at his hands, wishing he had a piece of paper. “I have a proposal I’d like to make to you. I could make you much, much happier than any cottage in the country. If you would do me the honor—”

  “Stop! I’m going to say no before you even ask. I cannot marry you.”

  Thomas felt a warning bell go off in his head but ignored it. “Marry me? I wasn’t going to ask you to marry me.”

  Although, perhaps he should. He had thought about it, surely. He’d let the idea skitter around the edges of his mind.

  What there was of it.

  Really, the girl was brilliant!

  Harriet stared at him, mouth open. She really had lovely teeth. Not a cavity to be seen—which was unusual in her class.
<
br />   She closed it. “Well, that’s good. Because you are a baronet from Mayfair, and I am a typist from Shoreditch. It would not be prop—it would be unsuitable. Your friends would laugh at you and I would be shunned. You would lose backers from the foundation project because everyone would think you were insane. They might actually understand if you married one of your fluffy chorus girl friends, but I am not a fluffy chorus girl.”

  No she was not. Her tone was calm. Measured. There were no giggles or artifice.

  “You are so much better.”

  “Be that as it may. If you weren’t going to propose marriage, may I assume you wished to prolong our arrangement with me as your mistress?”

  Thomas’s mouth was dry. She was so very . . . businesslike. He nodded.

  “Out of the question.”

  “Why? We’ll have more time to do all the things we’ve been doing. Do more of them. I’ve never had a better time, Harry. Not even at auction when I bid on a Renoir and got it.”

  He was wheedling. He did not sound especially persuasive. It was all about him. His desires. If he were Harriet, he wouldn’t say yes, either.

  “You wouldn’t have to live in some poky old cottage in a village where rude people asked you how you got your money. I could buy you an elegant house in Town. You could decorate it as you saw fit, as long as the furniture’s comfortable. Why, if you enjoyed that sort of thing, you could have a crack at Featherstone Park. In the country. It needs a woman’s touch. Wallpaper.”

  “Wallpaper!” She was very pale. Had she some kind of objection to wallpaper? If the pattern wasn’t too busy, it would be all right, wouldn’t it?

  “Let me see if I understand you. You want to me to be your mistress so I can wallpaper your properties?”

  “Yes, among other things. You know what they are, I trust. I—I like you. And you have impeccable taste. I’ve seen what you’ve done with the Featherstone Foundation. And on a shoestring budget too. Imagine what you could do with all my fortune behind you. W-wainscoting. Parquet flooring. Tasseled curtains. The country house hasn’t been touched since my mother died.” He really should shut up now.