“Mr. Sheppard,” I said, “what—what an unexpected pleasure. I didn’t know you ever left your office.”
“Rarely do,” he admitted, “but in this instance—” He hesitated, his large blue-gray eyes showing discomfiture behind the gold-trimmed spectacles.
“Is something wrong?” I inquired.
Again he hesitated, looking rather like a dried-up little pixie in his neatly tailored tan breeches and coat, his brown and cream striped waistcoat and neckcloth of palest green. His thin sandy hair looked slightly more gray than I remembered, an errant lock splayed across his brow and adding an incongruously boyish touch. I gave him an encouraging smile.
“May I help you in some way, Mr. Sheppard?”
“I—uh—I’d much prefer to discuss it with Gordon. Is he in?”
It was my turn to hesitate. “He—actually he is, Mr. Sheppard, but he isn’t awake.”
“Oh?”
“He’s been working so late, you see. Didn’t stop until after six this morning, and then he was absolutely exhausted—I can awaken him, of course, if it’s really necessary.”
“Working, eh?” he said.
“Terribly hard,” I lied.
“I take it The Spoils of Dowland is nearing completion, then?”
“I—I don’t imagine it will be long now.”
Lying through my teeth, I was. He’d done exactly three chapters, and those not his best work. Hardly took quill in hand these days, much too busy skulking around London on mysterious errands that weren’t going to do anyone any good and might well cause a great deal of trouble.
“I’m very glad to hear that,” Mr. Sheppard said. “He hasn’t delivered those early chapters he promised, you see, and with a June fifteenth delivery date I was beginning to grow—well—a bit perturbed, I might as well confess it. Cam hasn’t always been the—uh—the most dependable writer I’ve dealt with.”
“June fifteenth delivery date,” I said, frowning.
“That’s what he agreed to when I gave him the advance. Largest advance I’ve ever made, incidentally, but after the success of Gentleman James it seemed reasonable enough. He promised Spoils for the middle of June, said he’d deliver it in batches so my printers could get a head start setting up the type. I want to bring it out in September, you see, and—”
He hesitated again, looking extremely uncomfortable now, looking doubtful when he saw the expression on my face. I quickly concealed the shock and dismay I was feeling and gave him another, very reassuring smile.
“I’m afraid it’s largely my own fault,” I confessed, groping for words. “I do all his copying, you know, and—well, I’ve gotten terribly behind. Cam didn’t tell me he was supposed to deliver the manuscript in sections—he’s been working so hard I—I guess it slipped his mind.”
Slipped his mind to tell me about the advance, too. Largest advance Thomas Sheppard & Co. had ever paid one of their writers, and I had a rather good idea where every penny of it had gone. Not into the ginger jar and certainly not into the bank. Not to his relatives and not to some deserving charity. No indeed. It had gone straight into the hands of those wretched rebels to finance that secretive venture he had obliquely hinted about once or twice. Could I possibly stab him in his sleep and get by with it? Could I plead self-defense?
“I’ll do my best to make amends, Mr. Sheppard,” I said, light and charming as could be.
“I quite understand,” he replied.
“You’ll receive the first chapters as soon as possible, and I can assure you they’ll be well worth waiting for. Spoils is Cam’s very best book, even more exciting than Gentleman James. His readers are going to love it.”
If they ever saw it. June fifteenth was less than a month away. He’d have to work night and day to meet that deadline, and he’d shown no inclination whatsoever to get to his work-table of late. It was dishonest, taking all that money and making no effort to keep his part of the bargain. If he didn’t deliver the book on time, Sheppard & Co. could well take him to court—serve the bastard right, it would—and he couldn’t possibly repay the money. Visions of debtor’s prison loomed, Cam in a dark, damp cell, cheeks sunken, eyes haunted, chains rattling as he moved on the wet, filthy straw scattered over the cold stone floor.
But I was forgetting my duties as hostess. Hoping to appear warm and hospitable, I asked Mr. Sheppard if he would care for a cup of tea. He shook his head, studying me closely with amiable blue-gray eyes.
“Forgive me,” he said. He smiled a thin, dry but charming smile. “I was staring, I know, but—you seem different somehow.”
“Do I?”
“The feisty, engaging, and—uh—quite alarming young woman who came to my office a few months ago seems to have vanished.”
“Indeed?”
“Replaced by an elegant young woman who speaks in a cultured voice and has all the social graces.”
“I’m still working on the voice,” I confessed, “and I’m gradually learning the social graces. A friend is giving me lessons in both. Yesterday, after we finished our vocal exercises, I learned about forks and spoons, which ones to use when.”
“Admirable,” he remarked.
“It’s very hard going sometimes,” I told him. “When I’m not repeating my vowels or setting a mock table, I’m walking across the room with books balanced on my head and learning about French wines. Mrs. Wooden is very thorough.”
“Wooden? Would that be Mrs. Marcelon Wooden?”
“You know her?” I asked.
“I once saw her give a—uh—most remarkable performance as The Duchess of Malfi. It was an unforgettable evening,” he added dryly.
“She lives across the way, you know. She’s determined to make a lady out of me.”
“I should say that she’s doing a very good job of it,” Sheppard replied, very gallant. “I only hope Gordon appreciates the efforts you’re making. He’s an extremely fortunate man—I said that after our first encounter, when you made your somewhat—uh—alarming appearance at my office.”
“Was—was I really so awful?”
“You were enchanting,” he assured me, “also a most astute business person. You drove a very hard bargain indeed. Brains, beauty, vitality—I must confess, if I were thirty years younger, Gordon would have some heavy competition for your favor.”
“If you were thirty years younger, Cam wouldn’t have a prayer.”
Sheppard chuckled, eyes twinkling with delight behind the gold-rimmed spectacles. He straightened the lapels of his frock coat and brushed the errant lock of sandy hair from his brow. Glancing around the room, he noticed the secretary and the stack of pages I had been on the verge of destroying.
“Work in progress?” he inquired.
“In—in a manner of speaking,” I said, uneasy. “It’s—nothing, really.”
Sheppard moved over to the secretary and picked up the top page, examining it idly. “Quite a boon to us, your copying all of Gordon’s work. Saves us ever so much time. Hmmm. This isn’t his usual style.”
“It—it’s not his.”
“No? You’re working as copyist for someone else, too?”
I shook my head, horribly uncomfortable. Sheppard looked up from the page, his eyes full of inquiry.
“I—I’m afraid it’s my own work,” I admitted. “I had the—the absurd notion that I might be able to write a book myself. It was just—just an experiment. Quite foolish, of course.”
Sheppard read a few more lines. I gazed miserably at the floor, wishing it would open beneath me and swallow me up.
“Cam—Cam doesn’t know anything about it,” I said. “I was ashamed to mention it to him. It’s quite awful, I know that. I was just about to tear it up when you knocked on the door.”
“I’m glad you didn’t,” he told me. “Would you mind if I took this back to my office?”
“I—you don’t really want to read it, Mr. Sheppard. It’s dreadful, every word of it.”
“Why don’t you let me be the judge of t
hat,” he suggested, gathering up the pages. “I publish a great many books and quite a number of magazines. We’re always looking for new writers, not nearly enough of them to go around, you know. Fierce competition on Fleet Street these days.”
I nervously assured him that it would be a complete waste of time, but Sheppard was politely—and firmly—insistent and, five minutes later, left the house with the manuscript in a large brown envelope I had reluctantly provided. I felt strangely vulnerable, as though a secret part of me had been violated. Mr. Sheppard was a kind man. He had promised not to say anything to Cam, and, tactful as he was, he probably wouldn’t say anything to me, either. After reading the pages and seeing what a hopeless botch they were, he would doubtlessly be diplomatic and never refer to them again.
Glancing at the clock, I saw that it was nearing two. Sod couldn’t sleep all day, could he? He’d want coffee when he woke up, and he’d be hungry, too. I went into the kitchen and lighted the stove and put water on to boil and sliced bread for toast and took down the marmalade. Waiting on him hand and foot, taking care of him like he was a helpless little boy—it was demeaning, that’s what it was. I was no longer the ragged little street urchin he’d manhandled so brutally that day of the execution. I was a different person, and I deserved to be treated differently. Technically I was still his bond servant, of course, but that piece of paper no longer signified. Sod had no right to take me for granted and treat me like I was merely a convenience.
Coffee done, bread toasted, fire banked down, I left coffee and toast on the stove to keep warm and went upstairs, skirts making a soft, silken rustle. High time for him to get out of bed it was, high time for me to give him a piece of my mind, too. Tossing money around like it was paper when Gentleman James came out, getting himself out of debt for the first time in heaven knows when, then spending, spending, spending, more debts, bigger debts, and me not at all perturbed because Spoils was bound to make even more money. Then I discover that he’s already taken a hefty advance from Sheppard and the book hardly begun.… It was infuriating. It was frightening as well. Brilliant he might be, with a dazzling mind, yet he was so blind in other ways. Those damned rebels, plotting, planning, taking his money.… It had to stop.
I stepped quietly into the bedroom. The curtains were closed. The room was hazy with shadows. He was asleep, sheets all tangled about his legs, chest bare, one arm clutching a pillow as though it was a foe he had in a vicious death lock. He was restless these days, unable to sleep well, too much on his mind, disturbed and preoccupied ever since he returned from Scotland. I stood at the foot of the bed, watching him, and the love inside me swelled until it was almost unbearable. I loved him too much, far too much, so much that life without him was unthinkable. I wasn’t really alive when he wasn’t near, was merely in a state of suspension as I waited to see his face, hear his voice, feel his touch.
He stirred, clutching the pillow tighter, muttering something in his sleep. He ground his teeth, squeezing the pillow in the crook of his arm, and then, after a moment, he gave a heavy sigh and relaxed, breathing heavily but evenly. I watched his chest rise and fall and moved quietly around the bed to smooth back the heavy ebony wave that had fallen across his eyes. He muttered again and made a face, and I gently stroked his lean, taut cheek and the curve of his lower lip, loving him so, filled with a rapturous emotion that was almost frightening in its intensity. He was surly and sullen and infuriating, prey to dark moods, and he had a savage streak that was undeniable—I’d seen that on the day of the execution, when he had treated me so brutally—but none of this deceived me. I knew the real Cam, the sensitive, vulnerable man who hid behind the savage facade, and one day, I vowed, he would trust me enough, love me enough that he would no longer need to hide.
Moving away from the bed, I stepped to the windows and parted the curtains. Afternoon sunlight streamed into the room in pale yellow-white rays that banished the shadows. Cam moaned, releasing the pillow and slinging an arm over his eyes. He was completely naked, the sheets twisted, leaving one leg bare, the edges just covering his upper thighs and private parts. I longed for him, longed to remove my clothes and climb into bed with him and tease him awake and taunt him into a state of passion and relish him to the full, but I had my pride, and I was still angry with him. This longing, these tender feelings shimmering inside me must be sternly repressed. Sod needed a stern reprimand, needed to know I wasn’t going to take much more of this wretched treatment.
“Ohhhhh—,” he moaned.
He moved the arm away from his eyes and blinked in the sunlight, curling his thin lips irritably.
“Do we have to have all that bloody sunlight?”
“It’s two o’clock in the afternoon, you swine.”
“Two?”
“You’ve been sleeping all day.”
“Do I smell coffee?” he asked sleepily.
“Wouldn’t know. Do you?”
“Jesus, you’re in a charming mood.”
“I was in a charming mood last night, too, waiting for you to come home, waiting and waiting and waiting, worried sick the whole time, not knowing what might have happened to you.”
“You gonna start in on that again?”
“I don’t like it, Cam.”
He sat up against the headboard, pulling the sheets up to his waist. He shoved hair from his brow and rubbed his eyes. I picked up his breeches and his shirt and draped them over a chair, picked up his boots and hurled them none too gently into the open wardrobe. He scowled, displeased with my mood, tightening up defensively.
“Be a luv,” he said, “go fetch me a cup of coffee.”
“Fetch your own bloody coffee!”
He looked at me for a long moment with frosty blue eyes, facial muscles all taut, mouth tight. I stood my ground, glaring at him defiantly and watching the invisible wall go up around him.
“You want to fight,” he said, “is that it?”
“No, Cam, I don’t want to fight. I want—I want to be treated like a responsible human being, not a piece of furniture, not a piece of tail for you to grab whenever you happen to grow horny.”
“My, my, we do have a lot of grievances this morning, don’t we?”
“You—ever since you got back from Scotland, you’ve hardly acknowledged my presence.”
“I’ve had a lot on my mind.”
“I know that. I’ve tried to understand. I know how you feel about Culloden, Cam. I know how you feel about the deaths of your brothers, about losing the family estate, about the execution of your cousin. I know what it’s done to you, how it’s warped you. That first day at Tyburn—you were ready to kill, and I can understand that, but—”
“It’s none of your affair, Miranda.”
“Isn’t it?”
“It has nothing to do with you.”
“I live in this house. I share your life. Anything that effects you concerns me a great deal.”
He didn’t answer. He climbed out of bed, calmly removed his breeches from the chair and pulled them on. I watched as he dressed, bristling, determined to have this out once and for all. Cam ignored me. He might have been alone in the room. Tucking his shirt into the waistband of his breeches, he sat down on the bed and pulled on his stockings. They needed darning again, I noticed. Sod was death on stockings, couldn’t keep a decent pair.
“Mr. Sheppard was here,” I said icily.
“Oh?”
“You were asleep. I didn’t want to awaken you.”
“Thoughtful of you.”
“He told me about the advance, Cam, said it was the largest amount Sheppard and Company has ever paid for a book.”
“Quite true,” Cam replied.
He stepped over to the wardrobe, moving past me as though I weren’t there. He dug around, looking for shoes, finally coming up with a pair of badly scuffed black pumps with tarnished silver buckles. His lips tightened. His eyes were a steely blue.
“Goddamn!” he exclaimed. “These are scuffed, caked with dirt. I thoug
ht keeping my things in order was part of your job.”
“And copying your manuscript and cooking your food and warming your bed and picking up after you and—”
“Shut up, Miranda. I’m not in the best of moods. I might just say or do something both of us would regret.”
“I’m not in the best of moods, either. Mr. Sheppard told me the book is due in less than a month. You’ve hardly begun it. You—”
“I’m warning you,” he said.
“What did you do with the money, Cam?”
“You really want to know?” he asked.
“I want to know.”
“I used it to rent a very elegant house in the country, just outside London. I took a three-month lease—that should be long enough, I figure. The rest of it went for perfume, a number of elegant satin gowns and eight barrels of gunpowder. Are you satisfied?”
“I—I don’t believe you.”
“Believe what you like,” he said.
He stalked out of the room. I heard him go downstairs, heard him banging about in the kitchen. I stared at the empty bed awash with sunlight, a terrible hollow feeling in my stomach, an aching pain in my heart. I wanted to give way to tears and revel in my misery, but I was too stubborn. I steeled myself, took a deep breath and went down to the kitchen. He was sitting at the table, moodily sipping a cup of coffee.
“What’s happening, Cam?” I asked quietly. “You promised me you’d give up this insane nonsense. You—”
“I made no such promise.”
“I don’t intend to put up with this,” I said.
He set his coffee cup down very carefully and turned to look at me with hard blue eyes. He was cold, remote, a stranger. I felt a chill, and all my instincts warned me to let it drop, let it be, but I couldn’t do that. He stood up, resting his hands lightly on his thighs.
“And what will you do?” he inquired.
Once More, Miranda Page 36