The Unsuitable Secretary (A Ladies Unlaced Novel)

by Maggie Robinson

  He soon realized he’d been in a dozen houses just like this visiting friends, and his heart quickened. This could work. The downstairs rooms were well-lit and spacious, perfect for hanging paintings on display with plenty of room for patrons to mingle. A study in the rear could be reserved for Rafe and his sculptures, and a raised platform added at one end of what was intended to be the floor-through formal dining room might do for a recitation or musical performance.

  Sir Thomas gave the kitchens below a miss, presuming that the cook he’d hire would organize things to her specifications—simple meals had been promised to his protégés to be taken in their rooms so they couldn’t claim to be starving artists—so he followed Miss Benson up the wide staircase to inspect the upper stories. Natural light streamed in the windows, augmented by working electrical fixtures.

  “It’s almost too perfect,” Miss Benson breathed.

  He concurred. There were plenty of bedrooms and studio space. “Which room would you like for your office?”

  “The entry hall, I should think. That way I’d be handy to visitors and residents alike.”

  “The hallway!”

  “It’s big enough. Perhaps a desk under the landing. There’s plenty of room for filing cabinets as well. Nice fixtures,” she added hastily. “Nothing to spoil the ambience.”

  Thomas didn’t care for the notion of cold air blowing on Miss Benson every time the front door opened, and he hoped that door would open often with people coming to inspect—and hopefully buy—the artwork. Other struggling artists besides his three living in were to be represented in the gallery.

  “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

  Miss Benson looked down at the polished floor. “It truly would be most convenient. I tend to get a bit weak going up and down stairs.”

  Of course! Her mysterious malady must be considered, and Thomas felt like an insensitive brute.

  Miss Benson looked like the picture of health this morning, though, despite her shadowed eyes. Her cheeks were pink, the hair under her hideous hat was glossy, and her enthusiasm for the house was contagious. “Whatever you say, then. You know best. Shall we visit your old stamping ground and see what the old bird wants for the property?”

  “My what?”

  “Your territory, my dear. It’s another American expression.”

  Miss Benson fiddled with her gloves. “Have you been? To America, I mean.”

  “Not yet. Maybe when we get the collective up and running. I should very much like to go. What about you?”

  “Go to America?” It was as if he suggested she go to Borneo and have dinner with a headhunter.

  Thomas grinned down at her. “I hear it’s perfectly civilized.”

  “It’s not that. I don’t see how I could leave my father and brothers. Or afford such a trip.”

  “Well, if I decide to go, you’d have to come with me. What would I do without my secretary?”

  Miss Benson’s worn boot slid on the bare wood but she righted herself on a doorframe. “I couldn’t possibly! And it wouldn’t be proper, us traveling together.”

  “You’d have your own stateroom, of course. I know the Carpathia is a capital ship. Practically brand-new. And you’d go cabin-class—no steerage for you.” He’d been aboard last year seeing a friend off, and the steamship had been very impressive.

  “But what about the Featherstone Foundation?” It was Miss Benson who’d come up with the name the first day she’d been with him. At first Thomas had demurred, not wanting to lord his influence about, but she had been persuasive.

  “We could hire someone to keep an eye on it all while we’re gone. Get someone from the Evensong Agency.”

  “For goodness sake, you haven’t even signed the lease here yet,” Miss Benson reminded him.

  “Well, let’s take care of that at once; not that I’m anxious to deal with Mrs. Evensong again so soon. The woman frightens me to death.” The old woman had a way of looking at one that made one hope one’s underthings were spotless and unwrinkled. If rumors were right, she knew everything about everyone who was anyone.

  Did she know his secret? How embarrassing it would be if she did.

  Thomas spent the next hour up to his elbows in paperwork. He was grateful he had Miss Benson by his side, for Thurston would have nixed the whole endeavor. Mrs. Evensong had him sign the agreement in triplicate and demanded an enormous deposit. But there was the possibility down the line of buying the building outright if it suited, and his artists could move in as early as they wished. A cook, a kitchen maid, and two daily charwomen had been engaged from the Evensong Agency’s copious files—there was no need to staff the house as if it were a typical gentleman’s residence. The fellow in the basement, Arthur Leavitt, would remain to do the heavy work.

  Before they left, Harriet—Miss Benson, rather—got hugged by nearly everyone in the office as she blushed profusely. She must miss the collegial friendship at her former place of employment.

  Thomas had hugged her that one impulsive time, and then he’d dropped her. Good God, how awkward that had been. He reminded himself not to touch her as she went down the agency’s steps, but surely it was all right to hand her into the car?

  She looked up at him, her cheeks still rosy. Her hat was askew from those hugs, and a tendril of hair had escaped its pin and fallen to her shoulder. It was brown, but a very pretty brown, not at all dull or mouselike. Shiny. Probably soft, although he wasn’t apt to find out as much as he wanted to.

  He was determined to drive her home; the session with Mrs. Evensong had been protracted and Thomas was concerned Miss Benson had overstayed the hours of her employment and was overtaxed. She might faint or something. He was not taking no for an answer this time. There would be no talk of Underground stations or buses today—it was too damned cold to wander about the streets of London, and the poor girl must be chilled to the bone in that ratty cape.

  Thomas really should buy Miss Benson a new coat. It was his fault hers was ruined. A matching hat, too. If he asked her permission, he knew she’d say no and forge on about propriety in her forthright, stubborn way. Hang propriety. But he didn’t know her size.

  He cast about in his mind for a female friend who was built along the same generous lines and smiled. Yes, that would do, and would give him an amusing way to spend the afternoon. Celebrate the Featherstone Foundation’s new home.

  Though the celebration wouldn’t be quite the same without Harriet Benson’s presence.

  Chapter 9

  Much against his will, Harriet had Sir Thomas drop her off at the corner shop at the end of her street. She told him she had to stop at the newsagent for papers for her father, which was mostly true.

  Her father would need to look through the want ads, wouldn’t he? He was much too proud to go hat in hand to Mrs. Evensong, which would be the logical thing. If anyone knew of an opening for a man of near-retirement age, it would be she, but Harriet knew her suggestion would fall on deaf ears. He’d railed so against the agency and her former place in it, Moses Benson would never agree to get help there. She bought several editions, trying hard not to read the lurid headlines.

  Really, with all the injustices in the world, why did reporters focus on such nonsense? Politics and warfare she could understand, but delving into the personal bad behavior of the peerage was pointless. Who cared if Lord So-and-So was divorcing his American heiress wife? All those poor dollar princesses from across the sea had paid plenty for a title and little love. Harriet felt sorry for them—in her opinion, most members of the English aristocracy were a rum bunch.

  Not Sir Thomas Featherstone, however, although some might call him more than a bit madcap. But his money was his to do with what he pleased, and if he wanted to toss it away on wayward artists, that was his business. He had no wife as yet to worry over, no children to clothe and feed and send to the finest schools. She hoped she would still be in his employ to watch his family flourish, no matter what her father wished. Sir Thomas deserved h
appiness.

  Harriet glanced at her watch. She was late, and only hoped her father was too distraught to notice.

  He was not. She found him standing in the kitchen, one of her stepmother’s old aprons tied around his waist. “Where have you been?” he barked.

  Harriet refused to rise to the occasion. She had left him an apple, a bacon roll and a pot of tea for when he woke up before she went to work this morning. He couldn’t be starving.

  “Sorry, Papa,” she said mildly. “We signed a lease on a house on Mount Street for the foundation. You’ll be happy to know I’ll be out of Sir Thomas’s house by next week and in a new office.” She pictured a sleek desk on the hall’s black-and-white tile floor, a vase filled with fresh flowers from Sir Thomas’s conservatory on its corner. Her typing machine, a small glass jug filled with pencils, a silver-plated inkpot. Oak file cabinets would be tucked under the staircase, and she would be in the heart of all the new activity.

  She might even greet guests coming for special evening events if she was well enough and her father didn’t cut up too rough. Of course, she’d need a dress suitable for the occasion—her brown business suit would never do.

  “And right in with a passel of reprobates! Artists and musicians—faugh! I didn’t raise you to be their serving girl and anything else iniquitous they dream up.” He slammed a frying pan down on the range.

  “Here. Let me. Cheese toast today?”

  “As you please.” Although he had slept like the dead, her father looked ill, sinking down on the single slatted chair in the corner. “Mark my words, they’ll be asking you to disrobe for them and worse.”

  Harriet rolled her eyes but kept her face averted. “Nonsense, Papa. I’m not the sort of woman gentlemen notice. And they are all gentlemen.” Some more raffish than others, though. Harriet removed her gloves, then pulled off her hat and cape and hung them on a peg. “They’ve signed very explicit contracts, with morals clauses. The living situation has the most stringent requirements, almost like a seminary. Or—or a prison!” she extemporized. “Rule-breakers will be evicted at once.”

  “And what happens before eviction, my girl? Who will compensate you for the loss of your virtue and reputation? That idiot Featherstone? He probably has designs upon you himself!”

  Harriet almost smiled, but thought the better of it. It was in some ways touching that her father held her in such fond esteem and thought she might attract anyone.

  “Papa. Look at me. Really look. I’m just a very plain secretary.”

  “You look just like your mother, and look what happened to her!” he burst out.

  Her mother had died when Harriet was ten, old enough for Harriet to remember her quite well. Genet Benson had been a governess before her marriage, and wedding Moses Benson the lowly bank clerk had not been a happy-ever-after. There had been sharp words exchanged regularly over the dinner table, but Harriet had always felt loved.

  “Wh-what do you mean? Her looks didn’t kill her. Pneumonia did.”

  He looked even more stricken. “Nothing. Nothing.”

  What was he hiding? She didn’t want to press the point—he was upset enough already as it was. “I brought home some newspapers. Why don’t you settle yourself in front of the fire”—which had been seriously neglected since she left the house—“and I’ll bring our lunch in.”

  Her father mumbled something, but left the kitchen. A man’s disposition always improved if his stomach was full, or so her stepmother had always said. Harriet quickly threw together their food, even daring to make another pot of tea for him, mixing his expensive blend with the cheaper brand the boys drank. She took a sip and could barely taste the difference. Would he?

  Her father was slumped over the table in the parlor, the sleeves of his shirt rolled to the elbows. Harriet could not remember the last time he was without a tie and jacket on a weekday.

  “Did you sleep well?” Harriet asked, placing the tray in front of him

  “How could I? What’s to become of us?” he asked bitterly.

  “You knew you’d have to retire sometime,” she said, pouring his tea. He must have saved something—he’d certainly not spent extravagantly on anything in years.

  Except her surgery. That had been costly, and Harriet found her appetite waning. It might be her fault if they came to ruin, all her father’s life savings spent on a stupid burst appendix and her subsequent recuperation. Human beings didn’t even need appendixes! And now every time she bathed she looked down at her scar and felt mutilated.

  “On my terms. That damned pup Westlake.” Moses Benson was the one who was growling.

  Harriet cut her sandwich into manageable bites. “Is there anyone else at Stratton’s you can talk to?”

  “You expect someone to defy his nibs? No, they’re all afraid of getting the sack, too. All this talk of modernizing. As if numbers will tally up any differently no matter how you write them. What if I can’t find other employment? The boys will have to leave school no matter what you think.”

  “They’ve worked so hard, Papa.” And it was true. Despite their hijinks at home, both were very bright and focused when push came to shove—or when master’s cane came to bottom or ruler came to knuckles.

  “They can work hard and get paid for it.” He brushed crumbs from his unshaven face with ink-stained fingers.

  “We have my salary at least,” Harriet said with false cheer, postponing the argument over her brothers.

  “No.”

  Harriet set her tea cup down. “No?”

  “I won’t have it, Harry. You working for that fiend is a disgrace. My mind hasn’t changed one scintilla.”

  “Be reasonable, Papa. I can keep us afloat until you find a new job. And Sir Thomas is not a fiend! He’s a very nice young man and a generous employer. Mrs. Evensong wouldn’t place me where she thought I’d come to any harm.”

  Moses Benson stood abruptly, knocking over his chair. “What does that old battle-ax know? Don’t defy me, Harry. You’ll quit, and that’s all there is to it. Let me make you some tea. Yours is rubbish.”

  Harriet rose as well. “It is not! And I will not! I’m trying to help here.”

  “Your kind of help isn’t needed! Prostituting yourself for a lordling—if it hasn’t come to that, it will!”

  Harriet’s mouth dropped open. Her father was absolutely out of control.

  “Sir Thomas is a baronet, not a lord. And he hasn’t ever touched me,” Harriet fibbed. “You are being ridiculous.”

  She did not expect the blow to her cheek. Reeling, she sat down in her chair. And then her father slapped her again. And again. Her glasses flew off her face to the threadbare carpet.

  He had hit her. Three times. As if the first was not enough. Mild-mannered Moses Benson had struck her so hard tears were forming. But she was too angry to cry.

  “I’ll make us tea, and then you can nap,” her father said, as though nothing had happened. “You aren’t well.”

  She was perfectly wide awake. I won’t drink his bloody tea, Harriet thought. I will not stay here another minute. It didn’t matter that her father was under severe stress—he had no right to treat her this way.

  As he had treated her mother, she realized. More than harsh words had been traded between them.

  Whore. Harlot. Harriet could hear his accusations echoing in this shabby room.

  What would become of the boys? She would sort it all out later.

  There were a clatter and a curse in the kitchen. Harriet sprang up from her chair and grabbed her wire glasses, which now rested crookedly on her nose. Her cloak and hat were hanging on the kitchen hooks, so they were a lost cause. Her handbag, too. There wasn’t much in it but a handkerchief, comb and emergency bus fare.

  Pulling an old fringed throw from the back of the sofa, she wrapped it around herself like a Russian refugee and shook her modest savings out of the cracked ginger jar on the mantel. No one knew her hiding place, as they never would have thought to dust the thing. She stuff
ed the notes and coins in her skirt pocket. There were not as many as there used to be—her new coat, wherever it was, had seen to that. Closing the door to the flat as quietly as she knew how, she stepped out into the street.

  Chapter 10

  She was leaving her brothers and her books behind, and worse, she had no idea where she was going. A drop of freezing rain plopped on her nose, and she drew the blanket up around her head.

  She should go to Mrs. Evensong. The woman could place her in a household far from London and Harriet could simply disappear. She would get word to the boys somehow, if her father didn’t drive them off, too.

  He wasn’t himself—or perhaps he was, really. Images came rushing back: Harriet lying quiet on her bed in her room—before she’d had to share it with the twins—putting a pillow over her ears while her parents rowed. There was always trouble about money. Her mother offered to go back to work, but her father hadn’t allowed it. So she’d used her teaching skills on Harriet, who’d never had formal schooling until commercial college.

  But Genet Benson had died of pneumonia in hospital one winter, and within a few months, her father had married their widowed upstairs neighbor, Veronica Moore, more to save on rent than anything. He had been dumbfounded when Veronica became pregnant at her age, then bedeviled with the boys once she’d died in childbirth. Harriet had stepped in and done the best she knew how with the children, being little more than a child herself.

  She was twenty-eight now, and enough was enough. She was not going to hang about and be reviled by her ungrateful father and ignored by her ungrateful brothers.

  Another splash of ice from the skies mixed with her tears. Harriet wiped the wet away with her bare hand, grateful that her one pair of gloves was so worn they weren’t worth going back for. Her beautiful new coat was another story. Perhaps she could get John or James to bring it to her if they could find it, wherever she wound up.