The Unsuitable Secretary (A Ladies Unlaced Novel)

by Maggie Robinson

  And then he pushed her away and spilled his seed in sharp bursts across his clothing. Harriet wished she still had her glasses on to observe this remarkable biological incident. This is what he’d done inside her, twice. This creamy liquid contained the means to human life.

  They would have to be more careful—Harriet had no intention of getting pregnant. While she knew Thomas would honor his responsibility, she wouldn’t be selfish enough to saddle him with an inappropriate wife and unwanted child. He would need a . . . proper young woman. Someone of his class. Thomas couldn’t say no to propriety all his life. Someday he’d come to his senses. She gulped back a sob.

  “Harry, Harry. My God. Don’t cry.” He held her face with both warm, capable hands. “It was wrong of me to want it so badly. But it was beautiful. You were beautiful.”

  “You looked?”

  “How could I not?” Thomas said, half smiling. “I wish I had a photograph.”

  “Thomas!” Harriet was shocked. Imagine having visual evidence of what they’d done! It must be illegal to possess a picture like that. And to have a photographer present would be the most embarrassing thing in the world. Two people were meant to cleave to each other, not three, no matter what strange parties Thomas had attended in the past. While Harriet didn’t feel precisely depraved, she knew she had done something rather bold. She felt . . . French.

  But Thomas seemed happy, and that’s what she was here for.

  He was busy mopping up with a monogrammed handkerchief. “I don’t think Cressley will be too pleased.”

  “Oh my God. Will he know?” Harriet had noted in the past twelve hours that sexual congress had a particular odor; not unpleasant, but pungent. She had reveled in it as she slept last night, but was quick to bathe before Minnie came in to help her dress.

  “He won’t know it was you who caused me to lose all control. But I’d best bundle this suit up and send it out to the cleaners. I hate getting lectures from the old men in my household. They make me feel like I’m fifteen again. One father was enough. Now I’ve got two surrogates. Three, if you count Thurston.”

  Harriet thought of her own father’s diatribes. The boys just rolled their eyes and pretended to listen. She’d been the only child to take things to heart, and where had that led?

  She was on her knees in front of a man anyway.

  Thomas pocketed the handkerchief and scooped up a handful of hairpins from the carpet. “I’d best go up and change. Maybe you should take the rest of the afternoon off and nap in your room. For tonight.” He gave her a penetrating look. “It will be your turn later. I’ll see you at supper.”

  He bent to kiss her forehead, then helped her to her feet. He left her quite alone in the unlocked room. She gathered up the rest of the pins and twisted her hair into some order.

  There was no sending her hair out to the cleaners—anyone who saw her would know she’d been up to no good. She touched her lips with a shaking fingertip. They were as swollen as if they’d spent hours kissing. The musky taste of him was still within.

  Featherstone House had nearly as many staircases as it did rooms. Harriet hoped she could sneak up one of them without discovery. She has four more days to practice stealth against the old men in Thomas’s household and spare Thomas from their lectures.

  Chapter 31

  Monday, January 2, 1905

  Thomas had risen earlier than Harriet—a minor miracle, that. They’d played with each other exhaustively until well past midnight. He was well aware of the finite nature of their agreement, and was determined to make use of every available hour, as long as he didn’t hurt her. It was no hardship to be gentle; she unfurled like a lush, perfumed rose with his every touch.

  But she was right—he needed to purchase some French letters. How many would be needed in the next several days? Many, he hoped. Thomas wanted to remove all the concerns she had regarding their arrangement.

  In that spirit, he’d made a few phone calls this morning—one to the apothecary—and was the bearer of good tidings. After what Harriet had done for him, she deserved whatever effort he could make for the security of her family. He knew she worried, and was especially concerned about her two troublesome brothers. She felt an obligation to let them know that she was all right, that she was not dead in some filthy ditch. Or floating in the Thames. But fear of her father discovering her whereabouts had stopped her from trying to contact them.

  She even, God bless her, was wondering if they were getting enough to eat. She knew her father must have some savings, but whether he was feeding the boys was not a certainty. The man had talked of sending his children out to work even before he was let go from the bank, which agitated Harriet no end. Apparently she thought they were boy geniuses.

  Her face lit with hope. “Are you sure?”

  Would she care so much if she knew what the old man had done to her with the tea all those months? Probably. Harriet was a good woman. Loyal to a fault.

  “One can’t be absolutely sure of anything. Death, perhaps—that comes to us all. But even the sunrise isn’t guaranteed. Something cataclysmic could occur. Comets. Meteors. A vast radiation cloud,” he teased.

  “Oh! I didn’t know you were interested in astronomy,” Harriet said, glancing down to make sure her blouse was still buttoned after their quick good-morning hug. She couldn’t have missed the gleam in Thomas’s eye when she entered the library, nor the bulge in his trousers.

  He was feeling somewhat helpless in his response to her. The sooner she calmed him down with her forthright work ethic this morning, the better. It was clear he was thinking with the lower half of his anatomy, and they really did have to get to Mount Street someday.

  But not today. Harriet wasn’t stepping outside until her father was disposed of, so today was for more pleasure, with perhaps a little business thrown in.

  He grinned. “There are many things you don’t know yet, but you are a fast learner. Yes, I’m sure. I spoke to my bank manager, and he will find a place for your father. He can start tomorrow if he chooses. Someone will deliver the message to his lodgings.”

  “Oh! It shouldn’t come from Featherstone House! He’ll never take your charity. He—he doesn’t trust you.”

  As he shouldn’t. Benson had been prescient. Harriet was officially ruined, although Thomas would never think of their relationship as such. If anything, he was the ruined one. She had bewitched him, and he couldn’t see anyone talking her place at her desk or in his bed.

  He was being silly. Impulsive. His inexperience was clouding his judgment. He was simply grateful to her—

  No that wasn’t it. He didn’t have a word for what it was, but somewhere inside he ached.

  He took a breath. The ache was still there. “Don’t worry. It’s all sorted. Your father will think Hugh Westlake has had a crisis of conscience and recommended him to his counterpart at Coutts. The salary is very good. He needn’t depend upon yours again. Your brothers should be able to remain in school.” Thomas would contribute his own funds to ensure it. Another expenditure for Thurston to grouse about.

  “Thank you, Thomas. I’m grateful beyond words.” Her eyes were moist.

  His tenderhearted Harriet. What would become of her when she left his employ? He couldn’t bear to think of her alone somewhere, worrying over the ones she loved.

  Worse, what would become of him? Thomas counted on her, and now that he’d been cured of his virginity, wanted to remain active in bed. On chairs. Sofas. His nerve endings were on fire at least twelve hours a day. It wouldn’t be the same with someone else. Harriet was . . . perfect for him.

  But she’d be leaving on January 6. She wouldn’t be sitting across the library from him in her wretched brown suit, picking up where they’d left off at New Year’s. It would be impossible to go back to “normal.” For her to be “just” his secretary. It would never work.

  Thomas saw this fatal flaw clearly for the first time.

  A cloud of depression settled deep within. He was enjoying
her company far more than he’d ever anticipated. Maybe he could persuade her to stay on another week or two. It wouldn’t hurt to ask. He was fairly sure—unless a meteor struck him—that she was as pleased with this bargain as he was.

  And it wasn’t about the money. Harriet was the least avaricious woman he’d ever met. He’d practically forced her to accept the clothes he’d purchased. Thomas wondered what she really wanted in her future.

  He wasn’t sure himself. The success of the Featherstone Foundation. The expansion of his art collection.

  Both things so dear to him now felt a little flat.

  He pressed himself to smile. “I can’t imagine you taking a vow of silence. Tell me, what do we have planned for the day?”

  “Are you sure we cannot go to Mount Street?”

  “I would feel more comfortable knowing your father was safely in a teller’s cage for at least eight daylight hours.”

  Harriet checked her stenography pad. “You need to decide what to put up on the walls of the public rooms.” Until his resident painters finished theirs, something had to be available for sale if anyone happened by.

  “And you can help!”

  “I? But I know very little about art, Thomas.”

  “Then I will teach you.”

  “I—I have a confession.” She twisted her hands, looking frightfully sober. He didn’t like seeing her this way, the way she used to be when she first came to work for him. A little anxious and pinched, worrying about the rules.

  “What is it?”

  “Some of the art looks the same to me with or without my glasses. And thank you, by the way. These are lovely.” They’d arrived just this morning from her optician. No more Benson-bent frames.

  Thomas laughed in relief. Harriet was so refreshingly honest. “Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. I could train your eye, Harry. Soon you’d surpass me.”

  She shook her head. “I don’t think it’s possible. I’ve read your correspondence from art experts all over the world. You’re quite the connoisseur. People rely on you.”

  It was true he was advising various museums in Europe and the Americas, those willing to take a chance on the newer artists and their techniques. Modern art wasn’t to everyone’s taste. Thomas’s own father thought he was wasting his time and money when he brought home his first Raeburn.

  “Let’s go to one of the storage rooms and we’ll begin your lessons. My inner sanctum.”

  “What are we looking for?” Harriet picked up her stenography pad and followed him up the stairs to the third floor.

  “Pictures that have value that I don’t love absolutely. Nothing too controversial. At first. Society may not be ready for the avant-garde. I want to lure them in slowly.” Art was much more than the Italian masters and Rembrandt. Thomas had been on his Grand Tour and knew what was expected of a cultured gentleman.

  He just didn’t believe in it.

  Harriet gasped when he unlocked the door. There were a hundred framed prints, watercolors, and oils shelved on wooden racks in the darkened space. The temperature was regulated by a special ventilation system he’d installed in this wing. Two adjacent rooms held even more.

  “As you can see, even if Featherstone House is as big as a palace, I have more pictures than I have wall space for. See the red tags? Those I’m donating to a museum in New York. Once it’s built.”

  Harriet’s fingertip traced over an elaborate gilt frame. “Gracious. How did you acquire so many?”

  “I’m a soft touch, don’t you know? I’m always preventing a hungry artist from total starvation.” He took the pad from Harriet’s hand and put it on a chair. “Fun first, I think. Then dictation.”

  “Don’t start,” Harriet said.

  “Start?”

  “You know—you kiss my palm and before I know it, my skirt is up over my ears. We’ll never get anything done.”

  Thomas smiled. “That sounds delightful.” He waggled an eyebrow, took a hand, and brought it to his lips.

  “Really, Thomas. No more kissing. I—I’m wearing lip salve. Minnie made me. I think I’m like a living doll to her—she’s always experimenting. I don’t wish to look like a child who’s smeared jam all over itself.”

  “I knew there was something different about you today. I love jam.” He pulled a clean handkerchief from his pocked and dabbed at her lips. She made no move to resist, her lids dropping. He’d better take off her new glasses before they met with an accident.

  The window shades were drawn against the feeble winter sun, and only a single electric sconce illuminated the room. Thomas had never brought anyone up here before. Besides the library, these rooms were his private sanctuary. They held the hidden evidence of who he was and what he meant to do.

  “Just a quick kiss. And then we cull the collection. A dozen paintings for the entry hall to start, I think. Ten for the drawing room. Ten for the dining room.”

  Harriet stepped into his embrace. “Whatever you say. You’re the boss.”

  Was he? He rather thought at the moment it was the other way around.

  He could kiss Harriet all day. He didn’t even have to get a crick in his neck to do it. Her sublime form was up against him, her fingers disarranging his carefully brushed hair. Thomas didn’t care if he wound up looking as though he’d put his finger in an electric socket.

  Which was something he’d done accidentally as he’d ordered improvements to the house. Not on purpose, mind. He’d just been curious. But the jolt he felt now was comparable.

  There was electricity between them. Could Harriet feel it, too? The current snapped back and forth, raising the hair on his neck. He felt almost cold, not that such a thing was possible in such a temperature-controlled room. Or maybe he was hot. All he knew that Harriet was in his arms, and everything was perfect.

  Chapter 32

  Tuesday, January 3, 1905

  Very early this morning, Thomas had taken a piece of writing paper and fashioned a lush white rose. He then tiptoed into Harriet’s room and placed on her pillow for her to wake up to. They had crushed it in the aftermath, Harriet thought ruefully. The crackle of paper had sounded like an explosion.

  “You cannot come to my room again at this hour,” Harriet whispered. Everything they had done in the dark of this morning had been quiet, nearly silent. Like they were mimes. The Featherstone House staff woke well before sunrise. Someone was bound to hear them if she called out his name in her crisis. It had been a challenge to be mute, to let their bodies do the talking, a kind of game where they both won.

  “I couldn’t sleep. We only have three more days,” he whispered back.

  She knew. The thought had kept her up for hours as well once he had left last night. He had kept her so busy, so sated, she hadn’t given any thought as to what exactly she would do after those three days were up. Hop on a Great Western train bound for Gloucestershire? Would she just turn up in the country with a suitcase and hope a perfect cottage could be found at the local estate agent’s? Harriet always made plans, but thus far she didn’t have one.

  She couldn’t go back to Mrs. Evensong’s looking for another job. She did not want to adjust her routine to anyone’s but Thomas’s. He had spoiled her; not that she expected another employer to buy her clothes or eyeglasses. Or kiss her until she was frantic for more. And then have more happen with a sweetness she couldn’t bear.

  If she stayed in London, she was very much afraid she’d walk by Featherstone House on the way to nowhere—what reason would she have to be in Mayfair? Or that she would peer at the foundation’s bow window to see what paintings Thomas singled out for display.

  No, she had to leave the city. She didn’t trust herself to keep away.

  “We did agree. The time frame was your idea, Thomas.”

  Seven days. They’d been cheated out of some, but had made the best of it since their delayed start. It felt so natural to share a bed with Thomas, it was difficult to remember when she had not.

  “I know we did. But tha
t was before . . .” She waited for him to finish the sentence, but he didn’t. Instead he tucked her against him, where their skin kissed, even if their lips didn’t.

  They lay together in warm bliss, just breathing together. Finally Harriet could stand it no more. “You have to go.”

  “Very well. You are a cruel woman,” Thomas whispered back. He gave an exaggerated sigh, then bit her earlobe. It was all she could do not to shriek. She could swear she heard the clatter of buckets and brooms beyond the locked door.

  “We are going to Mount Street after breakfast,” she reminded him, still in a whisper. She couldn’t wait. She’d been in daily communication with Arthur Leavitt, but she wanted to see the progress herself. Now that her father was safely employed, he was not apt to be wandering around Mayfair waiting to jump out at her. She’d never really believed he would do such a thing anyway. Her father had always had pride and dignity—sometimes too much of both.

  When she was settled, she’d let her family know she was all right. She would be all right, wouldn’t she?

  “I know. The paintings are crated. Josephson will take them in a wagon. I’ll drive you in the Pegasus.”

  She’d never tell Thomas, but Harriet was a little afraid of the automobile. For that matter, she was nervous around horses, too. In a few days she’d have nothing to do with either, relying upon the train and her feet to get her where she needed to go. She’d pick a village where everything was in walking distance, and shop daily with a wicker basket under her arm. She might even change her name! Harriet was a dried-up old maid. She might still be unmarried, but now she knew a thing or two. Miranda? Melissa?

  Too fanciful. She needed to get her head out of the clouds and her bottom out of the bed. When they returned from Mount Street, Harriet would bury herself in the library with train schedules and maps of England.

  Should she ask Thomas for his opinion?

  No. Then he would know where she was running to. She didn’t trust him not to turn up on her cottage doorstep with a smile and a bottle of champagne. What would her neighbors think?