The Unsuitable Secretary (A Ladies Unlaced Novel)

by Maggie Robinson

  “Let’s go back to bed, Harry. I’ve thought of something I’d like to try.”

  Chapter 50

  Thomas kissed her again, a bit raggedly, as though he wanted to eat her up. Harriet was totally willing to be devoured, and she kissed him back as he spilled inside her.

  They lay pressed together, gasping for air. The sky outside had turned gray, and twilight, which came so early in winter, was settling in. What with one thing and another, they hadn’t left the bedroom all day.

  “Scandalous, Lady F,” Thomas whispered into her ear. “In daylight, no less.”

  Harriet swatted at him but missed. “Stop talking. That tickles.”

  “Oh, are you ticklish? I had no idea,” he said, torturing her ear further. “What if I do this?” Thomas poked at her side and she yelped.

  “Aha. How about this?” His fingers tucked into her armpit and she screamed even louder.

  “Stop this instant!”

  Thomas ignored her, causing her to go into paroxysms of laughter. He kissed her nose and drew her on top of him. “We could go to sleep just like this.”

  Harriet was aware of a great deal of wetness emanating from all directions in her body, but Thomas didn’t seem to mind. “If we go to sleep now, we’ll be awake before midnight.”

  “So, what’s the problem? We can do this all over again in the dark. Gosh, Harriet. We can do this all the time, and it’s perfectly legal! Isn’t that capital?” He grinned.

  “What will the servants think?”

  “I pay them too much to say what they think, my angel. We can christen every room in the house. I fancy taking you on the library sofa. I’ve spent days watching you work at your desk, and all I wanted to do was drag you across the room.”

  “You don’t have to say such things.” Harriet knew she was blushing—she still had great difficulty accepting compliments.

  “Why not, if they’re true? You just don’t know, Harry—I was like a starving man at a banquet that I wasn’t allowed to touch. Now look! Every part of me is touching you and I can gobble you right up.” He gave a naughty twist in his nether region and burst out laughing.

  “You might get full,” Harriet ventured. “Do you wish . . . never mind.”

  “Oh, no. You’re not going to get away with starting something and not finishing.”

  “Do you wish your sexual experience had been more . . . varied before you married me?”

  “No. Do you?”

  “Of course not! That wouldn’t have been prop—” She dissolved in laughter as he finished the word with her.

  “Let’s be happy with the way things were and are. You might ask me again in fifty years, but I expect I’ll have the same answer. So, would you agree the first full day of our marriage is going well, despite the earlier misunderstanding?”

  Harriet tried to look stern, which was very difficult when Thomas’s hand was cupping her bum. “It wasn’t a misunderstanding. You fired me.”

  “I immediately saw the error of my ways. You are very persuasive, Lady Featherstone.”

  “I’m a menace with a letter opener, you know.”

  Thomas twitched beneath her. “Ouch! I’d better be on my best behavior then. Won’t be hard. I have you to set me on the straight and narrow. Not like a governess, mind,” Thomas said hurriedly. “A proper wife.”

  “I thought we were not using that word anymore.”

  “I’m making an exception this time.”

  “Hm. A proper wife. One who walks a few paces behind?” Harriet teased.

  “Just so, so you can pull the strings,” Thomas teased back. “The power behind the throne.”

  “That doesn’t sound appealing. I’m not that bossy,” she said.

  “Ha! With emphasis on that, I suppose. You’re just what the doctor ordered, Harry. This is the best day of my life so far.”

  His smile blazed. It was almost painful to look at. Would he always look at her like that?

  Oh dear, her doubt gremlins were creeping back again. With a swift kick, Harriet batted them away.

  “Shut up!”

  Thomas cocked an eyebrow. “I beg your pardon?”

  “Not you,” Harriet said. She could do this. She would do this. She and Thomas may have broken the rules, but they loved each other. Thomas didn’t seem the slightest bit concerned that Harriet was the daughter of a bank clerk and a governess. If he didn’t care, why should she?

  She’d tried to protect him from himself, to no avail.

  And she was glad.

  Epilogue

  Wednesday, February 22, 1905

  “Why did I ever agree to do this? I’m on my honeymoon.”

  “Technically not. We’ve been married more than a month,” his wife replied. Trust her to be concerned with the technicalities.

  It had been a good month, too, busy and productive. Thomas’s artistic friends had been quick to embrace Harriet. Not physically, of course. Conyers had set them all straight about that. As a couple, they might not be moving in the first circles at the moment, but that suited Thomas very well. The first circles were deadly dull. If he never had to scream at poor deaf Queen Alexandra to make himself heard again, that was fine by him.

  Thomas was surrounded by freshly typed papers, originally written in a hand even Harriet had had difficulty transcribing.

  He’d asked her to help him revise a play one of his protégés wanted him to produce. The play was, to Harriet’s way of thinking, atrocious. It was a very loose adaptation of the Cinderella story, with wooden clogs rather than glass slippers, and she thought the principal characters were total idiots.

  She nestled next to him in the bed. “If this is a romance, why are they always fighting?”

  “Battle of wits. Sexual tension. If they kissed in the first act, everyone could go home,” Thomas said. “The arguing part’s fine. Some of it is quite amusing. I cannot put my finger on where it all goes wrong.”

  “I can tell you. The heroine is so tiresome. Worse than that blind Marguerite in The Scarlet Pimpernel. How can Gertrude not recognize the man is a prince? There’s all that blinding armor, which, I may remind you, will make it very difficult for Wolfgang and his entourage to move about. The clanking of the metal will obscure their voices unless they are shouting at the top of their lungs.”

  “A very good point.”

  “And Gertrude’s a complete pea-brain, ringing her hands and being all woe-is-me until the very last page, even after all the presents Wolfgang has given her. A golden egg, for heaven’s sake. Isn’t that plagiarism?”

  “There’s no new plot under the sun.” Thomas had seen them all.

  “And when he delivers that calf in the barn, she still sends him away!”

  “Good points all. Hm. Clanking. Silver fabric should do the trick. It will catch the light, too. Sew on a few sequins to dazzle the eye. I’m not sure how that calf business can be staged without ladies in the audience fainting, however.” Thomas scribbled furiously in a margin. Fake blood? Straw on stage fire hazard? Consult with RSPCA re live animals in theater.

  “I don’t know why he wants to marry her to begin with. The audience will want to turn it into a tragedy and have her trampled by the cows.”

  Thomas gave her a penetrating look. “I believe it was love at first sight, at least on the prince’s part.”

  Harriet snorted. “I don’t believe in such a thing.”

  “No? I grant you, it’s probably as rare as hen’s teeth or golden eggs. But that’s what I felt when I saw you.”

  Harriet snorted again. “Don’t be silly.”

  “I’ll not argue with you this early in the day. I’d only lose anyway. Back to Gertrude. She’s just lacking in confidence, being an orphaned goose girl, after all.”

  “A goose is more like it. Does she want to spend the rest of her life in a farmyard? When the prince turns up with his army, she chases him away with a broom.”

  “It was handy,” Thomas said mildly. “She was sweeping up wheat and chaff
and whatnot. And then he parries with a gardening implement. A rake, I think. A rake with a rake, so to speak. I think the audience will enjoy the spectacle. Everyone likes a sword fight.”

  “There are no swords,” Harriet reminded him. Yes, technicalities were her forte.

  “It’s the same concept. Blast.” He gathered up the papers into an untidy pile. “I have an appointment this morning, much as I hate to get out of bed. Can you collate these? I’m afraid they’re out of order.”

  “That might be an improvement. I don’t see how this play can be fixed unless you set it on fire.”

  “Oh ye of little faith. And now I have you to help me. Every single day for the rest of our lives.” He kissed the top of her head, and then, because he could, went a little lower. A cheek. An ear. Two lips.

  Damn. He was going to be late for his meeting.

  Read on for an excerpt from another Ladies Unlaced novel

  THE RELUCTANT GOVERNESS

  Available now from InterMix

  Mount Street, London, October 1904

  “I would not ask if it were not so urgent. With me going away on a delayed honeymoon, you know I can’t afford to spare you here at the office. But Nicholas needs someone reliable today. Yesterday, really.” Lady Mary Raeburn widened her hazel eyes, hoping she resembled an entreating puppy. She prayed Eliza Lawrence would be softhearted enough to return to her previous employment as a governess for a few days, rather than the efficient Evensong Agency receptionist she had proved to be the past two months. Mary had great hopes for Eliza, which did not include sticking her with her new brother-in-law’s illegitimate child forever.

  Illegitimate. What a cruel concept. Mary was sure Domenica had every right to exist as much as any other little girl.

  She’d caught a brief glimpse of her yesterday, all black ringlets and enormous dark eyes. The child was beautiful, even if she did not favor her father, Nicholas Raeburn, wicked artist and Continental reprobate in the least. But Domenica’s mother had been Italian, so that explained it.

  “Oh, Mary, I don’t know,” Eliza said. “Is there no one else?” She waved in the general direction of a massive oak filing cabinet that was indeed filled with numerous governess candidates.

  “It won’t be for very long, I promise. Just a matter of days. Oliver will have to warn—I mean vet—the applicants properly. We can’t put just anyone in Mr. Raeburn’s household—he’s rather unconventional, you know. An artist with somewhat peculiar ideas. It would be awful for the child to become attached to someone and then have the woman leave in high dudgeon.”

  Mary was counting on Eliza’s good sense to ignore whatever mischief her brother-in-law got up to now that he was back in London. She’d heard the stories. A permanent employee would have to be very flexible when it came to dealing with him. A contortionist. Not only did Mary see Domenica yesterday, but there had been three totally nude young models traipsing up the stairs to the studio in Nick’s Kensington house. Surely Nick had the money to supply them with robes.

  He didn’t seem to even notice them, but his brother Alec had. Mary had berated her husband all the way to Raeburn House, rather wishing for her old black umbrella.

  Alec had kissed her and called her silly, then ably demonstrated he had no interest in any other woman but her. The interlude, pleasant though it had been, had distracted her from packing for their transatlantic trip to New York tomorrow. She must finish, once she got Nick’s difficulties settled.

  Lady Mary Raeburn was famous for settling difficulties. One had to live up to the Evensong Agency’s motto: “Performing the Impossible Before Breakfast Since 1888.” She had worked for her Aunt Mim’s agency the past four years, supplying everything from housemaids to husbands to the peerage for a price. An exorbitant price, according to her husband.

  But look how well she’d solved his problems. He was happy for the first time in ages, and becoming quite adept at the devoted husband business.

  Mary had only met Nicholas Raeburn yesterday, but she could not see the man as anyone’s devoted husband. And that was her one misgiving. Eliza was very pretty in a chocolate box sort of way, blond and blue-eyed. All wrong for a governess, really, just asking for trouble. If Nick noticed her, there would be hell to pay, and Mary would be delivering the payment personally. With her umbrella if need be.

  Of course, Nick hadn’t asked Mary to find him a governess. He seemed to think Domenica was perfectly happy with his little kitchen maid and the models that darted in and out of his house. The child had been half-dressed and barefoot, thumb in her mouth, and had fled when Mary smiled at her. Certainly she needed a governess, and Mary had told him so.

  “You were so good with the Hurst children,” Mary continued. “And Domenica is nothing like little Jonathan. She’s very, very quiet. As I said, it will only be for a few days—a week at the most. I’ll get Oliver started immediately to find your replacement.”

  “The quiet ones are the most dangerous,” Eliza grumbled. “I’ve gone through all this before, you know. When Mr. Hurst took me out of the typing pool, he promised me it would be temporary. I was his children’s governess for a year, Mary. If I hadn’t met you by chance at the Forsyth Palace Hotel, I’d still be there in the schoolroom. You know how grateful I am to you for rescuing me. I love this job—it’s so very interesting to meet the clients and do my little part to help.”

  “And you have been a great credit to the agency. I know Oliver and Aunt Mim depend on you.” Oliver Palmer had once held Eliza’s position, and the two of them exchanged advice and strategies. Since they were still short-staffed, Eliza’s duties had expanded beyond the reception desk to office manager. Recovering from a problematic surgery, Mary’s assistant Harriet only worked part-time. Mary herself had spent most of the summer and fall in Scotland learning how to be a baroness. She was not entirely sure the lessons had stuck.

  “It won’t be long,” Mary repeated, sensing Eliza weakening. “I promise.”

  “Oh, very well. How bad can it be?”

  ***

  Eliza soon found out. She went home to her mother’s, packed a small suitcase, took an omnibus to Kensington High Street, and followed Lady Raeburn’s directions to Lindsey Street. Halfway down the short block, she climbed the steps of Nicholas Raeburn’s neat terraced house. Eliza was not going to use the servants’ entrance—she was no one’s servant. She’d had a secretarial course, and her late father had been a respected accountant. She’d worked in a barrister’s office before Mr. Hurst drafted her to be his motherless children’s governess, and she had managed both jobs with aplomb.

  Eliza was a managing sort of girl. People expected her to be uselessly ornamental because of her looks, and she liked to surprise them. She was not bookish by any means, but she was practical. Levelheaded. Quite good with numbers, too, a legacy of her father’s. One day she’d like to own her own business, although she was uncertain what kind of business it might be, or where the money would come from to found it. Eliza admired Lady Raeburn for breaking the mold of the delicate Edwardian female. Even now that she had married a Scottish baron, she still came down to London to work a week or so every month. She was frequently on the telephone to her aunt, and marconigrams and letters flew back and forth when she wasn’t.

  Eliza rang the brass bell next to the sage green door. The bell needed polishing, but that would not be within the purview of a governess. The street was absolutely silent, the white façades of the identical buildings rather blinding in the bright October sun. The houses were newish, not more than two decades old, and respectable, and Eliza wondered why the “unconventional” artist Nicholas Raeburn had purchased property here. Surely he would have been better off to remain abroad, perhaps in Paris where morals were more disposable.

  Or so she thought. Eliza had never been to Paris, or anywhere, really. She knew nothing about art or artists. She’d accompanied her frail mother to the National Gallery on a few occasions, and had been unmoved by the vast canvasses celebrating war and go
re through the centuries, interspersed with fat cherubs hovering above star-crossed lovers. Heathen that she was, Eliza thought the frames more useful.

  A lace curtain twitched on the second story. The window above was bare. The studio, probably. Lady Raeburn had described the layout of the house; there were two large rooms on each floor. Eliza would be sharing a bedroom with the little girl. Domenica. It meant Sunday in Italian, quite a lovely if unusual name.

  She waited, listening for footfalls on the stairs. There weren’t any. Putting her bag down, she rang the bell again.

  And waited some more. Perhaps she should go down the basement steps and go in by way of the kitchen. Someone had to be down there, surely. It was almost teatime, and Eliza had not had lunch in her haste to pack and save the day. She wouldn’t turn down a biscuit, would be happy to share one with her new charge.

  Third time was the charm, they said. Eliza gave the bell a vigorous—well, vicious—turn. If no one answered the door, she would go back to the Evensong Agency and await instructions.

  Her resolve proved unnecessary. The door opened, and so did Eliza’s mouth.

  The man before her was no butler. For one thing, he appeared to be wearing paint-stained silk pajama bottoms, something no self-respecting butler would wear, even to sleep in.

  And nothing else.

  His hair was auburn, curly, and disheveled. He had not shaved lately, although she wouldn’t call what he sported a full-fledged beard. She gripped the railing as she noted a golden ring pierced through one ear, and the tongue of a serpent licking its own tail around his left bicep. She shut her eyes. The ring and the snake was still there when she opened them.

  “Oh good. You’ll do, I suppose. Tubby’s told me all about you. Come in, come in.”

  Eliza remained rooted to the front step. Who was Tubby? She could not picture Mary Evensong Raeburn ever answering to such a name even if she did carry a bit of extra weight now that she’d married. Happiness seemed to include an extra éclair or two.