And Then He Kissed Her

by Laura Lee Guhrke

  “Stuff,” he contradicted and put his own work aside. “Tell me a story.”

  She turned her head and looked at him. “What, right now?”

  “Right now.” He leaned back against the pillows. “Give it a go, Scheherazade.”

  “And if you don’t like it, do I get executed at dawn?” she asked, smiling.

  “The worst punishment you’d get from me is a critique, but I won’t even do that, I promise. I’ll just listen. In fact, I’ll even help you out and start it for you. Once upon a time…”

  She groaned. “That’s so clichéd.”

  “Well, this is a rough draft. C’mon, now. Stop stalling. Just tell me a story.”

  “Oh, all right.” She laid there a few moments, thinking. “Once upon a time, there was a young girl who wanted a diary.”

  “Good,” he encouraged. “Very good. Keep going.”

  Emma sat up. “She was lonely, you see, and she had no one to talk to. Her mother had died five years before and she was very shy and didn’t have many friends. She was thirteen years old and girls are so terribly muddled at that age. She was frightened, too, because she was bleeding every month, and didn’t know why. She thought perhaps she might be dying. No one had ever told her anything.”

  Harry began to feel a tight, painful pinch in his chest. She wasn’t making this up. He leaned back against the headboard and watched as she curled into a ball, hugging her knees to her chest.

  “There was no one she could ask about things. She wasn’t allowed to write to her aunt, who didn’t get along with her papa. And the maid who came every day to do for them was this stout German lady, much too formidable for a painfully shy girl to talk to.”

  “Perfectly understandable of her to want a diary.”

  “Her father wouldn’t give her the money for a diary—they were very poor, and he couldn’t afford something frivolous like that, he said. But she wanted one so badly, she went to a barber in the village where they lived and had her hair cut short. She sold her hair, and bought herself a diary. When she got home, her papa was already gone to the pub.”

  The tightness in Harry’s chest began to burn into rage. He couldn’t afford to buy his daughter a diary, but he could go to the pub? Bastard.

  “She stayed up very late that night, writing and writing and writing. Boys and pretty gowns and what her wedding would be like, all those other things girls dream about. Being a man, you probably don’t know much about that.”

  “Ah, but I do know. I have three sisters.”

  “Then you understand, a little, how she felt.” Emma turned her head, rested her cheek on her knee, and smiled at him. “It was wonderful for that girl. It was such a relief, to pour out all these things, all the things she thought and felt and wanted to know about life. Then her father came home and saw what she’d done. At the time, she’d known he’d be angry, but she did it anyway. After all, hair grows back, she thought, and no harm done. Her father didn’t…quite see it that way.”

  Harry closed his eyes for a moment. He did not want to know where this was going. He did not want to hear it. He set his jaw and opened his eyes. “Go on.”

  Emma lifted her head, hand at her throat, eyes staring past him into space. “Her father had this ring,” she said. “Silver, with a star design.”

  Harry began to feel sick. “And when he saw what she’d done, what did her father do?”

  There was a long pause.

  “He called her a whore for cutting off her hair, backhanded her across the face, and burned her diary. He didn’t speak to her again for a month.” She hugged her knees tight. “That little girl never kept a diary after that.”

  Harry’s rage deepened and spread until it was choking him. His chest hurt. He tried to think of something to say, but not a single word could leave his lips. He was so good at nonsense talk, but no good at emotional conversations like this. And besides, God, what could a man say?

  But Emma was sitting there, huddled up on the bed in a ball, just as that young girl with the cut on her face might have done, staring at the wall behind his head and reliving what had happened to her. Harry knew he had to say something, and it had to be the right thing.

  He drew a profound, shaky breath and reached out, cupping her cheek in his hand. He turned her face so that she would see him, not the past. “Emma, Emma,” he chided softly, his voice as gentle as he could make it. “You say you’re not a storyteller?”

  She looked into his eyes, and her lower lip trembled. “I didn’t make that up, Harry,” she whispered.

  His thumb caressed the star-shaped scar on her cheekbone. “I know.”

  “Then what do you mean?”

  He leaned closer and kissed the tiny star. “Because if you’ve suffered through something like that, you have the stuff of great stories inside you, Scheherazade.”

  She started to cry.

  “Emma, no.” Harry wrapped his arms around her and pulled her down into the mattress. He caressed her hair, kissed away the tears on her cheeks, and held her in his arms until she fell asleep.

  Harry blew out the candle by his bed, but he didn’t sleep. He laid there in the dark, thinking two things. On the one hand, he was glad her father was dead. But on the other, he wished the bastard were still alive so he could kill him.

  Chapter 22

  Dearest readers, it is my sincere hope that the information I have shared with you these past six months has been both useful and entertaining to you, but alas, it is time for me to bid all of you a fond farewell.

  Mrs. Bartleby

  The Social Gazette, 1893

  Emma sat at her desk, looking at yet another blank page, this one in her typewriting machine. Only a few more days, and she was to journey to Marlowe Park, yet she had no ideas for Lady Eversleigh. Linen napkins folded into swans for the wedding breakfast was as inspired as she had managed to be.

  Mr. Pigeon was curled up in her lap, purring in his sleep. She suspected he always missed her terribly when she left him behind for the week-ends, because he followed her around like a love-sick schoolboy whenever she returned. Harry was crazy. Cats were ever so much better than dogs.

  She turned her attention to the stack of typed manuscript pages by the side of her machine. Her articles for the next issue were finished, but only because she had taken the subject matter from old manuscripts. That seemed to be the state of her writing nowadays. Uninspired. Harry had been right that she was giving voice to Aunt Lydia, not herself, and every day since, it had become harder and harder to care about which shop carried the best ready-made plum pudding and where one could find velvet at a reasonable price and whether or not it was comme il faut to shake hands at breakfast.

  Harry had told her she should try her hand at a novel. Maybe she should. A hint of excitement stirred. Maybe she would do that one day. But first she had to finish this project for Harry’s sister. By the time she arrived at Marlowe Park, she had to have some ideas to give the other woman for her wedding. She had made a promise, and good girls always kept their promises. Despite all the liberating exhilaration of these past two months, despite all the wild lovely joy of being naughty, Emma knew at heart she would always be a good girl.

  It seemed she’d come full circle, in a way.

  Emma lifted Pigeon off her lap and set him gently in the nearest chair. She walked to the window and stepped out onto the fire escape, smiling as she remembered how she’d climbed up here after that first blissful night with Harry. There had been so many other blissful days and nights since then.

  She gripped the wrought-iron rail and stared down at the alley four stories below. Melancholy came over her suddenly, a feeling that seemed to plague her quite often these days. Ever since that afternoon on the train platform at Cricket Somersby when Harry couldn’t introduce her to his friend.

  A knock sounded on her door, and Emma stepped back inside her flat. She walked to the door and found a young boy with a package wrapped in brown paper. “Miss Emma Dove?”

 
“Yes.”

  “Delivery for you, miss.”

  Emma accepted the box, tipped the boy a ha’penny, and closed the door. Her heart gave a little leap at the writing on the outside. Her name and address in Harry’s handwriting. She began ripping away the paper, wondering what on earth it could be.

  Other than the set of Burton’s Thousand Nights and a Night, Harry had never given her a gift before. She’d never expected any. He wasn’t that sort, and besides, she’d made it clear she didn’t want the sort of things he’d give some cancan dancer. Books and flowers, she’d told him once, were the only acceptable gifts a man could give a lady not his wife. Jewels, perfumes, and pretty satin slippers were not. So, when Emma pulled back the wrappings and saw the blue leather of a book cover, she wasn’t surprised. But when she pulled out the book and realized what it was, her heart broke into a thousand pieces.

  It was a diary.

  Emma waited until half past six o’clock before going to Marlowe Publishing for her Monday meeting with Harry. By the time she arrived. Quinn had already left, she noted with relief as she came in and closed the door. She and Harry would have complete privacy, and that was necessary for what she needed to do.

  Harry must have heard her close the door to the corridor, for he appeared in the doorway of his office before she had even passed Quinn’s desk.

  “You’re late. I was worried.”

  She looked at him, and her heart twisted with pain. He was devastatingly handsome, as always, but it was the look of concern on his face that tore at her and made her almost change her mind. Almost. He cared for her, she knew that. But she loved him, and that shade of difference was everything.

  She’d known all along, really, that this would happen. Inevitable, she supposed, that a shy spinster of thirty should fall in love with her handsome employer, that a woman who’d never been kissed in her life before would fall in love with the man whose kisses would open up her heart and feed her starved soul. It was so predictable that it was almost a cliché, and it had all been so beautiful that just thinking about it made her want to weep and laugh all at once. It also made her yearn for more. But there wasn’t any more. She’d known that all along, too.

  She tightened her hand around the handle of her dispatch case and walked past him into his office. “I have my Mrs. Bartleby articles for this week’s issue.”

  He followed her, but instead of going around to his side of his desk, he stopped beside her. “What’s wrong?”

  She set her dispatch case on his desk and pulled out a sheaf of papers. “I don’t have an outline for the following Saturday, though,” she said as she put them on his desk. “I haven’t had time.”

  A lie, when she swore she’d never lie to him.

  He put his hands on her shoulders, turned her to face him, but she couldn’t look at him. Not yet. “Emma, did you get the package I sent over?”

  “Yes, Harry. I got it. Thank you.” She tried to smile at him without meeting his eyes. “You always said you’re no good at choosing presents, but that’s not true. You pick wonderful presents. Don’t ever let Quinn choose them for you.”

  “I won’t, but—” His hands tightened on her shoulders. “What is this strange mood you’re in? You are truly beginning to worry me. Won’t you tell me what’s wrong?”

  She gestured to the sheaf of papers on his desk. “Those Mrs. Bartleby articles are going to be the last ones I write for you.”

  “What? But why?”

  “I’m going to write a novel.”

  “Excellent! I told you that you should. But why not continue with Mrs. Bartleby? Do you think you won’t have time to do both?”

  She shook her head and gently pulled herself out of his grasp, taking a few steps back. “No, that’s not the reason. You were right when you said Mrs. Bartleby isn’t really me. She is Aunt Lydia, and I’m not the same woman I was six months ago who believed everything Auntie said was the utter truth and who wanted to share that truth with everybody else. I’m different now. Because of you.”

  He smiled at that. “Think girls ought to be allowed to eat quail and have a second glass of wine with dinner, do you?”

  “Yes, I do. I know this leaves you in a bit of a lurch, being without Mrs. Bartleby. She’s so popular now. I hope it won’t hurt the Gazette too badly.”

  “I don’t care about that. I mean, it always hurts me to lose money, you know that. But I want you to do what you want, what ever will make you happy. I’m glad you’re going to try your hand at novels, truly. I promise I won’t shred you to ribbons when I edit it.”

  She took a deep breath. “I’m not going to write it for you, Harry.”

  He stared at her, uncomprehending, a frown creasing his brow. He started to say something, but she managed to speak before he could.

  “I can’t write for you anymore because it would hurt too much. You see, I’m in love with you.”

  She managed to smile at the utter astonishment on his face. “Is it really so amazing that I would fall in love with you?” she asked tenderly. “It seemed inevitable to me. Even at the very beginning, when I first came to work for you, I thought…” She paused and pressed a hand to her midsection. “I felt it would happen. You mentioned to me once that when I was your secretary, there was a wall between us, and you were right. I’m the one who put it there, a wall of propriety and disapproval and distance because I knew if that wall wasn’t there, I’d fall in love with you and you’d break my heart. Every time a new woman came in or out of your life, every time I read one of your editorials condemning marriage, I reminded myself of all the reasons no woman with sense would ever fall for you.”

  “Emma, I’ve told you, you’re not like one of those woman to me—”

  “Please, Harry, don’t interrupt. The truth is hard enough to say as it is, and I have to tell you the truth because it’s what you taught me. To say what I really think, do what I really want, understand how I really feel. That is the greatest gift anyone has ever given me. I told you, you’re better at gifts than you think.” She could hear her voice starting to shake, and she knew she had to finish this quickly before she humiliated herself by falling apart in front of him. “And that’s why I have to end it between us.”

  “End it?” He took a step toward her. “What the hell are you talking about?”

  “I have to end our affair, Harry. I can’t live my life this way, lying to my friends, watching your friends look at me and smirk.”

  “Weston never smirked at you, Emma, and you know it.”

  “But others will, and there will be others. You know it as well as I do. And then there’s your family. I can’t go to your family home this weekend, and make plans with your sister for her wedding, and face your mother and grandmother across a dinner table, all the while knowing I’m your illicit lover and we are living in sin on weekends.”

  “There is nothing sinful about what’s between us, Emma! And I don’t give a damn what the world thinks of it.”

  “But I do,” she said gently, and when he flinched, it hurt her, too. “And that is the difference between us. Our affair has been beautiful and wonderful and I’ll treasure it forever. I have no regrets, and I have no shame. But I have to end it now, while it’s still beautiful, before I start making demands for more of your time, and having expectations that you’ll marry me. That’s when they all drive you away, you know, all those women, when they start to cling to you. I won’t be one of them.”

  She couldn’t read anything in his face because he was blurring before her eyes, and she had to leave. Now. She turned away.

  “Emma, wait.” He wrapped his arms around her waist, hauled her back against him. “Don’t do this,” he said. “Don’t do this to us.”

  She closed her eyes, fighting back the pain. “There is no ‘us,’” she said, her voice catching on a sob. “And there never can be. Not without lawful marriage.”

  She fought hard to hang on to her composure, knowing it just had to be long enough to get out of his ar
ms, out the door, and out of his life. She pulled against his embrace, but he did not release her, and panic began to claw at her. “Let me go, Harry!” she cried, twisting desperately to free herself. “For pity’s sake, let me go!”

  Those words seemed to do the trick. With an oath, he freed her, and she ran for the door without a backward glance. He didn’t try to follow her, and as she raced down the stairs, it was humiliating to realize that in coming here she had hoped he would—that in some secret part of her soul she had harbored a tiny glimmer of hope that when she ended it, he wouldn’t accept her decision, that he would magically realize marriage was wonderful and right, that he would drop down on one knee, declare he loved her, too, and propose. Lord, she should write novels, she certainly had the imagination for it.

  Smothering her sobs with one hand, she jumped into the hansom cab she’d kept waiting at the curb. It wasn’t until the cab was out of sight of Harry’s office window that she broke down. She cried, but not because she had just ended the most beautiful thing that had ever happened to her. No, she cried because he had let her do it.

  Let me go, Harry.

  Her words went through his mind over and over. When she’d first said them, they’d felt like a kick in the groin. Or a stab in the heart.

  Now they were like the lash of a whip, flaying him with the rhythm of the train engine through the Kent countryside. He’d gone to her flat first, thinking to find her there, but she hadn’t been home, and her damned landlady had insisted she’d gone away, taking her cat with her.

  He’d cabled Diana, though he’d known she hadn’t gone to Marlowe Park, and his sister’s answering cable had confirmed it. She wasn’t in Berkshire. Hoping against hope, he went to the cottage.

  She wasn’t there when he arrived, and the place was like a hollow shell without her. Thinking perhaps she would come on the next day’s train, he stayed the night, and her words whispered to him with each creak of the bed and each sway of the hammock, making him unable to sleep in either place. Both were so empty without her.