“Why?” Amanda asked softly. “Why did he put himself at risk for your sake, and for the others? I would have thought…”
“That he would have been concerned only for his own welfare?” Fretwell finished for her, and she nodded. “I confess, I’ve never really understood what motivates Jack Devlin. But I do know one thing for certain—he may not be a religious man, but he is a humanitarian.”
“If you say so, then I believe you,” Amanda murmured. “However…” She threw him a skeptical glance. “I find it difficult to accept that someone who once took painful beatings for others should have complained and carried on so about a mere scratch on his side.”
“Ah, you’re referring to your visit to the offices last week, when Lord Tirwitt attacked Devlin with that cane-sword.”
“Yes.”
For some reason, Fretwell began to smile. “I’ve seen Devlin tolerate a hundred times more pain that that without even blinking,” he said. “But he is a man, after all, and not above trying to gain a little feminine sympathy.”
“He desired my sympathy?” Amanda asked in astonishment.
Fretwell seemed ready to deliver much more of this highly interesting information, but he checked himself, as if suddenly doubtful of the wisdom of doing so. He smiled as he glanced into Amanda’s round gray eyes. “I’ve said enough, I think.”
“But, Mr. Fretwell,” she protested, “you haven’t finished the story. How did a boy with no family and no money eventually come to own a publishing business? And how—”
“I will allow Mr. Devlin himself to tell you the rest someday, when he is ready. I have no doubt that he will.”
“But you can’t tell me only half a story!” Amanda complained, making him laugh.
“It’s not mine to tell, Miss Briars.” He set down his teacup and carefully refolded his napkin. “I beg your pardon, but I must be about my business, or I’ll answer to Devlin.”
Reluctantly Amanda sent for Sukey, who appeared with the manager’s hat, coat, and gloves. Fretwell bundled himself in preparation for the brisk winter wind outside. “I hope that you will return soon,” Amanda told him.
He nodded, as if he were fully cognizant that she wished to learn more from him about Jack Devlin. “I will certainly try to oblige you, Miss Briars. Oh, and I nearly forgot…” He reached into his coat pocket and unearthed a small object in a black velvet bag tied with silk cords. “My employer bade me to give this to you,” he said. “He wishes to commemorate the occasion of your first contract with him.”
“I cannot accept a personal gift from him,” Amanda replied warily, not moving to take the velvet bag.
“It’s a penholder,” he said matter-of-factly. “Hardly an object that one attaches great personal meaning to.”
Cautiously Amanda received the bag from him and emptied the contents into her open palm. A silver penholder, and a selection of steel nibs to be used with it, fell into her hand. Amanda blinked in uneasy surprise. No matter how Fretwell framed it, this pen was a personal object, as costly and fine as a piece of jewelry. Its heaviness attested to the fact that it was solid sterling, its surface engraved and set with pieces of turquoise. When was the last time she had received a present from a man, other than some Christmas token from a relative? She could not remember. She hated the feeling that had suddenly come over her, a sense of warm giddiness she had not experienced since girlhood. Although instinct prompted her to return the beautiful object, she did not heed it. Why shouldn’t she keep the gift? It probably meant nothing to Devlin, and she would enjoy having it.
“It’s lovely,” she said stiffly, her fingers curling around the penholder. “I suppose Mr. Devlin bestows similar gifts on all his authors?”
“No, Miss Briars.” Taking his leave with a cheerful smile, Oscar Fretwell ventured out into the cold, crackling hubbub of London at midday.
“This passage has to be removed.” Devlin’s long finger settled on one of the pages before him as he sat at his desk.
Amanda came around and peered over his shoulder, her eyes narrowing as she viewed the paragraphs he indicated. “It most certainly does not. It serves to establish the heroine’s character.”
“It slows the momentum of the narrative,” he said flatly, picking up a pen and preparing to draw a line across the offending page. “As I reminded you earlier this morning, Miss Briars, this is a serial novel. Pacing is everything.”
“You value pacing over character development?” she asked heatedly, snatching the page away before he could make a mark on it.
“Believe me, you’ve got a hundred other paragraphs that illustrate your heroine’s character,” he said, standing from his chair and following her while she retreated with the page in question. “That particular one, however, is redundant.”
“It is crucially important to the story,” Amanda insisted, clutching the page protectively.
Jack fought to suppress a grin at the sight of her, so adorably certain of herself, so pretty and lush and assertive. This was the first morning they had begun editing her book An Unfinished Lady, and so far, he had found it an enjoyable process. It was proving to be a fairly easy task to shape Amanda’s novel into an appropriate form for serial publication. Until this moment, she had agreed with almost every change he had suggested, and she had been receptive to his ideas. Some of his authors were so mulishly stubborn about altering their own work, one would think he had suggested changing text in the Bible. Amanda was easy to work with, and she did not harbor great pretensions about herself or her writing. In fact, she was relatively modest about her talents, to the extent of appearing surprised and uncomfortable when he praised her.
The plot of Unfinished Lady centered on a young woman who tried to live strictly according to society’s rules, yet couldn’t make herself accept the rigid confinement of what was considered proper. She made fatal errors in her private life—gambling, taking a lover outside of marriage, having a child out of wedlock—all due to her desire to obtain the elusive happiness she secretly longed for.
Eventually she came to a sordid end, dying of venereal disease, although it was clear that society’s harsh judgments had caused her demise fully as much as disease. What fascinated Jack was that Amanda, as the author, had refused to take a position on the heroine’s behavior, neither applauding nor condemning it. Clearly she had sympathy for the character, and Jack suspected that the heroine’s inner rebelliousness reflected some of Amanda’s own feelings.
Although Jack had offered to visit Amanda’s home to discuss the necessary revisions, she had preferred to meet with him at the Holborn Street offices. Doubtless it was because of what had happened between them at her house, he thought with a pleasurable stirring of sensation at the memory. A faint grin tugged at his mouth as he mused that Amanda probably thought that she was safer from his advances here than in her own home.
“Give me that page,” he said, amused by the way she retreated from him. “It has to go, Amanda.”
“It stays,” she countered, throwing a quick glance over her shoulder to make certain that he wasn’t backing her into a corner.
Today Amanda was dressed in a gown of soft pink wool trimmed in corded silk ribbon of a deeper shade. She had worn a bonnet adorned with China roses, which now reposed on the side of his desk, a pair of velvet ribbons draping gently toward the floor. The pink shade of the gown brought out the color in Amanda’s cheeks, while the simple cut displayed her generous figure to its best advantage. Aside from Jack’s considerable regard for her intelligence, he couldn’t help thinking of her as a tidy little bonbon.
“Authors,” he murmured with a grin. “You all think your work is flawless, and anyone who tries to change a single word is an idiot.”
“And editors consider themselves the most intelligent people they know,” Amanda shot back.
“Shall I send for someone else to have a look at that”—he gestured toward the page she held—“and give a third opinion?”
“Everyone here works for you,
” she pointed out. “Whoever you send for will certainly take your side.”
“You’re right,” he allowed cheerfully. He held out his hand for the page, which she clutched all the more tightly. “Give it over, Amanda.”
“Miss Briars to you,” she returned smartly, and although she was not precisely smiling, he sensed that she was enjoying the exchange as much as he. “And I will not give you this page. I insist that it remain in the manuscript. What do you make of that?”
The challenge was too much for Jack to resist. They had already done a great deal of work that morning, and now he was ready to play. Something about Amanda absolutely compelled him to throw her off-balance. “If you don’t give it to me,” he said softly, “I’m going to kiss you.”
Amanda blinked in astonishment. “What?” she asked faintly.
Jack didn’t bother to repeat himself, with the words still rippling in the air between them, like the rings that spread when a stone dropped into a pond.
“Make your choice, Miss Briars.” Jack discovered that he very much hoped she would push him to the limit. It would take very little provocation for him to carry out his threat. He had wanted to kiss her ever since she had set foot in his office that morning. The prim manner she had of pressing her lips together, distorting the voluptuous shape of her mouth…it distracted him to the point of madness. He wanted to kiss her senseless, until she was soft and receptive to whatever he wanted.
He saw Amanda struggle for composure, her body tensing. Hectic color crowded her face, and her fingers tautened until they began to crimp the page she so zealously protected. “Mr. Devlin,” she said in the crisp voice that never failed to arouse him, “surely you don’t play these ridiculous games with your other writers.”
“No, Miss Briars,” he said gravely, “I’m afraid you’re the sole recipient of my romantic attentions.”
The phrase “romantic attentions” seemed to rob her of speech. Her silver-gray eyes went round with astonishment. At that moment Jack was equally astonished to discover that although he had planned to leave her alone, he was powerless to control his reaction to her. His playfulness was abruptly shoved aside by deeper, more urgent instincts.
Although it was in his best interest to preserve a semblance of harmony between them, he did not want an amiable working relationship. He did not want an imitation of friendship. He wanted to bother and disconcert her, and make her aware of him in the same way that he was aware of her.
“No doubt it is some manner of compliment to be included in the great number of women who have received such attentions from you,” Amanda finally said. “However, I haven’t asked to be subjected to this sort of nonsense.”
“Are you going to give me that page?” he asked with deceptive mildness.
Scowling, Amanda seemed to make a sudden decision, crumpling the parchment in her hands until it formed a tight, neat ball. She strode to the fireplace and tossed it into the flames, where it burned in molten radiance. Fire outlined the edges of the crumpled paper in blue-white heat, while the center of the ball rapidly charred and turned black.
“The page is gone,” Amanda announced flatly. “You’ve gotten your way—now you should be satisfied.”
Her gesture had been intended to dispel the tension between them, and it should have. However, the atmosphere remained curiously heavy and electric, like the burgeoning stillness that occurred just before a lightning-storm. Jack’s usual easy smile felt tight as he spoke to her. “There have only been a few times in my life when I’ve been sorry to have gotten my way. This is one of them.”
“I do not wish to play games with you, Mr. Devlin. I want to finish the work before us.”
“Finish the work,” he repeated, and saluted her like a soldier receiving orders from his commanding officer. Going back to his desk, he braced his hands on the mahogany surface and inspected his notes. “It’s done, actually. These first thirty pages will make an excellent first installment. As soon as you finish the revisions we discussed, I’ll have it printed.”
“Ten thousand copies?” she asked tentatively, remembering the number he had promised her.
“Yes.” Jack smiled at her uneasy expression, knowing exactly what she was worried about. “Miss Briars,” he murmured, “it will sell. I have an instinct about these things.”
“I suppose you must,” she said doubtfully. “However…this particular story…many people will have objections to it. It is more sensational and…well, more lurid than I remembered. I did not take a strong enough moral position on the heroine’s behavior—”
“That’s why it will sell, Miss Briars.”
Amanda laughed suddenly. “Just as Madam Bradshaw’s book did.”
The discovery that she was willing to poke fun at herself was as pleasant to him as it was unexpected. Jack pushed back from the desk and came to stand next to her. Subjected to his sudden proximity, Amanda was unable to look directly into his face, her gaze sliding from the window to the floor, then latching onto the top button of his coat.
“Your sales will far exceed those of the celebrated Mrs. Bradshaw’s,” he told her, smiling. “And that’s not because of any so-called lurid content. You’ve told a good story in a skillful manner. I like it that you haven’t moralized about your heroine’s mistakes. You’ve made it difficult for the reader not to sympathize with her.”
“I sympathize with her,” Amanda said frankly. “I’ve always thought it would be the worst kind of horror to be trapped in a loveless marriage. So many women are forced to marry because of pure economics. If more women were able to support themselves, there would be fewer reluctant brides and unhappy wives.”
“Why, Miss Briars,” he said softly. “How unconventional of you.”
She countered his amusement with a perplexed frown. “It’s only sensible, really.”
He realized suddenly that this was the key to understanding her. Amanda was so doggedly practical that she was willing to discard the hypocrisies and stale social attitudes that most people accepted without thinking. Why, indeed, should a woman marry just because it was the expected thing to do, if she were able to choose otherwise?
“Perhaps most women think it is easier to marry than to support themselves,” he said, deliberately provoking her.
“Easier?” she snorted. “I’ve never seen a shred of evidence that spending the rest of one’s days in domestic drudgery is any easier than working at some trade. What women need is more education, more choices, and then they will be able to consider options for themselves other than marriage.”
“But a woman isn’t complete without a man,” Jack said provocatively, and laughed as her expression became thunderous. He held up his hands in self-defense, “Calm yourself, Miss Briars. I was only teasing. I have no wish to be bashed and battered as Lord Tirwitt was. Actually, I agree with your views. I’m no great proponent of the marital union. In fact, I intend to avoid it at all cost.”
“Then you have no desire for a wife and children?”
“God, no.” He grinned at her. “It would be obvious to any half-witted female that I’m a bad risk.”
“Quite obvious,” Amanda agreed, but she was smiling ruefully as she spoke.
Usually when Amanda finished writing a novel, she began on another right away. Otherwise, she felt uneasy and aimless. Without some kind of story in her head, she was positively adrift. Unlike most people, she never minded having to wait in a queue, or sitting in a carriage for a long time, or having long stretches of unfilled time. These were opportunities to reflect on her work-in-progress, to play with bits of dialogue in her head, to produce and discard ideas for her plot.
And yet, for the first time in years, she couldn’t seem to produce a plot that excited her imagination enough to begin writing again. Her revisions on An Unfinished Lady were done, and it was time to launch into a new project, and still the prospect seemed curiously uninviting.
She wondered if Jack Devlin was the cause of this. For the past month that she had kn
own him, her inner life did not seem nearly as interesting as the outside world. This was a problem she had never encountered before. Perhaps she should tell him to stop visiting her, she thought reluctantly. Devlin had developed the habit of calling at her home at least twice a week, without any kind of polite warning. It could be in the middle of the day, or even at suppertime, when she would be forced to invite him to share her evening meal.
“I’ve always been told that one should never feed strays,” Amanda said darkly the third time he appeared uninvited for supper. “It encourages them to keep coming back.”
Hanging his head in a useless effort to look penitent, Devlin sent her a coaxing smile. “Is it suppertime?…I hadn’t realized it was so late. I’ll go. No doubt my cook will have some sort of cold potato mash or warmed-over soup ready for me at home.”
Amanda failed in her effort to look stern. “With your means, Mr. Devlin, I doubt that your cook is as wretched as you always make her out to be. In fact, I heard just the other day that you have a veritable mansion and a regiment of servants. I doubt they would allow you to starve.”
Before Devlin could reply, a cold blast of winter air swept through the entranceway, and Amanda hurriedly bade Sukey to close the door. “Do come in,” Amanda told Devlin tartly, “before I turn into an icicle.”
Visibly radiating with satisfaction, he strolled into the warm house and sniffed the air with appreciation. “Beef stew?” he murmured, casting a questioning glance at Sukey, whose face split with a grin.
“Roast beef, Mr. Devlin, with mashed turnips and spinach, and the prettiest little apricot jam puddings ye’ve ever seen. Cook has outdone herself tonight, ye’ll see.”
Amanda’s flicker of annoyance at Devlin’s presumption was dispelled by amusement as she saw his obvious anticipation. “Mr. Devlin, you appear at my home so frequently that you never give me a chance to invite you.” She took his arm and bade him to escort her to her small but elegant dining room. Although she often dined alone, she always ate by candlelight and used her best china and silver, reasoning that her lack of a husband did not mean she had to eat in spartan surroundings.