And Then He Kissed Her by Laura Lee Guhrke Read Free Book Online Page A

considering the matter. “My mother, too, now that I think on it. She could bemarried off. A Scottish peer, for choice. Scotland’s a long way from here, two days’ train, at least.”
    “Overnight, if one takes the express.” Miss Dove always accepted everything he said at face value and responded accordingly, a fact which had long ago forced Harry to conclude his secretary had no sense of humor.
    “I believe there are one or two agencies that facilitate the finding of a spouse,” she went on doubtfully, “but I would not have thought your sisters needed assistance of that sort. And isn’t your eldest sister already affianced to Lord Rathbourne?”
    Smiling, he leaned a bit closer to her over the desk. “I was having you on, Miss Dove.”
    “Oh.” Her expression did not change. “I see,” she said in the tone of one who clearly didn’t.
    Harry gave it up. Teasing his secretary was pointless, for she never understood it. In any case, he was only trying to stave off the bad news he had to give her as long as possible.
    Taking a deep breath, he set his leather dispatch case on her desk, unfastened the buckle, and opened it. “I looked at your new book,” he said as he pulled out her manuscript, “but I’m afraid this one still has the same problem as the others. For one particular etiquette book to make a profit, it has to be fresh and different, it has to stand out.”
    “Yes, sir.” Her lips pressed together in disappointment, and she ducked her head to hide it. “I understand, but I had hoped—”
    “Yes, I know,” he cut her off, wanting thisover as quickly as possible. He held out the twine-tied stack of paper. “I’m sorry.”
    She stared at it for a moment, then took it from his hand and put it in a drawer of her desk. “Would you like your coffee now?”
    “Yes, thank you.”
    She duly brought his coffee, just the way he liked it, strong, hot, and with no milk or sugar. After that, he dictated some correspondence to her until the editors came upstairs for their meeting with him. Three hours later, he ushered the other two men out into the corridor, acting genial even as he wondered in exasperation why editors could never seem to grasp the financial considerations of publishing. They unerringly passed up the salable book for the book of literary brilliance, a trait that always left Harry baffled at the end of each monthly meeting. If a book didn’t have mass appeal, he didn’t care how beautiful its metaphors or how subtle its literary allusions or how profound its theme, he wasn’t going to publish it.
    As he came back into his own suite of offices, he found his secretary putting on her hat.
    “Going now, Miss Dove?”
    “Yes, sir.”
    He ducked his head to peer beneath the wide straw brim of her bonnet. “No hard feelings, I hope?” he asked, looking into her face.
    “Of course not,” she answered with a bright, forced sort of cheerfulness. “I comprehend your reasons for rejecting my work, but I shall not be discouraged.”
    He didn’t have the heart to tell her not to bother. “That’s the spirit. Persistence pays off, so they say.”
    “I intend to regard this as just one more no out of the way,” she went on as she put on her gloves. “Getting all the no’s out of the way will eventually lead to a yes, as Mrs. Bartleby says.”
    “Who?”
    She paused, looking at him in puzzlement. “Mrs. Bartleby,” she repeated, her tone conveying that he was supposed to know the name.
    He frowned, trying to remember if he’d ever heard of any woman named Bartleby. After a moment, he shook his head. “Sorry, Miss Dove, but I don’t know her.”
    “But—” She broke off and stared at him, her hazel eyes wide and her lips parted, her puzzlement replaced by what seemed to be utter astonishment.
    The expression on her face was so at odds with her usually cool, unruffled demeanor that he was startled. “Miss Dove, are you all right?”
    “You don’t know who Mrs. Bartleby is.”