She said it in the strangest way, as if trying to accept something impossible. Harry began to feel uneasy.
“Should I know of her?” He gave her a smile. “You must refresh my memory, for I cannot recall ever hearing of any such person. One of my competitors publish a book by her I don’t know about?”
“No.” She swallowed hard and gazed past him, still as a statue.
Harry’s uneasiness deepened into worry. Was she going to faint? He couldn’t imagine Miss Dove fainting, but there was a first time for everything. “You’re white as chalk. Are you ill?”
“No.” She shook her head, coming out of her daze. She seemed to regain her usual poise, almost making him wonder if he had imagined that shocked, frozen look. “Thank you for your opinion about my manuscript,” she said. “Since today is Saturday, and it is now well past noon, I shall be on my way, if there is nothing else?”
She didn’t wait for an answer, but started for the door.
“Miss Dove?” he called after her.
She halted. Her head turned slightly back over her shoulder, but she did not quite look at him. “Yes, sir?”
“Who is Mrs. Bartleby?”
It was several seconds before she answered. “No one important,” she said and departed, closing the door behind her.
He frowned, staring at the closed door, still uneasy. No doubt she was disappointed, but what some woman named Bartleby had to do with it, he couldn’t fathom.
With a shake of his head, Harry dismissed the strange conversation from his mind. It always hurt Miss Dove’s feelings when he rejected her work, but she’d get over it. She always did.
He’d never read her books. Emma repeated that fact over and over as she strode up Chancery Lane, but she still could not seem to take itin. He had not read a single one of her books.
It occurred to her that she might be mistaken, but even as that thought crossed her mind, she knew it wasn’t possible. If Marlowe had read her work, he’d have known Mrs. Bartleby was Emma’s pseudonym and the fictional author of all her manuscripts. Heavens, the woman’s name was typed right on the title page. How could he miss it? And there were references to the late Mr. Bartleby sprinkled throughout the text. No, there could be no mistake.
All her time, all her hard work, all her duties for him loyally fulfilled, and he couldn’t even be bothered to read the title page?
Emma’s shock gave way to rage, a deep, burning fire in her belly. Never had she felt so close to violence. All this time, all these years, he’d only been pretending to consider her work. It was all a lie.
She wanted to confront him. She should have, but at first she’d been too stunned. Standing there by her desk, looking at his face, realizing the horrible truth, she’d been numb. Only now, long after she’d left the building, had the fog of numbness disintegrated, and now it was too late.
No, it wasn’t. She halted at the corner of High Holborn, turned on her heel, and headed back toward Bouverie Street. She would do it. She would confront him, fling his lie in his face, tell him just what she thought of his duplicity.
The moment she imagined such a scene, Emma knew how stupid it would be. He’d sack her. Any employer would, for impertinence like that.
It wasn’t worth it. Emma stopped again, this time earning herself an indignant exclamation from a young man walking behind her. Out of breath, she stood there on the sidewalk as the young man walked around her, and she knew she couldn’t confront Marlowe. No matter how momentarily satisfying such an action might be, she couldn’t afford to sacrifice her job for it.
Thwarted by her own common sense, Emma clenched her hand into a fist and ground it into the palm of her other hand with a sound of frustration. She was angry, by heaven, and she wanted an outlet for her feelings. She wanted to scream, to cry, to throw things, but that was out of the question. She was in a public thoroughfare, surrounded by