A Novella Collection Page 9

  “I think Bright and I are done with each other,” Colin added.

  “All right for you. I didn’t tell Bright anything of the sort.” Samuel looked devilish, telling Colin of Ada’s plan. Her offer to the editors of The Gentleman’s Magazine to write a series of rival pieces. “She said she’d promised you she’d write the pieces herself, but didn’t say where she’d send them.”

  Colin laughed. “Heart of a reporter, she has. What a woman.”

  “So you see, she’s going to profit from our time in Berkshire, and she gave us her blessing to do so too.”

  “She doesn’t need to profit,” Colin replied, but he thought he understood. She was taking control of her story; she would tell it herself, in the way she chose.

  “If she writes about marrying for wealth, will it seem too much like copying?” Samuel drummed his fingers on the well-used desk at which he’d written many a piece.

  Colin scoffed. “Given the same topic to write on, no two people would ever think up the same result. Besides, if Bright can get Vir Virilem’s work into the next issue, the Magazine will seem to be copying the Periodical for once.”

  Samuel gathered up the sheaf of papers they’d written together, then hesitated. “You don’t mind? If I sell all of this to Bright?”

  “Don’t sell it.” At Samuel’s crestfallen face, Colin explained, “Trade it to him for the position of co-editor and a regular salary, just as he promised me. You can do the work as well as I, Samuel.”

  “But you’ve always been our eyes and ears.”

  True, and how good it had felt to make use of his abilities. But there would be other ways. “You have excellent eyes and ears too. You can do this.” Colin grinned. “Maybe you can even think up something better than the questions page. Drag the Periodical toward respectability a bit.”

  “You might ask too much there.” Samuel paused. “You’re sure you don’t want it yourself?”

  “Very sure that I don’t. I couldn’t take the post, or even go to Bright’s printing house again. I have a journey to take.”

  Samuel beamed. “To Berkshire?”

  “Where else is there?”

  * * *

  I have decided that I am not the sort to avoid scenes or topics that might give rise to awkwardness. Therefore, let me be frank.

  My name in Latin is Nobilem.

  I was jilted after my eldest brother died.

  I have returned to London first in my words, soon, in my person.

  I have a talent with numbers, but I prefer words.

  I have fallen deeply in love with a man who won’t have me.

  And I have never been happier.

  One of those statements, but only one, is false. Which one?

  Ada laid down her quill, stretched her fingers, then arose to walk around the blue parlor. It was sunny and bright, drawing her mood upward. She was pleased with the tone of the piece she’d begun.

  The Gentleman’s Magazine had sent a reply at once: They would take whatever pieces she chose to write at five pounds each, provided that she allowed her name to leak out at some point in future.

  The money was rather nice; it was the first she’d earned herself. It was nothing to the interest on her dowry, but it would still buy a great many caramel candies. Or cover a portion of the cost of a special license to wed, should there be an opportunity.

  That was for Colin to decide. She’d said all she dared in that note of three words. She thought he would remember how much more had passed between them, or guess how much more those two words represented. You are real. A sentence not often bandied about by the ton.

  They were the only words that mattered to her now—other than, perhaps, I love you madly, or I can’t live without you another day, or—

  “Mr. Goddard is here to see you, my lady.”

  Or those.

  Ada blinked at Chalmers through her spectacles, hardly daring to believe what he’d just said. “Ah—would that be Mr. Colin Goddard?”

  “Indeed, my lady. Shall I show him in here, or will you meet him in the study?”

  The study was more usual for her. But she felt like being a bit unusual. “Here will do. Thank you, Chalmers.”

  When the butler disappeared to fetch the visitor, Ada went into a frenzy of motion. Removing spectacles, rubbing at ink stains on fingers, wiping them on a handkerchief, then shaking out her skirts and smoothing her hair.

  “You look lovely.”

  He’d caught her unawares as she picked at her appearance. From the doorway, he smiled at her: golden and tall and travel-rumpled and, by God, real.

  “Colin,” she said, standing at a safe distance. “Come in, then, and tell me why you’ve come back.”

  “Simple enough.” He loped into the room, all easy grace and charm. “Once I knew you knew everything—that you didn’t hate me—it was impossible for me to be anywhere else.”

  “Hate you? No, I never could. I’m not saying I’m fond of The Gentleman’s Periodical, and yet”—she closed the distance between them—“it brought us to this point, didn’t it? So maybe I’m a little fond of it.”

  “A little?”

  “A very little.” She caught his coat lapels in her fingers, tugged. “But that’s not how I feel about you.”

  “It would be ungentlemanly for me to ask for further details, wouldn’t it?”

  “Not as ungentlemanly as what you’re doing with your hands—oh! Not that I am complaining.”

  Scoundrel that he was, he stilled his wandering hands and took hers in them. “Ada. My dear. I admire you and adore you. You make me want to do better, to be better, and to make more of myself.”

  “I have to sit down,” she said. “My knees aren’t quite working right.”

  “Ha! I knew you liked what I was doing with my hands.” He guided her to a settee, then said, “I know it’s fast, and it’s sudden, so if you like, I’ll take a room at the White Hare and moon after you for months until you trust in my feelings for you. But I think—I think I’ve been yours ever since we first struck that bargain.”

  She shut her eyes, collecting his every word within her. It was everything she’d hoped, everything she wanted. It was real.

  When she opened her eyes, his face filled her sight. He was so handsome and roguish and familiar and…and just now, his heart was in his eyes and she had him at her feet.

  “None of us have been happy without you,” she said demurely. “When I saw him in the village earlier, Squire Martin said no one understands the troubles he has with elegant dress so well as you. The vicar says no one recites as well as you. Equinox looks past me each time I enter the stable, as if hoping to see you entering after me.”

  He pulled a face. “You could go on listing, and I would be impressed. But what of you?”

  “You could be a gentleman if you wished,” she said. “I’ve told you so before. And a gentleman would reveal his true feelings before asking a lady about hers.”

  A smile spread over his features, slow and mischievous. “Is that so? I’ll reveal my feelings for you, all right.”

  And he did.

  Ada loved words, and she had a talent for numbers. But at this moment, she found she needed none of those things, and all that mattered was a kiss from the man to whom she’d given her heart.

  * * *

  By the turn of the year a few months later, Vir Virilem’s satirical articles in The Gentleman’s Periodical had become the talk of London. The dreadful rag, as Ada always referred to it, had garnered a steady level of sales as a result, even without the on-demandes that had first drawn notice to it. As the founding editor had never achieved such success, Ada and Colin gave credit to the new co-editor. Not that credit was worth anything to that gentleman, but they gave it all the same.

  Meanwhile, Ada and Colin worked on pieces of their own. Her love of observation, his glib tongue and wry humor—there was no one with whom they wouldn’t speak and nothing about which the
y wouldn’t write. They could have lived simply on the sales of their work—but since Ada had a fortune, they didn’t have to. Colin had needed a little persuading to adopt his bride’s style of living, but she reminded him how easy he’d once thought it to get used to fine clothes and plentiful food.

  He wore his own clothing, though. On that, he would not negotiate. And he much preferred to visit Equinox in the stable and then leave without ever climbing on horseback again.

  From her new home in the long-abandoned dower house, Ada was able to walk over to Theale Hall as needed to assist the duke’s new steward with his duties. The young man was capable, and before long, she wouldn’t have to do even that much.

  Philippe had been surprised when he returned, suntanned and several horses the richer, from his travels with Harriet to be faced with Ada’s reluctance to continue keeping the accounts. “I thought you enjoyed it.”

  “More that I thought it necessary to hold our family together. I’d always done it since our father’s day. I thought if I kept doing it, maybe we wouldn’t have lost every bit of the way things used to be.”

  “When our parents lived and Jonas too.” He understood at once.

  “But our family is different now,” she said. “And I’m ready for a change. It’ll be good, not sad.”

  And he understood that too and agreed.

  He and Harriet would never have booted Ada from her rooms in Theale Hall. But newly wed couples liked their own space, and so did couples about to marry. The dower house on the grounds had been unoccupied for years, and Philippe was happy to grant its lifetime use to Ada and Colin as a wedding gift. A charming cottage of a mere twenty rooms or so, it was at an easy distance for the couples to visit.

  And it was easy too for them to walk the bridle path to their favorite places, whether home or to neighbors’ or to the village for a treat or a visit with friends. Daylight or twilight, Ada and Colin had developed a tradition of flirting as they walked.

  “We’re ending the year by walking on the bridle path,” Ada said, taking her new husband’s hand.

  “I noticed where we were walking, yes. Can’t think of a better way to bid farewell to December.”

  “Do you want to kiss me?”

  “Always.” Colin wore a wicked grin.

  “Must we wait for the full moon?”

  “Indeed not.” He swept her into his arms, heedless of anyone on the Talbot lands who might see them through winter-bare hedges. “Lady Ada Goddard, I shall kiss you on the lips, and on the bridle path, and anywhere else you might permit—are you laughing at me?”

  “Not at all,” she choked out. “Go on. This sounds nice.”

  “It will be. Just wait.” He suited his actions to his previous words.

  When they both paused for air, flushed and gasping, he added, “I will bring you here by the next full moon and kiss you again, if you like. But legend or no, I’ve no doubt in my mind, my darling wife, that you are my true love.”

  She beamed up at him. “And you’re mine. Now, won’t you kiss me again?”

  If you’ve just read my novella Desperately Seeking Scandal, you’ve met Samuel Goddard—the younger brother of reporter hero Colin. Samuel is a fine writer and satirist in his own right, but he’d always lived in his brother’s shadow. He has what we’d today call Tourette syndrome, with tics that make him feel conspicuous.

  By the end of Desperately Seeking Scandal, however, Samuel has begun to come into his own. He’s become a co-editor of the tabloid-ish Gentleman’s Periodical, and his satirical pieces—written under the name Vir Virilem—have boosted the circulation of the financially troubled magazine. For the first time since being orphaned as a boy, Samuel has won himself a secure place in life.

  Is that his happily-ever-after? Not quite.

  As the year draws to a close, professional success is tied to loneliness. His brother is married and living in Berkshire; Samuel is alone in the lodging the brothers shared for so many years. The answer to his troubles, Samuel believes, is to throw himself more deeply into work. But he hasn’t counted on Christmas writer’s block, or the determination of Harriet Keating…

  DESPERATELY SEEKING CHRISTMAS

  What is Christmas but a chance for the unscrupulous to steal a kiss under mistletoe?

  Vir Virilem

  Samuel Goddard studied the type he’d just set into the page forme for the next issue of The Gentleman’s Periodical. After years of piecework and months as a co-editor, he could read backwards or upside-down as swiftly as the ordinary way. He could set dozens of letters per minute despite the twitches that clenched his hands. On printing day, quickly as he’d once hungrily gleaned millet from an unguarded field, he could now clip hundreds of ink-damp pages to dry on the clotheslines that webbed overhead in the periodical’s cramped offices.

  But today it all felt wrong. The wryness, the cynicism of his latest piece—this wasn’t what Christmas had meant to him as a boy. Under the cold guardianship of one indifferent adult after another, Christmas had always meant a reprieve of warmth and song. A solid meal at the manor house. A pair of thick socks knitted by an elderly lady who pinched his cheeks. Raisins and walnuts and the comfort of his elder brother, Colin, telling him next year, next year would be better.

  What Samuel was writing now? This was too much like the on-demandes, the scandalous questions Colin had thought up for years. Who was climbing down the Countess of Marbury’s trellis after midnight? The answer was no one, of course, but the question was titillating. Merely posing a question, Colin had convinced the Periodical’s founder, was no grounds for a lawsuit. And it would do wonders for circulation.

  And so the on-demandes had, for a time. But they had also almost ruined Colin’s chance at happiness with his now-wife, Lady Ada. When Samuel earned a co-editorship of the Periodical, he’d convinced its founder, Botolphus Bright, to drop the feature.

  Why, then, did everything Samuel wrote for the Christmas issue sound like a return of Vir Virilem at his most cynical? His most scandal-mongering and bitter?

  Because Samuel was damned lonely. Unless he was granted a miracle of printer’s ink and inspiration, he wouldn’t finish type-setting the issue in time to visit Colin and Ada in Berkshire for Christmas. Nothing awaited him but his rented rooms and a toddy he mixed himself.

  He should be grateful not to be cold and hungry. To hold his own fate in his hands, and to be able to buy thick socks when he needed them and raisins when he wanted them. And he was. But the one thing that had never deserted him—words, the perfect words—had abandoned him a week before Christmas, and he didn’t know how to go on from here.

  With a frown, he wiped ink from his fingers and turned from the printer’s case to the desk that held correspondence. Perhaps there’d be a reader letter to print, something that he as Vir Virilem could respond to. Something to fill column inches so Samuel could get this issue completed.

  But there was nothing, nothing, nothing. A request that the editors add a section of classified advertisements; a demand that the editors retract a recent article about the best coffee-shops in the metropolis, for it hadn’t included the letter-writer’s own establishment. Another letter included quite an elaborate vulgar drawing, and thank goodness that had been brought by messenger rather than coming through the post. The Periodical was no different from the rest of the country in that it paid the Royal Mail for each letter it received.

  What he really wanted, Samuel decided as he sorted the letters into piles, was a new piece from E. H. Wise. That last analysis of the rotten boroughs around London had been trenchant! Politically important! And best of all, witty—so that a reader might be entertained, but learn without realizing it.

  Samuel always did his best writing as Vir Virilem after reading a piece by Wise. If Wise sent something today, he just knew the words would come together for him. Words of joy and inspiration and wit and wonder.

  The perfect words for Christmas.

  If they e
ver met, Samuel had long since decided, he and Wise would be friends. At least, he hoped they would be. Perhaps Wise would not like a friend who nodded at the wrong time, or who sometimes had to hunch or pace or shake out his hands. A friend who was quite new to the business of having friends at all.

  Samuel was just about to settle back in the rickety chair for a second flip through the post when the door to the Periodical’s office burst open.

  He looked up, squinting, as the person who entered was silhouetted by watery winter sunlight. Then the figure stepped forward, revealing itself to be…

  “Harriet Keating,” Samuel sighed. “I have told you, The Gentleman’s Periodical doesn’t hire women.”

  He said this without a single stutter. With hardly even a single twitch, though ordinarily a pretty young woman would make him more conscious than ever about the tics that wracked him.

  But Harriet Keating had visited so often with her portfolio that he’d become accustomed to her. To the neat little hats set atop hair black as ink; to the shrewd brown eyes and the trim figure. And clutched in her gloved hands, the slim case of buff leather in which she carried her papers.

  Papers he’d never looked at. Botolphus Bright had instructed Samuel that he might buy whatever pieces he wished from independent writers, as long as he never bought from women. “Our periodical is by men and for men,” insisted the older fellow.

  Of course, the Periodical was largely about women. Gossip about them, drawings of them, advice on wooing and wedding them. And the periodical was probably read by a devil of a lot of women too. Otherwise, why would Miss Keating wish to sell her work here?

  Samuel rose from the wobbly chair, steadying himself with a hand that clenched and unclenched of its own seeming will. “Miss Keating,” he said. “You are remarkably persistent.”

  She drew closer with a little smile, bringing with her the scents of wood smoke and peppermint and winter air. “It’s all part of my strategy.” Her dark eyes roved the confines of the office. “Isn’t this the day of the month you usually finish setting type?”