Working for a handsome man is fraught with difficulties. To those girl-bachelors so employed, I recommend an unflappable temperament, an unbreakable heart, and plenty of handkerchiefs.Mrs. Bartleby
Advice to Girl-Bachelors, 1893
"Why?" The exotic, raven-haired creature in tangerine silk started to cry. "Why has he done this to me?"
Miss Emmaline Dove did not venture a reply to that question. Practical, as always, she saved her breath and pulled out a handkerchief. She handed it to the woman on the other side of the desk without a word.
Juliette Bordeaux, the now-former mistress of Emma's employer, Viscount Marlowe, snatched the offered square of cambric. "Six blissful months we have had together, and when I receive from his footman the pretty little box, I am happy. But then I find a letter with the present, a letter which ends our amour. Mon Dieu! He thinks with jewels to soften the blow that shatters my heart! How cruel he is!" She bent her head and sobbed with an abandonment that was wholly French and somewhat theatrical. "Oh, Harry!"
Emma shifted uncomfortably in her chair and cast a glance at the ormolu clock on her desk. Half past six. Marlowe could return any minute, and she wanted to speak with him about her new manuscript before he went on to his sister's birthday party.
She was fairly certain he'd be back to his offices yet this evening. The present she had purchased for Lady Phoebe on his behalf was still here, wrapped and waiting. Unless he had forgotten the evening's festivities altogether, which she had to admit was not an unheard-of possibility, he had to fetch the gift from here before going home.
This was her best chance to speak with him, she knew, for he was leaving on the morrow for a week at his estate in Berkshire. With no meetings to be rushing off to and no deals to negotiate, and with his family remaining in town, he would have leisure time at Marlowe Park. Emma hoped the serene atmosphere of the country would put him in a more relaxed frame of mind and enable him to see her work in a more favorable light than he had in the past. It was worth a try anyway.
Emma's gaze moved to the typewriting machine on her credenza and the tidy stack of manuscript pages beside it. Her own birthday was only eight days from now, and if Marlowe agreed to publish her writing at last, what a wonderful birthday present that would be.
Suddenly, a vague disquiet stole over her, something so at odds with the delicious sense of anticipation she'd been savoring a moment before that Emma was startled. It was a feeling hard to define, but there was dissatisfaction in it, and a sense of restlessness.
She tried to dismiss it. Perhaps she was just afraid of another rejection. After all, Marlowe had rejected her four previous literary efforts. He felt etiquette books were unprofitable, but Emma knew that was because the advice offered in most of them was hopelessly old-fashioned, not at all in keeping with this modern age. In light of that, she had worked especially hard with her newest manuscript to create something fresh and current. If she could just explain to Marlowe why this new book would have pop-u-lar appeal, he might be more receptive to it, especially if he was then able to read it with no distractions in the relaxed atmosphere of the country.
Miss Bordeaux, however, showed no sign of departing. Emma studied the distraught woman on the other side of the desk, trying to find a polite way of getting her out the door. If Marlowe's former mistress was still here when he returned,...
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An expert in etiquette, Emma takes her pristine reputation most seriously. But the devilish Lord Marlowe is determined to prove that some rules of proper behavior are made to be broken ...
