And Then He Kissed Her by Laura Lee Guhrke Page B

agree. You believe you know me? Obviously, you do not know me at all, Miss Dove.”
    “And if you think I will come back into your employ only to tolerate more of your denigration of my work as silly, you do not know me, my lord!”
    Harry stared at her, noting the flush of outrage in her cheeks, the red glints in her hair, and the clenched fists at her sides, and his own anger faded as quickly as it had come.
    Five years of having her in his employ, with each of them assuming those passing years hadgiven them a thorough knowledge of the other’s character. She thought him insincere and a liar and God only knows what else. He thought her cool, dispassionate, compliant, and—truth be told—somewhat inhuman. Both of them, it seemed, had been wrong.
    “I want you to leave.”
    Interrupted in the midst of these realizations, Harry didn’t quite catch her words. “I beg your pardon?”
    She stalked over to him and stuck her chin up looking him square in the eye. “I said, leave.”
    What else about her had he missed? He studied her face, not as if it was the one he saw nearly every day, but instead, as if they had never met before.
    Her eyes were hazel. He already knew that, but what he hadn’t known until now was that the gold flecks in them seemed to snap like sparks when she was angry. Until now, he hadn’t really noticed the freckles sprinkled over her nose and upper cheeks like so much pixy dust, or that there was a faint, star-shaped scar on her cheekbone. Until now he hadn’t realized that her brown lashes were light at the ends, as if the tips had been dipped in gold.
    “Are you hard of hearing?” She brought her hands up between them and pushed with all her might. When he didn’t comply, she pushed him again. “I said, go away!”
    He outweighed her by a good five or six stone, at least, so all her shoving didn’t move him an inch. He continued to look at her in this new way,seeing her as he’d never seen her before. To his surprise, he found himself enjoying the view. She was not a beautiful woman, but right now, with rosy color in her cheeks and those sparks in her eyes, she was a sight any man would appreciate. Miss Dove was very human indeed.
    Seeing that her attempts to force him out were useless, she stopped. “Depart this instant, Lord Marlowe,” she ordered. “If you don’t, I shall fetch the police. They have a station at the corner.”
    Knowing she would be unmoved by any more words about how much he valued her, he decided it was time to negotiate. “I’ll increase your wages. Say to ten pounds a month?”
    “No!” She pushed him again, and this time he allowed it, knowing he would gain nothing by doing otherwise.
    “Twenty,” he said. That was exorbitant pay for a secretary, but he could afford the expense.
    “No.”
    “Thirty. And I’ll give you all of Saturdays off, not just afternoons.”
    “No, no, no!” With each refusal, she pushed him closer to the door. “This is not about days off. It’s not about money.”
    “What is it about, then?” he asked as she paused by the settees and grabbed his hat. “Your hurt feelings?”
    “No.” She slammed the hat on his head with one hand as she continued to propel him backward with the other. “This is about me and what I want. I want to be a writer, not work for you.”
    “I am not accepting your resignation.”
    “You have to accept it.”
    He took off his hat and held it to his heart. “What will it take to get you back?”
    She made a sound of thorough exasperation through her teeth. “Do you never give up?”
    “Not when I want something. I’m rather obstinate that way. Since you claim to know me so well, you should know that.”
    “Then we have something in common, my lord, for I, too, am very obstinate.”
    He had to tell her the truth about Barringer. It was only right. “I beg you to be sensible. As my secretary, your future is secure, while this venture with Barringer is doomed to fail. He’s facing—”
    “I