Randall #03 - Sherwood Ltd. by Anne R. Allen Page A

stilling my shaky hands.
    Meggy shrugged. I could make out a large purplish bruise under her make-up.
    “They don’t tell me nothing. No more than he do at home. I’m a mushroom, me: kept in the dark and covered in shite. This lot don’t even pay us half the time. Me friend Jilly’s looking for a new job in Lincoln.” She glanced out the window, where a car was coming up the drive. “That’ll be her now. Oh, no…” Her expression changed as she jumped down from her perch. “It’s Mr. Weems. I’d best be back to work by the time he gets his cuppa.” She grabbed my arm and whispered, “Between you and me, the whole lot of ’em are barking. Everyone but the Professor. He’s a gent.”
    I rushed back to the office and managed to stuff the rest of my things into my battered Vuitton cases before Vera Winchester appeared, wearing a tight smile, followed by a bird-like man in thick glasses who looked as if he might burst into tears any minute. Could this tiny person possibly be the man who wrote under the name Rodd Whippington?
    “Bugger. We can’t print books without paper,” the little man announced. He walked right past me and set a steaming tea mug on the desk. “We’ve hundreds of pre-orders for my new book. And I need to talk to Mowbray about the cover. Where is he?”
    Only now did he notice me and my luggage.
    “What in blazes are you doing in my office, girl? It’s after ten in the morning. Don’t you have a home?”
    I wanted to say: no, I was homeless—and penniless as well, since I hadn’t been given my promised room or my advance. But I kept a polite silence.
    “Henry, this is our new author from America,” Mrs. Winchester said, her voice pitched a bit too high.
    For a moment, Henry Weems’ eyes looked as if they might start a fire through the coke-bottle glasses as he stared, first at me, then my Vuitton luggage.
    “I thought Peter’s bloody Yanks had gone back where they came from.”
    I mustered up enough of my Manners Doctor persona to will myself to smile.
    “I’m Camilla Randall, Mr. Weems.” I reached for his hand. “I wrote Good Manners for Bad Times . I’m sorry I’ve inconvenienced you, staying in the office like this. There seems to have been some miscommunication with Mr. Sherwood.”
    Mr. Weems continued to stare at my offending suitcases as this information made its way to his brain. Finally he looked back up at me.
    “Oh. That’s all right then. I thought you were another of Peter’s tarts.” He dismissed me with a wave. “Pradeep won’t be in until afternoon. He wants a bit of editing on your book—correcting the American spelling and references to customs that are different here. Otherwise, everything will remain the same. We want it ready to launch by September or October at the latest…”
    “October?” My head roared. “Peter said we’d launch in two weeks…”
    Mr. Weems sighed and pressed his forehead as if his head hurt.
    “I suppose he proposed marriage to you, too? And promised you a country house with a gardener and a chef? The man will say anything to pull a bird. Now please, I’ve got a business to run, and a partner who’s swanned off to Serbo-bloody-Croatia.”
    He rummaged through the things on Peter’s desk, pushing a huge pile of manuscript envelopes aside. He looked at the return address on one with a scornful snort.
    “More Yanks. Why can’t he get us some Brits? Somebody who can promote sales amongst his sisters and his cousins and his aunts? I haven’t time to read this rubbish. None of us has.” He gave the pile another shove, and the envelopes slid onto the floor.
    I stooped to gather them, trying to keep my anger and hurt under control. I had to make this man accept me, or I was going to be chucked out onto the streets of Swynsby.
    “Peter—that is, Mr. Sherwood—offered me a job reading the unsolicited manuscripts. Would you like me to get started reading these?”
    Mr. Weems gave me a look of equal parts scorn and