Love, Come to Me(86)

“I’m not trying to spare your feelings.” Heath glanced down at the article and ran his fingertips over the top page, still amazed by the clear preciseness of her writing. A sensation of pride crept through his chest as he realized what she had done. “In fact, I’m ashamed to admit that I’m surprised.”

“Ashamed?”

“I shouldn’t be surprised by something like this. Not from you.” He stood up and went over to her, nudging her chin with his forefinger and tipping her face upwards. Did she know how different she was from the girl he had married? A year ago, she had possessed something, a hint of something special, that had attracted him against his will. Now that unnameable hint of magic had developed into something far more potent. God help him when she finally learned to use it. “What a marvel you are.” He smiled slowly. “Do something for me, Lucy.”

“What?”

“Don’t ever let me start to think of you as merely my . . . playmate.”

“Is there a danger of that?”

He cast a roguish glance towards the bed. “I’m afraid that in my appreciation for some of your talents, I might tend to overlook some of the others.”

“Can I think of you as my playmate?”

A smile tugged at the corners of his mouth. “Always.” He slipped her robe off her shoulders and stroked the upper rise of her br**sts with his thumbs, aware of the faint, breathy sound she made in response. “Are you tired of talking?” he whispered, catching delicately at her earlobe with his teeth. “Then come to bed and play, Cinda. I’ve got a new game for you tonight.” And she followed him willingly, entranced by the beguiling wickedness of his smile.

Lucy’s article was printed in the paper, and it was not long before Heath encouraged her to write another one. The second was much more difficult to write than the first, but as she discovered how readily Heath responded to her hesitant questions, she became less shy about asking for his help. He sat down with her and made suggestions about how her work could be improved, while she managed to swallow her indignation about having her favorite paragraph removed. And she realized how good he was at what he did, and how he could make the prospect of rewriting an article seem like a pleasure instead of a chore. No wonder Damon had complimented his editorial abilities so highly.

Heath had a gift for putting things plainly, and that was a valuable talent. Most writers were never quite able to say exactly what they meant. Not Heath. He knew exactly what he meant and he wanted everyone else to know, too. The Examiner, as he saw it, would have to reflect that same attitude, audacious and a little brassy. He wanted his reporters to be daring. And he demanded that they report on things that “the other reporters at the other papers” hadn’t even heard about. His conception of news was radical compared to the standards of the day. Most papers were merely showcases for an editorial voice. But the Examiner placed unheard-of importance on the efforts of its reporters: don’t wait for news to happen, go out and find it, make it, define it. Only a few of the reporters understood what Heath wanted of them, and they worked hard to satisfy his expectations.

Living with Heath had given Lucy an advantage over all of them—she understood more about him, his feelings for language and his work than any of them would ever be able to grasp. A newspaperman was traditionally a witness of the times he lived in. But she knew that Heath wanted to be more than that, though he hadn’t said as much out loud. He wanted to be able to influence events, people, and decisions through the simple power of words on paper. The causes he believed in wouldn’t be solved any other way. Therefore, the first objective was to make the Examiner the most informed and powerful newspaper in Boston. Lucy believed it was possible, and she was going to lend her efforts toward bringing it about. She had her own talent with words and a growing self-confidence that would help her to choose them well. And more significantly, she had connections with influential people in Boston that neither Heath nor Damon had access to—not the bigwigs themselves, but their wives.

Time and time again she proved her worth as a source of information, as she had on the day when no one could pry a word out of a state senator concerning the proposed takeover of the East Boston ferries by the city. Lucy found out every detail about the ferry proposal from the senator’s wife as they sipped tea at a club meeting. Through the women she associated with, she found out who was planning what and who was going where, and she discreetly passed on the information to her husband. Examiner reporters began to pop up in unexpected places, just in time to catch the latest stories, and their reports were gaining the reputation of being more updated than anyone else’s. The choicest stories, however, Lucy reserved for herself to write, and her skills improved steadily.

She loved being able to share in Heath’s work. It was gratifying to find that sometimes they could communicate on a purely intellectual level. In Lucy’s past experience, she had discovered that most men didn’t like to see a woman’s intellectual side. But Heath wasn’t threatened by her intelligence: he enjoyed trading ideas with her. In fact, he seemed to enjoy everything about her, even her occasional moments of contrariness or bad temper. Sometimes he went out of his way to rouse her out of her primness and good manners, provoking her into an argument. He loved to argue with her, tease and charm her. He held the keys to all of her passions, and he made certain that she lived and experienced each one of them as lustily as he did. Her memories of life before her marriage seemed like a pale reflection of this. What had she known of happiness then? What had she known about anything?