Suddenly You(34)

“It’s a penholder,” he said matter-of-factly. “Hardly an object that one attaches great personal meaning to.”

Cautiously Amanda received the bag from him and emptied the contents into her open palm. A silver penholder, and a selection of steel nibs to be used with it, fell into her hand. Amanda blinked in uneasy surprise. No matter how Fretwell framed it, this pen was a personal object, as costly and fine as a piece of jewelry. Its heaviness attested to the fact that it was solid sterling, its surface engraved and set with pieces of turquoise. When was the last time she had received a present from a man, other than some Christmas token from a relative? She could not remember. She hated the feeling that had suddenly come over her, a sense of warm giddiness she had not experienced since girlhood. Although instinct prompted her to return the beautiful object, she did not heed it. Why shouldn’t she keep the gift? It probably meant nothing to Devlin, and she would enjoy having it.

“It’s lovely,” she said stiffly, her fingers curling around the penholder. “I suppose Mr. Devlin bestows similar gifts on all his authors?”

“No, Miss Briars.” Taking his leave with a cheerful smile, Oscar Fretwell ventured out into the cold, crackling hubbub of London at midday.

“This passage has to be removed.” Devlin’s long finger settled on one of the pages before him as he sat at his desk.

Amanda came around and peered over his shoulder, her eyes narrowing as she viewed the paragraphs he indicated. “It most certainly does not. It serves to establish the heroine’s character.”

“It slows the momentum of the narrative,” he said flatly, picking up a pen and preparing to draw a line across the offending page. “As I reminded you earlier this morning, Miss Briars, this is a serial novel. Pacing is everything.”

“You value pacing over character development?” she asked heatedly, snatching the page away before he could make a mark on it.

“Believe me, you’ve got a hundred other paragraphs that illustrate your heroine’s character,” he said, standing from his chair and following her while she retreated with the page in question. “That particular one, however, is redundant.”

“It is crucially important to the story,” Amanda insisted, clutching the page protectively.

Jack fought to suppress a grin at the sight of her, so adorably certain of herself, so pretty and lush and assertive. This was the first morning they had begun editing her book An Unfinished Lady, and so far, he had found it an enjoyable process. It was proving to be a fairly easy task to shape Amanda’s novel into an appropriate form for serial publication. Until this moment, she had agreed with almost every change he had suggested, and she had been receptive to his ideas. Some of his authors were so mulishly stubborn about altering their own work, one would think he had suggested changing text in the Bible. Amanda was easy to work with, and she did not harbor great pretensions about herself or her writing. In fact, she was relatively modest about her talents, to the extent of appearing surprised and uncomfortable when he praised her.

The plot of Unfinished Lady centered on a young woman who tried to live strictly according to society’s rules, yet couldn’t make herself accept the rigid confinement of what was considered proper. She made fatal errors in her private life—gambling, taking a lover outside of marriage, having a child out of wedlock—all due to her desire to obtain the elusive happiness she secretly longed for.

Eventually she came to a sordid end, dying of venereal disease, although it was clear that society’s harsh judgments had caused her demise fully as much as disease. What fascinated Jack was that Amanda, as the author, had refused to take a position on the heroine’s behavior, neither applauding nor condemning it. Clearly she had sympathy for the character, and Jack suspected that the heroine’s inner rebelliousness reflected some of Amanda’s own feelings.

Although Jack had offered to visit Amanda’s home to discuss the necessary revisions, she had preferred to meet with him at the Holborn Street offices. Doubtless it was because of what had happened between them at her house, he thought with a pleasurable stirring of sensation at the memory. A faint grin tugged at his mouth as he mused that Amanda probably thought that she was safer from his advances here than in her own home.

“Give me that page,” he said, amused by the way she retreated from him. “It has to go, Amanda.”

“It stays,” she countered, throwing a quick glance over her shoulder to make certain that he wasn’t backing her into a corner.

Today Amanda was dressed in a gown of soft pink wool trimmed in corded silk ribbon of a deeper shade. She had worn a bonnet adorned with China roses, which now reposed on the side of his desk, a pair of velvet ribbons draping gently toward the floor. The pink shade of the gown brought out the color in Amanda’s cheeks, while the simple cut displayed her generous figure to its best advantage. Aside from Jack’s considerable regard for her intelligence, he couldn’t help thinking of her as a tidy little bonbon.

“Authors,” he murmured with a grin. “You all think your work is flawless, and anyone who tries to change a single word is an idiot.”

“And editors consider themselves the most intelligent people they know,” Amanda shot back.

“Shall I send for someone else to have a look at that”—he gestured toward the page she held—“and give a third opinion?”