Page 22 of Married Off by the Duke
“No. I’d rather you stayed.”
He grinned and pulled her onto his chest. Together, they again fell fast asleep.
CHAPTER 12
Hours later, dressed in a plain gray wool dress, Emma burst into the bookshop. The tattletale bell over the door loudly announced her late arrival.
“Miss Willis. You’re eight minutes tardy.”
Mr. Gill snapped his pocket watch closed.
“I do apologize, sir. I was delayed by traffic.”
“I expect promptness. I shall have to dock your pay by a quarter-hour.”
“But I’m only eight minutes late!” Emma tied the apron around her waist and tucked a dusting rag into the pocket.
“Had you been seven minutes late, I would have rounded down and paid you. Since you were delayed more than halfway through the quarter hour, I am obligated in the name of fairness to dock your pay for the full fifteen minutes. If you ensure you are on time in the future, you will not suffer the consequences of lateness. Understood?”
“Understood.”
Fairness, Emma wondered, to whom?
She set about updating the display in the window. The books’ covers had faded with sun exposure, so she put them on the cart to sell at a discount.
“Not this one, Miss Willis.” Mr. Gill selected one volume. “Don’t you recognize a rare edition when you see one? It’s too valuable to risk putting it outside.”
“Personally, I wouldn’t have placed it in the window where it could be sun damaged.”
He squinted at her over the rims of his spectacles and sighed. Emma held her breath, expecting to be let go for her impertinence. Why couldn’t she curb her tongue?
“We’re fortunate to have your keen eye.” The shop clerk gave her a rare smile. “Why don’t you try putting together a display to attract more customers?”
Emma’s eyes watered, and not because of all the dust. In spite of his grumpiness and her outspokenness, here, she was wanted. Needed. And she intended to create the best bookshop window the world had ever seen.
Designing the new display took several mornings of work, between scrubbing the glass until it sparkled and creating paper cutouts of characters from children’s stories. There was a white rabbit and a little girl in a blue dress, and a boy with a top hat and gold foil coins to advertise Pip from Great Expectations.
“Fanciful,” Mr. Gill commented, eyeing her handiwork. “Miss Willis, you have not yet returned your signed permission for employment. I am afraid I cannot pay you for your labor until you’ve done so.”
Emma’s heart sank. She couldn’t ask Max to sign it. He would demand that she quit. She might not need this job for the paltry pay, but she needed it for her pride. It would be so easy to become accustomed to the luxury Max took for granted—and difficult to adjust her expectations once she no longer had access to it.
Nothing in life was permanent. She’d learned that lesson long ago. Best to keep her expectations in line with her likely future.
This job was a stepping stone to whatever would get her through the next bout of turmoil that would inevitably upend her life. She could not lose it.
Which meant one thing: she must forge a man’s signature to grant herself permission to work. Ideally, Max’s notoriously recognizable scrawl. If only she hadn’t burned every single letter he’d sent, immediately after reading it, she would have had an example to copy.
She sighed. As long as it didn’t look like her own feminine script, it would be believable. But revealing her guardian’s identity posed an entirely different set of problems.
Emma didn’t like to lie. In this case, she didn’t have a choice.
Maximus Aloysius Tremaine
Maximus A. Tremaine
M.A. Tremaine
Emma threw down her pen. Even her punctuation looked like a woman’s writing. Neat, curving, precise.
