Page 17 of Burning Secrets of a Lady's Pen
“I asked—” she started primly, refusing to acknowledge his comment.
“I heard what you asked,” Corin answered silkily. “And I’m just trying to figure out why it is that you haven’t already put the pieces together yourself.”
No.
Imelda wanted to tell him to stop being so pompous. She wanted to snap at him for the way he was looking at her. But all she could do was allow his remark to register, the wheels in her mind spinning and the obvious answer leaving her all but outright glaring at Corin.
“Why is it that I feel like you coming to the right conclusion has further set us in opposition?” Corin murmured, taking another sip of his brandy as he watched Imelda bristle.
“Being called long-winded and dull will have that effect!” Imelda snapped.
Corin’s brows furrowed, his head tilting as if he were trying to remember having said any such thing.
“With Changing Winds falls short of greatness. While the author demonstrates the ability the story ultimately lacks the depth and originality necessary to leave a lasting impression.” Imelda quoted him bitterly, her lips twisting in distaste at how well she remembered his insults.
“You’re Ellar Dance?” Corin’s eyebrows were lifted, his eyes twin pools of tawny disbelief.
Imelda didn’t know if she wanted to laugh or cry.
Wordlessly, Corin crossed from just in front of the desk to behind it, his brows still drawn together as he flipped through papers in a file atop his desk.
“Changing Winds,” he mused, pulling out what looked to be a copy of the paper that had published it as he scanned both it and the paper he had attached to it. Imelda was assuming it was a copy of his review. “I can rescind the review,” he offered tonelessly, looking up once more and meeting Imelda’s eyes with a sincerity that almost knocked her off of her feet.
“I—you—what?” Words failed her as she reached out, the paper in her hand crinkling as she grabbed onto the back of the nearest chair to steady herself. “How could you offer me such a thing?” And why? “You clearly felt what you wrote, you didn’t know what I had written it. To offer to just take it back on account of knowing that I was the one who wrote it…”
She felt like she had whiplash, her emotions struggling to keep up with the interaction between them and his confusing signals.
“I did mean what I wrote,” Corin said simply, crossing back to stand in front of the desk and shaking the paper out to read over it once more as he took a long, slow drink of his brandy. “I notice you only quoted the areas that I found problematic in your writing, but not any of the compliments that I included. I’ll admit to being tense the day that I wrote it. Perhaps I was a touch harsher than I might have been otherwise, but I stand by what I said.”
Imelda blinked, shifting her weight from one foot to the other as she tried to make sense of her fluctuating heartbeat.
“In the wake of their heated exchange, the atmosphere in the elegantly appointed drawing room hung heavy with tension, like the oppressive weight of a storm-laden sky. Lady Evelyn, her countenance flushed with indignation, stood poised by the fireplace, her slender fingers tightly clutching the folds of her silk gown. Across the room, Lady Margaret, her brow furrowed in consternation, paced with measured steps, the rustle of her skirts echoing in the silence. Their disagreement, born of differing opinions on matters of etiquette and propriety, had left an invisible rift between them, widening with each passing moment of strained silence. Lady Evelyn's piercing gaze, sharp as a winter's frost, met Lady Margaret's defiant stare, a silent battle of wills unfolding between them. Yet beneath the veneer of resentment lay a bond forged in the crucible of shared experiences, a bond that neither time nor circumstance could sever.”
Corin read the familiar passage aloud, his voice even and full of a story-telling that Imelda wouldn’t have thought him capable of. He was hypnotic in the way that his tone shifted and fell, her words coming to life on his tongue in a way that made her eyes widen, and her grip on the back of the chair tighten.
“This passage in particular, here,” Corin muttered. “It doesn’t fit with the story-telling that came before, do you see? You’re telling us what is happening between them with prose and an overabundance of words. So soon after their compelling fight, as well, it falls just short. You could have ended the scene without this. I think, rather, that you had meant to, judging by the way you had Lady Evelyn poised to storm off. But you didn’t. You added this passage here, and it is clunky in regard to the passion that came before it.”
Imelda couldn’t answer him. She didn’t know how to. No one else had guessed at her original intention, not even her aunt who she had spent some great length of time dissecting the story with before it had been published. The passage he read had, in truth, been an afterthought she added between switching scenes.
Again, his voice was commanding, and, again, Imelda found herself drawn to him in the most impossible of ways just from him speaking.
God, how did he do such things to her?
Her corset was altogether too tight, the clothing binding her skin too rough-spun and uncomfortable. It felt as if the very air was laden with a heat that didn’t fit their setting as he looked back up at her, his pupils widening slightly.
She wanted, she realized suddenly, nothing more than for him to cross that distance between them and take her into his arms as he had once professed, desiring so strongly to do. And she was all the more aware of how alone they were in that study with her brother on the other side of the door, how easy it would be for him to do, and she flushed at the thought.
“I didn’t mean to re-offend you,” Corin said carefully, obviously misunderstanding the reason for the change in her coloring. “I am sorry for—”
“Don’t be sorry!” Imelda snapped, trying still to recover from the sudden arousal that had filled her. “You stated what you thought. You said it falls short of greatness. ThatIfall short of greatness. I shall prove you wrong, my lord, without any special favors or pandering.” Her nostrils flared as she gathered her anger back up around her like an old, familiar cloak.
It was safer to despise him.
She remembered all of his false promises, the way that he had so brutally stamped on her heart. And she used it to turn smartly on her heel, storming out of his study without a backward glance and collecting her befuddled brother along the way.
“What happened in there?” Spencer asked confusedly, trailing half a step behind her as they hurried out of Corin’s house. “Do I need to go back and defend your honor?”
“You need to do no such thing.” Imelda sniffed. “I’m going to become a published author without his lordship and his holier-than-thou attitude. I will. How dare he…” She ground her teeth together, all but forcing Spencer to help her up and into the carriage that waited for them.
