Page 49 of Burning Secrets of a Lady's Pen
“There is always a future, Corin.” Even he had to know that. “You could always remarry.”
The words were like tar on her tongue, but she meant them. As much as she could. Even if she had to sacrifice him for her ambition, he deserved happiness. Maybe especially, since she knew she wouldn’t be getting it.
Corin stared at her for a long moment, snorting and downing the last of his brandy in one swig before reaching over the table to take the bottle. “That ship has sailed,” he said darkly, the words full of meaning.
Imelda’s lips parted, her breath rushing through her teeth, but Corin cut her off before she could say anything at all.
“We are celebrating, are we not? Let us not talk of such hopeless matters. Surely there are happier topics for us to cover.” He spoke with finality, sealing that door on the inner pain he had only given her the barest glimpse of, and Imelda knew that it was well and truly shut.
So she followed his lead. And they switched to happier subjects.
Even if his words niggled at Imelda the whole rest of the evening.
***
“You look like you’re going to fall asleep walking in there,” Spencer commented dryly as Imelda allowed him to hand her down out of the gig and onto the front steps of Mr. Batten’s offices.
She winced.
She could hardly admit to having stayed up into the early hours of that morning reading over the first few chapters and celebrating with Corin. Any more than she could seem to make herself be awake enough to answer him properly in the first place.
“You, stay here,” she muttered, gathering her manuscript to her chest nervously and marching up the steps.
She needed to focus all of her charm on the man waiting just within when she entered, her smile as bright as she could possibly make it.
“Miss Merrit,” Mr. Batten greeted politely as she walked up. “I trust you’ve come to submit the first few chapters of your novel?”
“I have,” Imelda agreed, stopping just short of him to look down at her manuscript once more before handing it to him. “And I really am so very glad that you’ve agreed to take these on. I know how difficult it is to get your work submitted anywhere when you are starting out, especially as a woman.”
Mr. Batten laughed, taking the papers without so much as a second glance to them as he placed them among several others he held already. “Of course! Of course! Although, to be fair, if it weren’t for young Lord Salthouse being in love with you, I very likely would have ignored you entirely.”
Imelda felt her breath stop as Mr. Batten spoke, her eyes widening as she stared at him in shock.
He couldn’t possibly have said…
He couldn’t possibly mean…
In love with her?
“I’ll read over this shortly,” Mr. Batten continued as if he hadn’t just dropped a human-shaped bomb into Imelda’s thoughts, “and I’ll reach out to Lord Salthouse shortly. I do appreciate you bringing it over instead of mailing it. Nasty business sorting through all of that.”
He grinned at her once before turning to walk away, Imelda still too stunned to speak.
He was joking, surely.
It was in a daze that she walked back out of his office, her mouth as dry as her throat.
“Well?” Spencer demanded as she approached, eying her oddly as he helped her back up into the gig.
Imelda could only shrug.
She was still too occupied with the American publisher’s idea of a joke, her heart beating unevenly in her chest.
In love with her.
Oh, God, she wished it would stop repeating within her mind.
“You know, I’d wanted to break my own happy news while you were already celebrating,” Spencer teased her as he took his seat beside her and jostled her purposefully with his elbow.
