Page 34 of Burning Secrets of a Lady's Pen
Lord.
Nervously she grabbed the jacket that he had discarded earlier, dabbing it against his face as she leaned further forward to reach him.
“I don’t think that you’re a villain,” she murmured, unable to think of anything else to bridge that silence with.
She might have, once. But that was before she had known the whole of the truth. Before she had given him the chance to explain himself.
“I think that you…” Oh, she didn’t know what to say. Corin caught her wrist, his eyes staring into hers so heatedly that she forgot all rational sense. “I swear I like you,” she whispered, knowing that the words fell short of what she meant.
Corin shifted and—
“Imelda! Lord Salthouse!”
Spencer calling to them from the shore forced them apart once more, Imelda’s heart racing in her chest as Corin reactively reached for the paddles.
Surely, she had imagined that, too.
Chapter 12
April 1818
As the Baron of Salthouse, Corin was expected to sit in on any number of business meetings or parliamentary meetings concerning taxes. He’d grown used to the back and forth of such things, even more so since becoming a critic. But there was something different about sitting in on such a meeting with Imelda and her career as an author at stake.
“It’s a diverse portfolio, to be sure,” Mr. Batten murmured, looking over the folder Imelda had handed over slowly. He read quickly, his eyes moving from one side to the other as he avoided Corin’s gaze, and he knew that the man was hesitating.
It was one thing to agree to look at Imelda’s work, another thing entirely to send it off to be reviewed by his company.
“It’s a good portfolio,” Corin interjected, his voice firm. He knew good work and, no matter how murky the relationship between he and Imelda was getting, he knew that hers was just that: good.
“It’s very difficult to get anyone interested long enough to read a woman’s work,” Mr. Batten pointed out blandly, shuffling the papers before looking up finally with a small frown.
“So you won’t even attempt it?” Corin didn’t bother bandying his words. “I suppose if you’re too worried that you can’t convince someone to look at thecontentversus the gender of the author writing it…”
Mr. Batten’s lips thinned, a look of chagrin crossing his features as he looked down at the penned papers in his hand once more.
“All right, Lord Salthouse…Miss Merrit.” Mr. Batten sighed, gathering the papers into a neater pile and setting them down on his desk. “I’ll send the story off for review. If it passes that and the feedback is anything near what you are anticipating, Lord Salthouse, then we can go from there.”
Corin felt a surge of triumph, but his eyes were on Imelda.
She gripped the arms of the chair she set in, relief washing over every inch of her as she rose excitedly to her feet.
“Oh, thank you, Mr. Batten. Really and truly, I appreciate this opportunity so much, I cannot begin to express—” She cut off, exhaling raggedly as her grin grew.
She glowed from the inside, reaching across the desk to excitedly shake Mr. Batten’s hand. Even the American mogul couldn’t resist smiling in the face of her grateful enthusiasm.
“Don’t go thanking me just yet,” he cautioned, rising to his feet as well as Corin did. “Lord Salthouse, as always, a pleasure doing business with you.”
“And you,” Corin murmured, leading a still-shaking Imelda from the office.
They had barely crossed the threshold and shut the door behind them when she was spinning in a flurry of skirts, her arms thrown around his neck as she hugged him.
She pressed fully to him, her breasts warm and heavy against his chest, and he tried his damndest to remain a gentleman. To remember where they were. It was all physical heat and something deeper, something inside of him that seemed to soften at the openness of her touch.
For one brief moment, Corin allowed himself to forget the public setting they were in. His arms closed back around her, tightening as he lifted her half off of her feet and felt her breath whisper warmly against the side of his neck. The barest brush of her lips and he was—
“Ahem.”
Corin froze, Spencer’s clearing throat interrupting him just in time before he could fully forget where they were. And forget that they had her twin brother chaperoning so that they could travel across London for the meeting at Mr. Batten’s office anyway.
