Page 19 of An Offer for a Spinster
It was going to be an exhausting week or so.
“Oh, Timothy Rutherford left his card with you,” Elizabeth said, holding it up. “He’s the second son, you know, so his marital prospects won’t be so terribly good. I don’t believe he has a great deal of money. I wonder how he makes a living?”
“I’m sure he gets an allowance or something similar.” Katherine leaned forward. She hadn’t looked through the cards properly and hadn’t noticed that Timothy had left one. Why? He wouldn’t need to leave a card. They were all acquainted, and they were already friends, more or less. She twitched the card out of Elizabeth’s hand, turning it over. She smiled, shaking her head.
“He’s left a smudge of ink in the corner. See, there? It looks like a fingerprint.”
“Oh, lord,” Elizabeth laughed. “Just as well he left it here and not somewhere else, he’d be laughed out of London.”
“I’m sure there are more terrible crimes than leaving a smudgy card,” Katherine remarked.
She sat back in her chair, still holding the card. It was a simple one, ever so slightly bent, as if he’d just pulled it out of his pocket, and that idea made her smile for some reason. She could see Lord Barwood’s card from here, a gilt-edged thing with graceful, elegant script.
She held onto Timothy’s card. It would be nice for him to call again. They could talk about novels again. However, it was more to the point if Lord Barwood called – after all, he was probably the one she would end up marrying.
Chapter Six
Meetings with his editor – Mr. Hawthorne – were already stressful. Knowing that his deadline was looming, and the book was nowhere near ready did not make Timothy feel any better. It was clear that Timothy was not in the editor’s good books, judging by the amount of time he’d been kept waiting in the stuffy, dusty foyer.
The spotty-faced clerk who could be no older than nineteen appeared in the doorway.
“Mr. Rutherford?” he asked, officiously. “You can come in now, if you like.”
Timothy shuffled into the familiar, cramped office, with faded and cracked green leather armchairs, stuffed with books, and a desk overflowing with papers angled away from the window. Mr. Hawthorne was a man in his forties who’d gone grey prematurely, probably after dealing with his host of writers. His hair stuck out around his head like a halo, and he had bushy grey eyebrows to match.
He stared at Timothy over his half-moon spectacles with an air of resignation.
“I’d hoped that you would have had more of the book completed by now, Mr. Rutherford.”
Timothy settled into the seat opposite, and grimaced.
“It’s coming along, Mr. Hawthorne, I assure you.”
The man grunted, indicating that he was not assured in the slightest.
“Is what I’ve given you not enough?” Timothy asked, nodding down at the sheaf of papers on Mr. Hawthorne’s desk.
“This is a summary, along with a few sections. It will do for now, but I’ll need something more for editing, of course. I’ve already highlighted some issues.”
“Oh?” Timothy felt a niggling feeling of dread in his stomach. This was not a good start. When he’d provided the manuscript for his first ever book, and his first volume ofRosalie’s Trials, the editor had gushed over it, adored it, and been dying to read more.
Now, Mr. Hawthorne was looking at him with the sort of severity a schoolmaster would direct towards a schoolchild presenting an inadequate essay.
“I felt that Rosalie was not quite so…tangibleas she was in the earlier volumes,” Mr. Hawthorne said. “Have you had any issues while you were writing?”
“Issues?”
“Yes, personal issues. In my experience, a writer who has something on their mind tends to write… well, differently. The readers will notice.”
Timothy bit his lip. “Oh, I see.”
“You’re not obliged to explain yourself to me, naturally. What I’ve read so far is notbad, but you do have a great many dedicated readers with high expectations.Iseverything alright?”
“Well, my parents are pressuring me to marry, as usual,” Timothy said, trying to give a light laugh. It didn’t come off quite as casual as he intended. “They want me to marry an heiress, since writing hasn’t made me rich.”
The family did not know that Timothy was L. Sterling. They knew he wrote novels under a pseudonym and had never bothered to inquire further.
Mr. Hawthorne flashed a sympathetic smile. “Difficult, I’m sure. Now, let’s discuss your deadline…”
