Free And Then He Kissed Her by Laura Lee Guhrke

certainly did. Throughout the day, members of his staff had come to him in a constant stream, clamoring for schedules and reports and all sorts of other things Miss Dove usually provided for them, things Harry didn’t even know existed but which his staff couldn’tseem to function without. He’d intended to wait a couple of days before coming to see her, but after only eight hours, it had become clear waiting wasn’t going to work. He needed her back at her desk first thing tomorrow, or his staff would likely mutiny.
    He doffed his hat and bowed. “Miss Dove.”
    “What are you doing here?” She glanced at the watch pinned to her starched white shirtwaist. “It is now half-past six. Did Lord Rathbourne’s yachting party end early?”
    “I didn’t go.” He held up her letter. “My secretary resigned. Because of that, my offices are now in utter chaos, the evening editions were late getting out, and I missed the boat, so to speak.”
    “I am sorry to hear that.”
    She didn’t look sorry. She looked…damn it all, she looked pleased. There seemed to be a tiny curve to one corner of her mouth, indicating she was actually taking pleasure in his difficulties. Harry thought of the hellish day he and his staff had experienced, and he could not share her amusement.
    “I can see you find our distress at your absence gratifying, Miss Dove.”
    “Not at all.” A polite, perfunctory response, and also a lie. She was pleased as punch.
    “If you’re not gratified, you should be,” he told her as he tucked the letter back in the breast pocket of his jacket. “All the other members of my staff were running around like panicked rabbits without you.”
    “But not you, I am sure.”
    “I was too astonished to panic. Your resignation was most unexpected.”
    “Was it?” That glimmer of satisfaction in her expression vanished, and a queer sort of hardness took its place.
    “Yes.” He gestured to the interior of her flat. “Might I have a moment with you to discuss it?”
    “It’s a straightforward resignation. What is there to discuss?”
    “After five years, does not courtesy allow at least a conversation on the topic?”
    She hesitated, and her lack of enthusiasm was not an encouraging sign. He might have been precipitate, he might not have given her enough time to think over the consequences of her action, but it could not be helped.
    “Did anyone see you come up?” she asked, glancing past him. “My landlady? A servant?”
    “No.” He remembered the sign in the window, and the implications of her question dawned on him, but the impression his visit might leave on an overly inquisitive landlady or her servants or any of the women who lived here didn’t concern him half as much as losing his secretary. “No one saw me, Miss Dove. But if I linger out here in the corridor, someone eventually will.”
    She opened the door wider to let him in. “Very well. You may come in for a few moments, but when you leave, please try not to let anyone see you. I do not wish anyone to think…think things.”
    The parlor of her flat surprised him, for it wasunlike any he’d ever seen. It was unconventional, to say the least, with a hint of the exotic about it. Brass incense pots decorated the mantel, a copper boiler pot held coal, a big round basket overflowed with colorful pillows, and a Turkish carpet covered the floor. There were two overstuffed settees of cream-colored velvet, and between them a round leather ottoman which, oddly enough, seemed to act as a tea table, for reposing upon it was an enameled tea set.
    Bronze chintz draperies bracketed a pair of windows that lit the room with afternoon sun. Between those windows stood a glass-fronted bookcase lined with volumes and a dark walnut cabinet with an inordinate number of drawers and compartments. At the far end of the room, an elaborately carved oak door led into another part of the flat. Beside it, a French window led to the fire escape and a drop-leaf table held