Free And Then He Kissed Her by Laura Lee Guhrke Page B

hypocrite?”
    Her smile widened into what he could only describe as a smug, satisfied grin. “The very one.”
    He shook his head, knowing full well what she said was impossible. “Barringer hired himself a female secretary? I don’t believe it.”
    “He did not engage me to be his secretary. He is going to publish my writing.”
    Harry began to laugh. He couldn’t help it, the idea was so absurd.
    Miss Dove, of course, did not appreciate the humor as much as he did. She stopped smiling, her eyes narrowed, and he smothered his laughter at once. “Forgive me. I fear you have misinterpreted the reason for my amusement, Miss Dove. It stems from the irony of the situation.”
    “Irony?”
    “Yes. I can see I must explain Barringer toyou. Though he is an earl and displays the pretense of being a gentleman, he is not. For all the high-minded airs he puts on, he is notoriously immoral in his private life. Barringer publishing etiquette books is like the devil giving a morality lecture.”
    No hint of a smile, no appreciation of the irony crossed her face. “Your private life being such an excellent moral example, there would be no such irony if you published etiquette books?” She gave him no chance to reply to that. “In any case, Lord Barringer is not publishing my work as a book. I shall be writing a column for his weekly periodical, the Social Gazette . And though matters of etiquette will be of paramount importance in my dialogue, it is not the only topic I shall be discussing.”
    Before she had even finished, Harry had already figured out what Barringer was up to. “He’s hired you to thumb his nose at me, of course. He loathes me, and knowing how much I depend upon you, he is enjoying the notion of stealing you away from me. A column allows him to flaunt his victory on a weekly basis.”
    “I don’t suppose it’s possible his decision has nothing to do with you? That he has decided to publish my writing because it’s good?”
    “Barringer wouldn’t know good writing if it bit him. He went to Oxford.”
    She did not find that amusing. “The fact that you belittle Barringer’s ability to appreciate good writing does not surprise me. But I am baffledby how you can denigrate my writing as not being good when you haven’t even read it!”
    Harry had the feeling he was digging himself deeper into a hole with every moment, but he wasn’t going to lie to her about her work in order to extricate himself. “I read enough of it to know I wasn’t interested in publishing it.”
    She rose to her feet, implying their conversation was at an end. “Then it shouldn’t bother you in the least that Lord Barringer chooses to do so.”
    “That is not what bothers me.” He also stood up. “What bothers me is losing my secretary, a secretary who had no experience, no references, not even a letter of character when she first came to me, but to whom I gave the chance to prove her abilities.”
    She gave an indignant huff. “How generous of you.”
    “Damned right it was generous. Who else would have hired you? Who else would have paid you the same wage as a man? Who else would have given a mere secretary yearly bonuses at Christmas and Saturday afternoons free? No one. Barringer wouldn’t, that’s certain.”
    “And in exchange for your so-called generosity, I have fulfilled my duties in exemplary fashion for five years! You’ve nothing in my conduct with which to find fault.”
    “Nothing? You up and resign, having given no indication you were dissatisfied with your position, having told me nothing of your discontent.You accept employment with my fiercest competitor, a man who despises me and would love nothing better than to worm confidential information out of my former secretary.”
    “No one worms anything out of me, I can assure you!”
    “And,” he went on, paying no heed to her words, “you commit this disloyalty without even having the good manners and sense of etiquette to give the customary