Free Hooked by Stef Ann Holm

to Meg, she whispered, “Grandma, I think that you’re the bravest person I know.”
    â€œOh, Margaret.” Her arm came around Meg and the two women embraced.
    In that shared moment, Meg was so proud of her grandma, she wished that she had the courage to defy decorum again, too. Because the real Meg Brooks was suffocating under a self-imposed exile.
    *  *  *
    An hour later, Meg went downstairs. She should have taken up needle and thread and repaired her petticoat but she didn’t relish the thought of sewing. She simply had no patience for it. So she’d stuffed the damaged underwear beneath her bedstead. After all, she did have four more.
    At eight, the clock chimed.
    Meg sat sideways in one of the velvet drawing room chairs, teasing the silk fringe on the padded arm with her fingertip as she kept her nose in a book. She wore her house gown—a threadbare old thing whose pale blue crepe de chine had lost its luster long ago.
    She’d put Mr. Wilberforce from her mind and she was actually enjoying herself with a good book and a box of caramels that was just shy of heaven. Of course the curl papers in her hair and liberal application of Secret de Ninon on the bridge of her nose for freckles weren’t all that great. But a woman had to do what a woman had to do.
    The tips of her felt slippers dangled off her stockinged toes. As she turned the page, she plucked another candy and popped it into her mouth.
    In the kitchen, Mr. Finch was finishing for the evening. Dishes rattled every now and then as he stacked them. Grandma Nettie had retired to a bath.
    Letting the caramel slide over her tongue, Meg absorbed the words that were leaping out at her from the novel. This was an especially juicy story, one where the heroine had been swept away by a band of thieves in the Arabian desert. She was just about to be saved by the hero, a dashing sheik astride a black charger. His tan face scowling down at the rogues . . . he raised his sword—
    â€œMiss Margaret!”
    Meg crinkled her nose. “Huh?”
    Mr. Finch’s stern British voice bellowed from the kitchen once more. “Miss Margaret, somebody is ringing the bell. Aren’t you going to answer it?”
    Brrrrinnnggggg!
    The door chime cranked, jolting Meg from the chair. The book plopped onto the floor. She shoved the caramel into her cheek, keeping it from her tongue with her teeth so that she could say in a mumble, “I’m coming.”
    Then a distasteful thought wrinkled her nose: Harold Adam’s Apple.
    But he wouldn’t come this late. Nobody would unless there was something wrong at the hotel.
    Meg opened the door with the expectation of finding the night manager, Mr. Beasley, on the stoop.
    Instead, she instantly froze.
    â€œM-Mr. W-Wilberforce!” she squeaked, nearly choking on the candy.
    He took a step backward, his gaze wide as it traveled across her in a very brief examination, but she hardly noticed as she took in his towering presence.
    The cigar clenched in his teeth was so masculine. His block-crowned derby rested atop his head in a debonair manner. The arm cuts of his coat were filled out perfectly with his broad shoulders, and his vest was red—a dashing contrast to the white of his shirt. His shoes were the latest fashion—black calfskin stitched with celluloid eyelet. He’d really spruced himself up to come calling.
    He’d come to call!
    Automatically, both hands rose to her hair—all those horrid curl papers. She patted her head as ifthat would make everything disappear. Then she remembered her freckle cream.
    With a mortified gasp, Meg slammed the door in his face.
    Think!
    The vestibule grew deadly quiet; then the bell rang. She jumped. There was no help for it. She simply had to answer the door and pretend that nothing was out of the ordinary. A lesson that Mrs. Wolcott taught her popped into her mind.
    A lady never lets a man know he has caught her