Improper English (7 page)

It was heaven, sheer heaven. Alex was a marvelous dancer. For a man who professed to not dance, he was grace personified, moving with me in a manner that Philippe hadn’t, moving as if he were part of the music, the rhythm flowing from him until it swept over me. It was very sensual and definitely started my motor running, but I took a quick look at Isabella and demanded that my motor turn itself off. Motors seldom listen to threats, however, a fact that might have caused difficulty once Alex pulled me so close we were almost rubbing on each other, but his action served as an effective dampening device once I realized that he was flirting with me. In front of Isabella!

He danced with me for the duration of the song, never once cracking a smile, but I swear I saw a little flicker of enjoyment in his emerald eyes. I alternated between anger that he was such a cad he’d act in this manner in front of his girlfriend, and a familiar sense of failure. It seems like I always end up at the wrong place at the wrong time. As the song ended, I took a step back from him, praying the bout of self-pity welling up inside wouldn’t make me cry in front of everyone.

“See?” I said as I took another step back, trying to force a light note into my voice. “You survived the ordeal.”

His eyes narrowed. “It wasn’t an ordeal, Alix. Why do you do that?”

“Do what?” I asked, scooting around him and dashing up the stairs.

He shot a look over to where Isabella was dancing with Philippe, then grabbed his satchel and started up the stairs after me. Damn it! Didn’t he see she was watching him? “Put yourself down in that manner.”

I shrugged, anger swamping the self-pity. So he wanted to play games. The old “make Isabella jealous with Alix” game, eh? Been there, done that, won’t do it again.

“Self-preservation. I’m aware of my flaws. I just bring them up before anyone else can,” I snapped, wishing with one breath he’d just leave me alone, and hoping with the other he would tear off our clothes and make mad, passionate love to me. Right there on the landing.

Alex grabbed my arm as I started toward my flat. “Why do you think I would insult you like that?”

His spicy cologne coiled around me, sinking effortlessly into my pores, kindling fires deep within me, but it was the slight look of hurt in his eyes that was my undoing. That and the memory of Isabella’s cool, possessive smile during lunch when she spoke about him.

“You bastard,” I snarled, and shoved him backwards. He staggered back, surprised by my attack, but started toward me with a look that should have dropped me where I stood. I spun around and stormed toward my open door.

“What the hell’s the matter with you?” he bellowed.

“What’s the matter with
me?”
I yelled back, loud enough so Isabella, coming up the stairs behind him, would hear. “I have no intention of being the third side
of a triangle, Detective Hot Pants. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got to find a hammer so I can beat some sense into this stupid CD player!”

I closed the door with more force than was strictly necessary, and jerked the CD player’s plug out of the wall.

“I won’t cry, I won’t cry, I won’t cry,” I chanted to myself as I went to the tiny kitchen sink to run cold water. I had just stuck my head under when someone knocked on my door.

“Doesn’t know how to take a no,” I growled to myself as I stomped over to the door. I flung it open, snapping, “What?” before I could see who stood there.

It was Isabella. Her bright blue gaze rested for a moment on the water dripping down from the back of my head, then moved to take in the accompanying wetness on my cheeks. She reached out one elegant finger and touched the trail of a tear.

I stepped back as if she had burned me.

“I thought you might like to know that Alexander and I are no longer lovers.”

I blinked at her, not understanding. Not lovers? “Since when? Ten seconds ago? Not good enough for me.”

She smiled faintly. “Our affair has been over for more than two years.”

“Oh.” I blinked again, suddenly realizing what she was saying. Joy welled up inside me, making me want to sing and shout and dance a victory dance. “Oh! You mean, there’s hope for Alex and me?”

Her smiled faded as she sadly shook her head. “I’m sorry, but I don’t think so, no.”

The wellspring of joy shriveled and dried up into a hard, painful knob in my stomach. “Oh, right, because
I called him a bastard. You don’t think he would understand why I said it? That I thought he was trying to get a bit of nooky on the side?”

She shook her head again. “It’s not that. Alexander has never been a man to seek shallow relationships. I’m afraid if that is all you are looking for, he won’t wish to become involved, no matter how much he might otherwise desire it.”

“Gee, thanks for not holding back on me, Isabella,” I managed to get out despite the pain at her words. I would have said more, something to hurt her as she had hurt me, but deep down inside I knew I didn’t have a leg to stand on. Shallow, cheap, easy—I’d heard all of those words before, but I had hoped to be past all that. It looked like my usual run of luck was following me here, too. I swallowed hard and rallied a smile.

She smiled back, opened her mouth to say something, then closed it again and just gave my arm a squeeze instead. “I didn’t intend on hurting your feelings, Alix, but I like you and Alexander too well to see you unhappy with each other.”

I nodded. There was nothing else to say.

“I enjoyed the dancing. Thank you for the music.”

I nodded again, watching her walk up the stairs to the floor above, unable to speak around the lump in my throat. I turned back to survey the sanctuary of my flat, but found there wasn’t a whole lot to be seen through tears.

Rowena waited in an adjoining room for the opinion of the mysterious Spanish surgeon, Sabatino. The veil had been torn from her heart, and she saw, for the first time since the phantom had made its unholy appearance in the ruins of the abbey, its true emotions. She loved Thomas! But how could that be—she loved Raoul as well!

At length the surgeon came out of Thomas’s chamber. She inquired as to the state of his wound.

“You are, perhaps, a relative of the gentleman?” the dusky-eyed Spaniard asked her.

The question vexed her. In her embarrassment, she repeated her inquiry into Thomas’s health.

“Perhaps madam is the gentleman’s sister?” asked the surgeon, disregarding her question much in the manner she had his.

She blushed and wrung her lace handkerchief between her hands. The ebony-haired surgeon leaned closer and
ask in a sultry whisper, “Perhaps you are his wife?”

Rowena stepped back, and snapped, “Attend to my question. How does your patient do?”

The surgeon bowed. “That is a very difficult question to be resolved, but alas, it is in my office to discharge ill news—for it is surely ill news that he will die.”

“Die!” Rowena exclaimed in a faint voice, then seemed to gather her wits. “Die!” she shrieked, rending her handkerchief into minuscule little shreds. “Die! Die! Oh, not die!”

“So, what do you think so far?”

The gray-haired man sitting next to me on the park bench scratched his head and thought for a moment. He was one of those people of indeterminate age, so buffeted by life he looked at least eighty, although I knew from his voice he must be a good deal younger. “I think that chap’s in for it.”

“No, not about whether Thomas is going to die, what do you think about the mystery. Does it add a certain something to the story? Does it pique your interest? Does it make you want to hear more?”

He scratched at the dirty checkered shirt that covered his narrow chest. I eased away a hair, starting to feel kind of itchy myself from watching him scratch. He cleared his throat, spat off to the right, reached down to make a slight adjustment to Big Jim and the Twins, then sucked his teeth and said, “No, it don’t.”

“Oh.” I looked back down at the manuscript in my hand and scratched at a spot on the back of my neck. “Well, if you read romances, do you think you’d like this one?”

He rested his left foot on his right knee, took off a
ratty tennis shoe, and started to peel off a holey sock. I backed down the bench a bit farther and scratched at a spot on my back. Damn him and his creepy crawlies!

“Mebbe.” He started picking at his toes. I scratched at a spot near my temple and stood.

“Oh, well, OK. Thanks for your time. Here’s your pound.”

He paused in his foot examination long enough to catch the coin I flipped him. I backed off hastily, promising myself a long shower the second I got home, but just as I was about to scratch myself out of the square, he called out.

“You need more shagging!”

I stopped and turned to look at him. “Me personally? I’m with you there.”

He looked me up and down and winked. I grinned back.

“Not you, your book.”

“Oh, the story. Do you know, someone told me they thought it had too much, and that romance wasn’t about sex, so I took a bunch out.”

He pulled out a pocketknife and started paring his toenails. “They was wrong, then, wasn’t they? You add in a bit of rumpy pumpy, that’s what you do, just like proper books has.”

“OK. Sure. More pumping rumps. Thanks for the advice. I’ll think about it.”

I hurried away from the bench and out the gate. I itched all over, but I thought about what he said. More sex. Well, he had a point there—sex does sell. I had read somewhere that in the world of romance books, sex was good, readers ate up graphic, no-holds-barred sex. But
Isabella thought my first sex scene was too brutal and unrealistic, which meant…

“It’s research time!” I said happily to a couple who were snogging while waiting for the light to change to the happy little green man.

“Eh? What?” One of the snoggees asked me.

“Never mind, you’re doing just fine,” I reassured them, and headed home, going through my mental list of men I’d met since arriving two weeks before, men who might be willing to help me with a little
research
. Alex, of course, headed up the short list, but according to Isabella, he wouldn’t be interested in helping me with anything, let alone a practical demonstration of my love scenes. So that left Karl.

I jumped into the shower and tried to picture Karl naked. The thought of him sprawled out on my bed made me feel vaguely queasy. I turned up the hot water and let it pound away the thoughts of Clammy Karl, then allowed my mind to dally with the mental image of Alex minus garments, lying all sleek and elegant, his emerald eyes hot with desire. Immediately I started sweating. I turned the hot water off altogether and lectured myself about my foolish thoughts.

“OK, so I’ve got the hots for one particular guy, not just any guy. Fine. Now what the hell do I do about it? It’s not like I can just go up there and say, ‘hey, Alex, you wanna get it on?’ If he’s only interested in serious, possibly permanent relationships, he’s not going to want to break in a few of Cait’s raincoats in the name of fun.”

I thought about our near kiss the other night and heaved a sad sigh. It was just a shame he wasn’t interested in helping me research a love scene. It was a damned shame. It was more than a damned shame, it
was positively heartrendingly tragic…I frowned at a pair of cotton shorts I was in the act of pulling on. How did I
know
he wouldn’t like a little fling? Isabella said he wouldn’t, but what did she know? She wasn’t here when he was sucking my finger! Maybe she was projecting her own possessive feelings about him. Why did I assume she knew what Alex was thinking?

“Give me one good reason why I should listen to her!” I demanded of my flat.

Nothing answered me back. That’s the problem with living alone without even a plant to talk to, you feel like a nutter when you talk to inanimate objects like chaises and books.

“I feel like an idiot talking to nothing. I really need to get a plant or a goldfish or something,” I said, then paused as I reached for my shoes.

“I
had
a plant,” I informed the sandals. They looked surprised at that information. “But someone took it. Why, I think I’ll just go get my plant back from Mr. Friendly Policeman.”

My right shoe thought it was an excellent plan, but the left shoe pointed out that the last time I saw Alex I had not only sworn at him, I had also struck him in the chest.

“You’re right,” I told the shoe. “You’re abso-bloodylutely right. I owe him an apology, don’t I? So maybe I should whip up a dinner for two as an apology? A romantic dinner that could also serve to see if he’s interested in furthering Anglo-American relations with a bit of
how’s your father?”

It sounded good to me, and an examination of the sole cookbook in Stephanie’s bookcase provided me with a chicken and olives dish that looked possible to make in the tiny kitchen, so I sat down to write Alex an invitation
to dinner. I started off to stick the note in his door, but decided halfway up the stairs that my apology demanded a grand gesture. I ran down to a flower shop a few blocks away and asked for a small bouquet.

“What kind of arrangement would you like?” the woman in the shop asked.

“Something manly,” I said, looking at a pretty offering in purple and blues.

“Manly?”

I smiled at the note of uncertainty in her voice. “If you were a man, what sort of flowers would convey an apology to you?”

“Oh.” She gave me a sympathetic smile. “Roses are always nice. Very romantic, too.”

We agreed that white was more masculine than red, so I had her wrap up a dozen white roses, and took them home. I left them in front of Alex’s door with my invitation to dinner tucked inside, and then went back downstairs to look over my story.

Two hours later I trotted off to a local cyber café with my manuscript on disk. When Isabella had asked earlier during lunch if I had an agent, it occurred to me that I was now living in a veritable hotbed of agents, and it would be idiotic to ignore such a fabulous resource right at my doorstep. A couple of hours spent online resulted in a list of London-based agents; a little more time in front of a photocopier, and I had five copies of the first three chapters of my epic tome in my hot little hands. I started calling agents the minute I got back to my flat.

“North Mills Literary Agency.”

“Hi, my name is Alix Freemar, and I’ve got a story I think would really sell.”

“Send us a query letter and an SAE,” a bored, adenoidal voice said, and then hung up.

“Well! Screw North Mills,” I muttered to myself and crossed out their name. I picked up the phone and tried the next number.

“Madelyn Gregory Associates.”

It can’t be said that I don’t learn from my mistakes.

“Hi! I was wondering what the procedure is to submit a book to an agent.”

“Genre?” The person on the other end of the phone didn’t sound too interested, but at least she didn’t tell me to send in a query letter and hang up on me.

“Genre? Oh, it’s a historical romance.”

“Margaret Hendricks is taking romance and women’s fiction clients. You may address your query to her.”

“Oh. You mean query as in a query letter?”

“Yes.” The voice was getting a bit snippier now. Don’t people have any patience these days?

“Isn’t there some way that I can just meet with Ms. Hendricks and tell her about my story? I’m here in London, staying for a few months while I research the book.” Yes, yes, I was stretching for Brownie points, but it couldn’t hurt to point out just how dedicated a writer I was. “I’m from Seattle.”

“Mrs. Hendricks only meets with clients by appointment.”

“But—”

“Be sure to include an SAE if you want a response. Goodbye.” Click.

“Fine,” I snarled at the phone, and pushed up the sleeves of my thin cotton blouse. “You wanna play hardball, I’ll play hardball.”

An hour later I was the proud possessor of two appointments—the
first for that afternoon (never let it be said that moss grows under my feet) the second three weeks away. I was a bit surprised I managed an appointment for that very day, but I wasn’t about to question my luck. Instead, I perused my wardrobe to find an outfit that shouted AUTHOR, but alas, I didn’t have a tweed jacket with leather patches at the elbow, so I settled for a pair of ivory linen pants, a garnet-colored blouse, and to show I was of an artistic bent, a colorful scarf knotted around my waist as a belt.

I even splurged on a taxi, since I didn’t want to arrive at the Tully Literary Agency and Editorial Service sweaty from walking the half mile from the nearest tube stop. I was early as usual, and ended up sitting in the waiting area watching a dark-haired woman type industriously for a half hour before I was ushered in to the office of Maureen Tully, Literary Agent.

“Alexandra Freemar?”

“Hi,” I said, covertly wiping the palm of my right hand on my thigh. There’s nothing quite so off-putting as a damp, humid handshake.

The small, light-haired woman behind a huge desk rose and came around the side to shake my hand. She was short, coming up to my armpit, and had eyes an odd, washed-out shade of blue. Her stature was the only thing about her that was unimpressive, however—she waved me into a wooden chair and started pelting me with rapid-fire questions in a forceful and no-nonsense voice.

“How long have you been writing?”

“Me? Oh, well, that’s kind of hard to say. I started writing stories as a kid—”

“Is your story complete?”

I blinked at the interruption. “Um…not quite.”

She tightened her lips and returned to the plush chair behind the behemoth desk, looking a lot like a kid sitting in her daddy’s office—until she pinned me back with the steely force in those pale eyes. “How much do you have done?”

“Oh…um…it’s at about ninety pages, but I have—”

“What’s the storyline?”

I fought the urge to tell her to give me a frigging chance to speak. “It’s about a woman and the two men she’s in love—”

“It would never sell,” Maureen said, lighting up a cigarette and quickly batting the blue smoke away. “What other stories do you have?”

I coughed a delicate little cough into my shoulder. Smoke brings out my asthma, and I could already feel my bronchial tubes swelling up and slamming shut. “That’s it, I don’t have any—”

She leaned forward and peered at the envelope on my lap. “Do you have sample chapters with you?”

I coughed again. She waved at the smoke but didn’t bother to open a window.

“Yes, I have three,” I said quickly, determined to get a whole sentence out before my eyes started streaming and I began to wheeze like an elderly pug.

She held out her hand. “Good, let me see them.”

I handed them over and took a moment to cough into my shoulder again. The room was thick with stale smoke, and I could feel it soaking into my clothes as I watched her read the first couple of pages, reaching blindly for a red pen as she read. I made a mental note to haul the clothes I was wearing to the cleaners as soon as I got home, and gave myself up to watching the expression
on the agent’s face as she perused my literary masterpiece. My delight soon turned to horror as she slashed and hacked her way through the rest of the first chapter. With a final grunt, she made a notation, then set the pages down and leaned back to give me narroweyed consideration.

“It’s not bad,” she said at last, surprising me out of my stupor. I immediately stopped vindictively picturing what her lungs must look like and brightened at the praise. “It shows promise, but needs work, quite a bit of work. Many authors are afraid of revision—are you one of them, or can you take an edit and turn your book into a best-seller?”

I clutched the empty envelope to keep from doing a victory dance right there. It wasn’t bad! It had promise! It could be a best-seller! “Oh, I am happy to revise. I know it’s not perfect, and I’m more than willing to make whatever changes you think are—”