Devoured Heart – romantic suspense by Alysse Aallyn

Chapter 36. Machinations

Pelham sat in the second client chair and feebly patted Scarlet’s heaving shoulders. “There, there now,” he murmured. “You would think as a matrimonial solicitor I would be more prepared. I must do better – I assure you my heartlessness was purely thoughtless. It won’t happen again.”

Gotobed produced a cup of tea and biscuit tin. “I’m sorry about the baby bottle”, he chuffed, but Scarlet had located Nick’s pacifier, what the English call a “dummy.”

“That’s all right, Gotobed,” said Pelham. “But make a note to purchase – er – one of those things.”
“Yes, sir.”

They were alone again. Silence fell as Scarlet sipped the strengthening brew.

“I think I’m the one who should apologize,” she said finally. “I really thought I had given up on my marriage. It goes to show I hadn’t. Please go on – what were you saying? Why exactly is this such good news?”

But now Pelham was frightened by his client’s possibilities of distress.

“Well,” he began nervously, “Your husband knew you were applying for employment in London. He had given his permission, correct?”

“Correct,” agreed Scarlet, annoyed that she would need her husband’s “permission” to get a job.
“With his girlfriend in residence, you’ve been evicted, so to speak. We shall argue that you can’t stay in a home where your husband has installed his girlfriend. Most judges I know of would agree. And you certainly can’t bring up an infant there!”

“He’ll say she’s not his girlfriend.”

“Our man Bogswell will get the goods on them. No one will be fooled.”

“But I left first,” argued Scarlet, playing devil’s advocate.

“Didn’t you come up to London to rent a flat and get a nanny under your husband’s advisement?”

“Well, yes, I did.”

“Is your room connected with your employment?”

“Well, yes.”

“Do we not have documentary proof that your husband was the first to transgress?”

She thought of the Carpathian Hotel.

“Quite true.”

“Well there you are.”

Scarlet sat silent for awhile, drinking tea while Nick sucked vigorously with an annoyed look on his face. He apparently already knew when he was being fobbed off with something that was not quite real.

But those days are over for me, thought Scarlet. I won’t be “fobbed off” anymore. “Thank you,” she said gratefully to her solicitor. Pelham visibly relaxed.

Gotobed inserted his head into the room as narrowly and as tactfully as it was possible for a human to do. The man had a head like a flounder; completely flat, with eyes on either side.

“Lady Lechmere has arrived,” he murmured unctuously. Pelham vaulted upwards, helping Scarlet assemble her things.

“Take Mrs. Wye to the Partner’s Room, please.”

Lady Lechmere was so old and bent her gaze was permanently fixed on the floor. What could a woman that elderly possibly need with a matrimonial attorney, Scarlet wondered, wishing she could ask Pelham. But she did recall that Pelham’s specialty was said to be “marriage contracts” and Lady Lechmere doubtless had one of those. The intriguing possibilities would set any novelist or short story writer’s mind to spinning!

Nick couldn’t settle, so as she walked him up and down in the waiting room she wondered how her own contract with Ian would read. Possibly that was the problem – she felt there was a marriage contract – it had been explicated by the vows – but Ian felt otherwise. If he had told her what he really intended, she would never have married him. Would she? But deeply in love, hadn’t she been in the mood to risk anything? Ian seemed so as well. That was the hell of love. You might fall in together, but you fell out at different times, and under different circumstances.

Before the sniffles got any worse, Scarlet betook herself and Nick to the Ladies Cloakroom, two flights down.
 Miss Bottomley was just coming out of Bob Thomas’ office when Scarlet returned from the Ladies Retiring Room, and Bob Thomas was every bit as unctuous in handing her off as Pelham D’Arcy had been with Lady Lechmere.

When she saw Scarlet, Miss Bottomley brightened excitedly and placed a finger to her lips. She could barely contain herself – as soon as they were in the hall and the office door closed behind them she hissed, “Do you know, Scarlet, I am a very rich woman!”

Scarlet laughed. “That’s what I heard,” she said.

“Mr. Thomas told me the estate is mine free and clear and I can do anything I wish with it which is most certainly NOT what Mr. Inkum told me! Do you know, that man actually lied to me? He is simply the estate manager ‘per my pleasure’ – and I don’t think I want an estate manager who LIES to me!”

“I feel sure you can do better,” agreed Scarlet.

“That’s what Mr. Thomas said,” Miss Bottomley said comfortably, “He told me there is nothing whatever wrong with my mind and I am as sharp as a knife!”

“The more I hear about Bob Thomas the better I respect him,” said Scarlet.

Miss Bottomley nodded. “I had the same thought myself. He agreed that I need a trust – or several – but said they should serve my ideas and not Mr. Inkum’s!”

She expressed herself so explosively Scarlet was afraid to ask what those ideas actually were. In her experience, 88 year old women could sound very cranky, and Scarlet wanted nothing to interfere with her respect for her employer, so she only commented, “Just as it should be.”