Alysse Aallyn

Category: Creativity

  • Devoured Heart – romantic suspense by Alysse Aallyn

    Chapter 34. The Detective

    As they selected cheeses, cake, apples, biscuits and the components for what Pom described as a “strengthening soup”, Pom remarked, “I adore old-fashioned places like these. All the grapes and calves’ foot jelly.”


    “Thanks for reminding me,” said Scarlet, adding grapefruit marmalade and fish fingers to their hoard.


    “Fish fingers?” Pom questioned.


    “Everyone needs a fast, easy dinner,” said Scarlet. “That’s what freezers are for.”


    “I don’t have a freezer.”


    “But Miss Bottomley does. Quite an up to date one.”


    “And then there’s the problem that fish have no fingers.”


    “We call them ‘fish sticks’ in America.”


    “My, that does sound irresistible. A stick of fish. Such cleverness you Yanks have. I wonder what is the correct wine with “sticks”? Allow me to purchase for you a nice rosé. Or would you prefer champagne?”


    “No wine at work, thank you,” said Scarlet. “I need to keep my wits about me.”


    As soon as the grocer heard it was for Fourteen Norfolk Crescent he insisted on delivery.


    “She’s our landlady,” he told the astonished pair. “She owns everything round here.”


    Pom kept an admirably straight face during this disclosure.


    Scarlet carefully set up her own account and stressed that it was her responsibility alone.


    “Don’t be in such a hurry to pay for everything,” said Pom when they were safely back inside the Dorset. “Sounds like she’s rich as Croesus, much as she doesn’t look it.”


    “All the other interviewees thought she was the housemaid,” admitted Scarlet. “It just makes me all the more determined to do my very best for her. Those books of hers are just plain wonderful, and where else in the world would I ever get such a perfect job?”


    And she shared with him the dramatic tale of Miss Bottomley’s late-acquired wealth.


    “Please don’t tell anyone,” she begged. “I didn’t even tell Ian.”


    Pom’s eyes widened. “I can keep a secret. Honored that you chose me. But are you certain the pair of you don’t need live-in bodyguards as well?”


    “I’m sure we do,” said Scarlet. “And heaven knows there’s room. Are you offering?”


    “I don’t think I’d be any good at that particular role,” said Pom.


    “I think you’ll find Miss Bottomley very averse to strangers,” said Scarlet. “Maybe as time goes on I’ll be able to talk her round. I’m currently in favor because I was the only one who’d actually read her books. She’s not used to money and she doesn’t like solicitors. I hope Pelham D’Arcy might offer assistance but we’ve got to give it time.”


    It turned out the grocer’s van had gone around to the kitchen entrance. Off the kitchen was a scullery with new-looking washer and drying machines.


    “They’ve got me running off my feet answering doorbells here and doorbells there,” complained Miss Bottomley as they brought the groceries in. “First it was that strange friend of yours -“


    Scarlet seated Miss Bottomley to toast her toes by the gas fire. Pom almost sat on the King of Wessex.


    “Meet Ceawlain,” Scarlet explained.


    “Sue-Allen?”


    “No,” said Miss Bottomley and Scarlet both together, “Ceawlain, King of Wessex.”


    Scarlet inquired, “What strange friend was it that came to the door?”


    Miss Bottomley considered. “Well, he was quite silly. He certainly didn’t guess he was speaking to an authoress of detective novels, because he used quite a transparent ruse to try to get into the house.”


    Scarlet and Pom stared at each other, appalled.


    “What did he say?” asked Scarlet while Pom said, “He could have simply thrust you aside!”


    “I’d like to see him try,” grumped Miss Bottomley. “I’d have skewered him with a hatpin and summoned help with my police whistle.”


    And she displayed these items for their inspection.


    “This is ghastly,” said Pom and Scarlet asked, “Doesn’t that door have a chain?”


    “Obviously one must take the chain off when one answers the door,” said Miss Bottomley.
    “And a peephole?” wondered Scarlet.


    “I’m too short for the peephole,” sighed Miss Bottomley. “The peephole is too tall for me.”


    “Here’s an idea,” suggested Pom, “An intercom. You won’t be run off your feet that way. You’ll be able to ask who it is and get them to describe themselves. Tell them to put a letter requesting an appointment in the mail slot.”


    “Oh, I do like that idea,” gushed Miss Bottomley. “Takes a man to look at problems from the engineering point of view.”


    “I’ll look into it for you, shall I?” offered Pom, and Miss Bottomley seemed relieved.


    “But what did he look like?” Scarlet poured a tin of vichyssoise into a saucepan while Pom sliced cheese and pears.


    “Very smartly dressed, I must say. Bowler hat and all found. He said he was from an architectural publication and he wanted to take pictures inside the house. He asked to see the Missus. I didn’t tell him I was the Missus, I just said no, no, and no.”


    “Did he give up?”


    “He most certainly did not. Tried slipping me a five-pound note!”


    “He really did mistake you for the housemaid,” laughed Scarlet and Miss Bottomley laughed with her.


    “I rejected it. Played along. Told him I valued my “position”. But he wouldn’t leave. He had his foot in the door.”


    “But this is a horror story!” Pom gasped and Scarlet said, “You should have used your police whistle.”


    “Perhaps I should. But then he started asking questions about you.”


    “Me?”


    “Yes. Wasn’t there a young lady in the house and when was she due back. I said, “Here she comes!” and when he turned to look, I shut the door!”


    “That was clever,” said Pom, and Scarlet said, “Worthy of Miss Clew.” And Miss Bottomley reddened with pleasure.


    “But who could it have been?” asked Pom. “It doesn’t sound like Ian.”


    “It’s that detective of his,” said Scarlet. “He took pictures of us last week and Ian threatened me with them. I explained to him that we’re only friends.”


    “Utterly uncompromising pictures,” Pom assured her but Miss Bottomley was nonchalant.


    “I should have known there would be a detective or two hanging about any modern girl,” she remarked. “Keeping me up to date!”


    Pom refused to shake off his anxiety.


    “You be sure to tell your solicitors,” he suggested. “Both of you.”


    “I’ll tell Pelham,” agreed Scarlet, thinking how lucky she was that Miss Bottomley wasn’t sufficiently intimidated by all this bother to choose another assistant, but Miss Bottomley scoffed.


    “Oh, my Mr. Inkum, he’s a perfectly dreadful man! Always trying to get me to sign documents and when I said, “Don’t I need a solicitor?” he answers, “I’m your solicitor. This is for your OWN GOOD.”


    “Funny how when people say that it’s never true,” mused Pom, as they settled at the table for a delicious meal.


    “That’s what I thought,” said Miss Bottomley. “I told him to leave the papers with me so I could think about them and he said, “Don’t think too long!”


    “Sounds like a threat!” gasped Scarlet.


    Nick’s cry made them all jump.

  • Devoured Heart – romantic suspense by Alysse Aallyn

    Chapter 30. Packing

    Scarlet’s sister India’s Christmas package arrived on the same day as a rejection from Nigel, who said the magazine was “going in a different direction.” Had Ian spoken with him? Scarlet couldn’t put it past him. India’s little gifts were nostalgic food items like pfeffernusse and windmill cookies and an unexpected present for Baby Nicholas – a collection of the sisters’ broken-backed, well-loved books from childhood. Scarlet pushed Ian’s gift aside (a joke tie probably, considering India had never liked Ian) and stroked the worn book covers sadly. There was so much imagination in childhood that it seemed the power of youth and yearning itself was magic.


    She had not even bothered to set up a tree but Ian could hardly expect one now. Perhaps she could make an effort for Miss Bottomley – see what the old dame thought about Christmas. Some people disregarded the holiday – others actively hated it, after repeated bad experiences.


    Ian and Scarlet’s last apartment – where the Pourfoyles now lived – had been too small and Ian’s family had always focused more on stockings and tiny gifts. Ian was quite comfortable leaving Christmas up to his wife, all the effort and all the blame. It was always the wife’s jobs to meet everyone’s expectations, grumbled Scarlet, even those of her husband’s family whom she didn’t know while men sat comfortably aside and ordered grog.


    What a different plan she’d had for Nicholas’ childhood than the desolation that lay before her! But what was her alternative? Ian hadn’t noticed Scarlet sexually or romantically since Nicholas’ birth. He had chosen a different bed. She was in this utterly alone.


    Could he possibly expect her to compete with his “bit of fluff?” She couldn’t imagine that in a thousand years. The very thought made her want to enter a Turkish steambath and turn herself inside out in an effort to get clean. The church ought to offer a ceremony for this – instead they acted as if menstruation and childbirth were the defilers instead of a husband’s reckless dalliances and pernicious prevarications. She was done with all of them.


    What would happen now? The future was impossible to guess at or see into. She now saw that any belief that she could see into it had wrong-footed her from the start. There were too many other players. Likely life would always be more surprising and unaccountable than she expected or counted on. The most important question was, could she ever trust anyone again? How teach Nicholas about a universe where no one could be trusted?


    Favorite Egyptian Tales of Mystery & Magic – Scarlet had loved this particular volume so much it had lost its cover. For years after reading it she told people she wanted to be an “Egyptologist”. After that it was “archaeologist” until she fell in love with literature and poetry in high school and literature and poetry seemed to love her back. Would those, too, let her down? So much depended on the frail elderly shoulders of Miss Bottomley.


    She turned the pages slowly, remembering every illustration. Here was the hippopotamus Ammit – “devourer of hearts” – waiting for Anubis to throw him the heavy, most evil hearts to eat. In this religion, only the light-hearted were worthy of heaven. Not a bad idea! When she thought about the challenges ahead, she did feel her heart lighten. She had Pom on her side, and D’Arcy and Miss Joringel and Miss Bottomley.


    Ian had Candi and Margalo and whatever drunken buddies he could find to applaud him at the pub. But those were meretricious relationships in the fullest meaning of the word. They were based on Ian NOT showing his true self. Based, really, on his never finding that real self but remaining content to swim with whatever school he found himself in.


    Scarlet had always resisted this. She understood perfectly that art required an audience and patrons, but the first requirement was that it be Art. Utterly fresh and new. The time it took to temper the artist – not to mention imagine, create and complete the work – meant finances couldn’t be a consideration. She was being tempered and it was bloody uncomfortable. But seriously, what produced good Art? Seeing Ian no longer caring about courting her – because she was good and captured, she lapsed into “history” – was like seeing the world with its skin off. It was losing part of herself.


    But she had gained a new part too, with Nicholas. She was seeing how the world really worked. Promises weren’t enough. Desire wasn’t enough. The question was what you did when people showed their true selves – because that told you what YOUR true self was.


    I WANT to know the truth, thought Scarlet. There really isn’t any point going forward if you didn’t know the truth. Obviously, people preferred sentimental fictions, chocolate box prettiness. She couldn’t concern herself with that. She must move forward. Thank God Miss Bottomley’s works were somethings she could enthusiastically admire. Think how grim this would be she was editing one of those writers – sadly, there were many of them, some very famous – whose work she despised. Well, she wouldn’t take such a job. She’d return to America if things got that bad.


    She wanted Nicholas to know his father, but she didn’t want to tempt Ian to behave as badly as he was able and he was showing himself quite able. Pelham D’Arcy was right, it was time to make a plan and stick to it like adults. That was the model for Nicholas. That proposed a future he could rely on. Ian had come to America before; he could again.


    Were there any warning signs that Ian would suddenly treat her so cavalierly? He had repeated (with so much relish!) the wedding vow to forsake all others and cleave only to her – wouldn’t that have been a good time to mention that mature British males never actually followed that plan and he didn’t intend to, either?


    What would she have done if he had? Well the wedding would have come to stop, that’s for certain! But he had consistently represented himself as wanting what she wanted. Truthfully, after their marriage she had had some doubts. She had felt some “pulling away”. It made her a little scared and sad – after all she was in a foreign country – but it hadn’t seemed unnatural or unexpected. They were carving out individual lives as well as one joint future.


    Vows were meaningful to her. She had been especially careful to extract the word “obey” – after all it didn’t appear in his! The expectation that all accommodations ought to be up to the wife Scarlet repudiated as not what “modern” people thought. Ian’s parents would be bound to blame her now, taking it for granted that it was somehow her “non-traditional, American” ideas that were “at fault” for their breakup.


    And weren’t they? The coming days would be consumed with sensitive, difficult negotiations. The law would try to bring her down and Ian would enjoy the spectacle of her humiliation. For Nicholas’ sake she must not allow it.


    Enough daydreaming. She forced herself up to her study to pack up all her papers – all her hopes and dreams all fit neatly into one brass bound trunk. She resisted the urge to burn her poetry. It seemed so insipid now – “idiotic” wouldn’t be too strong a word. She mustn’t make such cataclysmic decisions while she was in this emotional state. Some brave new world must lie on the other side of this devastation – some universe she couldn’t see – what form would it take?


    Maybe learning how to proceed without hope – was the “putting away of childish things” of which the Bible spoke. When she opened this trunk again what kind of person would she be? She pushed the thought away: now she must concentrate on her job and on Nicholas. That would more than fill her days. Three suitcases, three boxes of books and a trunk – that was all she had to take with her. Goodbye to the beautiful desk – the loveliest thing Ian had ever given her. Except for Nicholas.
    Even the huge, ornate pram that had been Ian’s family’s gift was much too large to take in the station wagon – luckily more practical India had sent a folding stroller – just the thing for vehicle transport.


    She saved India’s letter to read at tea – but it was not the treat she had expected. Naturally, it had been written before her news of separation and new address had arrived but even the usual sisterly comforts were not on offer.


    India’s big news was she had decided to be “psychoanalyzed.” She, too, felt the need of a “responsible life partner” just like Ian and someday, a child – just like Nicholas! She said she needed to get to the bottom of the mental blocks she assumed were standing in her way. Psychoanalysis required making herself “unavailable” to others and making no “radical life decisions” for three years.


    India might be coming to England in July – but now it was up to her psychoanalyst – to determine if she was “ready.” She was currently deep in their childhood – issues of toilet training and sibling rivalry.


    Scarlet didn’t like the sound of this. She knew she couldn’t blame the psychoanalyst entirely – India hadn’t enjoyed the trouble-free childhood that was Scarlet’s legacy – if only because she hadn’t had an elder sister to cushion the parental blows. Now that India was making herself vulnerable to this rather irritating sounding man – a Dr. Weitzkopf – it would be up to Scarlet to “support” her. Scarlet wished she hadn’t written that woebegone letter of – could it have been as recent as yesterday? She must write immediately and soft-pedal her own changes. Now it seemed she couldn’t rely on India. It was a brave new world in every respect.

  • Devoured Heart – romantic suspense by Alysse Aallyn

    Chapter 28. Our Miss Clew

    Here was a lived-in room, complete with cat, telly and smoking kettle.


    The cat opened one eye.


    “That’s Ceawlain, King of Wessex,” the hostess introduced. The cat closed its eye again.


    The woman hoisted the kettle, poured water into an earthenware pot and sighed ecstatically.


    “I’m glad this day’s done!” she announced. “I never expected it would be so dreadful.” She took stale-looking brown bread from a tin and began buttering slices.


    “So, you’re American,” she said briskly. “I don’t see how THAT’s going to work.”


    Scarlet cast back in her mind for the exact phrasing of the advertisement. She recalled the lessons of her college days selling magazines door to door and sat down without invitation.


    “If you’re trying to modernize Victorian novels,” she began, “Surely you want the largest market possible.”


    “I don’t want them Americanized,” said the woman sharply, “That wouldn’t do at all.”


    Scarlet tried to look bright. “What is the series, exactly?”


    The old lady began slicing an apple and placing each apple slice on a piece of brown bread. She poured herself a cup of tea and sat down.


    “Our Miss Clew,” she said brusquely. “Ever heard of it?”


    Scarlet’s face flushed an intense red. This was nothing short of a miracle.


    “Heard of it?” She gasped, “I’m reading The Whiplash Puzzle right now!” And she pulled it from her bag. “Are you Esmé Hope Bottomley?”


    The old woman’s face crumpled as if she might cry.


    “You’re the only one who’s read the books,” she gasped. Then she seemed to regain control. “Do you suspect the vicar?”


    “Does a vicar come in later? Because this mystery takes place at a ladies’ college. Or do you refer to the dissenting preacher?”


    “No,” said Miss Bottomley with satisfaction, “There is no vicar.”


    Scarlet laughed out loud. She had been “tested”. And she had passed.


    “Miss Bottomley, I am so glad to meet you,” she said. “I admire your writing so much.”


    Miss Bottomley snorted. “I haven’t written a line in fifty years. Life got rather rudely in the way.”


    “Please do tell me about the job,” asked Scarlet.


    But Miss Bottomley was already busy munching. Instead, for an answer, she reached into a pocket of her apron and produced a letter from Coltsfoot & Briggins, publishers.

    “Dear Madam,” it said,
    “We are in receipt of your letter of the ninth and would be willing to extend our deadline until April 1st allowing you to attempt your own revision of the “Miss Clew” series. If you feel you are unable or if the revision does not meet with our needs we have in house editors on whose expertise we can call. Please feel free to contact me if you experience difficulties.

    Nigel Mountjoy
    Editor in Chief”

    “How perfectly obnoxious,” said Scarlet. “What an awful man. Have you signed anything with these people?”

    Miss Bottomley sighed. “I sold the series long ago. They don’t have to do this for me. They don’t have to do anything for me. I just hoped to prevent anything really embarrassing – Miss Clew becoming a hooch dancer or a James Bond spy with knives in her shoes.”


    “I totally agree,” said Scarlet. “She’s so wonderfully daring and intrepid with such imaginative ideas. Will they allow you to keep the story Victorian and simply update the language?”


    “I don’t know what they will allow,” said Miss Bottomley. “Modernize” is the only word they used. I just don’t want to be left out of it entirely. I think they were surprised I was still alive.”


    Scarlet saw at once what was required. Miss Bottomley needed a liaison with the publishers – a go-between with writing ability whom she could trust.


    “I will negotiate with them for you,” she offered, “To make the new books something you can be proud of. I’ve been negotiating with publishers for years as my vita shows.” She produced the piece of paper and laid it smartly on the table. This was certainly true, although the publishers usually said “no” at the end. Poetry being so difficult.


    “You have the job if you want it,” sighed Miss Bottomley. “You can’t imagine how dreadful all the other applicants were. They all took me for the housemaid. I must say it’s instructive to see how people treat the help. They really display their true colors.”


    Scarlet had to agree.


    “What does the position pay?” asked Scarlet.


    “I’ve no idea,” said Miss Bottomley helplessly. “What do you think is fair?”


    “Sixty pounds?” asked Scarlet shyly.


    “Sixty pounds a week?”


    “No – for the whole three months.”


    “Let’s say ten pounds for the first week and we’ll see how it goes,” said Miss Bottomley. She’s not completely gaga, thought Scarlet.


    “That would be acceptable.”


    Miss Bottomley read slowly through Scarlet’s qualifications.


    “You live in the country?”


    “Not anymore. I’m looking for a place in town. I’m getting a divorce.”


    “There’s plenty of room upstairs,” Miss Bottomley waved a hand. “I don’t go up there. But it would be quite convenient for you to be in the same building as I hope you will see.”


    “But I have a baby,” Scarlet said. “So I don’t know –“


    Miss Bottomley glowed. “A baby? How old?”


    “Six weeks.”


    “Six weeks old? And you’re getting a divorce? What did the devilish man do?”


    Scarlet told her. Miss Bottomley gasped like a benevolent gudgeon.


    “Thank goodness you found a competent solicitor! They’re hardly thick upon the ground. Certainly, I’ve never had such luck.”


    How could the resident of this vast house in such a toney square not know any decent solicitors? Scarlet tried to figure out the politest way to enquire about Miss Bottomley’s peculiar living situation.
    “Have you always lived in this house?”


    “Good heavens no,” said Miss Bottomley. “I was a pensioner in a bedsit. I won the tontine – a year ago, now.”


    “Tontine?”


    “Last one alive sweeps the pot,” said Miss Bottomley with satisfaction. “There’s got to be some benefit to living to 88 years old.”


    And the story spilled out.


    Miss Bottomley had been the only child of a country parson who scrupulously educated her as a hanger-on of rich county families – some of whom were her relations. He clearly saw no other life for his daughter than “sponger”, flatly telling her she wasn’t “pretty” enough to marry. Scarlet could see how this kind of life spawned Miss Clew’s character – a skeptical observer born with principles in an unscrupulous world.


    Miss Bottomley had written the Miss Clew series – thirteen books in total – as her virgin flight into the world of literature, securing just enough cash to transfer to London and secure her own flat – a scandal causing many relatives at the time to loudly wash their hands of her. But Miss Bottomley’s newer, more personal novels were unsuccessful at reaching an audience – several, indeed, remaining unpublished. Scarlet made a note to get her hands on these manuscripts at the first possible opportunity.


    Miss Bottomley said that as she moved into her forties she became less and less able to “suffer fools” (she meant the literary world) and was reduced to taking in typing. The “flat” became a bedsit – she was even forced to sell off the Miss Clew series – her only asset. Love – marriage – courtship – were completely out of the question as prerogatives of the comfortably off. Some sad experience with a curate soured poor Miss Bottomley even on the modest comforts of the church.


    Therefore, it was with considerable surprise when at age 86 she was informed that she was the sole living heir to the Pursuivant Estate (“My dear mother was a Pursuivant.”)

    She had never even met Mabel Pursuivant – ten years her elder – a woman who preferred foreign travel to a life at home.


    One year later, she inherited this house, indeed, this entire square. Her shoulders rocked with laughter. Who would ever have believed such a thing? What had become of the six daughters of Lord Henry Pursuivant – and the two nephews of Mr. Roundswell? Dead, it seemed. Everybody died. Nobody could muster up an offspring.


    “Unlucky lot. Lumbering me with this place,” she laughed. “Well, it’s a good address. Certainly comfortable. I took one tour when I moved in – I don’t go upstairs now. There’s a cleaning staff, hired by the estate agent, so should you encounter bugs or dust simply inform me and I can assure you heads will roll.”


    “Thank you,” said Scarlet warmly. “What will you charge?”


    “Oh, my goodness,” Miss Bottomley demurred, “I couldn’t charge anything for having you on permanent call! It’s to suit my convenience! What we’ll need to see about is how it suits you.”


    Good luck all around! So much glorious, clean, quiet space, warm – and in the heart of London! An entire square? Her new employer must be very rich – it was obvious she hadn’t yet come to terms with it – at the age of 88 perhaps never would. She should be receiving abject letters of accommodation from her publishers, not condescending brush-offs! Something was very wrong there.


    Miss Bottomley had suddenly emerged as more of a fairy godmother than an employer and Scarlet was determined to return the favor.

  • Devoured Heart – romantic suspense by Alysse Aallyn

    Chapter 27. The Final Applicant

    Scarlet took a long, thoughtful walk. She wanted to call Pom and thank him for sending her – by whatever circuitous route – to Pelham D’Arcy, but she needed to think over what had transpired. The one thing she found most distressing about the encounter was D’Arcy’s advice to avoid heart to hearts with her new best friend. Did telephone calls count?


    She had the uncomfortable notion he’d tell her that they did – but she didn’t plan to inform on herself. Guilty conscience? Ian’s detective couldn’t be listening on phone calls – that was spy stuff. And how could she explain any of this to Pom without enmeshing him still further in the unpleasantness – think how embarrassing THAT would be. Suddenly her greatest fear seemed to be that Pom, simply because their timing was so “off”, would simply begin avoiding her – and then she would have no friends at all.


    Shouldn’t she be wanting to discourage him? Maybe Ian was right about loving two people at once…in different ways. No, it was more than Ian used to be her confidante, her best friend, and he’d disqualified himself. Her loneliness felt unbearable.


    But D’Arcy had flatly told her that any male confidante was dangerous. Intimacy of any sort might give Pom the wrong idea before Scarlet even knew what the “right idea” was. Yet what was the “wrong” idea when Scarlet was having so much trouble figuring out the simplest objective truth?


    She resolved to send a nice long letter to India telling her the facts without any false shame. It was awkward considering the distance but maybe India could be her confidante. India had said she was contemplating a summer visit – perhaps she could be talked into moving up her dates.


    By the time Scarlet checked her watch she was in a completely unfamiliar part of London and it was almost 3:00. This was Thursday – last day she could visit Mysterious Employer before the weekend. Checking in at a sweetshop for the nearest cab stand she was told, “I’ll call one for you, miss.”

    She thanked the helpful man but the cab took fifteen minutes to arrive and Fitzrovia seemed far away. Scarlet was feeling increasingly desperate to the point where she had to force herself to stop checking her watch. As they pulled up to the address and she sorted out a payment the door of # 14 opened and an obviously irate man in a bowler hat and muffler stormed out clutching a dispatch case.


    Scarlet buttonholed him – because what if he himself were The Mysterious Employer?
    She questioned, “Excuse me, but were you here about the job?”


    “I don’t think there is a job,” he protested huffily as he stomped away. Having no time to think about it Scarlet rung the bell. The door was answered by a tiny, very old woman wearing a faded dress, a dirty apron and an annoyed expression. She seemed awfully old to be anyone’s housekeeper.


    “I’m here about the job,” said Scarlet hopefully.


    The furrows between the woman’s brows deepened.


    “It’s almost four o’clock,” said the woman. “I was just about to have my tea.”


    Although she looked like the housekeeper her voice was imperious. Scarlet jumped to conclusions.

    “Don’t let me stop you,” said Scarlet, stepping boldly into the house, “I can tell you about my qualifications while you prepare.”
 “There’s only enough for one,” admonished the woman in a school- mistressy voice.


    “Perfectly all right,” Scarlet lied desperately. “I’ve had my tea.”


    “Very well then,” said the woman. “Follow me.”


    She led Scarlet through several ornate reception rooms filled with magnificent Belle Epoque and Directoire furniture that seemed completely unused, as if this were some sort of museum. As they passed through the dining room Scarlet noticed papers on the table – this must be where candidates had been interviewed. The front door bell sounded again.


    “Too late!” announced the woman triumphantly. “It’s four o’clock!” and they passed through baize swing doors into a small, muggy kitchen.

  • Devoured Heart – romantic suspense by Alysse Aallyn

    Chapter 25. A Mysterious Employer

    On her way to pick up Fern she bought all the London papers. Scarlet found herself unable to return the newsagent’s “Happy Christmas” with anything more than a nod. It was NOT a merry Christmas. The most that she could give thanks for was that Nicholas was too young to notice.
    She phoned Pom from a call box and luckily, he was in.


    “I wonder if you could suggest a London solicitor,” she asked.


    “What’s it in aid of?” Pom inquired, very reasonably. “Purchasing more real estate?”


    She had actually hoped not to get into it but she realized now she needed to simply rip the bandage off.


    “We’re getting a separation,” she said. “I’ll be moving to London so I think I should find a solicitor there.”


    “Oh, my God,” said Pom. “This is all my fault.”


    Good thing she had phoned him instead of dropping by. How humiliating if he saw how her cheeks suffused with red – she could never explain properly and he could never understand. If it was Pom’s fault it was the world’s fault. How could she ever explain about the photos – the detective – how utterly disgusting Ian was and how low he was willing to go. His enraging method of manipulating and ruining everything. But Pom continued smoothly, “Selling you that awful house. I ought to be shot.”


    “No, really,” she gasped, almost grateful for his thorough misapprehension. “It isn’t that. I think it was Nicholas being born. He says now he never wanted children.”


    “Well, he’s an arrant idiot. Forgive my caterwauling, no one sees inside a marriage, do they? My solicitor’s Bob Thomas in Maida Vale – he’s the best – and he’s got several partners. I’m sure he would recommend the right person. He’s jolly easy to talk to – he just lets me wail and then offers sane, useful suggestions. Should have been an alienist, I always tell him.”


    “Alienist.” Strange expression. Like ‘Alienation of affections…’


    “I’m a shoulder to cry on, don’t forget,” Pom said as he gave her the number. “Two shoulders, really. And I don’t judge.” If he only knew what she’d involved him in. But somehow, she didn’t think he’d be angry. She scribbled in her datebook and rang off.


    Bob Thomas’ clerk Mr. Gotobed said “Mr. Thomas” never handled “matrimonial,” that was Pelham D’Arcy and he had an opening tomorrow at twelve. After that, nothing for a week. Scarlet chose tomorrow at twelve.


    When she stopped in at Mrs. Mugle’s the other woman said she would be “most pleased” to take Nicholas tomorrow. She had Ladies Union – would it be all right to take Nicholas along? Naturally Scarlet agreed and Mrs. Mugle all but jumped up and down in her excitement. She did not enquire why Scarlet needed to go up to London again – seemingly taking it for granted that leasing a London flat was a complex endeavor.


    Back at Wyvern House, Ian was closed in behind the library door, making himself scarce. She could hear him murmuring into the phone. Fern said, “I’ll take the babby for a walk, shall I?” and Scarlet hastily agreed. She took the newspapers up to her tower room to peruse them in privacy. And there, in the window, was a round stained glass rondo depicting a medieval hunter – possibly Robin Hood – setting an arrow to his bow while a fox peeped out of the luxuriant shrubbery. Candi was the hunter and Ian was the fox? Or was Scarlet the prey?


    Scarlet felt so faint she almost fell back down the stairs. She picked up the offending object from its chain – it was quite heavy – and battled with herself not to open the window and fling it out onto the courtyard.


    However. It was glass. Pointless to assist Candi in wreaking yet more havoc on Scarlet’s household. She wrapped it in the political news and taped it up so she wouldn’t have to look at the thing. The right method of disposal would come to her. Grinding it up and putting it in Candi’s food? Dropping it on her head from an airplane? Concealing it on Ian’s side of the bed where he would break it with his big, no-longer-desiring, no longer desirable body?


    All these revenge modalities threatened unforeseen consequences. The solution came in a flash – church jumble. Exactly the right thing to do with a houseguest’s gift you had previously begged them – by telegram – not to assault you with.


    She pushed the object away and opened Situations Vacant.


    Nothing. Nobody wanted to hire an American poet to do anything. Teachers, even nannies, were expected to have extensive, specialized qualifications. Scarlet couldn’t imagine herself even pretending to keep house or cook to request. “Companions to the elderly” paid worse than kennel maids. Sewing and laundry facilities sounded like sweatshops – she couldn’t support Nicholas on that kind of pay. Librarians’ assistants were expected to be British and bookshops and galleries requested “equity” investment in the business – YOU paid THEM. Jewelers and antique shops wanted “bonding”. Fashion and advertising firms wanted “portfolios.” Even clerks’ jobs seemed to require a civil service exam. Selling door to door was “commission only.” The only hope appeared “typing pool” – if she could pass “the test.” But poets don’t cultivate speed – slow deliberation is the necessary pace. “Maybe I could speed up if I had to,” she thought. And then she saw it – a boxed advertisement in the top corner:

    Editorial Ability – Temporary.


    Possibly, thought Scarlet.


    “Editor required to update Victorian novels. Three months’ employment. Present qualifications in person to:

    14 Norfolk Crescent, Fitzrovia, Tuesday – Thursday, 2-4 pm only.”

    No telephone number! What did THAT mean? In America, this kind of “cattle call” meant they wanted to take a look at you. Scarlet felt hope for the first time. Thank God, she’d bought those new tweed suits. At least she could look the part, although it was certainly possible that she would be rejected simply for being American. It really depended what kind of Victorian novels these were. But she might be able to talk her way into it – whatever it was. She had a good knowledge of Victorian literature, had indeed studied Mrs. Humphrey Ward as well as all the poets. Literary qualifications were the only kind of qualifications she really possessed. And a three-month job might give her exactly the kind of entrée, recommendations and resumé to try for better positions.


    She began hashing out a list of “qualifications” and immediately ran into the problem of references. Her American references seemed pointless and outdated. All her London connections were more Ian’s than hers. Gossip about their separation would soon be rife: who could she trust? Rather desperately she wrote Pom’s name feeling he was the only human being she could truly depend on to represent her well. She felt too embarrassed about it to even call him. She called Francesca Joringel, instead, at The Fruitful Browser and explained her difficulty.


    “I really need someone to testify to my familiarity with Victorian literature,” she said shyly.


    “I think I can testify to more than that!” Francesca said with unexpected loyalty. “They would be lucky to get someone so well-spoken with such wide interests. Now, who are they exactly?”


    “I don’t really know,” said Scarlet. “I’ll be finding out about them while they’re finding out about me.”


    “Some kind of literary jobbing would be perfect for a new mum,” offered Francesca, “Particularly one whose husband works for the BBC.” Gossip jumped from the rooftops while truth struggled to put on its spats. “I’d be honored to speak for you, and I’m easy to reach. I’m always here, working on my manuscript.”


    So comforting.


    “We’ll see,” Scarlet sighed. “Thank you. It may all be a mare’s nest.”


    “Or,” said Francesca, who loved Mystery, Adventure and Thrillers best of all, “It could be the Opportunity of a Lifetime.”

  • Devoured Heart – romantic suspense by Alysse Aallyn

    Chapter 23. Down From Town

    Ida answered the phone. “I don’t know where he’s gone. The babby’s safe with my girl.”
    Scarlet was too dispirited to ask if Ida meant her daughter or her granddaughter.
    “I suppose I could take a cab if the bank’s open and I could cash a cheque,” Scarlet sighed. The bank’s hours were so bizarre. She didn’t relish dragging these boxes up the street. Maybe she could deposit them in the left-luggage room.


    “You stay right there and I’ll call down to the garage for Frankie to get you,” said Ina. “He’s coming to fetch me anyway – just add it to my pay – he charges less than a cabdriver anyhow. Would you like to pick up the babby?”


    “Yes,” said Scarlet, suddenly teary. “Thank you.”


    Here was the Scarlet Pom couldn’t know, the kind of desperate idiot who needed a cleaning woman to solve all her problems. If she’d been able to think she could have laid in some grocery items. As it was, all she was showing up with for was a pile of expensive, useless, yet-to-be-paid for clothes.


    No wonder Frankie dubbed his flivver a “gypsy cab” – the aging Singer looked held together by string. But he was certainly obliging – even willing to stop for bread, milk, ham, green beans and tomatoes. And when Scarlet was reunited with her “babby” the world magically righted itself. Nick had been at Mrs. Mugle’s, naturally, the center of a group of admiring ladies. He had just been fed and smelled powerfully of Amazing Baby Ointment. We’ll never be parted again, thought Scarlet fiercely, hugging him to her chest. But she thanked Mrs. Mugle as politely as she could. For a wonder, Mrs. Mugle disclaimed payment.


    “It’s a joy to touch a sweet baby like he is,” she said, her whole face shining. How could anyone muster hostility against such a woman? Scarlet’s heart melted and she had the grace to realize that her unwillingness to allow another woman to “mark” her child was nothing more than atavistic jealousy. She herself would always possess the powerful priority of motherhood. No one could take that away.


    “Shall Fern come up at three o’clock?” Mrs. Mugle inquired. “The library switched her to the mornings.”


    Gritting her teeth, Scarlet agreed. It reminded her that the Fern situation was temporary – whenever the library gave her extra hours she’d drop baby-minding like a shot. Scarlet actually preferred Mrs. Mugle’s attitude. But beggars can’t be choosers and delivering her baby to a house eight miles away so that she could write in her tower made little sense.


    As for Frankie, after he’d unloaded patiently at Wyvern House she gave him all the rest of her cash as a tip.


    “And there’s more coming through Ida’s cheque,” she promised. She showed him her empty coin purse. It occurred to her – too late of course, the way every other insight seemed to come – that she could have cashed a cheque at the hotel. She’d skulked out of there like a street drab from an assignation.


    But Frankie was cheery. As she took down the garage phone number he offered, “Everyone spends all their cash in town. That’s what towns are for is what I figure.”
    Her heart warmed to him. She wrote Ida a cheque. Thank God for the glorious English invention of the “overdraft.”


    Now she must confront her enormous exhaustion at the mere sight of her own home. From a tiny three-room flat she and Ian had been acquiring real estate in a frenzy – there was no way they could actually take care of all they possessed. Where was Ian now? Gone! Where was Ian planning to be? Gone!


    It was just so crazy Scarlet dreaded trying to explain it to her sister in one of her long, newsy letters home. Better wait to see how it played out. The approaching confrontation would go better if she were calmer. She heated a can of soup and made herself a sandwich. While she ate the high and low points of her London trip danced through her memory in a blur, seemingly as if they’d occurred to someone else, or were part of the film she’d seen. The food helped her feel better.

    Now she felt silly and sad as she put her new clothes away. What need had she for party gear in her new life? She tried imagining Ian contrite and promising fidelity: would she even believe him?
    She was grateful to be rescued from her thoughts when Nick awoke, hungry. She was even able to produce milk for him. She relaxed into his body as he melted into hers.

  • Devoured Heart – romantic suspense by Alysse Aallyn

    Chapter 22. A Train Ride

    She missed the first train; overslept as if resting up for coming trials. The simplest breakfast order (croissants and coffee) seemed to take this hotel forever; they couldn’t believe she didn’t want their “nice kippers” and “fried tomatoes”. Managing all her new boxes proved impossible until the concierge fetched twine and roped them together into a still threateningly unwieldy parcel. Why wouldn’t she have them sent? Impossible to explain that these clothes suddenly seemed more intimate, more “hers” than the pre-pregnancy and shabby maternity clothes awaiting her at that castle. She definitely required the services of a porter. Scarlet had come up in the world. Unfortunately, she missed the second train, too.


    Sitting in the third train – it was lunchtime as this point – she felt dull, self-accusatory, downright stupid. Her buyer’s remorse was so severe she couldn’t even open Miss Clew. She’d managed everything so badly.


    Ian didn’t know when she was arriving. Oakhampton was too far to take a taxi. She’d have to call him from the station and hope he answered the phone. She was feeling nervous about all this shopping. London clothes in the country? What was the idea behind that? Was the best way to deal with Ian’s sudden aristocratic craziness to get crazy too? The Merry Widow was especially embarrassing.


    It now seemed to her like angry, “revenge” shopping, which was exactly what it had been. She couldn’t forget that spectral look in the eyes of Stella, manager at Montcalm Ladies’ Clothiers, inciting her by acceptance and flattery into playing the “wealth game”. Scarlet had only been too glad to comply. Was that what it felt like being Ian, taken advantage of by all the broadcasters and auctioneers he hoped to impress?


    Even the London flat seemed now more like a will o’ the wisp than a solid achievement. How had she let a giggly young estate agent maneuver her into the biggest place on offer, without getting any idea of its actual cost? If she was behaving just like Ian, then his behavior was hardly extraordinary. This is how people go bankrupt, she lectured herself. And how on earth could she ever explain any of it to India?


    Ian had done all he could to make his new job sound big and important, but were new people really treated this way at the BBC? In her experience the English workplace was decidedly cheese-paring. She couldn’t help feeling there was something else on this table, something she wasn’t getting. What if everything was just another one of Ian’s rather terrifying but hopeful daydreams, like winning a football pool?


    She calmed herself. She hadn’t signed for the flat. Jane was only “talking” to Margalo – surely you can’t accept responsibility for something so evanescent! If Ian’s employer didn’t give a green light, nothing would happen.


    She found herself longing for the ordered world of Miss Clew who alone, it seemed, possessed the razor-sharp standards to brush all this confusion aside. The world of the Victorians was famous for its explosion of pretense, imposture and hypocrisy keeping right up with every new marvel of the technological world. But somehow, Miss Clew always saw through to real motives and intent. Eagerly Scarlet opened the next book in the series and prepared to disappear inside. After all, no amount of money could be considered “within their budget” because Ian staunchly refused to make one or even explain or plan his income.


    Yet even this book flatly refused to come to life with her head in such a whirl. What were her exact fears? She looked blindly out the carriage window and resolved to list and face them. If leasing a tiny hole in the wall meant she’d be cheek by jowl with the man she was currently feuding with, that would certainly be money down the drain. But this selected flat could potentially be shared – one parent “up” and the other “down” – for the benefit of the children. It seemed like in many ways the best solution, she comforted herself.


    The real question was, why did she feel so awful? Such a failure? Because of Pom, dammit! Why was this man so interested in her and why was so she so dependent on that fact?
    Because her own husband was ignoring her. Dammit, dammit, dammit.

  • Devoured Heart – romantic suspense by Alysse Aallyn

    Chapter 20. A Date

    At the hotel salon, she had just enough time for a wash and set. She refused to let them cut her hair so Angelique swept it up into a stiff French roll that Scarlet knew would showcase her new dangly jet earrings to perfection. Angelique didn’t want money either; just her room number.


    “This is almost too wonderful,” thought Scarlet. “I definitely see why people claw at each other like crazed rats just to enter this world.” However, Angelique didn’t object to a tip.


    Scarlet stopped at the front desk for her parcels: “In your room, madam.”


    Well THAT was a bit creepy and unforeseen. She WAS a rube, fresh from the country. A “goober”, India would say. She didn’t care for the idea of strange men entering her room.


    Hopefully the bell captain watched while the parcels were unloaded – but if he delivered them himself, didn’t that mean that technically he had access to her room at any moment? Hotels were creepy! She could see that this attractive new world came with a side serving of helpless paranoia.

    If you expected to be waited on by anonymous people closely scrutinizing your behavior, wasn’t that like inviting permanent spies? Could the loss of privacy ever be worth it? wondered Scarlet. Already she missed her anonymous old free-wheeling self – independently setting herself up as a critic whom it would never be worth anyone’s time to criticize back.


    The idea for a play began to stir inside her – people following a treasure hunt finding terror instead and unable to warn the optimists still coming. Eyes glittering with an imagined future, like something out of a om painting – endless warnings but no one would listen! Hmmm.


    Ten minutes to change meant a “whore’s bath” in Ian’s unlovely terminology: just a once over at the sink. She hadn’t brought perfume but the hotel’s lavender and cucumber soap left a pleasant enough scent. She wore the brocade top and the long black velvet skirt – she wouldn’t need the merry widow for that – what a pity she hadn’t thought to purchase a new pair of gold high-heeled sandals. Her old black court pumps would just have to do.


    The phone rang: a gentleman awaited her in the lobby. The brocade top came with a matching evening bag – and once she had a room key and a handkerchief she didn’t really need anything else. That, she realized, was because she trusted Pom. He wasn’t a masher or a blackmailing cad – she felt certain he wouldn’t stand her up or strand her anywhere. On the other hand, if the hotel staff wandered in and out of her room at their pleasure, then she needed to add her coin purse and datebook, jut in order to feel confident nothing “truly Scarlet” had been left behind. Just another anonymous hotel room filled with a day’s shopping.


    Pom glowed with a fresh shave and a deep crimson tie set off by his dark suit; no paint stains in evidence. Funny, thought Scarlet, we each removed a layer of skin and donned unaccustomed finery to spend the evening together.


    “New outfit?” he inquired. “You look smashing.”


    The doorman opened the passenger door of his battered Dorset with a flourish and Scarlet climbed in.
    “I suppose you know what Thoreau said about new clothes,” she teased.


    “Thoreau?” He pronounced it “thorough.” “Your naturalist fellow?”


    “He was a philosopher. He said to beware enterprises requiring new clothes.”


    “I hope you don’t feel that it was truly a requirement,” drawled Pom. “Certainly not by me. You know, we English also have a philosopher: Keats.”


    “Oh, and what did he remark?”


    “That beauty is its own excuse for being.”


    No doorman at Luigi’s, the dark little restaurant in Soho whose shrimp scampi came so highly recommended.


    They shared a dark booth, a bottle of chianti and an antipasto salad. Scarlet ate with an appetite.

    She supposed any comment about the depthless hunger of breastfeeding Moms would dampen the conversation. Just thinking about Nick made her breasts leak. Perhaps she wouldn’t dry up after all.
    “Is there anything I should know about this film?”


    “No,” said Pom. “Hitchcock introduces the problem very elegantly. A fresh mind is all that’s required.”


    “But that’s a lot,” said Scarlet. “Then tell me about the first time you saw it.”


    “And the only time. Let’s see: it was two years ago – I just happened on it at The Rialto. The picture of James Stewart with a telephoto camera was intriguing. I think I assumed it was about blackmail, gangsters – you know, typical American. Then I saw the wheelchair.” He grimaced. “You’re tricking me into giving away the plot.”


    “I’m not trying to. It’s just hard to get you to talk about yourself.”


    “That’s a very English quality. I think we’re raised to be self-deprecating and make fun of ourselves.”


    Not Ian, thought Scarlet. He always said no one toots your horn if you’re too shy. Maybe it was a class thing. But she certainly didn’t want to discuss her husband tonight.


    “But ask me anything about cricket, shooting, or the ancient Greeks and Romans,” Pom continued. “The joke’s on my parents who spent all their assets qualifying me for a club I don’t care to join. Quantum ille canis in fenestra?”


    “Family motto?”


    “I suppose it ought to be. How much is that doggy in the window is what it really means.”


    Scarlet burst out laughing. “You can see I’m deficient in dead languages.”


    “They’re dead for a reason. There’s a credible theory that the English became great conquering explorers just to get away from their bad weather, repellant nannies and disapproving headmasters.”


    “I heard something about the pursuit of sunlight. Warm weather.”


    “Sadly, it seems we carry our inner darkness with us. All this “white men’s burden” stuff was really about trying to make seemingly happy people as miserable as we were.”


    “I love your iconoclastic approach to history,” said Scarlet. “Learning iconoclasm is Artist’s Job #1 in my book.”


    “Amen. How else could the whole colonial adventure have gone so horribly wrong? They gave us so much and we gave them so little. Sterno-flavored tea and cricket paddles explains everything.”
    The scampi was worth waiting for. The shrimp were tiny, but encrusted with garlic and pecorino like so many little nuts.


    “This is divine,” gasped Scarlet. “But I’m afraid I’m going to reek. What if they refuse to allow us into a public place?”


    “This is Soho,” Pom explained. “Everyone in the theatre will have dined on garlic and onions.”
    If they had, Scarlet wouldn’t be able to tell, but of course that was the wickedness of garlic.


    The film was unexpectedly funny. Scarlet had expected something very dark and shocking but it was in full color and seemed to focus around an entire apartment house of fascinating relationships.


    “Like an ant farm,” she whispered to Pom, but his, “Pardon?” seemed to suggest this was just another incomprehensible American reference.


    “We used to get ant farms for Christmas,” she explained as the credits rolled. “Dirt encased in glass. You watched ants digging tunnels and rushing their little eggs around.”


    “Sounds awful,” said Pom. “I was spared American excitements. It was all nuts, oranges and socks for the likes of us. I think I got a compass one year.”


    They were silent until they found themselves sitting in the Dorset on the way to her hotel.


    “So what did you think of the film?”


    Her mind was bursting with complex impressions.


    “Could we stop at a coffee bar? This is going to take some time to hash out fully.”

  • Devoured Heart – romantic suspense by Alysse Aallyn

    Chapter 18 – In the Mews

    It was a mews flat – small and tucked away above a car barn.


    “You can’t seem to get away from the auto motif,” was Scarlet’s comment as she climbed the steep stairs.


    “I do keep my vehicle downstairs,” said Pom, “So it’s right handy.”


    It was a cute little space elegantly furnished with modern Scandinavian fittings. Tiny bedroom, tiny bath, a kitchen separated from the lounge by a polished wooden pub top.


    “Looks like the only wine available is burgundy,” he said as he uncorked it. “I was cooking boeuf bourguignon last night. Or trying to.”


    Scarlet readily accepted a glass. “You cook?”


    “I’m taking a cookery class. Let’s say I wish I cooked. I hate interrupting my work to travel out for forage. Ideally, I’d like a big pot au feu I can dip into, but it needs to taste like something other than burned. I see you’ve got the roses back in your cheeks. Ready for the studio?”


    She averred that she was ready. The studio was a big empty room on the other side of the stairs – well lit by skylights. Canvases were stacked against the walls and a big unfinished one hung from the ceiling. Pom slung a tarp over it.


    “I can’t bear comments before I’m ready,” he said. “I’m sadly impressionable. I always end up seeing it their way, get completely derailed and end up with a buggered mess.”


    He tossed some drawings aside and spread the portfolio open on a paint stained table.


    She studied the picture before her. The paintings she had previously seen were all about color – these were different. Black and white with a slash of red.


    “It’s like… an eye.”


    “Yes. Reflections.”


    He leafed through the collection slowly. She wasn’t sure she liked them so she didn’t know what to say.


    “I know,” he said. “My abstracts are a lot more popular. I suppose your husband’s money – your money – has given me the courage to risk rank unpopularity. I’ve always been rather ashamed of my brushwork so I’m attempting to evolve. Using my palette knife more. I’m playing with – not needing beauty. With … whatever’s the opposite of beauty.”


    “They’re scary,” she said finally. Who would have guessed! So unlike his social presentation.
    He zipped up the portfolio. “I’ll accept that,” he agreed. “Life has a decidedly dark side.”


    “Doesn’t it,” she agreed. “When did you…evolve?”


    “Truthfully, you had something to do with it.”


    Was he blushing? He seemed to be studying her face, looking at her hungrily, as a portraitist looks. Suddenly she regretted the good lighting.


    “Lady Scarlet to the Dark Tower Came,” he said softly. “You’ve instigated a good many of my sleepless nights.”


    She quivered. She couldn’t face it – turned to flee.


    “I don’t know what’s happening,” she said when he grabbed her shoulders.


    “I find it’s best to wait storms out,” he suggested. They stood quietly for a moment. “Then assess the damage. If you’re staying in town, there’s a Hitchcock movie I’d like to see again.”


    “Really? Which one?”


    “Rear Window.”


    “Haven’t seen it.”


    “Then you should. What’s your favorite meal?”


    “Shrimp scampi. Are you going to try to cook it?”


    “I most certainly am not. But I do know the perfect Soho restaurant with exactly that specialty. Now you will experience the pleasures of running a car in town.”


    “As long,” she said, “As the car doesn’t run you.”


    “Touché.” They smiled at each other, relaxed into complete understanding. Somehow the dreadful moment had been averted. She wants…she doesn’t want… how could Scarlet explain herself to herself, let alone anyone else?


    “Now let’s see – where’s this estate agent?” He studied the card. “That’s almost Kensal Green. Let’s check you into the hotel and then I’ll run you over.”


    She didn’t argue. When the English said, they would run you over they offered a favor, not a traffic accident. She trusted him more each minute. His company felt like a benison.


    Why was she so completely certain “everything would work out?” The confidence Pom lent her must surely be misplaced. Squarely faced, the facts were bad. Ian had a girlfriend – that was terrible enough. Worse, he had met her in a London hotel. And when he came home, he was not interested in sex with his wife. Could she ever get the old Ian back? Did she want him?


    She stepped thoughtfully into Pom’s 1950 Austin Dorset two-seater. The bucket seats were so low it was as if they sat directly on the road.


    “Do I get goggles with this thing?” she queried.


    Pom laughed as she tied up her hair.


    The Cumberland was huge, impersonal. They seemed unconcerned about single ladies. No one cared that she had only a dressing case, and no one watched Pom carry it to her room.
    “I’m not tipping you,” she said.


    “Yes, you are,” he insisted. “By coming to dinner with me. It will have to be early because of the film. Six o’clock?”


    Could she choose a flat in four hours? How could she still contemplate a London flat? Yet one seemed preferable to The Dark Tower she realized. It functioned as some kind of promise that she wouldn’t be abandoned in the country with a baby while her husband swanned about ordering room service.


    She was ten minutes late to the estate agent’s, but as Pom had insisted, estate agents don’t care. After all, it was only young Jane Lumley and her very elderly father who seemed more like her grandfather. Jane was fresh, pretty, a real English rose. Scarlet looked at her sadly with Ian’s eyes.

    Was there any girl left in the universe whom she could trust her husband not to desire?

  • Devoured Heart – romantic suspense by Alysse Aallyn

    Chapter 17. Fresh From the Country

    In the end, Ian insisted on looking after the baby himself, saying, “Don’t worry. I have Fern to help me.”


    Scarlet couldn’t imagine her husband changing a diaper but how could she object to a father willing to spend time with his infant? She could tell by his smug face that he appreciated her dilemma. Any claim from an English husband for a desire to spend time with his son should be a dream come true to an American girl. But Ian’s “tells” – specifically his exaggeratedly “innocent” expression – were present in full flower. She suspected him of attempting to make his mind impenetrable to hers – the exact opposite of what their relationship had been in its most satisfying phase, when their love had been redolent of sharing, empathy and transparency. He had yet to touch her sexually – and now she too refrained out of some fatalistic curiosity to see just how long he would make her wait.


    She must allow him to look after his own child. In her dreams, they would always be a “two-parent” family, and never a lord, a lady and an infant in thrall to a succession of aging nannies, fake nannies and wannabe nannies.


    She insisted on staying at a hotel. Just as he had done she knew the exact argument to use – “Candi and David’s place is so tiny – remember we moved because it gave me claustrophobia!” He couldn’t argue with that.


    “Why not The Royal Grenadier?” she first suggested, only to hear that it served only men. This must be the reason for the receipted bill from the Carpathian Hotel she had found in his jacket pocket and which was currently residing in hers. She hadn’t asked him about it because she didn’t want him to wrest the bill away – which he would have. She had a different plan in mind.


    “Oh, I’m sure the Royal will suggest something,” she told her husband confidently. “They have to put the ladies somewhere. I also need to find an estate agent.”


    “Oh, here.” Ian searched his trousers pocket, proffered a card. “We’re using this friend of Margalo’s. She’ll know all about the BBC job.”


    “Jane Lumley, Lumley & Lumley. WEStminster 2012.” Read the card.


    “Toney,” was Scarlet’s comment.


    She made sure he heard the call she placed to the Royal Grenadier.


    “Can you recommend a hotel for ladies?” was her polite enquiry.


    Old buffer on the other end sounded gobsmacked. “Most ladies stay at their clubs,” he harrumphed.


    Scarlet thanked him smoothly, reholstered the phone. “He suggested the Carpathian.” She pulled the earpiece off its socket and began dialing but she was covertly watching Ian’s face.
    Ian’s face told her all she needed to know. He had gone as white as a sheet.

    “Not the Carpathian,” he gasped, “What a dreary dump. I’m certain we can do better than that. How about the Cumberland? It’s in Marylebone, right next to Broadcasting House. Has a lovely bar.”

    “Perfect,” said Scarlet. “I can say hello to Margalo.”
    His face relaxed. That meant Margalo was not The One. This was what she had come to – what must inevitably happen when Ian closed himself off: suspicion. So Scarlet reserved a room at The Cumberland.

    On the train she found herself staring curiously into the closed faces of the other riders. None of them appeared to sense that she was facing a personal Rubicon. Possibly everyone was sealed into their own private nightmare and the pessimistic existentialists had been right all along. She had always pushed away such dreary cynicism – life was just too pleasurable. But now it seemed that every pleasure had its “morning after.”


    She welcomed the chance to open a Miss Clew book – nothing suited her present mood so much as the pursuit of justice. Miss Clew was an elderly spinster with a clear mind and an untroubled righteousness who found herself pulled into one mystery after another. She was never fooled and she was never stymied. She thought the worst of everyone and she was never wrong. Scarlet found her very refreshing.


    At Waterloo she took a cab straight to the Carpathian. It was not, as she had been told a “dreary dump” but a rather discreet looking and charmingly small hotel tucked into Knightsbridge near Cadogan Hall. Convenient to Sloane Square – was that the reason for its choice? Scarlet knew Sloane Square was the location of Candi’s gallery.


    She raced up the stone steps of what had obviously once been a private house. The reception desk was a real desk, behind which sat a little bald man in a slick grey and gold uniform. She slapped the hotel bill on the polished oak surface.


    “I am Mr. Ian Wye’s assistant,” she began, but he interrupted her,


    “I’m so sorry,” he said. “We haven’t found it.”


    “You haven’t found it?” Scarlet stared at him stupidly.


    “Mrs. Wye’s petticoat. We’ve looked everywhere. Will Mr. Wye expect a discount? We try to guarantee –“


    She staggered backwards and snatched the bill away, as if attempting to replay this scene. As she did she saw a sympathetic look of understanding come into his eyes. Suddenly it seemed that he knew exactly who she was and what was happening – it had occurred before and was probably occurring at this very moment in hotels all around the world. For all she knew hoteliers fended off heartbroken wives on a daily basis. She couldn’t speak: she turned bright red. She simply turned and fled.

    She began to walk, trying to sort her jumbled feelings. She had once considered London “her city” but now she felt herself on utterly unfamiliar, even hostile terrain. Why was this happening? Since she had been so fearful that exactly this might occur – how could she then be so astonished? And yet she was.


    Also terrible and completely unexpected was that strange man’s pity. A complete stranger had pitied Scarlet Wye at what should have been the peak of her life. Scarlet Wye, American girl with a country castle, a hunky husband and a healthy new baby, currently canvassing London to shop for a pied à terre was an object of pity to a hotel flunky.


    She saw now that she had only postponed all her emotions of grief and rage, by telling herself not to feel them until All Was Lost.


    Was all lost? It felt that way. Talk about “paradigm shifts”! In spite of the universal belief that one act of infidelity could never signify “the end” of a long-term, committed relationship, to her American mind it was the end. They had pledged before God and the rector of St. Barnabas’ Church to worship each other with their bodies until death do them part, not to worship other people. Now all bets are off, she thought, recalling the casino warning: Rien ne va plus.


    She realized she was standing directly across the street from the Escarpa Gallery staring at it without comprehension. Some part of her subconscious had brought her unerringly here. Its main window featured an enormous, glittering, swirling green and blue abstract – an impressionistic ocean, perhaps. And out the front door as just if her echo of “paradigm shifts” had summoned him up, strode Pom, black leather portfolio in hand.


    He saw her at once, raised a hand and dashed through traffic.


    “Well this is a surprise,” he said, taking her arm and her train case in one smooth gesture, “May I take you to lunch?”


    Somehow, they were walking. Away from the gallery. Scarlet sighed with relief. She need not confront and unmask the false “Mrs. Wye” today.


    She couldn’t speak and he seemed not to expect explanation. She pressed his hand gratefully. Pom steered her immediately into a Steak and Egg where he first tried to sit by the window but when she shied away from that he guided her to a small dark booth.


    “Never been here before? I love these places, they let me sit as long as I like. I conduct all my town business in that very front window. Let me get you a cup of tea.”


    The English conception of “tea” was black sludge with plenty of milk and sugar, just the way Miss Clew recommended it. And as Miss Clew promised to her suffering clients, it felt amazingly strengthening.


    “Seriously, you look like you’ve seen a ghost. Is it me? What happened?”


    He was so charming! She fought an overwhelming impulse to tell him everything. How could she possibly trust him? He was a brief acquaintance, an unmarried Englishman at that! They were strangers to each other. She tried getting a grip on herself.


    “Why were you in the Escarpa?” she asked him, flat out. He didn’t seem insulted or confused by being intimately questioned and answered promptly.


    “I had an appointment with Chipster,” he said. “The manager. Showed him my work.”


    “And?”


    “They all say the same thing. “Maybe someday.” He laughed and she managed to laugh too.


    “I’m so sorry,” she apologized, “I just had an upset. Did you see a strawberry blonde with Cleopatra eye makeup?”


    “I might have.” He looked a bit more guarded.


    “I think she might be my husband’s girlfriend. Candi.” The nerve of Ian to suggest she board with Candi! She trembled with rage.


    He kept his poker face while the attendant delivered a pair of sandwiches. Looked to Scarlet like a hamburger with a fried egg on top. Pom shook a bottled sauce all over his. Scarlet began separating out the ingredients carefully with the assistance of a plastic fork.


    “I’m sorry,” said Pom finally. “He’s a fool.”


    The hamburger was acceptable. The egg was another story. Scarlet finished her tea. Pom waved a hand in the air.


    “They don’t really wait on you here,” he said, “but they do wait on me.”


    Pom’s a natural aristocrat, thought Scarlet, smiling. The soap manufacturer’s poor artist grandson, temporarily flush from selling the family estate.


    “I didn’t come up to confront Candi,” she said, realizing as soon as the words were out of her mouth that they weren’t true. She took a panicked look at her watch, then sighed with relief.


    “I’m meeting an estate agent,” she said, “At two o’clock. We’re looking at flats.” She gestured at the portfolio. “I’d love to see your work.”


    “Not in this light,” said Pom. “Whirlwind visit? Or are you staying somewhere?”


    “I have a reservation at the Cumberland,” she said. “But I haven’t checked in.”


    “The Cumberland’s miles away,” he said. “Whereas my flat is right around the corner.”


    An independent married woman invited to a bachelor’s London hideaway? Thought Scarlet. Yes, please! Served Ian right!