Alysse Aallyn

Category: #GirlTalk

  • Devoured Heart – romantic suspense by Alysse Aallyn

    Chapter 41. Puzzle Pieces

    Thus began the busiest week of Scarlet’s life, but at first, the happiest. The weather was sharp and clear emitting occasional puffy snowflakes; the sky was wide and open and even in London one could see forever. The streets were festive with Christmas lights and bustling shoppers. There were visits to the Victoria and Albert museum where Kirby Crousam gave Scarlet, Miss Bottomley and Pom a guided tour. Scarlet had never imagined early, high and late Victoriana could all be equally interesting. They thoroughly enjoyed an auction at Christie’s where Miss Bottomley wanted to bid on everything but allowed herself to be guided to a gorgeous big green and grey Larry Rivers at an excellent price – dinners at Simpson’s, drinks at The Gay Hussar and ices at Largo’s.

    Miss Bottomley even talked them into attending a pantomime where she clapped as excitedly as a child.


    The front door had been endowed with a coded lock and two peepholes – one specifically placed at Miss Bottomley’s height – not that she ever bothered to answer the door any more. Now that she had Enid. All three residents approved and declared this entry was “much less bother”. A “panic button” was installed promising to start up a loud siren signal anytime the Norfolk Crescent Irregulars felt themselves threatened.


    Pom behaved like a perfect gentleman, but he looked less haunted and so Scarlet relaxed into guiltless joy. He studiously avoided body contact with Scarlet but his eyes maintained a reassuring glow of intimate promise. Scarlet was mentally relieved but her body was less cooperative – her whole soul ached for him. According to Pelham, the divorce case proceeded swimmingly: Ian had expressed relief to see from their divorce proffer that Scarlet wanted only maintenance for Nick and was offering nanny-supervised visitation. Scarlet felt confident Enid was not Ian’s “type”, and that if he pretended that she were, Enid would see through his gambit.


    “Between you and me I think he’ll sign,” said Pelham. “He’d be a fool not to with what we’ve got on him. Ian will agree to be the guilty party and only the judge will ever have to know the details of the harrowing time you’ve been through. Should be over fairly soon when they accept our bargain.”


    Scarlet welcomed the days when Miss Bottomley conferenced with Bob Thomas leaving her free to drop into Coltsfoot & Briggins and liase with Mr. Mountjoy. She finally met the elusive Jemima Plympton “pleased to meet you I’m sure” and was given an introduction to the printer, Prollops & Daughters. She was rejoiced at this Dickensian name and accepted it as a very good omen for their future venture! She had already contacted Francesca Joringel, asking to see her manuscript.


    The interview she coveted, however, was with Mr. Beebee, head of the advertising firm Coltsfoot & Briggins had used for, quoting Mountjoy, “donkey’s years.” And what she had found out as Mr. Beebee made his pitch caused her to think nobody but a donkey would ever use this firm, but rather than tell them that, she resolved to ask Pom at the first opportunity if he knew anyone in advertising. She had already discovered through happy experience that his art school connections were invaluable.


    Once again, she was lucky. On her way out, she saw a young woman – she couldn’t have been more than twenty – showing a portfolio to the bored receptionist who almost certainly had no clout whatsoever.


    “I’m sorry,” said the woman frostily in a not-sorry way, “Mr. Beebee’s in meetings.”


    Scarlet held the door open for her as the girl marched dejectedly out.


    “You’re casting your pearls before swine,” Scarlet remarked.


    The girl flushed, “They don’t want to hire a woman, that’s the truth. I doubt they have a single woman working there other than that bloody receptionist.”


    “The more fools they,” said Scarlet. “That’s what keeps them living in the past like a pack of dinosaurs. And the same thing that happened to the dinosaurs is going to happen to them. The ideas they showed me were hideously hidebound. Positively strangled at birth.”


    The girl looked at her with more interest as they stepped into the elevator together.


    “I’m Lalage Sumner-Locke,” she said. “I just finished up at Durham Technical College and my parents gave me two weeks at a hotel as a graduation gift to see if I could get a job in the City.”
    Scarlet knew this naïve introduction would have been counted against her anywhere except in front of a member of The Norfolk Crescent Irregulars.


    “My publishing firm is planning a hardbound reprint of the Miss Clew books of sixty years ago. I wonder if you’d read the books and mock up a advertising plan to get people excited about them.”
    “I think I’ve heard of those!” gasped Lalage. “My aunt read them through regularly every year. I’d certainly love to try my hand.”


    And so Lalage Sumer-Locke came to tea in the Norfolk Crescent kitchen, showed everyone her amusing portfolio and was given ten pounds – “This gives me an extra two weeks!” – and a full set of Miss Clew books.


    “She was lucky to have found you,” commented Enid and the two women cleared up afterwards when Lalage had departed and Miss Bottomley, worn out from a morning with Bob Thomas (“Money’s a terrible responsibility!”) had gone to lie down.


    “I was lucky to find her! What did you think of the portfolio?”


    “I loved the Piccadilly swan lording it over the Mayfair ducks! She’s clever, that one!”


    This cleverness was confirmed when, the very next day, Lalage phoned from the Royal Park Hotel (“My parents said I could stay anywhere with Royal in the title”) and suggested she’d also like to illustrate the books.


    “The illustrations can be part of the advertising,” she said. “We’ll seize on say, ten moments or however many you want – show an exciting scene – and get people caught up in speculation. “Can Miss Clew escape this time? Is Miss Clew’s number up? Can the world exist without Miss Clew?” That sort of thing.”


    “I love it,” said Scarlet. “How are you getting along with the books?”


    “I’m loving them so much I have to put them down and force myself to draw. I’m on The Jade Monkey Puzzle right now.”


    “Keep up the good work,” said Scarlet.


    She was interrupted by Branner of Palace Security.


    “That back entrance going to take us longer, miss,” he explained. “We need to sub-contract a masonry job – mortar’s so friable you can put your fist through it.”


    “So, you’ll be opening up the wall, then? How can you keep us safe?”


    “We’ll hang tarpaulins. And of course, there’s the night guard, ma’am.”


    Forever after, Scarlet was to regret not demanding extra guards. Was it possible to be too happy? It could make you careless.

  • Devoured Heart – romantic suspense by Alysse Aallyn

    Chapter 48. Girl Talk

    That was how Scarlet, gardenia scented and comfortable in a warm dressing gown, came to be curled up in bed over a tray of hotpot and pie while Enid toasted bread over a roaring fire.
    Enid had divided the “magic wine” between their glasses.


    “I hear there’s plenty more where this came from,” she colloquialized while Scarlet laughed.


    “Feeling better now?”


    “Strangely wonderful,” said Scarlet, “Being Pom’s friends guarantees us the best solicitor, and belonging to the Norfolk Crescent Irregulars somehow protects against fear itself.”


    “Power of groups,” Enid suggested. “Finding one’s footing among the right people.”


    “It’s a paradigm shift, Pom says. I so naively assumed – I don’t know how to explain this – that Ian was always right. It sounds shamefully stupid but in the old US of A girls are trained to mold themselves to the man. It’s his desires, his personality, his future that’s important. We turn ourselves into a sort of mush. We become strangers to ourselves.”


    “It isn’t only in America,” said Enid.


    “Looking back on it, I can hardly believe it was me, agreeing to move into that ridiculous old house in the country. But he bought it without telling me – putting it in his own name, also without telling me – and he wanted it so badly! How was I to know he planned only to park me there?”


    “It’s the English way – country life and city life – and trust me, they have a whole third life “abroad.” My husband seems to think that around foreigners, Englishmen can degrade others without degrading themselves – some leftover right of empire, I suppose. Their obvious theory is that no one will ever believe anything foreigners say.”


    “Horrifying! But it isn’t just the Brits – seems to be the colonizing impulse,” Scarlet considered. “It’s always an excuse to degrade people.”


    “And here’s resources at home – as Esme shows us – so poorly managed they’re going to waste! This big house!”


    “It’s the same thing at the publishers. Their focus was on degradation, never improving or lifting-up. Can it be that only women know how to share?”


    Enid changed course on her second glass of wine.


    “Do you think you’d still be together if it weren’t for that property purchase?”


    “Actually, no. I don’t even have that much comfort. Now I can clearly see that Ian’s been looking for a way to become Machiavelli’s Prince ever since college. What I regret most is that I thought it was sexy. I thought it made him a prize. Everyone congratulated me on winning the trophy. Turned out to be a booby prize and I was the booby.”


    “I’ve said the same exact thing to myself a hundred times,” Enid agreed. “Colin was shopping for a booby! We mustn’t be so hard on ourselves. I was trying to please my parents,” said Enid. “In my day, they kept us so sexually ignorant we studied flowers to earn about marriage! My parents were panicking about finding a man who could reliably launch their grandchildren into the correct class. To them, Colin seemed to be “the one”. I felt nothing when he kissed me, but everyone told me that was because I wasn’t making myself pleasing or exciting enough.


    Colin wasn’t interested in my body. I never claimed to be Brigitte Bardot, I hated being pawed, so I thought I had finally found a man in control of his desires. He was so uninterested in sex that conceiving each child was a full-scale battlefield campaign – you can’t imagine.” Enid shook her head. “We were both pretending. Operating on rote.”


    “I hope he’s a better father than he was a husband,” said Scarlet.


    “To my amazement, he can be. He was very unenthusiastic at first – really didn’t want to accept parenting status, much less become a grandparent. But kids are so winning. They kept bringing him interests to share and he enjoyed widening their world. That part’s been wonderful. And they were at school so much they missed seeing the worst of it. I think having the lawyers lay out clear guidelines will be good for Colin’s relationships. But now, without him to punish me, I punish myself over perpetuating my parents’ mistakes. But our children’s marriages seem solid so far – and much more grounded emotionally.”


    “You’re right about being too hard on ourselves. We should be congratulating ourselves that we got out of it!”


    “Seen the light, as the preachers say,” agreed Enid. “We do seem to be very lucky just now, all of a sudden.”


    “Serendipity, they call it,” Scarlet agreed, touching her sore face. Enid winced empathetically.
    “Do you suppose good fortune like that was always there and we simply didn’t know how to find it?”


    “To some extent,” said Scarlet. “The nanny agency rejecting to represent the exact sort of person I actually needed for the job probably happens all the time. But someone like Miss Bottomley winning the tontine – surely that sort of good fortune is very rare.”


    “Pom’s right about the paradigm shift,” Enid nodded. “It depends how you look at things. Fingers crossed that our luck holds out.”


    As they crossed fingers, Scarlet thought, it all depends on whether the police can talk any sense into Ian.


    “What I know for certain,” Scarlet averred, “Is that your hotpot is perfection.”