When Robbie didn’t join the family for breakfast, Gavin went up to her room. He knocked, and when he got no answer, he opened the door. The room was empty. He noticed that all around the wastebasket were crumpled sheets of paper. He bent and picked one up, smoothed it out, and studied the script. He picked up another.
Miss Sallie Wiggins and Lady Perlina. An image popped into his head. Weren’t they two characters from…? When reality set in, he slowly picked up the rest of the papers and read them.
Why would Robbie…was this her writing job? The one she had been so vague about? He certainly wasn’t a prude, but—Robbie? Writing smut? He couldn’t wrap his mind around the idea.
He stepped from her room and ran squarely into Colin, who saw the papers in his hands.
“So, you’ve figured it out, have you?”
Still confused, Gavin asked, “What do you know about this?”
Colin took his arm and steered him back into Robbie’s room. “I didn’t know anything about it until last night, when I took a letter that Robbie had thought she mailed from your friend, Faith Baker. She was going to show it to you to make sure you ended your marriage because of it.”
“But why is Robbie writing this?”
“I could tell you, but I think she should tell you herself.”
“No. You tell me, and tell me now.” Although he sounded demanding, Gavin had never felt so powerless.
“All right, I will, if only to keep you from having a stroke,” Colin said.
Colin shared what Robbie had told him the night before. Gavin’s first question was, “Why didn’t she tell me?”
Colin snuffled a snort. “And admit to you that the only way she could survive in Edinburgh was to write smut? How would you have reacted if she had approached it that way?”
Gavin turned back to his friend. “I don’t know. I don’t understand how she could write this stuff. She was still a vir—” He stopped, embarrassed that the word nearly slipped out.
“That should tell you something, Gavin. It wasn’t as if she was experiencing it; she was merely using the words her mentor had used for the same twaddle. And we both know we’ve read all of it ourselves.”
“But, Robbie. My wife.”
“You’re more concerned about that than you are about the fact that Faith wanted to break up your marriage so she could have you for herself? Don’t try to deny it; she admitted it to me last night.”
Gavin sank onto a tufted velvet settee and picked up a little ball meant for the dog. “Am I that naïve, Colin? Do I see only what I want to see in people?”
“Yes.”
“It’s who I am. And I prefer to see the best in others.”
“That’s fine. Just listen when more than one other person begs to differ with your opinons. You know more about the ancient world than any man alive, but you still have a lot to learn about life.”
Just then the pup came bounding into the room, Robbie not far behind. She stopped and stared. “What are you two doing in my room?” When she saw the papers all smoothed out on the writing table, she moaned, “Oh God,” and covered her face with her hands.
Both men went toward her. “Robbie—” they said in unison.
Her eyes blazing, she pointed to the door. “Out. Both of you, please just get out.”
She’d known it would happen sometime. But even so, she wasn’t prepared. All the excuses and reasons in the world that she made for having to write smut didn’t seem to be enough to keep her from feeling unclean. She shut the door behind them and leaned against it, her eyes closed, her heart pounding hard against her ribcage.
Now what? Her secret was out. The jig was up. Would she end up back in Edinburgh anyway? Gavin would have a perfect right to divorce her, or at the very least ask for an annulment. And she couldn’t blame him.
She glanced around the fine room, taking mental pictures of the lovely things she had use of for such a short time. All fairy tales don’t end happily, do they? She feared this one wouldn’t.
Gavin’s family was leaving tomorrow. Robbie wondered if she could avoid them altogether. She also wondered if Gavin would have gone right downstairs and told them what he’d just learned about his wife. Morbid embarrassment. Far worse than being booted from her shabby room at the rooming house. That was a piece of cake compared to this!
She went to the window and looked out onto the fading summer garden, memorizing each and every flower and shrub. She must begin packing. She glanced at her bulging wardrobe. What in the devil (sorry, Papa) would she do with all of the gowns, capes, hats, and geegaws that seemed necessary for a country estate’s mistress? Leave them? She certainly would have no use for most of them back in Edinburgh. And that was where she would go, wasn’t it?
She dragged out her battered valise and began folding necessities, like her underthings, into it. She fingered a finely spun cotton corset cover with a pink grosgrain ribbon threaded through the bodice. She certainly thought she was something, didn’t she? As if fine underwear and fancy gowns made her something other than what she really was. A poor—but educated, she reminded herself—purveyer of pornographic passion and verbal vomit. Oh, she was a fine example of “the lady” of an estate. Hogwash.
A knock at the door startled her. She tossed the camisole cover into the valise and opened the door. “May I come in?” Gavin sounded tentative.
She turned away and walked toward the window, looking out at the garden.
“Robbie, just explain it to me.” He closed the door behind him. “Explain why this was the only means of making a living.”
She whirled around, angry. “Do you think it’s what I wanted to do? Don’t you think if I could have sold beautiful fiction or children’s stories, I would have? I have tablets of stories I have written that no one seems to want to publish. And Colin asks, all innocently, if he’s looking at the next Brontë sister. Ha!”
“But couldn’t you have done something else?”
She rounded on him. “Like what? Clean up after the ill at the poor house? Oh, don’t think I wasn’t tempted. But whatever you think I am, Gavin, I am a writer. And a writer writes because she must, even if it doesn’t pay well. And if she is fortunate enough to find a writing job that pays something, she grabs it before someone else can, because believe me, someone else as needy and eager as she is, will.”
He was quiet for so long, she finally said, “I’ll pack up as soon as your family leaves.”
“You’ll pack up?” He raised an eyebrow at her. “And go where, may I ask?”
“Well, thanks to Colin, and no thanks to your friend, Miss Baker, I still have a job, and even though it isn’t decent or noble or proper, it pays something.”
He took a turn around the room. “Don’t be a fool.”
“Oh, now I’m not only a smut peddler, I’m also a fool.”
“Robbie!”
His voice was so harsh she nearly stumbled backward. She had never heard him raise his voice to anyone, much less her. He hadn’t even scolded her pup when it had an accident on the morning room carpet.
“I don’t want you to leave,” he said.
“Why would you want me to stay?”
“Because I like having you here. I want you here, with me.”
“Even though I peddle smut?”
“Stop saying that. I do understand why you did it. But I don’t want you to do it anymore.”
She sat down on the bed. “Just like that?” She snapped her fingers. “What about the pieces I owe them?”
“If, as you say, there are all these would-be writers roaming the streets Edinburgh, I’m sure the editors, if that’s what they call themselves, won’t have any trouble filling your position.”
This was all so baffling. “What am I to do with myself, then?”
“I want you to write what you have always wanted to write.”
She stood there, taking in his words, with her mouth hanging open. Then she bounded off the bed and threw herself at him. “Oh, Gavin, thank you, thank you!” Tears rolled down her cheeks and off her chin. “I’m getting your shirt wet.”
“Now,” he said, “my family is probably wondering what’s going on up here. I’ll leave it to you to decide whether or not to tell them about—”
“No. I’m putting it behind me, Gavin. Let’s start fresh.”