Cathie Linz - A Wife In Time

www.millsandboon.co.uk

This book is dedicated to Desire Senior Editor Lucia Macro, with much thanks for letting me play in the nineteenth century!

And thanks go to Judy Ann Newton for the early encouragement, talented historical romance author Linda Wiatr for checking my research, and to the staff at Downers Grove Public Library for all the historical nonfiction interlibrary loans.

One

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Eight

Nine

Ten

Eleven

“Hey, you! Hold it right there! I want to talk to you!”

Susannah Hall ignored the loudly spoken order, certain it couldn’t possibly be directed at her. In fact, Susannah felt a bit sorry for the poor soul to whom it was directed, for the man’s command was driven by enough anger to fuel a fleet of jets for a week. A second later she dismissed the man and his anger from her thoughts. She had enough things to worry about.

Although Susannah had been an editor for almost five years now, this was her first time attending the huge American Publishing Convention, taking place in Savannah this year. Her recent promotion to senior editor at McPhearson Publishing meant that she was now expected to attend this bigger-than-life trade show.

From the moment she’d first walked into the convention center earlier that morning, she’d felt like a kid at the circus, surrounded by hype and hoopla. But now, midafternoon hunger pangs had forced her to leave McPhearson’s display booth in search of the convention center’s cafeteria.

“I said I want to talk to you!” the furious male voice repeated, this time from directly behind her.

Years of living in New York City had Susannah pivoting in her tracks, her huge purse automatically held at the ready should she need to use it in self-defense. The man and his anger were just a little too close for comfort.

He was tall, had dark ruffled hair, and he radiated fury. She’d never seen him before in her life.

Looking around, Susannah was reassured by the presence of the crowd despite the fact that, like water in a stream, the people simply flowed on around them, paying them little heed. But then this was a crowd in single-minded pursuit of the almighty buck, as millions of dollars’ worth of transactions were in progress at this convention.

Keeping a cautious grip on her large bag just in case, Susannah addressed the angry stranger. “Are you talking to me?” she demanded.

“Damn right, I’m talking to you,” the man confirmed with a growl.

“Shouting was actually closer to the truth,” Susannah noted frostily. “What seems to be the problem, Mr.—” She paused to read the name tag that everyone attending this convention was required to wear. Kane Wilder. The name fit, Susannah decided. The man’s behavior was certainly wilder than normal or acceptable. “What’s the problem, Mr. Wilder?”

“ You’re the problem,” Kane Wilder replied, openly glaring at her.

She frowned, unable to imagine what she could have done to have so irritated this man, a man she’d never even met before. “I have no idea what you’re talking about,” she told him bluntly.

“I’m talking about my brother, Chuck, and the fact that he’s threatened to leave his wife because of you.”

Stunned, Susannah blinked at Kane. “Excuse me?”

“No, I won’t excuse you. There’s no excuse for what you’ve done!”

“I think you’ve made a mistake of some kind, Mr. Wilder,” she began in a conciliatory tone of voice when he interrupted her.

“The only person who has made a mistake is you, Ms. Hall. You are Susannah Hall, right? Senior editor at McPhearson Publishing, right?”

“That’s right.”

“So now you’re pretending you don’t know my brother? Is that your game?”

“It’s no game, Mr. Wilder.”

“Playing bedroom games with a younger, married man is exactly the kind of cheap ploy a Mata Hari like you would play.”

Mata Hari? Her? Susannah didn’t know whether to be insulted or complimented. She couldn’t imagine anyone further from the image of a seductress. Her hair was too long and too curly, her figure too full. She knew her eyes and her thighs were both too big. Her taste in clothes was too romantic and soft, although the sky blue suit she wore now was pretty businesslike.

Everyone knew that Mata Hari types were slinky, confident and ruthless. Susannah was a passionate dreamer. The worst that could be said about her was she could be aloof. And when crossed she’d once been called a “tough cookie.”

But a Mata Hari? No way. The man was clearly off his rocker.

“My brother’s name is Chuck Wilder. Charles Wilder,” Kane continued as if speaking to a two-year-old. “Ring any bells or are you fooling around with so many men you’ve lost count?”

His last stinging comment didn’t really sink in as she focused on the first part of his statement. “Are you talking about Charles, the intern at my office?” Susannah had never paid attention to the young man’s surname before. He was just “Charles the Intern.” One of them, anyway. McPhearson had four at the present time.

“That’s right. And you’ve been teaching him plenty, haven’t you?” Kane noted caustically.

“Well, yes, that’s what he’s there for. To learn.”

“Would it have mattered to you if you had known he was married?” Kane demanded.

“Well, no, not really,” Susannah admitted. Although most of their interns were still single—and in their junior year of college—it wasn’t a requirement for entrance into the internship program.

“Listen, I’m only going to say this once,” he bit out. “Stay away from my brother.”

“A little hard to do since he works for me,” Susannah noted wryly.

“Then fire him.”

“I’ll do no such thing. Besides, he’s an intern. He can’t be fired. He’s not a paid employee. Look, I’m sorry to hear your brother is having marital difficulties, but I fail to see what that has to do with me.”

“Lady, you take the cake! You don’t think your having an affair with him might have something to do with his marital problems?”

“An affair?” Susannah repeated in astonishment. Now she knew Kane Wilder was off his rocker. “No way!” It was too ridiculous to even contemplate. Sure, she’d had lunch with Charles a few times, but that certainly didn’t qualify as an affair! There had never been a hint of any impropriety— Well, there was that one time in the copying room two weeks ago when he’d brushed up against her. At the time, she’d thought she’d been imagining things. Now she was quickly reassessing that conclusion.

It made Susannah very uneasy to think that Charles might have had a crush on her and she hadn’t even noticed. A crush so intense that he was threatening to leave his wife over it. Things like that didn’t happen to her, which was no doubt why she hadn’t recognized the signs earlier.

“Look, Mr. Wilder,” she began. “Your brother clearly has a problem—”

“Oh, sure, put the blame on him,” Kane retorted.

“He is the one who’s married,” she reminded him.

“And you’re the one who went after him—a much younger man.”

Stung, Susannah said, “He’s not that much younger!”

“You’re old enough to know better.”

“So is he. Not that anything happened, because it didn’t,” she quickly clarified before going on to bluntly say, “Your brother is lying if he told you that he’s having an affair with me.”