Arabella looked from father to daughter, Emma appearing stubbornly determined in the face of her father’s anger. But it was to Robert Merlin that Arabella turned her full attention. She couldn’t have heard Emma properly.
He couldn’t possibly be thinking of killing off Palfrey!
CHAPTER THREE
‘WELL, Miss Atherton?’ Robert Merlin looked at her challengingly across the width of his desk. ‘Do you have something to say on the subject, too?’
Something to say? If it was true, she certainly did have something to say!
‘You can’t be serious!’ was all she could manage at the moment. He couldn’t—could he...?
His blue eyes remained flinty as his gaze raked across the shock that was so evident on her face. ‘I thought I was the “wonderful writing talent”, Miss Atherton?’ he finally drawled.
‘Y-you are.’ She spluttered the confirmation of her earlier statement. ‘But—’
‘Is there a “but”, Miss Atherton?’ he cut in with quiet intensity.
The way he kept so pointedly calling her ‘Miss Atherton’ was beginning to grate on her already frayed nerves. Of course there was a ‘but’; the Palfrey series of books were the most popular to appear on the market for some time—and Robert Merlin appeared to be about to kill off his hero!
‘Emma.’ The author turned to his daughter with raised brows as she watched the exchange with obvious enjoyment. ‘Don’t you have some homework you should be getting on with?’
‘I—’
‘Or something?’ he added determinedly, making it obvious he felt she had said enough for one day.
‘Not really,’ she replied, unabashed, obviously completely secure in her relationship with her father.
‘Then I suggest you go and find something,’ he told her bluntly, obviously just as secure in his relationship with her!
Emma stood up with a fluidity that would become graceful elegance as she got older. ‘OK,’ she accepted good-naturedly. ‘I’ll see you at dinner,’ she told Arabella lightly, frowning as she saw the regretful look on her face. ‘Daddy!’ She looked at him incredulously. ‘You have invited Miss Atherton to dinner?’ She sounded shocked at the possibility that he might not have done so.
And Robert Merlin looked far from pleased at that censorious look. ‘I—’
‘You can’t possibly expect Miss Atherton to drive all the way back to London without even feeding her,’ the young girl admonished him. ‘After all, she came all this way just to see you.’
Arabella could see that not only did Robert Merlin not expect to have to feed her, but that he had no intention of doing so!
Again she had to admit that his response at meeting his editor wasn’t the usual one; most of her authors were only too pleased to have personal interest shown in them. But then, Robert Merlin wasn’t like any other author she dealt with!
He gave an impatient sigh. ‘I hadn’t been talking to Miss Atherton long enough—before your interruption! —to have the chance to make a dinner invitation,’ he snapped pointedly.
Emma again looked completely undaunted by her father’s abrupt behaviour. ‘Well, make one now, and then tell Stella we have one extra for dinner.’ She gave him a cheeky grin.
Two sets of deep blue eyes warred for several long seconds before Robert Merlin broke the battle of wills with another irritated sigh, and turned impatiently towards Arabella. ‘You’ll stay to dinner?’ he said harshly.
It was far from the most gracious invitation she had ever received, and if she had any sense she would turn it down. But on a professional level she knew she couldn’t do that, knew she had to at least try to persuade Robert Merlin that he was committing professional suicide by killing off his main character, Palfrey. She doubted very much that he could create another series that the public would take so much to their hearts. Or she to her own!
‘Thank you,’ she accepted, just as stiltedly.
He turned to his daughter. ‘Satisfied?’ he rasped irritably.
‘Of course.’ Emma grinned, moving to kiss him lightly on the cheek. ‘I’ll see you both later, then,’ she added with satisfaction.
Arabella was still too stunned by the news that Merlin was considering killing off Palfrey to respond to Emma’s conspiratorial wink as she left the study.
‘I apologise for my daughter,’ Robert Merlin murmured distantly. ‘She can be over-familiar at times.’
‘Unlike her father,’ Arabella replied without thinking, colour darkening her cheeks as Robert Merlin raised dark blond brows. ‘I’m only stating the obvious, Mr Merlin,’ she added awkwardly, although she had a feeling it was too late to worry about offending this man; he was so prickly, it was impossible not to offend him.
‘Unlike her father,’ he conceded dryly, looking at her with renewed interest, as if—unlike everyone else in this household!—he had just realised she was a woman.
Arabella felt her cheeks grow hot under that intense scrutiny, suddenly aware again of her own appearance—of how businesslike her clothes were, of her hair secured at the nape of her neck, and the glasses perched on the end of her nose. She wished she were blonde and stunningly attractive, and had the sort of body men looked at. But she wasn’t, and she didn’t have, and perhaps that was why she was still unmarried at twenty-seven...!
‘I’m sorry.’ She broke his gaze awkwardly. ‘That was extremely rude of me.’
‘Yes, it was,’ he acknowledged slowly. ‘But it was also honest.’
She shrugged. ‘I’m always honest, Mr Merlin—’
‘Robert,’ he put in mockingly. “The formality is ridiculous in the circumstances.’
She couldn’t have agreed more. But she had had the impression that formality was what he preferred. ‘And, as you know, I’m Arabella,’ she invited stiltedly.
He relaxed back in his chair. ‘As Stella remarked earlier, it’s a fitting name for one of Palfrey’s ladies.’
In view of the fact that in her mind he had become Palfrey, was the living image of him, that was a very unnerving thing for him to say. ‘If what Emma was saying earlier is correct, then there aren’t going to be any more Palfrey ladies.’ She turned the subject away from the disturbing thought of herself as Robert Merlin’s ‘lady’; the man, by the mere evidence of Emma’s existence, was married, for goodness’ sake.
He visibly bristled. ‘As well as being over-familiar, my daughter is also indiscreet!’
. ‘But also truthful?’ Arabella prompted guardedly; after all, he hadn’t actually confirmed yet that he intended killing off Palfrey.
‘Yes,’ he rasped.
The baldness of the statement was enough to tell her he really meant it; he was going to kill Palfrey! She couldn’t believe it; she felt as if she had just been told that someone she loved was about to die.
‘They must be traits she inherited from her mother,’ Arabella murmured distractedly.
‘Let’s leave Emma’s mother out of this!’ Robert Merlin was no longer relaxed in his chair; his whole body was rigid with tension as he sat forward, his mouth set in a grim line.
That she had touched on a sensitive subject was obvious. Perhaps there was no Mrs Merlin after all; divorce, unfortunately, was all too common nowadays, and Robert Merlin wouldn’t be the first man to have claimed custody of the children from a marriage. But that Emma’s mother had been beautiful could be in no doubt either. Emma’s colouring