Forbidden Pleasure

In the days that followed Emily worked as she had never worked before. Although the book was not due in until year's end, she had promised Devlin it would be there right after Thanksgiving. While Aaron Fischer had worked out the terms of her new contract with Stratford, J. P. Woods wanted to read The Defiant Duchess herself before she signed off on the money involved, which was almost double what Emily had been getting. Carol Stacy, the publisher of Romantic Times BOOKclub Magazine, had been pressing Emily on those terms and the advance to be paid in the new agreement, but Emily never discussed such things, even with friends like Savannah.

Thanksgiving was coming, and Emily always had a dinner party as her grandmother Emily O had had before her. There were a few more pages and an epilogue to write, but Emily put her work aside to prepare for the holiday. She went out to the local farm with Essie, and together they picked several pumpkins for pies, a half bushel of Mcintosh apples, another of mixed pears, both white and sweet potatoes, broccoli, two stalks of Brussels sprouts, carrots, beets, parsnips, a large bag of onions, and a couple of heads of cauliflower. Emily had a small root cellar where she would store the cold crops over the winter. She liked her veggies fresh, even if she did appear to be like Bree on Desperate Housewives sometimes.

Together she and Essie prepared the pumpkin filling for the pies. They cut up the apples for the apple pie. Emily made her Irish grandmother's poultry stuffing, using homemade bread crumbs, Bell's poultry seasoning, and onions and celery sauteed in butter. The turkey, all twenty-two pounds of it, was fresh from another local farm. Emily made the sweet-potato casserole with lots of butter, brown sugar, cinnamon, and maple syrup. She cut the broccoli into individual florets, and sliced the parsnips into small rounds. While she put the pies together Essie made up two guest rooms: one for Devlin and the other for Rachel Wainwright, who was coming from Connecticut. Rachel had come for Thanksgiving for over ten years now.

Devlin called, but not as often as she had hoped. She thought he sounded tired, and even distant. When he called two days before Thanksgiving to announce he would be in London for the next few days, Emily felt the tears coming. She hadn't seen him in several weeks, and it was not just the incredible sex she missed; it was Michael Devlin.

'Why not? What happened?' she asked, her voice choking.

'The woman who's been renting my house had a fire in the kitchen. It was Harrington's day off, and instead of using the electric kettle for her tea she turned on the gas. Then she got a phone call, forgot the kettle, the water boiled off, and the kitchen caught fire, the damned stupid cow!' He sighed. 'Jaysus, I miss you, angel face! What's for dinner besides the traditional Yankee turkey?'

'Parsnips.' Emily sniffed. 'I was making you parsnips.'

'Turkey and parsnips, huh? Is that strictly traditional?' he teased her. Oh, God, she was crying. Why was she crying?

'Turkey, stuffing, sweet-potato casserole, broccoli with Hollandaise, parsnips, apple and pumpkin pies,' she recited. 'Oh. Gravy, cranberry, rolls, butter.'

'I wish I were going to be there,' he said, genuine regret in his voice.

'Will you be home for Christmas, Devlin?' She was struggling not to sound weepy, but she did.

'I promise you that whatever happens, I will be home for Christmas, angel face,' he told her. 'And we will spend it together.'

'Will I see you before then?' Why did she sound so needy? Men didn't like needy women. Well, Trahern thought they did, but not in this time and place they didn't, she was sure. 'When will you be back, Devlin?' There, her voice was stronger.

'Probably not until just before Christmas,' he said. 'Martin wants the London office reorganized, and he's decided that since I ran it for five years, and I was here, now was as good a time as any. He's going to announce his semiretirement before the year's end.'

'Will you get his position?' she wondered aloud.

'I don't want it, and I've told him that in no uncertain terms. I'm an editor first and foremost, angel face. I like working with writers. Martin will still hover in the background enough to keep J.P. in line, but the truth is, she really deserves the post, and I've told her so. Haven't you noticed lately that her attitude toward me-toward you-has changed?'

'I haven't talked to J.P. in a couple of years,' Emily said. 'I hide behind Aaron.'

He chuckled. 'I'm going to go, Emily. It's past midnight here, and I'm exhausted. I just got into London yesterday. I apologize again for missing Thanksgiving.'

'It's your loss, Devlin,' she told him. 'Night.'

'Good night, angel face,' he said.

She cried after he hung up. Damn! Damn! Damn! Well, it wasn't as though she weren't going to have a tableful on Thanksgiving Day. And Rachel was arriving tomorrow. It would be fun seeing her old editor and catching up. Emily suddenly realized she hadn't spoken with Rachel since April, until two weeks ago, when she had called her and reminded her she was expected for Thanksgiving as usual.

***

Essie came Thanksgiving morning to help Emily get everything started. They had set the table together the day before. Now the turkey went into one oven, the apple and pumpkin pies into the other. The sweet-potato casserole came out of the freezer to defrost. By afternoon it would be ready to be heated. The broccoli was in the steamer waiting to be cooked, the parsnips in their pot.

'I'll be going now,' Essie said. 'Have a good day, Miss Emily.'

'You too, Essie. Happy Thanksgiving. I'll see you on Monday.'

'You don't need me tomorrow?' Essie asked.

'Go shopping like all the other crazy people,' Emily said with a smile.

The door closed behind Essie, and hearing Rachel Wainwright coming down the stairs, Emily pulled a pan of her sweet rolls from the warming oven. 'Morning, Rachel,' she said. 'I've got your sweet rolls and coffee.'

The two women sat down at the kitchen table and gossiped. Rachel's main concern was whether Emily was working well with Michael Devlin. She assured her former editor that she was. At four o'clock that afternoon Emily's other guests arrived: Rina and Dr. Sam, Aaron Fischer, and Kirkland Browne. They came in from the cold late afternoon sniffing appreciatively, greeting their hostess and Rachel Wainwright.

'Where's Mick?' Aaron immediately asked as Emily settled them in the living room before the roaring fire.

'Stuck in London,' Emily explained, and then told them of the conversation she had had with Devlin two nights ago.

'He always did enjoy London,' Rachel said. 'I doubt he's lonely. I have friends in the London office, and the stories they told me…!' She laughed. 'He's probably looked up a few of his birds, as he always called them. And no doubt they're happy to see him.'

Emily looked slightly stricken, but then, recovering, she said, 'Savannah told me a story of some girl who thought she had him roped and tied, and then he showed up at her birthday party with some model. There was a fight, and someone got shoved into the birthday cake.'

'Oh, yes, I recall that story. The model was Lady Soledad Gordon Brumell. She goes just by her first name. You've seen her. She's the model for Helena Cosmetics. Tall. Fair. Black hair and very blue eyes. And the disdainful look. Attitude, they call it today. In my day it was just plain sulkiness. They all seem to have that look nowadays.'

'Emily's new novel is going to be very big, Rachel,' Aaron Fischer said in an attempt to change the subject. 'They're going to release it simultaneously in England and the United States. And such promotion they've arranged for it. I haven't seen promotion like this since the early days of romance literature.'

'Like what?' Rachel wanted to know. She seemed pleased for Emily.

'Posters of the cover as giveaways. Floor and counter dumps with headers. Emily will be at BookExpo in New York in June for a big signing. They've got radio and television interviews scheduled. And Stratford is holding a raffle