I stood at his desk, bouncing a little on the balls of my feet as I handed the sheaf of paper across to him.
He didn’t glance up from the figures scrawled beneath his nose. “Hmm . . . morning, Emma. A little busy right now. What’s this?”
“My article, Mr. Millford.”
He still didn’t glance my way. “Was there a function last night?”
“No, Mr. Millford. I cracked the case, found Madame Devereaux’s murderer, and here—” I shook the paper to rattle it. “Here is my account of the whole affair.”
He peered up at me from over the rims of his spectacles. Furrows formed above his nose. “You did, eh?”
“I did, sir.”
“Hmmm . . .” He reached up and took the article between his middle and index fingers, as if afraid to grasp it fully. Several tense moments crawled by as he scanned my handwritten words. “Hmmm . . .”
“Well?” My voice rose a notch.
“Well, what?”
“Mr. Millford, you promised if I got the story you’d give me the headline. In my name,” I added, enunciating each word.
“I did, did I?”
“Mr. Millford, you know you did.” Despite the conviction of my claim, I wondered. The man often said things he later forgot, whether genuinely or conveniently. I held my breath as I waited.
Finally, he nodded. “All right, Emma. You’ll have your headline.”
“Oh, Mr. Millford, really?” Quickly realizing the stupidity of that question, I gathered what I could of my professional dignity, thanked him, and headed back home. The next morning, Sunday, I ran to greet the delivery boy halfway down my driveway.
“Good morning, Miss Cross.” He brought his bicycle to a halt and reached into the basket stuffed full of the day’s edition. As he handed it to me, he eyed my dressing gown and hastily pinned-up hair. “Something special in the paper today?”
“You bet there is, Peter. My first real headline.”
“Do tell.”
I shook the paper to unroll it, then stretched it open to unfurl my headline in all its bold-print glory.
BAILEY’S BEACH TO HOLD SWIMMING RELAY FOR CHARITY
“What?” I stared at the front page, but no matter how hard or how long I searched, my story simply wasn’t there. “I don’t understand. He promised . . .”
“Miss Cross?”
I lowered my hands, the paper crushed between them. “Nothing. Have . . . have a nice day, Peter.”
With that I turned and dragged my feet back up the drive. Inside, I shoved the paper into Nanny’s hands. “He broke his promise. Oh, damn that man!”
“Emma! A lady doesn’t speak that way. But which damn man broke his promise?”
I waved a hand in the air and walked mutely past her into the morning room. There, at the table, I sat absently stirring my spoon around in the porridge Katie set in front of me; I neither saw nor ate any of the sweet concoction of oats, honey, and raisins. My stomach pitched and rolled. My pulse points hammered away and my temples throbbed. How could Mr. Millford do this to me?
“Oh, Emma, look.” Nanny spread the newspaper open in the middle of the table. “Here’s your story. Your first real news article. How nice is that?”
I dropped my spoon into my bowl, raising a little splash, and jumped to my feet. Bending over the table, I frantically scanned the articles on the two open pages. Then I plunked back down into my chair, heartsick and furious.
“The middle of page four? He stuck it on page four? And judging by the size of it he must have edited out half of what I wrote. And the byline—E. Cross? Not Emma, but E? Oh, Nanny, this is so unfair. This is a travesty.”
Wallowing as deeply as I was in my misery, I didn’t at first notice that Nanny didn’t move to comfort me as she normally would have done. Instead, she stood silent and unmoving, her plump arms folded across her chest as she used to do when Brady or I had been naughty. When I finally glanced up at her, she caught my gaze with an uncommonly stern one and raised an eyebrow above the rim of her glasses.
“It is a start, Emma. A small triumph, but a triumph all the same. Now pick yourself up and start planning your next article, which, with any luck, will be on page three.”
Dear old Nanny.
As abruptly as I had entered my cousin’s world, I just as quickly made my exit. The Duke of Marlborough arrived in Newport in early September, along with a crisp wave of autumn air. I was not at Marble House to help welcome him. I wasn’t invited, nor had I expected or wished to be. I was, after all, merely a poor relation, as far beneath a duke’s notice as the servant who shined his shoes. Besides, I could not have smiled and pretended to be delighted for Consuelo’s good fortune. I could not have raised my glass to toast her impending nuptials.