God, she’d forgotten how utterly outrageous he was. Time to wrestle this conversation back under her control. “Mr. Clark,” she said as sternly as she could manage, “never tell me that you’re doing that again.”
“Which of my myriad flaws is making you uneasy, Miss Marshall?” He gave her a long, slow smile. “Is it my arrogant conceit or my wicked sense of humor?”
“Neither,” Free answered. “I rather like both of those. It’s just that you’re trying to use my attraction to you to set me on edge.” She smiled at him. “It won’t work. I’ve been attracted to you since the moment I laid eyes on you, and it hasn’t made me stupid once.”
He froze, his hand on the edge of her desk.
“Did you expect me to deny it?” Free shrugged as complacently as she could. “You should read more of my newspaper. I published an excellent essay by Josephine Butler on this very subject. Men use sexuality as a tool to shut up women. We are not allowed to speak on matters that touch on sexual intercourse—even if they concern our own bodies and our own freedom—for fear of being labeled indelicate. Any time a man wishes to scare a woman into submission, he need only add the question of sexual attraction, leaving the virtuous woman with no choice but to blush and fall silent. You should know, Mr. Clark, that I don’t intend to fall silent. I have already been labeled indelicate; there is nothing you can add to that chorus.”
His mouth had dropped open on sexuality; it opened wider on intercourse, and wider still on attraction.
“I’ve found,” Free said, “although Mrs. Butler would hardly agree, that the best way to deal with the tactic is to speak of sexual attraction in terms of clear, unquestionable facts. The same men who try to make me feel uneasy by hinting at an attraction can never live up to their own innuendos. Once I show that I will not be cowed, that facts are facts and I will not hide from them, they’re always the ones who blush and fall silent.”
“I’ve mentioned before that I’m not like the rest of them.” He shifted on her desk, turning to face her. “I have only fallen silent because listening to you admit an attraction to me is far more pleasant than speaking myself.” He gestured. “Please continue on. What else do you like about me?”
There was something about him that made her feel daring.
“Alas,” Free said briskly. “There’s nothing more. I’ve run through all the praise I can muster. You have an admittedly splendid physique, but it is unfortunately wasted on a man burdened with your abysmal personality.”
He laughed at that. “Brava, Miss Marshall. That is my besetting sin, is it not?”
He was the only man she’d ever met who was stymied by compliments and yet accepted her worst insults as his due.
“So you see,” Free said, “we’re all better off if we can just admit these things without putting too much significance on the matter. Let’s skip that rigmarole and get down to business. Why are you here, Mr. Clark?”
“Does anyone ever get the best of you?”
“Yes,” she returned, “but only when I choose to give it to them.”
“Ah.”
“Now, tell me, Mr. Clark. Did you come here to allow me the chance to once again demonstrate my intellectual superiority, or did you have some actual business?”
“You don’t need to demonstrate your superiority to me. I take it as a given on all fronts.” He reached into his coat, removed a notebook, and began to flip through it.
He was arrogant. And conceited. And yet… He had never denied her credit for any thought she’d had. It was hard to remind herself that she didn’t dare like him.
He creased the spine of his notebook. “I’ve not been idle these last weeks. I’ve been doing some work on your behalf. Here we are. I introduced myself to Mr. Calledon, owner of the Portsmouth Herald, and asked him how he came to write that extraordinary column mirroring yours.”
“And he simply told you?”
“After that glowing letter of reference I gave him from his former mentor at the London Times? Of course he did, Miss Marshall. He practically fell over himself to do so.”
Free raised an eyebrow. “Somehow, I suspect that his former mentor wrote no such letter.”
He winked at her. “And yet if you showed it to him, he’d find the writing so achingly familiar that he’d be hard-pressed to disavow it. I am good.”
“Bad,” she corrected. “We might recall, from time to time, that forgery is generally not accounted good.”
His smile widened. “Then I am excellent at being bad. In any event, Calledon admitted that he had been paid a sum to run the article. The text was provided by a solicitor shortly before press time. I even managed to obtain this.”
He took a folded piece of paper from his notebook and set it before her.
She unfolded it. It was a typewritten page containing the text of an article. Free recognized it as her own. A handwritten note atop offered it with the sender’s compliments.
Free narrowed her eyes. “Is that real?”
He shrugged. “Real enough that the participants themselves wouldn’t know the difference. With this in hand, we could, ah…convince Calledon to publicly admit that he’d copied you. Surely you can see the benefit in that. But then, perhaps you’re too good to put pressure on others.”
“Mr. Clark.” Free almost wanted to laugh. “Do you suppose I had myself committed to a hospital for prostitutes afflicted with venereal disease by telling everyone the truth all the time? Sometimes, the truth needs a little assistance.”
He smiled in satisfaction. “Precisely. No wonder we get along so well, Miss Marshall.”
“So is that what you’ve been doing all this time?”
He flipped the page back. “You must think me the most inefficient fellow. Here’s Lorring of the Charingford Times.” He held up another bit of paper. “Chandley of the Manchester Star.” Yet another note. “Peters from the Edinburgh Review. Have I impressed you yet, Miss Marshall? I may have an abysmal personality, but I do have my advantages.”
“I’ll grant you that.” She leaned forward, thinking about those bits of paper he’d showed her. She could use them—but at this point, nobody had yet noticed the duplications. Was it better to point them out herself and thus forestall the inevitable story? If she did, she might lose all chance at catching her enemy publicly. And without proof of a motive, the copying might seem a mere childish prank.