Read Online Too Much Too Soon by Jacqueline Briskin - Free Book Online

he said.
    “How?”
    “Beats me.”
    “Is it being English?”
    “You’re just different. Not like other girls.”
    “Is that good or bad?”
    “Bad, very. Honora, you’re up the creek unless you manage to find some pervert with a taste for classy females who are hopelessly altruistic—and have dark, velvety eyes with little lights behind them.”
    Warm with delight, she made her honest, routine disclaimer. “Crystal has the looks in our family.”
    “She’s stunning all right,” he said. “Me, I go for tall brunettes.”
    “Like Imogene Burdetts?” The overly candid question jumped from her lips.
    “Jealous?” The candlelight shone on his mocking grin.
    “Why should I be?”
    “Come on, Honora, we both know you’re mad about me.”
    In her inviolable security, she laughed. “True, true,” she said. “It’s your turn again. Are you ready to confess about those terrible rumors?” A frivolous question.
    His smile faded. “No truth at all,” he said. “I do assure you on the best authority that I am not the illegitimate scion of my boss.”
    Gideon? Curt? She knew her mouth had opened in surprise.
    “You hadn’t heard that bilgewater?” heasked.
    She shook her head.
    “I jumped in unnecessarily, didn’t I? It’s hardly a tale that a veddy, veddy proper Englishman takes home to his nubile fold.”
    She realized then that envy brewed ugly explanations for Curt’s success at Talbott’s and that this malice was as painful to him as her job was to her. The revelation that they shared similar mortal weaknesses brought a peculiar ache to her heart, and she reached out in consolation. When she touched the warm, hard flesh of the back of his hand, her fingers trembled. She withdrew hastily.
    He said, “First of all, Mr. Talbott—”
    “Why don’t you call him Gideon, like we do?”
    “He hasn’t made the request. I am not family. Repeat. I—am—not—family. Mr. Talbott is a man of rare and unique carnal rectitude—as opposed to me, Honora dear. To my knowledge he never cheated on that dreary woman, your aunt.”
    “You’re very fond of him, aren’t you?”
    “I am,” Curt said, crushing out his cigarette. “I ought to be.”
    “Why?”
    He stared at her somberly. “You should be very fond of him, too. There’s not many employers in this republic who’d put up with your father’s pathetic ritual snobbery.”
    She realized he was paying her back for what he considered prying, but how could she let the insult pass unanswered? “Daddy’s a wonderfuleditor,” she said with quiet intensity. “He’s not a snob. Not at all. He’s a gentleman.”
    “Gentleman? Is that a synonym for a guy who gets his back up at every little remark that hits him the wrong way?”
    Loyalty to her father stung her into opinions that sober she might have kept to herself. “And why do you think Gideon’s so wonderful? Being faithful to his wife? Decent men are. He’s pompous and conceited, he lords it over people, bossing them around. Good? Do you consider it good or generous or kind to leave your family out in the cold?”
    “I gather what you’re saying incoherently is that it isn’t enough for Mr. Talbott to employ your father, who though a wonderful editor and etcetera, has a tendency to take off an extra hour for lunch and then show up smelling of booze. You believe that it’s Mr. Talbott’s duty to shower the lovely Sylvander sisters with all the luxuries their father cannot provide.”
    His vehemence had blown out the candle. While he struck a match to relight it, Honora stared down at her glass.
    Curt said quietly, “Now we each know where our loyalties lie, don’t we?”
    “I suppose,” she said listlessly.
    “Make you a deal. You lay off Mr. Talbott and I won’t attack your father, who incidentally doesn’t have a mean bone in his body.” He raised his hand again for the waiter. “What we need is another drink.”
    The third drink restored her. Now they were no longer bantering,