Love By Proxy

“Didn’t you look at the sign?”

He handed her the paper. She looked. There on the marquis was “Chez Pierre.”

She felt faint. But she was made of sturdy stuff. During the Civil War one of her great-grandmothers had held off a company of Yankees for two days until help arrived to vanquish them. Amelia stood erect.

“Andy was at home with his mother,” she said.

“Yes, I know. I hadn’t expected him to come into the office, and he didn’t call me until last night. I didn’t have time to warn you.”

She was still staring blankly at him. “I got arrested. They took me to jail. They booked me. I was fingerprinted. They thought I was naked. I told them I wasn’t, but they wouldn’t listen. They locked me up!” Her eyes got wilder as she went along. “My father subscribes to this paper.” She held it up. “He likes to know what’s going on in the city where his daughter lives.” She stared down at the newspaper. “What a shock this will be. I’ve never even worn shorts downtown back home.”

He couldn’t help it. He laughed. That only made it worse. She flung the paper on the floor while the elderly butler tried diligently to keep a straight face.

“Mr. Callahan called me this morning. He fired me. Now I’ll have to go back home. The people in the post office will see that paper, and so will the mail carrier, and the mail carrier will tell his wife, and she’ll tell the ladies at church….” Her lower lip trembled as tears threatened. “I hate you. And I made Marla get your address from Andy so that I could come here and tell you how much I hate you. I hope your Rolls Royce rusts!”

She turned around and started out the door, just as a quavering voice asked, “Who is that, Worth?”

The voice was of someone the butler’s age, but feminine. Through tears, Amelia saw a tiny old woman moving into the hall from the room on the other side of the house. She could hardly walk; her gnarled hands were on a padded walker. She stood just inside the hall and looked for all the world like a cuddly toy. She smiled, brightening her blue eyes and her pale, wrinkled complexion.

“Hello,” she said softly.

“H-hello,” Amelia said, and even managed a watery smile.

“I couldn’t help hearing,” the older woman apologized. “Worth hardly ever guffaws like that; it woke me from my nap. Are you the young lady he was bellowing about last night? You don’t look like a belly dancer.”

“Actually, I’m a retired ax murderer,” Amelia said with a cold glare at Wentworth Carson. “Just recently retired.”

“Thank goodness, I’m sure I wouldn’t enjoy being murdered. Do you drink tea, my dear?”

“Grandmother, I’m sure Miss Glenn has packing to do,” the big man said, as if the prospect of having her out of the city delighted him.

Amelia glared at him. “I like tea.”

“Then do come and have a cup with me,” the old woman said. “I’m Jeanette Carson. Worth is my grandson.”

“How lovely for you,” Amelia said. She gave Worth a glance and followed the little old lady into the elegance of rosewood and silk furniture and immaculate white carpeting. “My name is Amelia Glenn.”

“I’m very pleased to meet you, my dear. I adore white, as you see. Impractical, but so lovely,” Jeanette Carson said. She eased down on the sofa in front of a long, polished coffee table, and rang a bell. A young woman in uniform appeared and was told to bring tea.

“That was Carolyn,” Jeanette said. “Worth hasn’t run her off yet, but I do believe he’s giving it his best. He prefers to have me surrounded with men here. He’s sure I can get around women, but he believes that men can handle me. Ha!” She laughed. Her wrinkled face drew up indignantly. She sighed. “Anyway, he never brings young ladies home these days. I was simply shocked when he mentioned you. I didn’t know about you, you see.”

“Oh, Worth and I are great friends,” she said, smiling poisonously at the big man who joined them. “Aren’t we?”

He stared at her. “You and I, friends? God forbid!”

“Don’t you worry, we will be. You’ll get used to me, you lucky man,” she added with a cold smile.

“You brought your troubles on yourself, Miss Glenn,” he said. He sat down, hitching up his pants. “You should take some spelling courses.”

She glared at him. “If it hadn’t been for you, I wouldn’t have gone to the restaurant in the first place.”

“You started it,” he reminded her. He leaned back in his chair and smiled at her challengingly.

“I do seem to have missed something,” Jeanette broke in, glancing from one to the other.

“Lucky you.” Amelia smiled.

“Miss Glenn was arrested in the early hours for—” he paused for effect “—flashing, wasn’t it?”

She glared at him. “I was arrested for wearing a belly dancing costume under a trench coat,” she told the elderly woman, “at Wentworth’s instructions.”

Jeanette gasped as she stared at her grandson. “You sent this young woman to an elegant French restaurant in a belly dancing costume?”

His dark eyes narrowed at Amelia. “She came waltzing into my office wearing it, sang me a birthday song and kissed me.”

Jeanette leaned forward. “Don’t be ridiculous, Worth, it isn’t your birthday.”

“I know that!” he burst out. “It was a practical joke one of my employees played on me. Almost,” he added darkly, “an ex-employee.”

“Now, now, Wentworth, you wouldn’t really fire him?” Amelia taunted.

“Worth,” he said irritably. “No one calls me Wentworth.”

“I can think up some better names,” Amelia said sweetly. “Perhaps you’d like to hear them, at length, some other time?”

“That isn’t likely,” he said firmly. “You’ll be out of town.”

“Out of town?” Jeanette frowned. “Why?”

“She lost her job,” Wentworth Carson said.

“Then, dear, you must give her another one,” Jeanette said. “It’s the least you can do, since it’s your fault she lost it.”

“It is not my fault,” he said. “And I don’t have a job to give her,” he added smugly, “there are no vacancies.”

“In that case, she can work for me,” Jeanette said haughtily. “I need a social secretary. Someone to fetch and carry and help me get around town. God knows, you’re never here in the daytime.”

Worth sat up straight, as if he didn’t believe what he was hearing. “Social secretary?”

“Yes,” Jeanette said. She gave him a dogged glare, and the resemblance between the two of them was so noticeable that Amelia almost smiled.

He glared at Amelia.

“I didn’t come here looking for a job,” she said in all honesty to Jeanette. “I only came to kill your grandson.”

“Too messy on white carpet,” Jeanette said, shrugging it off and smiling as Carolyn brought in the big silver tea service. “Work for me instead. You can even live in, if you like.”

“Hell, no,” Worth said quietly.