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Maggie By the Book
By Kasey Michaels
Kensington Books
ISBN: 1-57566-881-5
Chapter One
I can't do this, I can't do this, I can't do this!
Maggie Kelly dropped her hands into her lap and let herself collapse forward,
until her forehead hit the desktop, then she began rhythmically banging that forehead
against the wood.
I can't do this, I can't do this, Icannotfreakingdothis!
Maggie was sitting at her nifty corner desk with the wings on either side of it-all that
space meant to hold notes neatly and keep her life organized ... and all of it cluttered with
candy wrappers, ash trays and, most recently, a half-eaten tuna sub sandwich from
Mario's Deli down the block.
Her desk lamp was faux brass with a plastic green shade that was supposed to look like
glass. The whole lamp was supposed to look expensive. It looked ... dusty. It also had a
crack in the plastic, that had been there when Maggie first pulled the lamp from its box,
but returning the thing would have been too much hassle for someone as busy as
Maggie. It had nothing to do with lighting with some accusing salesperson about how the
thing got broken in the first place. Nothing at all. Really.
Her computer, the one with the pink and blue flowers on it, was supposed to be
overheating as Maggie typed verbal pearls onto the screen. It looked ... blank. In fact, the
only "writing" on the computer at all was a yellow Post-It note stuck to one side, scribbled
with the words: "Yesterday, Mr. Hall wrote that the printer's proofreader was improving my
punctuation for me, and I telegraphed orders to have him shot without giving him time to
pray. Mark Twain."
Seated in a huge brown leather desk chair, perched rather on the edge of it, and with her
head still resting on the desktop, Maggie Kelly was having a crisis.
A crisis of epic proportions.
Her goal for the day was to write Chapter Ten of her latest Saint Just mystery. The
dreaded Chapter Ten. Sometimes, so reluctant was she to write Chapter Ten that
Chapter Ten became, in fact, Chapter Twelve, because she kept writing around and
about and trying never to get to Chapter Ten.
But here it was. Staring her in the face. Chapter Ten of The Case of the Disappearing
Dandy ... and the dreaded love scene.
"Whimper," Maggie said, lifting her head slightly and staring at the only two words on the
screen: CHAPTER TEN.
She said "whimper" because she didn't know how to actually write anything that sounded
like a whimper. Because she couldn't spell the sound that would normally come from her
mouth at a time like this, she said "whimper." Just as, if she were a dog, she'd say "bark,"
because who could actually spell a bark? Sure, there was always arf, but that was so
lame. Much better to say "bark." Or "whimper."
It made sense to Maggie ... and she was digressing. She knew she was digressing, which
was writer-speak for stalling.
Yes, Maggie Kelly is a writer. Being a rather punctilious sort, she would say was a writer,
because she wasn't doing anything looking even remotely like writing this morning.
And it was all Saint Just's fault, damn him.
Once, Maggie had been Alicia Tate Evans, historical romance author. That had turned
out to be pretty much a midlist bust (translation: lousy sales), so she'd reinvented herself,
become Cleo Dooley, historical mystery writer. She'd tried the three-names ploy that
worked so well for some romance authors, and then opted for O's, because, to Maggie,
O's looked great on a book cover, and she had been looking for any edge she could find.
It's a cutthroat world, the world of romance writing. The world of writing, period.
She'd created Alexandre Blake, the Viscount Saint Just, and he'd been one hell of a
creation. Her hero. Her perfect man.
Eyes: Paul Newman blue.
Winglike, expressive eyebrows: Jim Carrey.
Full, luscious, almost sneering lips: Val Kilmer in Tombstone.
Aristocratic nose: Peter O'Toole.
General all-over face and body: a young Clint Eastwood, he of the spaghetti westerns.
Give that man a cheroot and hear him say "Who's your huckleberry?" in-what else?-Sean
Connery's James Bond voice.
Handsome as sin, witty, urbane, sarcastic and sensual.
Can we all say New York Times Bestseller List?
And this was good. This was very good ... until the day just three short months ago, when
Maggie had turned around to see her creation standing them, smack in the middle of her
living room.
She'd made him real enough to materialize, he'd said. He'd come to help her with a plot
problem in her last book, he'd said, and then stayed to help solve a murder ... and he was
still here, both Saint Just and his partner in crime-solving, Sterling Balder.
And now Maggie was facing the dreaded Chapter Ten ... with her handsome, yummy,
perfect hunk living in her guest room, leaving the cap off the toothpaste, running up her
charge cards, and still playing the aristocratic, autocratic, to-die-for handsome Regency
hero, for crying out loud.
Writing Tab A into Slot B scenes was bad enough, without the owner of Tab A not just
visible in her mind, but running tame in her living room, 24-7.
Maggie sat up straighter, rubbed her palms together, and placed her fingers on the
keyboard. She was a professional. She could do this. She had a deadline. She had to do
this.
She moved her right hand to the mouse, checked back a few pages, to the lead-in that
ended the last chapter.
"You know, Saint Just," Lady Sarah purred, sliding her hands down over his lapels as she
stepped even closer. "I sometimes dream about you."
Maggie stifled a sigh. "Oh yeah. I hear you, Sarah baby, and I understand. Believe me, I
un-der-stand."
"Happy dreams, my lady, I most sincerely hope," Saint Just said, placing his hands over
hers, then lifting them, one after the other, to place a kiss on each of her palms. "Your
husband, ma'am?"
"Oh, Saint Just, forget him. Just hold me. I ache ..."
"Now here's a thought. Perhaps you might wish to cast your dear husband in the role of
physician? Where is he, by the way? I probably should have asked that before accepting
your kind invitation this evening. I don't much fancy climbing down a drain pipe to escape
the man. Perhaps I should go."
Lady Sarah winced at Saint Just's words.
He'd kissed Maggie's palm, that first day. She took hold of the collar of her T-shirt, and
sort of fanned herself with it. "Oh, sweetie, I feel your pain."
"He's in Berkshire," Lady Sarah continued, then licked her top lip with the tip of her
tongue. "Hunting, he says. Drinking, that's more like it. Drinking, and wenching."
"Leaving his adoring-no, adorable wife here in London, to pine away, all by herself?. The
cad."
"The cad? And you said it with a straight face? Oh, you're enjoying yourself, aren't you,
Saint Just. You rotter," Maggie told the computer screen. "Always the man with two
agendas."
Cad indeed, Saint Just thought. The Earl wasn't in Berkshire. He felt certain of that. Just
as he was certain that the Earl, and the man's good chums, Levitt and Sir Gregory, were
with him, the trio planning yet another murder. He had been pursuing the gang of
murderers for months, and all roads had eventually led to the Earl.
Now all he needed was some proof. Because Sterling was the trio's logical next target,
and they had to be stopped. Stopped, yes, but first they had to be found.
Saint Just looked past Lady Sarah's head, toward the
open door to the Earl's private study. Ten minutes,
that's all he'd need. Just ten minutes alone, in that
study.
"Saint Just?" Lady Sarah said, rubbing herself against him, like a cat begging for
attention. "I've dismissed the servants for the night. We won't ... we won't be disturbed."
"Oh, how sickeningly coy. The bitch," Maggie whispered. "Not that I'm jealous." She sat
back, lifted her hair away from her nape. "Is it hot in here?"
"How ... anticipatory of you, my dear," Saint Just drawled, with one last look toward the
study, then glanced at the tall clock in the corner of the foyer. Two o'clock. With any luck,
he'd be in the study by four. He smiled down at the blond-haired vixen, a woman in heat if
he'd ever seen one. Yes, two hours. Perhaps three. No need to rush. "I say, are you by
any chance trying to seduce me, ma'am?"
"Oh no. No, no, no. Where was my head when I wrote that? Too The Graduate," Maggie
said, striking out that last sentence. "Too here's-to-you-Mrs.-Robinson."
Her fingers flew over the keyboard. "I say, my dear, would your bedchamber be on the left
or the right of the stairs?"
Maggie sat back, lit a cigarette. Better. That was better. That was also the last line of
Chapter Nine, damn it. She couldn't stall anymore.
She scrolled down to the next page, placed the cursor on the line below the chapter
heading. Took a deep breath, closed her eyes, and began:
She was no shy virgin. Saint Just wouldn't have been within ten miles of her, had she
been a virgin.
Lady Sarah was a harlot with a title. A hot-blooded woman with appetites that had been
whispered about in the clubs, hinted at, smiled over, and sworn to by at least one peer
deep in his cups and too talkative for his own good.
Ask Evan Fleming, if you could find him. Except that Fleming, minus one of his ears, was now
reportedly living on the continent, safely away from the Earl and his sword.
Had Fleming's sacrifice been worth it? Was an evening spent with the adventurous Lady
Sarah worth the loss of an ear, or worse?
"Stalling, stalling," Maggie nagged at herself. "Get with it now." She sighed, plunged on.
Well, someone was going to be plunging ...
Saint Just, braced against the headboard of the large four-poster, watched Lady Sarah's
long blond hair shimmering in the candlelight, shimmering against the skin of his bare
belly as she bent over him, wrapped her mouth around his-
"Good gracious, woman. I see I'm having an interesting morning."
"Jesus H. Christ, Alex! Get away from me!" Maggie yelled, quickly covering the screen
with both hands. Her heart was pounding hard in her throat. "Damn it! Wear shoes, will
you, huh? Or stomp. Something?"
Saint Just remained where he was, which was directly behind Maggie. He was dressed
in khaki slacks and a soft black knit collarless shirt that clung to his every sleek muscle,
and he was grinning at her in a way that made her want to brain him. "Am I being
amorous today, Maggie? With the Lady Sarah, I'll assume," he said, as she kept one
hand on the screen while she used the mouse to click the document shut.
"I thought you were still in bed," Maggie said, grabbing another cigarette, because the
one she'd lit earlier had burned down to the filter, and gone out. She used her feet to push
herself around in the swiveling desk chair, to face Saint Just. She breathed heavily
through her nose as she watched her hands shake, and was not at all grateful when he
produced his own Bic, and held the flame to the end of her cigarette.
"I agree that I do like the morning well-aired before joining it-my dear friend, Beau
Brummell said that first, remember? But it's almost noon, my dear, and I promised
Sterling I'd walk with him in the park. He's never happy without his daily ice, although he's
promised not to indulge In the blue one more than once a week. Stains the lips terribly,
you know. Man walks about the rest of the day, looking like he's been sucking from the
inkwell."
Bless and curse the man, he was rambling, deliberately giving her time to compose
herself. But, hey, it was working. Maggie was beginning to get her breathing back under
control. "Sterling's out already, with Socks. I guess he forgot your date. Poor baby. You've
been stood up, Alex. Now go away, I'm working. I need to be able to support you in the
manner to which you've too easily become accustomed, remember?"
"Whatever," Saint Just said, pulling a cheroot from the pack on the coffee table, then
returning to the desk. "You know what Sterling's about, don't you?"
Maggie shook her head. "About? No. He's outside with Socks, that's all. Playing Junior
Doorman again, I suppose. He gets a kick out of carrying Mrs. Goldblum's groceries up
for her. Why? What do you know?"
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Maggie By the Book
by Kasey Michaels Excerpted by permission.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.
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