The Paid Companion | Herophine

Chapter Two

Hero

She won't do. Too timid. Too meek." Hero watched the door close behind the woman he had just finished interviewing. "I thought I made it clear, I need a lady with spirit and a certain presence. I am not looking for the typical sort of paid companion. Bring in another one."

Mrs Goodhew exchanged a glance with her business partner, Mrs Willis. Hero sensed that they were both nearing the end of their patience. In the course of the past hour and a half, he had spoken with seven applicants. None of the subdued, painfully dowdy women on the Goodhew & Willis Agency roster had come close to being a potential candidate for the post he was offering.

He did not blame Mrs Goodhew and Mrs Willis for their growing exasperation. But he was beyond being exasperated. He was desperate.

Mrs Goodhew cleared her throat, folded her large, competent hands on top of her desk and regarded Arthur with a stern air. "My lord, I regret to say that we have exhausted our list of suitable applicants."

"Impossible. There must be someone else." There had to be another candidate. His entire plan hinged on finding the right woman.

Mrs Goodhew and Mrs Willis glowered at him from behind their matching desks. They were both formidable females. Mrs Goodhew was tall and grandly proportioned with a face that could have been stamped on an ancient coin. Her associate was as thin and sharp as a pair of shears.

Both were soberly but expensively attired. There was a judicious amount of grey in their hair and a considerable measure of experience in their eyes.

The sign on the front door outside declared that the Goodhew & Willis Agency had supplied paid companions and governesses to persons of quality for over fifteen years. The fact that these two had established this agency and operated it at an obvious profit for that period was a testimony to their intelligence and sound business sense.

Hero studied their determined expressions and considered his options. Before coming here, he had gone to two other agencies that boasted a selection of ladies seeking work as paid companions. Each had produced a handful of insipid prospects. He had felt a distinct pang of pity for all of them. He understood that only the direst conditions of genteel poverty could induce any female to seek such a post. But he was not in the market for a woman who aroused the emotion of pity in others.

He clasped his hands behind his back, widened his stance and confronted Mrs Good hew and Mrs Willis from the far side of the room.

"If you have run through all of the suitable candidates," he said, "then the answer is clear. Find me an unsuitable female."

The two stared at him as though he had taken leave of his senses.

Mrs Willis recovered first. "This is a respectable agency, sir. We do not have any unsuitable females in our files," she said in her razor-edged voice. "Our ladies are all guaranteed to possess reputations that are entirely above reproach. Their references are impeccable."

"Perhaps you would do well to try another agency," Mrs Goodhew suggested in quelling tones.

"I don't have time to go to another agency." He could not believe that his carefully calculated scheme was about to fall apart simply because he could not find the right female. He had assumed that this would be the simplest, most straightforward part of the plan. Instead, it was proving to be astonishingly complicated. "I told you, I must fill this post immediately-"

The door slammed open behind him with resounding force, effectively putting an end to his sentence.

Together with Mrs Goodhew and Mrs Willis, he turned to look at the woman who blew into the office with the force of a small storm off the sea.