Despite her obsession with the Gazette’s mistakes, Caroline had read other newspapers. The Society Page in those papers wrote entire articles covering balls and critiquing the female guests’ appearances. They never failed to point out if a lady looked particularly lovely or particularly bad.
And of course, they’d all included articles describing the scandal of her come-out. They’d even exaggerated the debacle, something she would not have believed possible.
Were those the sorts of thing she’d ever resort to writing about? She winced at the thought.
But she was the society author. If she didn’t write about these things, somebody else would be hired to do so.
“Good morning, Miss Smith.” Mr. Jones barely looked up as she walked in.
“Is Mr. Wallace in yet?”
Mr. Jones gestured behind him—to Mr. Black’s office.
All in all, she’d written seven different articles, and she was anxious for the managing editor’s feedback. She’d also circled twenty-three errors in this morning’s edition—mostly small ones—two glaring untruths.
“Might as well go in,” Mr. Jones told her.
Two days ago, she’d marched in without permission—today, she belonged here. Not allowing herself to hesitate, she opened the door and stepped inside.
Conversation between the two men came to a jarring stop.
“I’ll just make those changes then, sir.” Mr. Wallace slipped past Caroline.
“Oh, but—” The door closed behind the editor before Caroline could stop him, leaving her alone with Mr. Black.
He didn’t rise to greet her, but he did lean forward in his seat. “What do you have there?” he asked as his stare dropped pointedly to her notes—and her marked-up copy of the paper. Caroline approached his desk, where she spread the newspaper out, smoothing it beside an identical copy.
“They’re worse on nights when I have other obligations.”
“But you came back here last night, didn’t you?” In fact, he’d left the musicale during intermission. Caroline had barely restrained herself from begging him to take her with him.
He looked up and cocked a brow, emerald eyes twinkling from behind his spectacles. “Are your ears recovered yet?” The smile that followed was unexpected, as was the effect it had on Caroline.
How could something so seemingly benign send such a powerful rush of… excitement and joy shooting through her?
“Not yet. I imagine they’ll be fully functional again by the end of the season.” She grinned, dropping into the chair Mr. Wallace had vacated. But when her gaze landed on the two error-ridden papers, she turned serious again. “If it’s any comfort, neither my mother nor either of my sisters are bothered by the mistakes.”
“But they noticed them.”
“They did,” she confessed with another apologetic wince. “At first, I thought the characters might be getting jumbled—accidentally—in the printing process.”
“That’s not possible.”
“Right. Because they’re locked into place, but also because the mistakes aren’t just missing or wrong characters—entire words and sentences are incorrect.”
Maxwell Black leaned back, removed his spectacles, and pinched his nose.
“I know.” He exhaled, and she realized that although he’d removed his jacket, he wore the same clothing he’d worn last night—his waistcoat halfway unbuttoned and his shirtsleeves rolled up. With his hair mussed and a shadow of whiskers along his jaw, he more resembled the gentleman she’d interrupted in the park last week than one of Mayfair’s lofty aristocrats.
She took a deep breath.
“Someone is sabotaging your paper, Mr. Black,” she announced.
He glanced up, not bothering to hide his frustration.
“You knew, didn’t you?” she asked, though it was more a statement than a question.
He dipped his chin. “I was hoping the mistakes could be attributed to some process we were skipping—or something mechanical. But it isn’t.”
