All Through The Night. Kate Hoffmann

possibly change the tone of the letter. This wasn’t etiquette! This was a country-and-western song. A bad talk show topic. Beauty parlor gossip. She sighed and rubbed her forehead. When she’d taken the job as Prudence three years ago, she’d been hired to answer questions about gracious living. But all that had changed on April Fool’s Day six months ago.

      On a lark, she’d answered a silly question from a cross-dresser who wanted to know whether he should ask his wife’s permission first before borrowing her underwear or whether the lingerie was community property. Her answer dripped with sarcasm and disapproval, and she’d published it to illustrate the limits of true etiquette. “The only excuse a man has for not wearing proper underwear is if he’s not wearing any underwear at all!” she’d written. “And the only places where underwear can be considered an option is in the shower and the doctor’s office.”

      That single, silly column had been the end of her noble life as an etiquette columnist. The phone lines lit up and the fan mail poured in to all the newspapers across the country that carried her column. Her readers wanted more—more dirt, more trash, more sleaze. And more of Prudence’s sharp-tongued reprimands and subtle put-downs.

      “Great column yesterday!”

      Nora glanced up. Her publisher, Arthur Sterling, leaned into the doorway of her office, a broad smile on his face. Though he rarely descended from the twelfth floor, he’d been seen more often lately in Prudence’s vicinity. Though a more naive columnist might believe they’d become friends, Nora knew that Arthur Sterling had no friends. He had assets and opportunities. And he wanted her to agree to syndicated television spots as “Prudence.”

      He chuckled and nodded his head. “Sex, that’s what sells. I just got off the phone with Seattle. They want the column. And Biloxi and Buffalo are in negotiations as we speak.” Arthur gave her the thumbs-up. “Good work! And I’m still waiting for your answer on that television deal.”

      “Thank you,” she murmured. But he was already gone, on to some other profit center, some other opportunity that was going to pad his already sizable bank account. To him, Prudence wasn’t a beacon in a sea of chaos, a behavioral standard. She’d become dollars and cents. More trash meant more readers. And that meant more money for her syndicated column. Etiquette is part of the past, he’d told her. It might have been all right for the first Prudence Trueheart in 1921, but the world was changing.

      If only she’d never written that April Fool’s column. Since then, Sterling had insisted she devote at least three columns a week to “modern” problems—questions on morality and relationships. Her monthly appearance on Good Morning, San Francisco, a popular television show, had turned from table settings and wedding etiquette to advice for the lovelorn.

      With her sudden rise to popularity, she had become a celebrity around town. For every moment that Nora felt as if she were prying into her readers’ personal lives, her readers seemed to intrude on hers. The grocery store, the dry cleaners, even the dentist’s office—all had become venues for advice sessions. And her readers seemed to cherish Prudence’s impeccable behavior even more than she did, always watching her, waiting to catch her in a manners misstep or a moral backslide! Prudence was supposed to be pure of heart and filled with virtue.

      To ensure the purity of Prudence, her publisher had even included a morals clause in her contract. Prudence didn’t curse or chew tobacco. She didn’t wear revealing clothes or frequent biker bars. And she certainly didn’t sleep around! That final point hadn’t taken much effort on her part. She could barely remember the last time she’d been with a man, in the biblical sense.

      Nora groaned and buried her face in her hands, shaking her head. Her lack of contact with the opposite sex had become painfully obvious in her unbidden reaction to Pete Beckett’s touch. And since she’d been beaned by that baseball, she’d been having a difficult time keeping her mind on work, preferring, instead, to dwell on the color of Pete Beckett’s eyes and the warmth of his smile.

      She thought back to their conversation, to her disturbing reaction to his touch, to the feel of his gaze on her body. She replayed the incident, trying to remember every detail and every word spoken. “‘Prissy,”’ she murmured. Is that really what he thought of her?

      She silently scolded herself and snatched up another letter. Nora had always found a certain comfort in Prudence’s world, a place where there were rules and obligations, where people behaved with propriety and decorum. And where scoundrels and rogues like Pete Beckett saw the error of their ways, settled down with one woman, and lived blissfully ever after in legal and loyal matrimony.

      But Prudence wasn’t going to hold her breath on that front. The paper’s golden boy, Beckett, was charming and handsome and a confirmed reprobate. He was everything Prudence Trueheart preached against: a man practiced in the art of seduction and an expert in avoiding commitment, the typical bad boy that Prudence found so troubling—and other women found so irresistible.

      Though she never deliberately listened to office gossip, what she did overhear was probably mere speculation. Or pure exaggeration. But from the soft moans and furtive giggles from the female members of the staff, she had to believe that some of what she’d overheard was true—enough to spend a small portion of each day wondering just what Pete Beckett did to a woman once he got her behind the bedroom door. Not that she’d ever find out. When they did bother to communicate, Nora regarded Pete Beckett with thinly disguised disdain, and Pete regarded Nora with mocking amusement.

      Still, it wasn’t hard to imagine the power he could wield over women, considering her own reaction to his touch. He had beautiful hands, long fingers and a firm, but gentle, touch. A shiver skittered down her spine, and she thought about how those hands would look as they slowly undressed her, how they might feel on her flushed skin, all the improper things he might do to her body, given the chance.

      She brushed her thumb over her bottom lip. This wasn’t the first physical contact they’d shared, she mused. He’d kissed her once, at the Herald’s Christmas party, right after she’d been promoted to the job as “Prudence.” Though he probably didn’t remember, a vivid image flashed in her mind…standing beneath the mistletoe, the feel of his hard mouth on hers, the gentle teasing of his tongue, and that exquisite and unbidden longing deep in her core.

      It had happened so quickly, she couldn’t protest, but once Nora was caught up in the kiss, she recalled abandoning all resistance, defenseless beneath his touch. When he finally let her go, he gave her a teasing smile and made some comment about old maids and untried virgins before he moved on to other amusements. She’d gotten a lot of mileage out of that kiss in those moments when she was curled up in a lonely bed, when sleep just wouldn’t come.

      Now she had another real-life encounter to add to her fantasies. She thought back to the instant that his hand had touched her ankle, to the warmth of his fingers sinking into her skin, the first physical contact from a man in oh-so long. She recalled the way he touched her face, his breath warm against her temple, the scent of his cologne so heady and—

      Nora cursed softly. How did they do it? How did all those bad boys make good women lose all common sense? She’d railed at her readers time and time again, and yet, here she was, falling into the same trap, forgiving the man all his sins for just a simple touch of his hand, a brush of his lips against hers. She reached for her keyboard, her indignation rising with the spirit of all Prudences past.

      Dearest Reader,

      You opened the stable door on your first date and now it’s going to be difficult to herd that stallion back inside. Prudence believes you should stand firm in your decision. Celibacy is a virtue and your body a prize to be treasured. If this man can’t respect your feelings, then send him straight to the glue factory. And please, promise Prudence that you won’t go riding again until you’ve said “I do.”

      The horse metaphor was a little trite, yet it was typical Prudence—smart, sassy, with just a touch of sarcasm. Nora reached out and typed in the command that would send her column to her copy editor. Though times had changed, the words could just as easily have belonged to the very first Prudence, a woman named Hortense Philpot who rode herd on etiquette problems in