‘You see?’ he said coldly. ‘You can never be like a man.’
I glared at him with all the force I could muster.
‘Will you ever give me anything but scorn?’ I demanded.
‘Yes.’ My hopes flared - until he continued: ‘I will give you your salary at the end of the month. If you do your work properly, that is.’
The flare of hope I had felt extinguished.
Why? Why did disappointment flood through me? After all, money was all I wanted from him. The money to give me my freedom. What else would I want from him?
He was still looking at me like that. In that way that made my knees feel weak.
‘Good.’ I raised my chin and, ignoring my knees, turned away from him. Marching over to the visitor’s chair I sank down on it. ‘That’s all I want. Money enough to be free.’
‘Oh, you’ll have money.’ His eyes glittered. ‘You still won’t be free, though.’
My head whipped towards him. ‘How so?’
He marched back to his own chair and sank into it with a grace I couldn’t hope to match. From behind his desk, projecting paramount, cold power and authority, he looked at me over his steepled fingers. ‘Just like in marriage, you’ll still be tied to a man - to me.’
My eyes narrowed. ‘Yes. But unlike in a marriage, at the end of the day I can go home and recuperate. And unlike in a marriage, if I ever get sick of seeing your stony visage every day, I can resign.’
Abruptly, his hands tightened into fists again. ‘But nobody else would give you a position.’
‘True,’ I mumbled. ‘Seems you’re stuck with me for now.’
Was it my imagination or did his hands relax again marginally when he heard that? We glared at each other for a moment or two, at a silent stalemate. I didn’t know what the heck he wanted, what would make him stop hating me so much! God, when he was looking at me like that, I didn’t even know what I wanted anymore! But whatever it was, it had nothing to do with him!
I sat there for a while. But after a few minutes, something intruded upon my befuddled brain. A feeling… something about my feet…
Did they feel colder?
Yes, they did. Colder, and colder and colder. And I couldn’t quite figure out why. Glancing down, I saw they looked perfectly normal. Two feet, with five toes each. But wasn’t there something missing?
Shoes! Shoes and socks, you idiot! I had left them in the bathroom.
Of course!
Carefully, I rose. The floor seemed to be peaceable right now. Should I dare dash across the room to the bathroom to get my shoes and socks, or would the evil beast try to buck me off again? Thoughtfully, I regarded the stone tiles. They seemed to be solid and still.
On a sudden impulse, I took a step forward, then another. Yay! The floor was apparently asleep and not intent on making trouble for me! I reached the bathroom door in no time at all, and without falling down once.
Mr Ambrose turned towards me as I passed.
‘Is something the matter, Mr Linton?’
‘My shoes,’ I growled. I wouldn’t be polite to him. Not now. Not after he made me feel so… so strangely alive just by looking at me. That was too damn peculiar! ‘I forgot them in the powder room, and my feet are getting cold.’
He nodded, coolly. ‘Be careful. You didn’t look too steady on your feet, earlier, and it would be a shame if you survived the gunfight only to break your neck in my office.’
‘I was perfectly steady! The floor was attacking me!’
‘Pardon?’
I just shook my head, not wasting my time on an answer. Unbelievable that a man who was supposed to be clever enough to have amassed an immense business empire couldn’t even understand that his own office floor was conspiring against unsuspecting visitors. Though I had to admit, it seemed to be quiet enough right at the moment. I had probably frightened it into submission with my implacable courage and determination.
I found my shoes and socks under the sink and returned to the office carrying both with me. Mr Ambrose was standing at his desk, turned towards me, a strange look on his face. He was probably finally considering the conspiracy of the office floor - as well he should! But at least I was safe. It wouldn’t dare attack me, seeing as I was so courageous and determined.
It was when I had crossed about half the distance to the visitor’s chair that the evil floor struck!
I felt my bare foot slipping on an unusually slippery piece of polished stone. My socks and shoes went flying, and I fell backwards, my arms flailing - until another pair of arms caught me in their strong hold. I gasped as they hauled me up. Not all the way up. Just far enough so I could feel my body pressing against that of the man who held me.
‘What did I tell you?’
Blinking, I tried to dispel the layer of mist that seemed to cloud my vision. Sparkly lights danced in front of my eyes. When they slowly disappeared I looked up into the dark, sea-coloured eyes of Mr Rikkard Ambrose.
‘What,’ he repeated very slowly and clearly, ‘did I tell you, Mr Linton?’
Once again his face was only inches away from mine, and suddenly my shoes and socks didn’t seem quite so important anymore.
I gulped. What was happening? ‘T-to be careful. You told me to be careful.’
‘Yes.’ His eyes darkened further, until they resembled the deepest abyss imaginable. ‘Too bad I don't ever listen to my own good advice.’
Then he plunged down.
For a moment, all my fuzzy mind could manage was the thought: What is he doing? Is he going to butt heads with me?
A second later that question was answered with a resounding negative, as his lips reached mine and enveloped them, soft as velvet and yet unyielding. They started to move, pushing my mouth apart and my conscious self out of my body.
What… wait, this couldn’t be right, could it? If somebody was touching his lips to mine, that would mean that they were… kissing me?
So he was.
Waves of heat raced through me as the realization hit my befuddled brain: Mr Ambrose was kissing me! His lips moving against my mouth, caressing, demanding. How… curious. For a moment, I was just numb.
Then, I remembered the world again, and I felt rage flood through me. How dare he? After treating me so abominably for the last few weeks, after humiliating me in public and insulting me again and again, after trying to rid himself of me a dozen times and wrecking my dreams, how dare he take such liberties with me? First he conspired with his office floor to trip me, and now he was kissing me!
And worse, far worse - he wasn’t just kissing me. He was making me like it! And he was somehow, by some nefarious chauvinistic manly trick, managing to make me kiss him back!
How dare he make me do this? How was he able to force me to respond to his kisses in a way I had never even imagined? I was sure it had to be his fault. Under no circumstances would I ever consent to let a man knead my lips like this, least of all him! The idea alone was abominable! Horrible! Horrific!
Though… now that I thought about it, the reality of it was actually… not… quite… so… horrific…
Somewhere along the line, the thought dissolved and vanished. The clarity of my mind was gone in the blink of an eye. Not drowned in alcohol this time, no. Drowned in the soft touch of his mouth.
His lips on mine felt so soft yet so strong, moulding themselves to the shape of mine, as if they had been meant to be there. As if on their own volition, my teeth opened and bit down on his lower lip, drawing it and him closer towards me. My hands grabbed his waistcoat lapel and pushed and pulled, venting my anger and frustration and… something else. Something I couldn’t name or define. I heard a strangled moan as if from a distance and realized, startled, that it came from my throat.
Suddenly, he broke away from me, leaving me gasping and weak-kneed. I was still in his arms, looking up into his chiselled face for the first time since our lips had touched. I could see something in his eyes, something dark and dangerous. They had widened, and I could se
e to their utmost, darkest depths.
‘Now do you believe me?’ His voice was still cold as ice, but rough now, as though covered with fresh frost. ‘You could never be like a man. Trust me, I would not have done that if you were one.’
Before I knew it, we were kissing again. My hands wandered from his lapels, over his rock-hard chest and onto his arms. My small hands weren’t large enough to fit around the muscles of his arm, so I grabbed hold of his shirt sleeves to… what? Push him away? Pull him closer? I seemed to be trying to do neither and both at the same time.
I was shaking him. That’s what it was. Shaking him like he had been shaking me, forcing all my anger onto him and into him. I wanted to punch him, to pay him back for all the ways in which he had hurt me, for all the times he had tried to get rid of me, again and again. And now he was kissing me, as if all he wanted was to possess me and never let go - and I was kissing the chauvinistic son of a bachelor back!
Why the heck was I kissing him back? And why was I bloody enjoying it? That wasn’t fair!
The world had stopped making sense.
His lips moved from my own then, to the side of my mouth. Another sound escaped me - not a groan this time, but a growl, like that of a feral beast.
‘Let… go… of… me!’ I managed with enormous effort.
My hands, though, seemed to have other plans: they grabbed him by the lapels again and pressed my lips forcibly to his. Traitors!
We were clenched together like this for I knew not how long. Finally, we broke apart. ‘Why?’ he rasped. His voice was a winter storm. ‘You don't seem to mind.’
His hold tightened around me. I fought against it, fought very hard. When I broke free, I grabbed his collar and pushed him backward until we both rammed into the desk.
‘I’m a girl!’ I growled. My anger was burning like a furnace. The world around me seemed to be lit in colours brighter than the sun, and he was brightest of all. Damn him! ‘I’m not supposed to be in control of my emotions. That’s your job! So stop the hell touching me!’
‘Why don’t you stop?’
I traced my fingers down the side of his hard, chiselled face. ‘Because I don’t bloody want to!’
‘Well, I’m similarly disinclined.’
Oh, bloody hell! If he wouldn’t stop making me feel this treacherously good, I would have to force him! Drawing back my hand, I prepared to slap him.
‘Oh no, you don’t.’
He caught my hand in mid-air. Drawing back the other one, I let it fly! He caught that one, too. Before I knew how, my hands were on his face and I was drawn down towards him. Our lips collided.
On the rare occasions that I glanced between the covers of a romance novel, I had chanced upon an expression that seemed to be a favourite with romantic writers - lips 'melting together'.
Well, our lips didn’t melt. They collided. They collided like a ship and an iceberg. They collided like two stars, one red hot, one icy blue. They collided like two wolves, bent on devouring each other. And so did we.
I nearly knocked him over backwards and rammed his head into the desk. He didn’t seemed to mind, though. He was too busy pulling me down towards him. His hands had found their way to the small of my back. The feel of him there, his fingers skimming over me, holding me close… it was like nothing I had ever felt before.
Oh, I had been touched there before - by insolent fellows at some ball or other who didn’t know how to keep their hands to themselves. But those touches had only ever made me want to reach for a bucket to puke into. His touch had quite a different effect. It made me just want to touch him back. Maybe not even by punching him. Just… touching. Softly.
What was wrong with me? Help!
Slowly, I sank forward until I came to rest on his chest. I was resting against a man’s chest. And I didn’t want to cringe away in horror! What the bloody heck was wrong with me?
This is what you’ve always worked so hard to avoid, a small voice in my head whispered. Get away! You don’t want this! You didn’t ever want a man to touch you like this! But the voice was getting smaller and smaller, until I could no more hear the want a man, and all that was left was an echoing touch… touch… touch…
Something touched my face. I jerked back, breaking the kiss, and gasping. His fingers! He had his fingers on my face, stroking my cheeks.
Dear God! How could I have ever thought him cold? The tips of his fingers on my face were like torches, sending sparks racing down my spine to somewhere deep, deep inside me, a place I had never known about before. A place that only waited to be kindled.
‘Come.’
It was an order. But this time one I didn’t mind. His fingers grasped my face tightly, pulling it back towards his. I had never seen it this close: his smooth, raven-black hair - how had I never noticed how shiny it was? - his classical, chiselled features - beautiful, simply beautiful - and above all, his mouth. His mouth. The word suddenly held a whole new meaning for me. No longer was it just the origin of curt, demanding orders and misogynistic balderdash. It was the source of a touch that was so intimate, so inflammatory, that it was beyond anything I could have imagined.
His arms were still around me, holding me tight. His eyes didn’t leave mine for a moment. Was this, I wondered, what it was like for Ella when Edmund was holding her? What it was like to be close to a man, to open yourself and let all barriers fall?
It was an unearthly thing, in the truest sense of the word. I could even see bright stars dancing at the office ceiling, behind Mr Ambrose’s chiselled face.
My head felt strange. What was happening? The fire was slowly burning out. And the stars… the stars were no longer dancing behind Mr Ambrose. They were also dancing in front of his face. And they were multiplying, obscuring my vision. Mist came, flooding in from the edges of my sight, and I slowly sank into the darkness. From very far away I heard a voice calling out: ‘Miss Linton! Miss Linton!’
Now, who could that be? I wondered. Mr Ambrose never calls me Miss.
Then the darkness swallowed me.
A Trace of Fire Brings the Winter
When I awoke, I was slumped in the visitor’s chair, my head resting on my shoulder. My eyes didn’t want to open, but I knew where I was sitting without looking. No one in London except Mr Rikkard Ambrose owned a chair this hard and uncomfortable. A soft groan escaped my mouth.
‘Ah. You are finally awake.’
The voice was cool, and as distant as Timbuktu. I didn’t need to open my eyes to recognize it, either.
‘What… happened?’ I moaned.
‘You went to the bathroom to get your shoes. On the way back you stumbled and passed out. I believe you hit your head.’
Slowly, memories started coming back. The memories he spoke of came first - but there were faint images of others, too. I had bumped my head? Some part of me did feel as if a bruise was likely to develop, but it wasn’t the back of my head. Almost unconsciously, I reached up and touched my lips. They felt unusually warm and swollen.
Could one knock oneself out by falling on the mouth? I wasn’t sure. And shouldn’t I have knocked my teeth out in the process? I felt my jaw. All teeth were still firmly attached. But my lips… My lips felt different, somehow. Not really in a bad way. Tingly and hot. If that’s what keeling over did to you, maybe I should do it more often.
Mustering all my energy, I forced my eyes open. Mr Ambrose stood over me, looking even more like the statue of some Greek god for the fact that he was towering above me. Any moment I expected him to start throwing thunderbolts.
Touching my lips again, I met his gaze. For a moment, something in his eyes flashed, something that was gone so quickly that I had probably imagined it.
‘Did… anything happen?’ I mumbled. ‘Anything else?’
Not a muscle in his face moved. ‘Other than you falling and nearly cracking your head open on the floor, Mr Linton? No. I must inform you that if you wish to remain in my employ, you will in the future have to refrain from such effemina
te displays of clumsiness. I have no time for them. Do we understand each other?’
‘Y-yes, Sir.’
‘Good. Then maybe you can finally leave now. I wish to have my office to myself. Your presence here is distracting.’
I got to my feet. Apparently, the floor still wasn’t interested in a peace treaty. It wobbled threateningly under my feet as I made my way to the door. Mr Ambrose, though, who walked beside me, didn’t have any problems, which confirmed my suspicion: he had been in cahoots with the floor all along! They had worked together to do… something.
Yes, something had happened.
But what?
If only I could remember. Yet the memory was just out of my reach.
Had they collaborated to knock me down? But why would they hit me on the lips to do so? Surely it would have worked better if they had tried the back of my head. Besides… I couldn’t believe that Mr Ambrose had anything to do with my silly accident. The yellow piggies would have warned me if they saw him sneaking up on me.
‘You would have, wouldn’t you?’ I asked the one that was standing in the corner and playing with the long tails of Napoleon’s army uniform. It nodded solemnly.
‘What?’ Mr Ambrose asked.
‘I wasn’t talking to you. Come on. I want to get out of here before the floor tries to eat me.’
*~*~**~*~*
The whole way down the stairs Mr Ambrose kept a tight hold on my elbow for some unfathomable reason. Only when we had arrived in the cavernous entrance hall did he let go of me. But when I started towards the front door, he shook his head.
‘Not that way.’
‘But that’s the way we came in, Sir.’
‘Still, it will not be the way we leave.’
‘Why not?’
He stared at me pointedly.
‘Why not, Sir?’ I amended, exasperated.
‘Lord Dalgliesh is sure to have this place watched. It is of no matter whether his men saw us enter - but they must not see you leave. Not when your next stop is your family home, from which he might infer your true identity. Have you any idea what Lord Dalgliesh would give for the news that I have lowered myself to employing a female as my private secretary?’