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‘I?’ A small laugh escaped me. ‘I was with the little yellow piggies. Alexander was there, too.’
‘Little yellow… what? And who is Alexander?’
‘Alexander the Great. Haven’t you heard of him? Spiffing chap, absolutely spiffing.’
Ella sniffed.
‘Lilly? What is that smell?’
‘Smell? I don't smell anything. What do you mean?’
‘That smell… It smells like the tables at balls where the drinks for gentlemen… are… served…’
Her voice dwindled. Slowly, the colour drained from her face.
‘Lill! No, you can’t have! Lill!’
I smiled broadly. She remembered my name! It was so nice that someone did. Mr Ambrose never called me by my first name, let alone a sweet nickname like Lill.
‘Yes, my delightful, dear little sister?’
‘Lill, have you…?’ She lowered her voice until it was only a hushed whisper, deserving of a dark and dingy crypt, where human sacrifices were conducted by some strange oriental cult. ‘Have you been drinking?’
I pondered the question carefully.
‘Yes,’ I finally decided, nodding to emphasize the point. ‘I have. In fact, I have it on the reliable authority of a professional drunkard that I have emptied the entire River Thames. I must confess, I had no idea my belly could contain that much liquid.’
‘Lill!’ A moment later, I was in Ella’s arms and she was rocking me from side to side as if I were a small child who needed comforting. ‘Oh my dear, dear, sister, tell me, who is the man who has done this to you, the rake who has led you off the path of virtue and intoxicated you? I will help you, I promise!’
She continued to rock me like a baby, making cooing noises all the time. By Jove! I had no idea she felt so strongly about me. That was gratifying. But I was also slightly irked by the fact that she thought I needed a man to lead me astray. I was perfectly capable of straying from the path of virtue on my own, thank you very much!
‘Don’t be afraid. Don’t be afraid, Lill! I will go to him, make him leave you alone. He will never bother you again, I promise!’
There was a lump in my throat. Oh dear God. Was this really happening? My little sister Ella, sweet, innocent, shy little Ella was willing to face down a dastardly rake for my sake? She had hidden emergency reserves of courage that she had tapped now, for my sake, to protect me from the villain that was dragging me into a cesspool of iniquity. Never mind that the villain only existed in her imagination - this was touching.
She truly was the best sister one could wish for.
Yes, she is, but maybe she could stop this infernal rocking!
Very true. The motion made me feel woozy all over again, and once more, stars started dancing in front of my eyes. Ella’s voice seemed to be coming from a distance now…
‘Who is he? Oh Lill, please tell me. Who is the man? I know it may be hard for you to concentrate right now, but you really need to tell me. Can you tell me anything? What he looks like? His name?’
‘Napoleon…’
‘Napoleon? Dear Lord, he is a Frenchman? No wonder you’re in such a state! Did he touch you? Did he hurt you? Lill, you poor thing, do you remember his last name?’
‘Bonaparte,’ I mumbled, gazing at the stars dancing across my bedroom ceiling. ‘You know, the Emperor? The little chap with the funny hat and the hand glued to the inside of his jacket.’
‘Merciful God, Lill, you’re hallucinating!’
‘Am not!’ I protested. ‘He was there! He was! Ask the little piggies if you don't believe me.’
‘Lill?’
My head slumped to the side. The world around me shrank until all I could see was Ella’s anxious face.
‘Lill, stay with me!’
Now there was only the anxious tip of her anxious nose, surrounded by darkness.
‘Lill!’
And then there was nothing.
Unreal Dream of a Really Wonderful Nightmare
I woke in a torture chamber that bore significant resemblance to my bedroom. It couldn’t really be my bedroom, though. In my bedroom, my head was never filled with such agonizing pain, nor did my tongue dare to feel so much like an inflated badger’s tail in my private sanctum.
This was a torture chamber. Now, I only had to wait for the torturers to arrive, and the fun could begin.
I waited.
And waited.
And waited a little longer.
The badger who had substituted his tail for my tongue wiggled his behind, and I groaned as pain lanced through my head. Desperately, I tried to think of any ways I had ever learned to make badger tails vanish from one’s mouth. None came to mind.
I waited some more.
Slowly, the piercing pain in my head began to recede a little. As it did, memories of the previous night started to trickle back into my consciousness.
The drive to the East End… Dear me, had I really visited that horrible part of the city? It seemed so, the images were there all right, if a little bit jumbled. The dirty pub… the old sailor… the fight… by Jove, a real gunfight! Pity I didn’t have a nice, daring scar to show for it that would put any suitors off for the rest of my life. The drive back to Empire House in the dark… the office… the kiss…
My mind froze in mid-thought.
Wait just a minute!
The kiss?
I sat bolt upright, and regretted it immediately as a searing surge of pain shot through my skull. Clamping both hands on my eyes in an attempt to shut out the world, I pushed the pain aside and grasped desperately for the vague images of last night. No! Dear God, no…!
My hands slipped from my eyes, over my face, down to my parted lips. I was sure they had to be hideously swollen, about twice their normal size. Nothing less than such a gruesome disfigurement would do as a punishment for forsaking all my feminist principles and giving myself, even if just for a moment, willingly over to a man.
Shivering, I remembered Mr Ambrose’s mouth on me… The memory was demanding and gentle, cold and fierce all at the same time. It had been like nothing I had ever felt before.
In a totally disgusting way, of course, I reminded myself!
Ha! As if having Mr Ambrose kiss me could ever excite any feelings other than horror in me. It really had been horrifically horribly terrible, the way his lips had caressed mine, had asked me to open up, to give myself to him and just for a moment forget my aims, my dreams, the world and everything else for the sake of a hot feeling in the pit of my stomach that had rapidly grown into a firestorm. His arms around me had been like iron vices, his eyes dark as the deepest wells, and full of secrets I couldn’t hope to fathom. The fire that spread through my body seemed to be drawn to them, to him, out of my body into his, heating us and moulding us together in a silent cyclone of feelings.