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‘Courage would be too strong a word. I would be more inclined to attribute your actions to an impetuous nature and a tendency to rash behaviour. However, whatever the reasons might be, you exhibited a considerable lack of fear and weakness.’
‘You mean I was resilient, Sir? Strong, even?’
‘Those words are not the ones I would have chosen. It is more likely-’
‘-that my actions originated from some irrational part of my inferior mind, which simply didn’t grasp the danger, than from any real strength of character?’
‘Exactly.’
‘Why, thank you, Sir.’
‘You’re welcome, Mr Linton.’
Why was there a smile on my face? His compliments were badly disguised insults! He still was just as abominable a chauvinist as on the first day I met him. I should be shouting at him, demanding recognition of my work and my loyalty. I definitely should not be moving my right hand across the table towards where his left rested on the tablecloth.
And why was his hand suddenly starting to move, too, sliding over the table until his fingers touched mine? His fingertips brushed the back of my hand, and a little gasp escaped me. Suddenly, my mind felt very irrational indeed.
‘Will you pay me my wages?’ I asked softly. ‘Will you let me stay on?’
He seemed to weigh my words for an eternity.
‘I shouldn’t pay you a penny,’ he said, finally. ‘I should get rid of you as quickly as I can.’
It was I who remained silent now, for once. It hadn’t escaped my notice that he had told me what he thought he should do, not what he would do. So I waited in silence.
Without knowing why, I squeezed his hand. For some reason, it felt good to hold his hand, as if I were a ship in a storm, and he the line holding me in my safe harbour. Ridiculous, but there it was. The feeling wouldn’t go away.
‘Why?’ I asked, still in this soft tone of voice that was so totally unlike me. How had I managed to suddenly come up with it, without practising? Why was I even using it? ‘Why would you want to get rid of me? I was helpful, wasn’t I? We got your secret file back. Soon, you’ll be the unchallenged master of world trade. That’s what you wanted, isn’t it?’
His fingers grasped mine more tightly.
‘But the danger…’
‘Well, there was a danger of not getting the file back. But it’s passed. So why worry?’
His eyes flashed with sharp shards of ice.
‘I was not talking about the file, Mr Linton!’ His fingers closed even more tightly around mine. It was as if they were squeezing my heart. I suddenly found I couldn’t speak.
‘What were you talking about, Sir?’
His dark eyes bored into mine, answering my question without words.
‘You remember how I told you to be careful?’ he asked, his gaze keeping mine prisoner. I nodded.
‘Down in the mine you were not careful. You never are!’
I swallowed, dislodging the lump in my throat that had kept me from speaking, and attempted a smile.
‘It would take all the fun out of life.’
His hand clenched around mine, almost breaking my fingers. Why the heck did feel good anyway?
‘You could have died!’
‘So… that’s why you want to get rid of me?’
‘I want to dismiss you from your job all right.’ He leaned forward, his chiselled face not betraying a hint of what he thought or felt. His eyes, though… His eyes were another matter. ‘That’s not the same as getting rid of you.’
Another one of those lumps had appeared in my throat. I swallowed, hard, but it was a stubborn lump that didn’t like attempts to dislodge it. ‘What other reason could I have for staying around, Sir?’
‘What if it’s not up to you, Mr Linton? What if I don’t want to let you go?’
I felt the floor under my feet sway in a way that had nothing whatsoever to do with swell.
‘W-what do you mean?’ I asked.
He opened his mouth to speak.
‘Excuse me, Messieurs?’
Our hands jumped apart as if hit with a horsewhip. We stared up at the waiter, who had walked up to our table without either of us noticing. He bowed and flourished a second set of menus. ‘Would you like dessert, now, Messieurs?’
We ate our dessert in silence. That is, I ate my dessert in silence, while Mr Ambrose chewed another piece of baguette in silence, following the waiter through the room with a venomous, icy glare.
I was glad for his lack of loquaciousness, for once. I had enough to think about - most of all about Mr Ambrose’s words. He had said he should get rid of me. And yet… and yet… he hadn’t looked at me as if he wished to get rid of me. Quite the contrary, in fact.
‘What if it’s not up to you, Mr Linton? What if I don’t want to let you go?’
I shivered. What if he didn’t plan to sack me? What if he was planning on doing something even worse? Exposing my disguise, maybe? But no. That would also expose himself. But what then? I could not for the life of me decipher his dark, intense looks or sparse words.
My dessert was soon gone. There was plenty of baguette in the bread basket still, but Mr Ambrose didn’t seem in the mood to continue eating, even if it was for free. That fact alone was very worrying. He simply sat there in brooding silence, a brooding silence that was about three times as brooding as his usual brooding silences. Again, I couldn’t suppress a shiver. I thought I had managed to prove myself to him, at least to some extent. To prove that I could be a valuable and reliable asset in spite or even because of my femininity. But the way he was staring at the table, avoiding my eyes… He looked like he had all those times when he had contemplated getting rid of me. What was wrong?
‘Is… is everything all right, Sir?’ I asked.
He nodded.
‘You did get all of it? The file, I mean? Is there something missing?’
‘What?’ He looked up, seeming to need a moment to realize what I had asked. ‘No, no. The file is complete. Mr Linton?’
‘Yes?’
‘Are you hurt at all? I didn’t get a chance to ask before. I should have made sure, after we got away from the soldiers. Are you all right?’
Why did he want to know? Was he worried I had gotten blood on the fake uniform he had paid for?
‘No, Sir. I’m perfectly all right.’