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‘Um… I suppose so,’ she managed.
‘And? Tell any good lies lately?’ I inquired lightly, propping myself up on my elbows to get a better look at her.
‘No! I didn’t. Definitely not!’
‘I see.’ As hard as I tried, I couldn’t keep the grin off my face. Ella, who seemed desperate to change the subject, blurted out:
‘But what will you do? I mean, if Lieutenant Ellingham isn’t the young man you’ve been seeing, what will you do? If he continues to pay attention to you, Aunt Brank will expect you to marry him, you know.’
‘Oh yes, I know. But then, that’s no surprise since Aunt Brank would expect me to marry any willing creature in trousers who walked through the door downstairs, just to get me out of the house.’ I rolled my eyes.
‘What will you do?’ Ella repeated, anxiously. ‘How will you reconcile yourself to having to say goodbye to your true love and marry somebody else?’
Oh right! Ella was still convinced that every time I went to work, I was going on a secret rendezvous with my mystery lover. Opening my mouth, I was about to explain to her that I didn’t have and never would have a love in my life when it occurred to me that this would raise a whole lot of questions regarding my frequent absence. So I just said:
‘Believe me, I’m not going to marry that blighter.’
Once again, Ella seemed to have problems with grasping my thought processes. ‘But… Aunt wants you to marry him!’
‘Yes.’
‘And you’re not going to?’
‘No! You can bet your best silk parasol on that!’
‘But… that would mean… defying Aunt.’
I clapped my hands. ‘Bravo! You didn’t even need two hours to figure that one out.’
‘Tell me, my dear sister.’ Eagerly, Ella knelt down on the bed beside me and clasped my hands. ‘How would you do it? How would you bring yourself to walk up to her and say: “No! I do not want to marry this man, for my heart belongs to another!”?’
‘Err… well, I would just do it.’ Apart from the my-heart-belongs-to-another part.
‘Oh Lilly!’ Ella embraced me with all the strength and sisterly affection she was capable of. And while she didn’t have much of the former, she had plenty of the latter. ‘You’re so brave. How I wish I had your courage. And you will truly rebel? Set yourself against this marriage with everything you have?’
I simply nodded and held her tightly, wishing so much that I could help her in her predicament. But unfortunately, she would have to find the strength herself.
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘I will not marry Lieutenant Ellingham.’
‘Oh Lilly!’ She hugged me once more. ‘Tell me about him, will you?’
‘About who? The lieutenant?’
‘No, not him! About your young man! The one you see on your rendezvous! The one whose love inspires you to such bravery!’
My mouth dropped open. Never in a million years had I expected that my brilliant excuse would backfire like this. What the hell could I tell her? I had absolutely no idea. I had absolutely no interest in men. What were women supposed to find attractive in men? Why would they lose their mind and fall in love with one?
Dear Lord, I had to tell her something, but what? Who from my acquaintance could I pick as my supposed lover? The only men I’d known for more than a couple of moments were my father, who was dead for years, and my Uncle Bufford, both of whom were, for obvious reasons, not good candidates. Should I pick one of the men from Sir Philip’s ball? But to be honest, I couldn’t remember a single one of them. Men just never seemed very important to me. They slipped my mind as soon as I left their company.
Well, except perhaps for one. A face appeared in front of my eyes.
‘Um… well…’ I began.
‘Come on,’ Ella urged. ‘Don’t be shy.’
‘Err… he’s tall, with dark hair and dark, sea-coloured eyes, almost black.’
She clapped her hands eagerly, like an excited little girl. ‘Oh, that sounds so dreamy and mysterious.’
‘You can say that again!’ Too mysterious for my liking… he still hadn’t breathed a word about the contents of that infernal file. Could there be something government-related in it? But if anything, Mr Ambrose struck me as the type who did what he wanted without reference to any government, his own or anybody else’s.
‘Is he good-looking?’
‘W-what?’ I resurfaced from my thoughts. Caught off guard, the words escaped me: ‘Yes, he is, definitely.’
Oh God! What have I just said?
But if I was being honest, it was true. Blast!
‘He… he has a chiselled face, and I mean literally chiselled: angular, and hard as stone. Maybe good-looking isn’t even the best word to describe him. Beautiful would be better. A harsh beauty.’
The image of the face in front of my inner eye intensified, and an unwilling smile crept on my face.
‘As for the rest of him… He has a figure like an antique statue, you know? A bit like Myron’s Discus Thrower[28], though he would never dream of assuming such an undignified position.’ I giggled. ‘He walks around most of the time as if he has an iron rod up his behind. He’s very serious, cool and distant, and about as free with his money as Uncle Brank. He always does what he wants, and nasty things happen to people who get in his way.’
Hmm… Perhaps I wasn’t doing a very good a job of portraying him as the fellow I was desperately in love with. Shouldn’t a lovable man have one good quality, at least? So I hurriedly added: ‘But I think he actually may have a good heart, very, very, very deep down.’
Who knew, it might actually be true. He had taken me on, after all.
But not as a girl, said a nasty little voice in the back of my mind. I shook my head, trying to concentrate.
‘Oh Lilly!’ Ella gripped both of my hands with hers. ‘I’m so happy for you! He sounds amazing, like a modern-day Mr Darcy.’
‘Hardly,’ I muttered, smirking at the comparison. ‘He wouldn’t spend ten thousand pounds on anybody, let alone me.’[29]
Ella’s smile only widened. ‘It sounds like you’re very fond of him.’
‘Does it?’
My eyebrows shot up. Apparently, I had done a better job than I’d thought. I had completely fooled her and made her believe I was in love with Mr Ambrose. I had no idea my acting skills were this developed. It seemed that male impersonations weren’t the only thing I did well in that regard.