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It’s really nothing, I scribbled on a piece of paper. Really, really nothing. Don’t concern yourself with the matter. I am sure you have more important things to do.
Hurriedly, I shoved the message into a container and the container into the pneumatic tube - only then realizing that I had forgotten my usual teasing salutation. Well, that could only be good, right? He had complained of my teasing him all the while, after all, and right now I wouldn’t want to rile him up any more.
Twenty seconds later, a message returned.
It consisted of two simple words.
Tell me.
Oops. Maybe I had been wrong. Again I took up pen and paper.
Dear Mr Ambrose,
As I said, it is nothing. Please do not concern yourself with my petty troubles.
Yours Sincerely
Miss Lilly Linton
I shoved the message into the tube, pulled the lever and waited anxiously. When, after a minute or so, no reply had come, I dared to breathe again. He was going to let it go. So now I’d just have to find those files he wanted…
I was just about to get up when a noise from the room next door froze me in mid-movement: The scrape of chair legs over a stone floor. Then, quick, hard steps approached the connecting door and a key turned in the lock.
Holy Moses! He was coming over!
He stood in the doorway like a statue of some Greek god about to pass judgement on a poor mortal and maybe throw a thunderbolt or two.
‘Tell me,’ he ordered.
‘I’m not obliged to tell you anything about my personal life,’ I mumbled, and thought: I’m looking down at the floor! Why the hell am I looking down? I’m a strong, independent woman! ‘That’s not part of the job description of a secretary.’
‘It’s also not part of the job description of a secretary to tour the hotels of London in a dress and with a sack full of onions at the ready, but you did it anyway. Tell me. Now!’
I stayed silent.
‘If you will not tell me, I’ll deduct the time we spend arguing from your wages.’
I gasped. That was a low blow.
Well… maybe I could just tell him about me, personally. I couldn’t tell him about Ella, of course. That wasn’t my secret to share. There was only one thing left to tell. I took a deep breath.
‘Well…’
‘Yes?’
‘I’m being pursued by a man.’
‘What?’ With three long strides, Rikkard Ambrose was at my desk and had grabbed hold of my hands. Startled, my eyes flew up to look at him.
Hey! He was supposed to be calm and immovable as granite! I wouldn’t have thought him capable of an emotion such as this. True, his face still was as impassive as ever, but his eyes… His dark eyes were emitting sparks of fury.
‘Why didn’t you tell me about this earlier?’ he demanded.
‘Why should I? It was none of your business!’
I tried to free my hands from his grip. It felt disturbing, having him hold my hands in his strong grasp after the episode in his personal powder room. I tried to shove that from my mind and concentrate on the moment.
‘None of my business?’ he repeated, coldly. ‘A man has been chasing you through London, and it’s none of my business? Tell me, is he connected with Simmons? What did he want? Did he mention the file or threaten to harm you? How far did he pursue you? Was he on foot or on horseback? How did you escape?’
It all clicked into place then: his reaction, the grip of his fingers on mine, even the cold fire in his eyes. I almost started to laugh. Almost.
‘Err… Mr Ambrose? When I said he’s “pursuing” me, I meant he wants to marry me.’
Mr Ambrose’s grip on my hand slackened, and he blinked.
‘What?’
‘He’s trying to get me as his wife, not chasing me through town with a knife in his hand.’
‘Oh.’ There was a pause. ‘Are you sure?’
‘Am I sure?’ I glared up at him. ‘What’s that supposed to mean? Of course I’m sure! Even I know the difference between a bouquet of flowers and a butcher’s knife!’
‘Err… of course you do. Well, that’s good to hear. That’s really…’
I stared at his face. A muscle somewhere in his cheekbone twitched, and his eyes went from side to side as if looking for an escape. Dear me. Had I managed to get Mr Rikkard Ambrose flustered?
Suddenly, an unpleasant thought struck me.
‘How come the first thing you thought of when I said I was being “pursued by a man” was that somebody was chasing me to get information out of me about you?’
‘Well, um…’
‘Do you think I’m that uninteresting? Do you think I’m a shrivelled old hag, that I could only attract men who want to stab me, not ones that want to marry me?’ As hard as I could, I tugged at my hands to free them from his grasp - but his fingers were too strong. ‘How dare you! Do you really think that I am that ugly?’
‘Of course not,’ he snapped, not looking at my face, which was good, because my glare would have burned holes into him. I was so angry with him, I would have slapped him if the thought of my pay cheque hadn’t stayed my hand. ‘Of course not, Miss Linton, you’re lovely.’
‘It is abominable that someone like you can call himself a gentleman. You should know better than…’
My voice trailed off.
‘Wait just a moment… What did you say?’
Belatedly, my ears registered his last spoken words. The ears delivered them to my brain, where they were turned around and examined carefully. Then they were submitted to an authenticity test somewhere in the dark depths of my mind.
You’re lovely… Miss Linton, you’re lovely…
The results of the test weren’t long in coming. On the whole, it was extremely unlikely that these words could have really, as I imagined, come out of the mouth of Mr Rikkard Ambrose. Unlikely? Scratch that. Impossible!
‘What did you say?’ I repeated, my voice so weak I didn’t recognize it anymore. Suddenly, having my hands in his felt completely different, and for some reason I stopped struggling to get them free. From my sitting position, I looked up at Mr Ambrose, who looked as though he had just been forced to swallow his own top hat.
‘What did you say?’ I repeated once more, though I remembered perfectly well. I just wanted to hear it again to make sure I hadn’t gone temporarily insane. Rikkard Ambrose thought I was lovely? Nobody had ever told me I was lovely! Not even my own mother! And what kind of lovely exactly? The 'Oh-that-was-a-lovely-job-Mister-Secretary'-kind of lovely, or the other kind of lovely? The kind that involved him calling me Miss instead of Mister.