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‘Once I’m married, my husband can,’ I hissed. Anger was rising inside me, burning away the tiredness that had clouded my mind. What did he know of freedom? What did any man know? They took for granted what women could never have. ‘I must work to make a living. The only other choice is to give myself to a so-called “eligible” man, Mr. Ambrose, Sir. For life.’
In three steps he was around the desk and in front of me.
‘And would that be so detestable? To belong to a man?’
I shot up to face him, not knowing where the energy came from. I was bone-crushingly tired. But I suddenly ran on anger now, and I always had a good supply of that at hand. My mouth tightened, the tired smile disappearing. Woozy or not, tired or not, seeing little piggies or not, I had an absolutely clear opinion on that one particular question.
‘I’d rather die!’
A muscle in his beautiful, mask-like face twitched.
‘Even if the man… harboured feelings for you?’
At that, the yellow piggy stopped searching for truffles and started snickering. I wanted to throw something at it, but didn’t see any ammunition in the vicinity.
‘And how likely is that?’ I scoffed.
For a moment he just stood there. His jaw moved; he looked like he wanted to say something. But then, why didn’t he? Instead, he just stood there in silence.
Finally, he said in his most icy voice: ‘How should I know? I am certainly no expert on bridegroom choice. Still, it would seem a safer option to marry than to do what you are doing.’
‘Life is not about living the safer option,’ I told him sleepily. ‘Life is about living a life worth living.’
‘You won’t get to live a life worth living, or any life, if you go on like this!’ Grabbing my upper arms, he pushed me backwards until my back slammed into the wall. ‘Don’t you understand, Mr Linton? You could have died out there tonight! Died!’
And he shook me, as if he could get his point across by treating me like a salt shaker. All it did was make me angrier! All right, I admit it also made me feel the hardness of his body grinding and bumping against mine, but I tried my best to ignore that and focus on the being angry part.
I remembered another time not long ago when we had stood like this, pressed close together, my anger boiling like a volcano in me, his freezing cold in him. I remembered what it had felt like to feel every line of his sinuous, statuesque body pressed against me. Statuesque - that was normally a word you used only for women, if you wanted to say they were tall and graceful. But as I felt him now, I knew it described him perfectly. It described the hardness of his muscles. It described the lack of motion on his face. It even described his taciturn and stony manner. Like a statue. Statuesque.
The only thing it did not describe was the anger I swear I could feel underneath the stony exterior, in his deep, dark eyes.
What was there for him to be angry about? What was it to him if I died? He’d finally be rid of me, something he had been trying to achieve by a multitude of methods for weeks now. He should be glad if a stray bullet did the work for him.
‘You could have died,’ he repeated. Behind him, Napoleon, who had left the bathroom by now, the chessboard under his arm, nodded solemnly. Blast! Even the Emperor agreed with him. I had to swallow.
‘I know,’ I said softly. ‘I know I could have died, but so could you. So could any of the men who were there, fighting.’
‘But you are not like them, Mr Linton.’
The unspoken spoken words hung like the sword of Damocles in the air over our heads: You are a girl. You are weak.
My chin rose up in proud defiance.
‘I can be like them, in all the things that matter.’
His icy, sea-coloured eyes wandered from my face then, went down my body, slowly, lingeringly, and up again. I could feel the breathing in his chest, still pressed against mine, quicken as he did so.
‘No.’ The word was absolute, brooking no contradiction. ‘You could never be.’
He leaned forward until I could feel his breath tickle my skin. What was he doing? His hands, his body, his breath, all melted together into a frightening, exciting melee of sights, feelings, smells and sounds. Suddenly, I could feel butterflies dancing in my stomach.
Butterflies? What the heck were butterfli
es doing down there? I hadn’t eaten any this morning, had I?
His silent, stony face was only inches away now. He was so near, so terribly near - and then he moved to close the last bit of distance.
Seeing Stars
