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This is what you’ve always worked so hard to avoid, a small voice in my head whispered. Get away! You don’t want this! You didn’t ever want a man to touch you like this! But the voice was getting smaller and smaller, until I could no more hear the want a man, and all that was left was an echoing touch… touch… touch…
Something touched my face. I jerked back, breaking the kiss, and gasping. His fingers! He had his fingers on my face, stroking my cheeks.
Dear God! How could I have ever thought him cold? The tips of his fingers on my face were like torches, sending sparks racing down my spine to somewhere deep, deep inside me, a place I had never known about before. A place that only waited to be kindled.
‘Come.’
It was an order. But this time one I didn’t mind. His fingers grasped my face tightly, pulling it back towards his. I had never seen it this close: his smooth, raven-black hair - how had I never noticed how shiny it was? - his classical, chiselled features - beautiful, simply beautiful - and above all, his mouth. His mouth. The word suddenly held a whole new meaning for me. No longer was it just the origin of curt, demanding orders and misogynistic balderdash. It was the source of a touch that was so intimate, so inflammatory, that it was beyond anything I could have imagined.
His arms were still around me, holding me tight. His eyes didn’t leave mine for a moment. Was this, I wondered, what it was like for Ella when Edmund was holding her? What it was like to be close to a man, to open yourself and let all barriers fall?
It was an unearthly thing, in the truest sense of the word. I could even see bright stars dancing at the office ceiling, behind Mr Ambrose’s chiselled face.
My head felt strange. What was happening? The fire was slowly burning out. And the stars… the stars were no longer dancing behind Mr Ambrose. They were also dancing in front of his face. And they were multiplying, obscuring my vision. Mist came, flooding in from the edges of my sight, and I slowly sank into the darkness. From very far away I heard a voice calling out: ‘Miss Linton! Miss Linton!’
Now, who could that be? I wondered. Mr Ambrose never calls me Miss.
Then the darkness swallowed me.
A Trace of Fire Brings the Winter
When I awoke, I was slumped in the visitor’s chair, my head resting on my shoulder. My eyes didn’t want to open, but I knew where I was sitting without looking. No one in London except Mr Rikkard Ambrose owned a chair this hard and uncomfortable. A soft groan escaped my mouth.
‘Ah. You are finally awake.’
The voice was cool, and as distant as Timbuktu. I didn’t need to open my eyes to recognize it, either.
‘What… happened?’ I moaned.
‘You went to the bathroom to get your shoes. On the way back you stumbled and passed out. I believe you hit your head.’
Slowly, memories started coming back. The memories he spoke of came first - but there were faint images of others, too. I had bumped my head? Some part of me did feel as if a bruise was likely to develop, but it wasn’t the back of my head. Almost unconsciously, I reached up and touched my lips. They felt unusually warm and swollen.
Could one knock oneself out by falling on the mouth? I wasn’t sure. And shouldn’t I have knocked my teeth out in the process? I felt my jaw. All teeth were still firmly attached. But my lips… My lips felt different, somehow. Not really in a bad way. Tingly and hot. If that’s what keeling over did to you, maybe I should do it more often.
Mustering all my energy, I forced my eyes open. Mr Ambrose stood over me, looking even more like the statue of some Greek god for the fact that he was towering above me. Any moment I expected him to start throwing thunderbolts.
Touching my lips again, I met his gaze. For a moment, something in his eyes flashed, something that was gone so quickly that I had probably imagined it.
‘Did… anything happen?’ I mumbled. ‘Anything else?’
Not a muscle in his face moved. ‘Other than you falling and nearly cracking your head open on the floor, Mr Linton? No. I must inform you that if you wish to remain in my employ, you will in the future have to refrain from such effemina
te displays of clumsiness. I have no time for them. Do we understand each other?’
‘Y-yes, Sir.’
‘Good. Then maybe you can finally leave now. I wish to have my office to myself. Your presence here is distracting.’
I got to my feet. Apparently, the floor still wasn’t interested in a peace treaty. It wobbled threateningly under my feet as I made my way to the door. Mr Ambrose, though, who walked beside me, didn’t have any problems, which confirmed my suspicion: he had been in cahoots with the floor all along! They had worked together to do… something.
Yes, something had happened.
But what?
If only I could remember. Yet the memory was just out of my reach.
Had they collaborated to knock me down? But why would they hit me on the lips to do so? Surely it would have worked better if they had tried the back of my head. Besides… I couldn’t believe that Mr Ambrose had anything to do with my silly accident. The yellow piggies would have warned me if they saw him sneaking up on me.
