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‘Well?’ he said, after two or three seconds of silence. ‘I believe I already told you that I do not appreciate time-wasters, Miss… Linton, was it?’
I nodded.
‘So what do you want?’
I swallowed, and said nothing. God, how to phrase this?
He regarded me coolly for a few more moments, then added: ‘If you are concerned about me pressing charges against you, do not worry. I have no desire to ruin a lady’s reputation, especially the reputation of a “lady” who is not right in the head.’ He looked down at his desk and studied a few papers lying there. ‘If that is all, Miss Linton…’
The dismissal was obvious in his tone of voice. But I didn’t pay attention. I was still too busy processing the ‘not-right-in-the-head’ comment. Not right in the head? Why? Because I put on a pair of trousers? Because I wanted a say in the government of my country?
I’ll give him not right in the head!
‘Actually, no,’ I blurted out, my voice coming out sharper than I had intended. ‘That wasn’t why I came. I came because you requested it. I came to take up the position of your private secretary.’
His eyes, having perused line after line of whatever document lay before him, froze. Then they snapped up to me. His face seemed not quite as expressionless as before. Silence hovered over the two of us, thick and heavy.
Finally he said: ‘But you are a girl.’
I bowed my head in what I hoped would be a demure manner. But it probably looked more sarcastic than demure.
‘How kind of you to notice, Mr Ambrose.’
His gaze travelled up and down my figure, taking in the hoop skirt, my styled hair and various parts of my anatomy pushed into the right place by my corset.
‘Not so very kind. The fact is rather hard to overlook.’
‘You were not so observant the last time we met!’
He narrowed his eyes about a millimetre. ‘The last time we met, you had taken great pains to disguise yourself, if I remember, in a manner some might call infamous and outrageous.’
I narrowed my eyes more than just a millimetre and crossed my arms defiantly.
‘I was wearing trousers! Why is that infamous? They’re just a piece of cloth and don't make me any less of a girl. If you went around dressed in a ball gown, would that make you any less of a man?’
‘I’m afraid I’ve never yet made the experiment, Miss Linton,’ he replied, frostily.
A mental image popped into my head of Mr Cold Masculinity Ambrose in a frilly off-the-shoulders ball gown with a big hoop skirt and a paper fan in his hand. I had to work hard to keep from laughing. His tone told me that that wouldn’t have been a good idea. He didn’t seem to be a person who appreciated mirth, to put it mildly.
So instead of laughing at him, I did the next best thing. I fixed him with a determined look and said: ‘We’re wandering from the subject. I didn’t come here to talk to you about fashion. I came to work.’
Shaking his head derisively, he asked: ‘So you persist in this ludicrous claim that you want to work as my s
ecretary?’
‘I do, and it isn’t ludicrous. When can I take up my new duties?’
‘You can’t.’
‘Why not?’
‘Because I will most certainly not give you the position.’
‘Why not?’
‘I do not have to explain myself to you, Miss Linton.’
Panic started to well up inside me, and I did my best to push it back down. This was what I had feared. He wouldn’t even consider taking me on. He would throw me out. Now I had only one last chance. It all depended on one question now: was Mr Rikkard Ambrose a gentleman, or only a man?
