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‘Very good, girl, very good indeed. But suitors don't hide in bushes. They ride carriages or horses. The good ones, anyway.’
‘I would never have guessed. What would I do without your wise advice, Aunt.’
‘You would be destitute, of course, child. Don’t ask such silly questions.’
‘Yes, Aunt.’
I was getting quite accomplished at playing obedience. However had that come about?
Oh yes. My practice with the tyrant king of London finance.
I chomped down on my potato a bit too hard. Ruddy hell! Could nothing banish that man from my thoughts?
‘W-will Sir Philip be calling today?’
The hesitant voice was Ella's. And it answered my question. Yes, something could banish Mr Ambrose from my mind, if only temporarily: my concern for my little sister.
‘I do not think so,’ my aunt sighed.
Good.
‘But,’ she added, brightening, ‘we’ll all see him at the ball tonight, of course.’
Oh. Bad. Very bad.
‘Ball?’ What little colour there was in Ella’s face disappeared.
‘Oh yes. Didn’t I mention it? Another invitation arrived a few days ago. We are all to go to another ball at Lady Metcalf's, and Sir Philip has kindly agreed to accompany us.’ She winked at Ella in so suggestive a way that a blind possum couldn’t have failed to notice the message.
Ella went from white to translucent.
‘How… nice of him.’
I stabbed my fork into the next potato, imagining it to be Sir Philip’s head.
‘We are all invited?’ I asked. ‘Me, too?’
My aunt looked at me in surprise. ‘Yes, of course, but… do you want to come? I thought I would have to drag you there as usual.’
‘Trust me, madam,’ I told her, and bit down on my potato, severing it in the middle. ‘I want to come.’
*~*~**~*~*
The mist sparkled in the early morning sunlight in all the streets of London. It parted before me as the ocean before the bow of a battleship as I marched towards Leadenhall Street. In my mind I was going over things I could do to Sir Philip Wilkins if he didn’t leave my little sister alone. Boiling alive was quite high up on the list.
This ball might be my last chance. Things were coming to a head, I could feel it! Considering all Wilkins had said to me the last time we had met, it wouldn’t surprise me if he intended to propose to Ella tonight. That could never happen, I knew. She would not have the courage to refuse him.
Sweet, mad, little creature! She had the courage to offer to face down a drunken rake for my sake, but not the courage to stand up for the wishes of her own heart. If only Wilkins had fallen in love with me, instead! He would be in Inverness by now, on his way to charter a ship to the polar regions, in the hope of getting as far away from my wrath as possible.
I thought I would never be able to stop fretting about Ella. Yet the closer I drew to Leadenhall Street, the more thoughts of her and Wilkins were replaced by thoughts of another. Someone beside whom they seemed to pale into insignificance. Someone made of granite, iron and money. Soon I could do nothing but obsess over one question:
What the dickens am I supposed to say to him? How should I react to him after what has happened?
But no, I reminded myself. Nothing had happened. Nothing at all. Especially nothing that involved lips touching. It had all just been in my imagination. So I wouldn’t need to say anything.
But…
What if he said something?
