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‘Will you stay away from him?’ Mr Ambrose demanded. His breath tickled my skin as he spoke, momentarily robbing me of the strength to answer.
‘Y-yes,’ I managed.
He gave a curt nod. ‘Adequate.’
‘But,’ I hurriedly tacked on, ‘not because you said so. I’ll stay away because I, as an independent, strong woman independently decided, on my own, to stay away from him!’
He cocked his head as if to say, ‘As long as you do what I say, why do you think I care about the why?’
I glowered at him. He ignored me.
‘Let me go!’ I demanded.
He still ignored me. Taking a deep breath, he leant forward just a little more.
The sensation that hit me was shocking! Not his lips, no - they were much softer than this. It was his forehead, resting against mine. I could feel a few wild strands of my hair tickling his forehead, and… my God! He really was hard-headed! In the literal sense of the word. And bloody heavy! It was downright uncomfortable.
Really? If it’s so uncomfortable, why don’t you want him to pull away?
His eyes bored into mine.
‘Swear!’ He demanded. ‘Swear to me you’ll stay away from him!’
Swear. Not promise, not pledge, swear. And I had a feeling that an oath sworn to Mr Rikkard Ambrose had better not be broken.
So I quickly crossed my fingers behind my back, just in case.
‘I swear.’
And suddenly he was gone. I swayed for a moment, used to the press of his body into mine. He was standing three feet away, standing tall and forbidding, as if we hadn’t just been pressed more tightly together than two flounders in a printing press.
‘Quite sensible of you, Mr Linton.’
Sensible? Sensible? I didn’t feel very sensible right now! Or reasonable, or cautious, or prudent, for that matter.
I sucked in a deep breath, my eyes still fixed on Mr Ambrose, fumbling for something to say. Something that wasn’t Come back here! I wasn’t finished with you!
‘But it doesn’t make any sense!’ Finally, some words had managed to find their way out of my mouth. And they sounded angry, not breathless. Good.
‘Indeed?’ Mr Ambrose regarded me coolly. ‘What are you referring to, exactly, Mr Linton?’
‘Lord Dalgliesh! Why would I have to try and stay away from him? What does he want from me? For some reason, at the ball he was determined to find out your reason for dancing with me. But it was just one dance! Why would he be interested in that? I mean… what’s one dance?’
‘He has been trying to find a weak spot in my armour for years now, Mr Linton. If he had reason to believe that I had formed a romantic attachment to someone, this would give him the hold over me he has always desired.’
‘But… why would he think that, after just one dance?’
There was a pause. Then he said, in voice so low I hardly caught it: ‘I don’t dance, Mr Linton.’
My heart made a jump. ‘Not ever?’
‘No. It’s a waste of time.’
‘But you danced with me.’
‘Yes.’ A muscle in his jaw twitched. ‘Apparently, that one dance was enough to convince Dalgliesh that I might have formed a romantic attachment to you.’ Abruptly, he turned and strode back to his desk. ‘Ridiculous, of course, but there you are.’
Unconsciously, my hands closed into fists.
