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Well, let’s just put it this way: I had better quickly discover a way to survive a stab wound through the heart from a sharpened parasol.
And then, of course, even worse than Patsy, there was the one person who would probably be most horrified if the truth about me and Mr Rikkard Ambrose came to light: Mr Rikkard Ambrose. He had made no secret of his disdain for women, no secret of the fact that if I wanted to work for him, I had to do so disguised as a man. If I were revealed as a woman, and, moreover, a woman with whom he was having an illicit affair, the scandal would be so enormous it would fill the newspapers from London to Kuala Lumpur. My heart picked up the pace. The mere thought of his reaction…!
Taking a deep breath, I fought down the rising panic and got a grip on myself.
No need to fret, Lilly, I told myself. What happens in the jungle, stays in the jungle. Tropical trees and monkey dung are more than enough proof of that. You’ll just have to hope that these unfeminist cravings you have are due to tropical fever and will vanish as soon as you set foot on good old English soil.
‘What’s the matter?’ touching my cheek with a gentleness I would never have believed him capable of, Mr Ambrose lifted my face until my gaze met his.
‘Nothing,’ I told him. ‘Kiss me!’
*~*~**~*~*
‘Stop! We’ve arrived.’
Halting, I looked around. There was nothing but jungle to be seen. No sign of the landmark that was described in the manuscript. And it wasn’t really the kind of landmark that could be overlooked.
‘Are you sure, Sir?’
He gave me a level gaze.
Of course he was sure. He was Rikkard Ambrose.
‘But how do you know? How do you know we’ve travelled ten miles along the river yet, as it says in the manuscript?’
‘Because I counted my steps. A simple trick, if you can keep them steady and regular.’
Which he no doubt could. Regular as clockwork.
‘Hm…’ I gazed around, searching for the landmark. Oh dear. Maybe this was going to be a bit more difficult than I had imagined.
‘You mentioned some kind of landmark earlier,’ Karim said, with his customary atrocious timing. ‘What is it, anyway?’
I cleared my throat. ‘A mountain.’
There was a moment of silence. And, since it emanated from both Mr Ambrose and Karim, I hoped to hell it wasn’t pregnant!
‘Mr Linton,’ my dear employer finally said, his voice cold and controlled, ‘in case you have not noticed, we are surrounded by one-hundred-feet-tall trees on all sides. We cannot even see the ground a few yards away, let alone any mountains!’
‘I noticed!’ I snapped. ‘I’m working on it! I’ll find a solution!’
‘Indeed?’
‘Don’t act so…so…ice-cold all-knowing arse-like! Do you have any ideas?’
He just looked at me. That cool, hard, look told me everything without words: he did not need to have ideas, because that’s what he paid me for.
‘We can always climb a tree,’ Karim suggested.
‘Oh yes?’ I arched an eyebrow at him. ‘And who would be crazy enough to climb one of those monstrosities?’
This time, it wasn’t just one gaze I felt on me. It was two. And they were both extremely calculating.
‘Oh no!’ I took a step back. ‘No, no, nonononono, no, no! Forget it! Never in this life or the next!’
*~*~**~*~*
‘Bloody tyrannical, insufferable, domineering bastard!’ My hand gripped the branch above me and I pulled myself up, just managing to keep a hold of the slippery, wet wood. ‘Curse him to hell and back! Bastardo! Avaro!’
