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‘Land ahoy!’
The call from the top of the mast brought me out of my cabin. And indeed, there it was: just a faint white line, as yet, but I could already recognize the cliffs of Dover. My heart sped up, and I glanced at Mr Ambrose, who stood next to me at the railing, like a stone monument to masculinity.
‘So…we’re back home.’
‘Indeed.’
‘Back in England.’ Where it is not usual to run around half naked covered in mud all the time.
‘Indeed.’
‘Are you happy to be back?’
Silence.
Well, I suppose it was a stupid question. In order to be happy to be back, you would first have to know what it means to be happy.
‘When you’re back in London, are you going to publish your discovery? Are you going to write about our adventure? I’m sure the Royal Geographical Society would be interested.’
He turned his head an inch or so in my direction, inquiringly. ‘What profit would that bring?’
‘Fame! Publicity! Scholarly recognition!’
‘How much is that in pounds sterling?’
‘Hrumph.’
‘Besides, I doubt the government back in South America would agree with my personal “finders keepers” philosophy.’
Well, he was probably right about that.
My eyes were drawn back to the Cliffs of Dover, and all thought of discoveries and adventures vanished from my mind. This was England. I would have bigger things to worry about than whether or not my name appeared in the journals of the Royal Geographical Society. Glancing sideways at Mr Ambrose, I tried to detect one crack in his armour, one little hint that he wasn’t as perfectly cool and composed as he appeared to be. There was nothing.
He hadn’t touched me once on the journey back from South America. He hadn’t even tried. True, a stifling little cabin that smelled of salted fish wasn’t exactly an environment conducive to violent romantic passion, but still…I had expected at least something to happen. At the very least, I had expected him to say something. Instead, all I had got was…
Can you guess?
Yep. Silence.
Really very extraordinarily silent silence. How surprising.
I wondered what would happen if I were suddenly to grab him by the ears and plant a big, fat, fiery kiss on him. And then I wondered why I was wondering these things. I was a feminist, bloody hell! I should have got this annoying habit of plastering my lips to those of my chauvinistic employer out of my system by now! Even if I wanted anything to do with men - which I most definitely absolutely and totally did not, no, never, thank you very much for not bothering me with it and going to hell right now! - he and I were about as well-suited to each other as a Siberian tiger and a firebird!
And yet, and yet…
I glanced at Mr Ambrose again, and as I did, something contracted around my heart, squeezing painfully.
Oh no.
My tastes leaned more towards adventure novels. But I had read enough romances to know what that feeling meant.
There it went again! One look at Mr Ambrose, one painful squeeze around my heart.
Oh, no, no, no, never in a thousand million billion years! It was simply impossible! And even if it were possible, it was completely and utterly intolerable! I would rather drown myself in the Thames or go into exile in the Sahara than admit that I might actually be…that I might feel…for him? No! No, no, and triple no!
My hand clenched around the railing. I stared ferociously forward, towards the white Cliffs of Dover, trying to make them explode with the force of my glare alone. It didn’t work.
No! This can’t be happening! This can’t be happening! This can’t be hap-
