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If I’d had any hope that a night of searching through the wet alleys of London might cool Morty’s passion, that hope vanished the moment he showed up at our house the next morning. And by morning, I mean six o’clock. Ante meridiem.
I mean, honestly! Six am! Just because he thought the woman he loved had been kidnapped and ravished by a rake? The nerve of the man! I had to work, after all.
Of course, he wasn’t actually aware of that little fact, so from a purely logical standpoint I couldn’t really blame him for it. Still, at six in the morning, with my sleep-deprived eyes only half open and my hair a mess of brown lianas on my head, I wasn’t inclined to be particularly logical - or polite. As I stumbled to the door, still in my nightgown, cursing whoever was standing outside, ringing the doorbell like a madman, I was contemplating the use of brute force to shut them up.
‘Yes?’ I yanked the door open. ‘Who is it and why are you making such a rack-’
I got no further. An instant later, I was engulfed in a crushing hug. Something small and cuddly had thrown itself at me. Did we have a monkey waiting outside the door?
‘Oh my God! Thank you! You are safe, Lillian my love! You are safe and well!’
No. It wasn’t a monkey. It was a Morty.
He tried to kiss me, and I ducked to the left. He tried to kiss me from the other direction, and I ducked to the right. Some distant part of my mind that wasn’t completely sleep-deprived had time to admire how quick my reflexes were at six in the morning.
‘Oh Lillian, my love! I was so worried! So terribly worried! I’d like to hold you and never let go again!’
‘Yes, Morty, I can feel that. Say…you wouldn’t mind loosening your grip a little, would you?’
‘What?’
‘Loosen. Your. Grip!’
‘Oh. If you think I should. I…’ Morty’s eyes went wide. Only now did he seem to register that I was wearing nothing but a nightshirt, and he, to put it delicately, was hugging me very, very closely. He let go as if he’d been burned and jumped back at least three feet.
‘Oh. Um… I’m so sorry, Lillian, my love! So terribly sorry! It won’t ever…I mean…I will never again…I didn’t mean to…’
His stuttering went on until my aunt made her way down the stairs and shooed me off into mine and Ella’s room to dress. Knowing that my aunt would be up to drag me down by my hair if I didn’t hurry, I enlisted Ella’s help in squeezing into my dress and was back downstairs in a couple of minutes.
The good news was: Morty was so embarrassed by having hugged a girl in her nightdress that he kept his hands off me during the entire breakfast. The bad news was: he definitely had not changed his mind about the engagement. Between the embarrassed looks he sent my way, there still were at least a dozen hot looks of passionate longing. There really was no way around it: the man was head over heels in love with me. He was so happy to see me safe and well, he didn’t even ask where I had disappeared to last night.
My aunt, however, had no such inhibitions.
‘Lillian?’ Leaning over to me, she spoke in a low but unmistakably no-nonsense voice. ‘Where did you disappear to last night?’
Having Mr Ambrose for an employer really had been enormously educational. It had taught me the value of the world’s most underestimated rhetorical device.
Silence.
‘Lillian? Answer me!’
And more silence.
‘Answer me now!’
And just a little bit more to annoy her. Ha! I knew how to be silent. I had learned from the master of masters.
‘Very well.’ The gaze my aunt shot me through narrowed eyes told me she didn’t particularly appreciate Ambrosian rhetorical tactics. ‘Be a stubborn little girl about last night, if you will. But today you will behave like a lady, understood? Mr Fitzgerald will expect you to spend the day with him - and that you will do! No buts, understood?’
‘Yes, Aunt.’
I would give her no buts - however, that didn’t mean I was going to do what she said. I was an excellent liar. Always had been. What can I say, it’s a natural talent.
Besides, I really had to get to work. So, just before breakfast ended, I excused myself, saying I had to go to the powder room. My aunt threw me a suspicious look. But what could she do? She could hardly demand to go with me in front of her future nephew-in-law.
I was thorough. I went down the corridor to the powder room, banged the door in an audible ma
nner, and only then snuck back up the corridor and out the back door into the garden. Minutes later I emerged from the garden shed and, stepping out onto the street, started on my way towards Empire House, 322 Leadenhall Street.
