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‘-didn’t believe it?’
‘Well, not quite, no. I mean…why would you be here, in Newcastle?’
Cautiously pulling the
curtains aside just a few inches at a time, he made a broad enough gap to peer in, and, kneeling beside the bed, gazed at my face. Thankfully not at the rest of me, though.
Please don’t let him notice my tailcoat. Please don’t let him notice my tailcoat.
I could only hope it was all hidden under the covers.
‘My regiment was called in to disperse the strikers and rioters.’
‘Oh?’
‘But, for some reason, by the time we arrived here, they had already disbanded.’
‘Fancy that.’
‘Still…’ Reaching out, he gently took my hand and pulled it towards him - far enough that the sleeve of my tailcoat slipped out from under the covers a few inches. Please don’t let him see! Please! ‘Still, Miss Linton - orders or no orders, I would have come. If I’d known what you were walking into, I would never have let you leave! I would have convinced you to stay safe at Battlewood. This would never have happened.’
‘Don’t be so sure.’ Even though my face hurt from doing it, I gave him a smile. ‘Convincing me of anything can be rather difficult.’
He smiled back at me - but then, his face suddenly turned unusually serious. He knelt at my bedside and, tightening his grip on my hand, he told me, ‘I mean to try, nevertheless. Miss Linton, I… I wanted to ask-’
He hesitated.
I looked into his eyes - and instantly I knew what he was going to ask. It wasn’t that I had suddenly turned psychic. It just so happened that I had considerable experience with this particular question, and even more experience in answering it with a resounding ‘Hell, no!’
Only…
Was this the right answer here and now?
Screwing his courage to the sticking place, Captain Carter squared his shoulders and met my gaze.
‘Miss Lillian Linton, will you do me the very great honour of becoming my-’
Shoeblack?
Pinworm?
Chicken soup?
I never found out whether this was what he would have said next, because right in that moment, quick footsteps approached from outside, and a second later, the door burst open, revealing the tall, dark form of Mr Rikkard Ambrose.
Wrap the Captain
Silence.
It was utter. Complete. Unbreakable. And yet…it was louder than any silence I had ever heard before in my life. I had a sudden urge to clamp my hands over my ears to protect them from the sudden lack of noise. The temperature in the room dropped by a hundred degrees. Not wishing to be frozen into an ice sculpture, I said nothing and didn’t move. Especially not in the direction of Mr Rikkard Ambrose. In fact, I avoided looking at him altogether. After all, there was no particular reason why I should be looking at him, right? He hadn’t walked in on anything bad. It was all perfectly innocent, and I was blameless, and if I just kept my mouth shut and avoided looking into his icy eyes I might, possibly, survive this.
Captain Carter had no such compunctions.
‘Excuse me, Sir!’ Rising to his feet, he sent Mr Ambrose a glare that would have made most men retreat with their tail between their legs. ‘Didn’t your mother teach you how to knock?’
Most men. Not this one.
Mr Ambrose regarded Captain Carter as if he were something he had found stuck to the sole of his ten-year-old mint-condition shoes.
