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‘So you’re going to put me down?’
‘No.’
‘Do it now!’
‘No.’
I tried to find the strength to protest again, but it felt so nice being snuggled against his warm, hard chest, and my head was feeling a bit woozy.
‘You’re a tyrannical son of a bachelor,’ I accused.
Mr Ambrose snorted, and murmured something too low for me to really understand. Something about a pot calling the metal back?
We ascended the stairs in silence, all the way up the opera house that was long asleep by now. No voices of singers rose from below, no chatter of dancers flitted through the corridors. The only things to hear were Mr Ambrose’s quiet footsteps and the ringing of a church bell in the distance.
A church bell.
Mr Ambrose stopped on the last step.
‘Is that why you said no to me? Because I’m a tyrant?’
I thought about it.
‘Yes,’ I finally admitted. ‘And no.’
‘That doesn’t make sense, Mr Linton.’
‘I’m drunk,’ I reminded him happily. ‘I don’t have to make sense.’
‘Oh yes. Yes, you do.’ A powerful hand caught my chin in its grip and lifted my head. Blinking the drowsiness out of my eyes, I gazed up at Mr Rikkard Ambrose, his icy gaze boring into me. I felt like whiskey on the rocks. Lots of alcohol with a bit of ice mixed in. ‘I know you—and I know you want me. I told you when I left for France, I’m not just going to walk away from you. I’ll make you mine, one way or another.’
‘There!’ I waggled a finger in his face. ‘That’s what I meant by tyrannical. When a woman tells you no, you have to accept it!’
‘Even if she doesn’t mean it?’
‘Especially then. Agonizing over potentially idiotic decisions is one of the most precious rights of womankind.’
Muttering a low oath, Mr Ambrose continued on his way, and I snuggled back into his chest.
‘You’re impossible!’
‘I’m your little ifrit,’ I grinned up at him. ‘That’s my job description.’
Wordlessly, he pulled me tighter against him and lowered his face into my hair, crushing it against his lips. Not loosening his grip for an instant, he carried me along a corridor, the walls of which seemed rather wobbly and colourful for a scarcely lit house in the middle of the night.
‘W-where are we?’ I murmured.
‘The attic.’
‘You’re going to store me in the attic?’
‘Yes, with the brooms, buckets and old costumes.’
But, contrary to his words, a moment later he pushed open a door and stepped into one of the most beautiful rooms I had ever seen. True, it was a bit dusty, and there was actually a broom leaning in the corner—but the rest?
I sucked in a breath at the sight.
High, high above us, the two slanting sides of the ceiling med above an intricate labyrinth of rafters. Between the rafters, cobwebs hung like velvet drapes, glittering in the silvery moonlight that fell in through the window.
