Hunting for Silence (Storm and Silence 5)

‘A-and I’m sorry about what I called you earlier. I shouldn’t have said it, and I apologize, and…and…’

I nodded encouragingly. The innkeeper made a face. ‘And all your meals will be on the house as my personal apology.’

Picking up a menu, Karim perused the prices. He didn’t thank me. He didn’t say anything about what had just happened. For a long moment, silence hung between us. Then, glancing up, he raised one bushy eyebrow. ‘Maybe you are the right one for him after all.’

Everybody else exchanged confused glances. I didn’t care. I grinned from ear to ear, so broadly it nearly split my head in two.

Eve tugged at my sleeve. ‘What the heck is he rambling on about?’

My grin broadened even more. ‘You’ll understand soon. Come. Let’s sit down and eat.’

It was one of the best meals of my life, not least because it was completely free and eaten in the company of my friends and family, who were, thank goodness, all safe and healthy. But the food itself was excellent, too. Just goes to show: you can be an arrogant, prejudicial asshole and still be a good cook.

‘Another helping of pie, Miss?’ the innkeeper asked, stepping up to the table with a gloomy expression on his face.

‘Yes, thank you. How very kind.’

‘For me as well,’ Karim said with a smile that showed all his teeth. ‘It really is excellent.’

‘How wonderful,’ the innkeeper groaned and trudged off.

Once again, the others at the table—except Edmund and Ella, who were in their own private, pink little world—gave me those strange looks that I’d been getting a lot recently Was it really so strange to them to see me taking charge?

You’ve grown, Lilly, I realized. Ever since that moment when you first stepped into the office of a certain business magnate in London, you’ve done a whole lot of growing.

Grinning, I stabbed my fork into a piece of roast beef. After all, a growing girl needed her food.

After dinner, Ella looked more than a little drowsy. So I ordered for the horses to be stabled, and Edmund and I helped her up to a comfy bedchamber, where soon she was snoring the day away. I had to admit, I was feeling more than a little sleepy myself. I hadn’t quite realized how much caring for Ella day after day after day had taken out of me. I had just enough strength left to find myself a bed before I collapsed and sank into warm, wonderfully downy darkness.

When I awoke, warm, red light filtered in through the windows. Yawning, I stretched. Dear me. I had slept half the day away. And that with Mr Ambrose waiting for me back in London. Hopefully he’d been patient and—

‘Well rested?’ came a cool voice from behind me.

Mr Ambrose patient?

Yep. I should probably have known better.

I turned to see a familiar tall, dark figure leaning against the door.

‘Oh. Um.’ I cleared my throat. ‘Yes, thank you.’

‘I cannot exactly say the same.’ Eyes glittering with a frost that would have sent sane people running, but only made me want to grab him and never let go, he stepped

towards me. ‘I was already in London, preparing a speech for my first encounter with your guardians. Imagine my surprise when one of my men arrived to inform me that my bride-to-be and her retinue were merrily feasting at a countryside inn, still several dozen miles from the city.’

‘It was lunchtime,’ I pointed out.

Mr Ambrose waved that argument away with the supreme confidence of a man who survived on money fumes alone.

‘I was waiting for you,’ he told me, his gaze burrowing into me with heart-wrenching intensity. I had to swallow to be able to speak.

‘I wasn’t about to starve myself and my family! Especially not my sister who, incidentally, is still recuperating from cholera. I may be in love, but I’m not daft. Unlike some people, I can distinguish between the two.’

‘You…you…!’

Without the slightest warning, he pounced. His arms came around me, pulling me up against him in a crushing embrace.

‘I love you!’