‘What intentions,’ Mr Ambrose enquired, his voice almost eerily calm, ‘was he talking about?’
‘Um…his intention to dance with me at the Christmas ball. Which I disapproved of, because, um… of course I, um, despise dancing. Yes.’
‘Is that so?’ His eyes bored into me like drills of frost-coated diamond.
‘Um…Yes, Sir.’
‘Mr Linton?’
‘Yes, Sir?’
‘You do know what I would do if you ever lied to me, don’t you?’
‘Err…no?’
‘Good. Keep wondering.’
And, with that ominous statement hanging in the air, he turned on his heel and marched out of the room.
*~*~**~*~*
With the way things were going, I would have preferred to bury my lady clothes in the closest ditch and forget my femininity until I was a hundred miles away from Battlewood Hall and Captain James Carter. But I couldn’t. Every second I watched Mr Ambrose, surrounded by a gaggle of greedy-eyed ladies, Lady Caroline at the front, I felt the urge to shove them back, to get into their faces and tell them to sod off. But I couldn’t. At least not as a man.
Gentlemen, for all their manifold freedoms, I was discovering, were deplorably limited when it came to telling ladies to go bugger themselves. Ladies, on the other hand - trust me on this - exchanged all kinds of spiteful, spiky comments with each other, hidden behind perfect smiles. But men? If a man was even suspected of being impolite to a lady in public, he was decried as being a rake and a barbarian. It was really abominable! Someone should really do something about this unfair treatment.
The moment I realised part of me was seriously considering setting up a men’s rights movement, I knew it was time to get out of my male clothes in a hurry.
‘Will you excuse me, please?’ I bowed to Lady Samantha, who had just been gushing to me about how wonderfully things were working out because of all the ladies who were flocking around her son. Wonderfully? Ha! ‘I just remembered that Mr Ambrose gave me a task to finish up before tonight. I’d love to stay, but…’
I let my words trail off meaningfully. Lady Samantha shook her head in disapproval.
‘That boy is working you too hard, Mr Linton. You work hard enough for two people.’
If only you knew how right you are…
‘If you come by your sister’s room, please look in on her and see if she is all right, will you? I had a footman knock earlier, but he received no reply.’
‘I’ll go and check. It’s probably just delayed travel exhaustion.’
‘You think so?’
‘Oh yes. I have a feeling she’ll be up and about in no time.’
With a last glance at Mr Ambrose and his pack of admiring hyenas, I ra
ced out of the room.
You know the saying ‘out of sight, out of mind’?
Well, it’s true. I was hardly out of the door when Mr Ambrose dwindled into insignificance in comparison to the dreadful doom that awaited me if I went back in there in female clothing. A doom by the name of Captain James Carter.
He was honestly going to court me. Court me and, one day, go down on one knee and make a you-know-what. The very thought set my heart racing, and I wasn’t even completely sure why. It wasn’t as if this was the first you-know-what of my career as an independent woman. I had fended off many a man with speed, sass and a spiky parasol. But this time…
This time it was different.
This time it was Captain James Carter.
What would he do if I said no?