Silence Breaking (Storm and Silence 4)

I jumped. Either…either Mr Ambrose had just shot his father, or someone had slammed a door, really, really hard.

When, a few moments later, Mr Ambrose marched into the room, no gun in his hand and no blood spatters on his ten-year-old mint-condition tailcoat, I breathed a sigh of relief. Then, when I saw the non-expression on his face, I realised that had been too soon.

‘What’s the matter?’

Mr Ambrose’s jaw worked, hard. ‘He stays.’

I blinked. ‘What?’

‘I said he stays.’ Reaching out, Mr Ambrose grabbed the poker and rammed it into the fireplace, making the flames of the fire shoot upwards. A fire he would not, or could not, allow to burn within himself. ‘Dalgliesh will remain. Apparently, since he came as an escort to one of our guests, he now, too, is a guest, and that cannot be undone. Apparently, my dear father tells me, it would be ill breeding to get rid of him.’

Once again, the poker stabbed into the flames.

Getting to my feet, I slowly, tentatively approached. I had never seen him in…was this a mood? Dear me! I was actually witnessing Mr Ambrose being in a real life mood! That was halfway to emotion. I had to hand it to him, he hid it well - every movement still methodical, his face still as impassive as a block of granite - but I had been with this man for over a year. I had seen him bloody, bare and lost to the world. I knew how to read the signs.

Slowly, carefully, my arms came around him from behind, my hands coming to rest on his clenched, trembling fingers.

‘Did you tell him the things we’ve seen Dalgliesh do?’ I asked, my voice quiet.

‘Of course I did!’

‘And?’

One corner of Mr Ambrose’s mouth twitched for just an instant. But it was most defini

tely not a smile. ‘He didn’t believe me. A peer of the realm smuggling, stealing, committing murder? That doesn’t happen in my father’s world.’ His hands clenched into fists. The next words were spoken so low I wasn’t even sure he said them. ‘Sometimes I wish I could live in the same deluded dream.’

‘So…’ I swallowed hard, gathering strength to say the words. ‘Dalgliesh is staying.’

‘Yes.’ His whole body was tensing now, as if preparing for a battle. ‘I want to kill something, Mr Linton! The thought of being under the same roof as him, of my mother and my sister sleeping just a few rooms down the hall…’ He finished the sentence by tearing one of his hands from my grasp and slamming a fist into the wall. That was the moment when I realised that Mr Rikkard Ambrose, Mr Cold-hearted Miserable Miser Ambrose, loved his family. He might have died rather than admit it, might not even know it himself, but he would fight for them to the death. For his mother and sister, at least. As for his father - in that case, I thought fighting with him to the death was the more likely option. But still, he cared. He cared a lot.

I did the only thing I could. I tightened my grip around him and pulled him against me, willing all my warmth to flow into him and heat his icy heart from the inside. I didn’t expect to get to get a response. I most certainly didn’t expect him to turn around, grab me tightly and lift me up to crush against him.

‘And you…’ His voice was a threat of death in a desert of ice. But not to me. No, the threat was to anyone who dared to harm me. ‘How can I stay here, knowing he’ll be under the same roof as you?’

‘Don’t worry.’ I smirked up at him. ‘I’m just Mr Victor Linton to him, just one among thousands of your downtrodden serfs. He doesn’t care about me.’

And he won’t know that you do, either.

He met my eyes, and the darkness that flashed in them sent a forbidden shiver down my back. ‘Why do you think I’m still standing here and not calling in my men to break through the window of his room and dispatch Dalgliesh with a bullet through his head?’

It took a few moments for the meaning of his words to penetrate.

‘You brought armed men to a family reunion?’

The look he gave me looked almost insulted. ‘Of course, Mr Linton! Did you think I’d come unprepared?’

I didn’t quite know how to answer that, to be honest. I had never considered an armed escort as one of the necessary preparations for a family Christmas. But then I remembered Aunt Brank, and Anne and Maria. When you thought about it like that…

‘Where are they?’ I demanded. ‘I’ve seen no one except Karim.’

‘Some are camped out in the forest all around the hall. A few are permanent members of the staff here.’

‘Permanent members of the-’

A look from him cut me off. ‘I like to keep an eye on my father’s activities.’

And an eye on how your little sister is doing, I thought, but didn’t say a word aloud. I was too busy gazing up the man in front of me, at his hard, perfectly chiselled face, his beautiful cold eyes, wondering how I ever thought an enemy could take him by surprise.