Silence Breaking (Storm and Silence 4)

‘-but can it be that for some reason you feel aggravated?’

At first I wanted to snap back at him, to thump his thick head against a wall, anything - but then I took a deep breath and did something a thousand times harder: I told him the truth.

‘Yes. There is a reason.’ I lowered my head, so he wouldn’t see my face. ‘You didn’t ask me for the first dance!’

There was a moment of silence. Then…

‘You didn’t give me any reason to believe I would get it if I asked.’

‘What?’

Incredulous, I stared up into his dark, ice-cold eyes, and for a moment saw something there I had never seen before. Was it…could it be hurt?

No! No, that couldn’t be! For it to be hurt, Mr Ambrose would have to be able to have real feelings!

Feelings like love, you mean?

Good point.

I wet my lips, trying to find the right words. ‘Just because…just because I sa

id no to marriage doesn’t mean I said no to everything. I want you. I need you. You make me crazy, and sometimes I want to kill you - but I couldn’t imagine my life without you.’ One corner of my mouth quirked up. ‘Especially without that monthly pay cheque of yours.’

It was a joke, meant to lighten the mood. So his next words hit me like the blade of a dagger, sharp, hard and cold.

‘That’s all you want me for? My money?’

The cold demand shoved past all my defences straight into my chest. I was about to retaliate with a barrage of insults of my own, when I saw that uncertain shimmer in his eyes again, and suddenly the truth began to dawn on me.

‘That’s what all this is about?’ My voice was no more than a whisper. ‘You think I don’t love you?’

Whirling me around, he pulled me close until our faces were only inches apart. A muscle in his jaw twitched.

‘It’s a reasonable conclusion to come to, don’t you think? I asked you to marry me. I asked you to be mine, to have and to hold, to love and to cherish. And you said no.’

‘But that doesn’t mean I don’t…! How would you even get the idea into your head that…? You know how I feel! Of course you know! I mean, I told y-’

The word stuck in my throat as I realised something.

I had never told him.

He had told me about his feelings. Mr Rikkard Ambrose, the living incarnation of stubborn silence, had wrenched open his jaws and confessed his love to me - and I had forgotten to say ‘Ditto!’

Oops.

‘Ehem…Well…’ I cleared my throat. ‘I may have made a slight oversight.’

‘Indeed, Miss Linton?’

‘Indeed, Sir.’

Around us, the musicians struck up the last chords of the dance. We turned into a final whirl, and then, suddenly, the dancers were slowing down, and the first candles at the edge of the dance floor were guttering out. The night was coming to an end.

‘Well, Miss Linton?’ His face even more beautiful now that it was half-cast in shadow, Rikkard Ambrose stared down at me with enough intensity to make my bones melt. ‘What is it that you’ve forgotten to tell me?’

I opened my mouth to reply - but in that very moment, the music ended, and the last candles guttered out. Laughing voices disappeared out of the room, down the corridor, and a moment later we were alone in the darkness, broken only by thin slivers of moonlight.

The end.