In the Eye of the Storm (Storm and Silence 2)

At least that’s what I kept telling myself.

‘How long is this going to continue?’ I asked, trudging down the dusty alley beside Mr Ambrose, trying to cover my face against the dirt with the hand I didn’t need to hold up my dress. ‘This sneaking into the ratholes of the city, asking questions no one wants to answer?’

‘As long as it takes to find out the truth,’ was the curt reply. ‘Or until we’re found out. It’s only a matter of time until Dalgliesh’s agents discover who we really are.’

A matter of a very short bit of time, apparently. Mr Ambrose’s lips had hardly closed when a man stepped out from a doorway in front of us. He was wearing a cloth on his head that was twisted so it covered half his face, and his hand was clutching a dagger.

I stopped in my tracks.

Two more men stepped out of other doorways. All of them had their faces covered and were wearing weapons. Wickedly sharp weapons.

Blast! They’re blocking the exit to the alley!

And did I mention yet that the alley we were in happened to be of the blind variety?

The men pulled down the cloths from their faces. All of them were smiling. I personally didn’t feel a great inclination towards amusement.

‘You have been asking a lot of questions around here,’ the man who had revealed himself first said. He had the biggest dagger and the nastiest smile of the three - so he probably was the leader. ‘Our master would like to know why, exactly.’

‘Let us pass!’ Mr Ambrose’s voice wasn’t cold as ice now - it was cold as iron, which meant it was far harder. I only wished he had a gun of iron as well as a voice. The sight of those daggers didn’t appeal to me. ‘Whoever your master is, we want nothing to do with him. Step aside!’

The leader shook his head. ‘Not before you tell me who you are.’

‘My name is Richard Thomson, and this is my wife-’

‘Don’t give me that Thomson nonsense!’ The leader spat on the ground. ‘Your name is not Thomson, and whatever you are here for, it is no honeymoon!’ Lazily twirling his knife, the man took a step closer, his nasty smile wider than ever. ‘Speak! And what you say had better be the truth, or I am going to make this charming lady squeal.’

He raised an eyebrow expectantly. But I didn’t answer, and neither did Mr Ambrose. We weren’t even watching the three men with knives anymore.

No, our concentration was focused on the man who stood on the roof behind them. There was a movement and a soft thump. More movement came, and more thumps. The leader of the knife-wielding ruffians narrowed his eyes impatiently, waiting for an answer. He hadn’t noticed anything, and didn’t look behind him. That was why he didn’t see the mountainous figure of Karim straightening from where he had landed on the street.

‘Well?’ The leader raised his knife. ‘Speak! Tell me exactly who you are and who you are working for, or I warn you, things will go very badly for you!’

There was a soft hiss as Karim drew his sabre. He stepped forward, and his huge shadow moved with him, falling into plain sight of the knife-wielder. So did the shadows of the men who followed him. There were quite a lot of them.

‘How interesting,’ Mr Ambrose remarked to the three ruffians, who suddenly weren’t smiling anymore. ‘I was just about to say the same thing to you.’

True Fake Love

‘They’re getting close,’ Mr Ambrose said, the moment he arrived at our dinner table in the hotel dining room. I had waited in vain for over half an hour before finally ordering my dinner without him. And the knowledge of what he was doing, somewhere in a secluded space with Karim, his other faithful minions and the three ruffians they had captured last night, hadn’t exactly improved my appetite.

All of which explained why, when Mr Ambrose said, ‘They’re getting closer’, I snapped in a rather tart voice:

‘Oh, are they?’

He didn’t even lift an eyebrow. ‘Yes. Karim and I questioned them, and it turns out they are indeed in the employ of a certain British lord, just as we suspected.’

‘Gosh! What a surprise.’

‘Yes. I do not think they’ve realized who we really are yet, but, to judge by what Karim and I have managed to make the three tell us, they suspect that we are not who we claim to be - which means that we have to put more effort than ever into our disguise.’

‘Oh, do we?’

‘Yes. We have to be the perfect image of two young and foolish people in the grip of a mixture of the following irrational emotions: devotion, passion, love, yearning, infatuation and attachment.’

Good God! He sounds as if he were compiling a shopping list!

‘Didn’t you forget amorousness?’ I suggested sweetly. ‘Also known as “lust”?’