my back? Lord Ambrose? What the…!
‘Mister Ambrose, your Lordship.’ Mr Ambrose’s tone was arctic, but Lord Dalgliesh didn’t flinch. He just smiled a friendly smile. A fake friendly smile. ‘Of course. My mistake.’
There was a spell of silence so intense it pressed against my eardrums.
‘It has been long,’ Mr Ambrose said.
‘Yes, it has,’ Lord Dalgliesh said. ‘Quite some time since last we met.’
The air between them seemed to crackle. Lord Dalgliesh started to say something else, but I didn’t catch it because at that very moment the evil crow descended on Mr Ambrose, grabbing his arm again.
‘Come, my dear Rikkard,’ she said with the broadest of smiles. ‘I wish to dance a reel or two.’
Rikkard? Rikkard? She was allowed to call him by his first name? Who was this creature? The writer of the pink letters?
Well, if so, he seemed to pay a lot more attention to her in person than he did to her correspondence. With a last dark look at Lord Dalgliesh, he took her by the hand and led her onto the dance floor.
‘What was that?’ I heard some lady whisper beside me. ‘Between Mr Ambrose and His Lordship, I mean. I’ve seen a lot of important people taking the measure of each other, but that…’
‘That was eerie,’ agreed another in whispered tones. I was inclined to agree.
Lord Dalgliesh still followed Mr Ambrose with his eyes. He had his back turned to me, so I couldn’t see his expression. But I didn’t really want to.
Then suddenly he turned, again with his charming smile on his face. ‘Miss Linton,’ he began. ‘I apologize for the interruption. Shall we finish our…’
His smile flickered and went out when he saw that I was no longer there beside him. I didn’t wait to see what he would do next. By the time the music had started up again, I was already halfway across the room, trying to locate my little sister Ella.
I had to find Ella! It was essential that I found her again and helped her through the evening as well as I could. It was also essential that I occupied myself with something, anything which could keep my mind off the fact that Mr Rikkard bloody Ambrose was dancing in this bloody ballroom, probably only a few yards away from me, with some bloody female I had never seen in my life!
I felt like hitting something. Preferably Mr Ambrose. Or her. Oh yes, he could snap at me and even continue to deny the fact that I was a girl, but present him with a girl with long lashes, a demure smile and a pretty dress, and he was suddenly dancing and going to balls and whatnot. Typical man!
Or is he? whispered that tiny voice inside me. You heard Dalgliesh call him Lord. It’s not every man who has a noble ancestry but chooses to deny the fact. Why do it?
No matter. Nobleman or common man, he was still a man! Self-centred, arrogant, infuriating!
I should just ignore his antics the way I had learned to ignore most men’s chauvinist behaviour over the years. But… but… there was this possessive way in which the black-haired girl had linked arms with him. For some reason I could not ignore that.
I spotted them in the distance, twirling over the dance floor, and a stab of envy shot through me. No, I could not ignore that at all.
But why?
Fuming, I whirled around and left in search of Ella.
Bloody hell, why?
*~*~**~*~*
‘There you are!’
I swooped down on my prey like a hawk on an unsuspecting field mouse. Well, maybe not quite. For one thing, I didn’t grab Sir Philip Wilkins by the neck, but by the hand. For another, I didn’t carry him off to my nest on a distant, rocky crag to devour him, but simply dragged him over to a chair next to the closest refreshment table, away from an exhausted-looking Ella.
‘I have been looking for you,’ I said with a reproachful little smile and more or less forced the lanky, long-nosed lord into a chair beside me. Ella, an expression of sublime relief on her face, dropped into a chair on my other side, out of range of his romantic attentions.
‘All this dancing can be so exhausting, can’t it?’ I asked cheerfully as the first notes for the next dance sounded. ‘I’m sure you’ve been longing for a break.’
‘Well, actually I was rather enjoying-’ Wilkins began, his gaze wandering with dreamy longing between Ella and the dance floor.
‘So terribly exhausting!’ I cut