He repeated my message. For a second or two, everything was still and silent - then Mr Stone jerked the listening-horn away from his ear. I could faintly hear someone shouting on the other end and caught a string of expletives.
‘Yes, Mr Ambrose, Sir.’ Mr Stone had gone as white as a sheet and was speaking hurriedly into the horn. ‘Certainly, Mr Ambrose, Sir. What should I tell the young lady, Mr Ambrose, Sir?’
The answer came over the line, and Mr Stone’s eyes widened, his face turning beet red.
‘But Sir! I… I cannot tell her to go and do… that! No, not a respectable young lady!’
The shouting on the other end resumed, probably on the subject of my alleged respectability. It seemed that Mr Ambrose had quite a lot to say about that, and none of it was complimentary.
‘Well, what then, Mr Ambrose, Sir?’ asked the young man timidly. He waited again, then nodded when the answer came. ‘Yes, Sir. Immediately, Sir.’
Mr Stone looked up at me, his ears still red.
‘Err… Mr Ambrose wishes to see you at once, Miss Linton.’
I bet he does, I thought, but said nothing and instead merely smiled at the young desk clerk again. He was really quite nice - for a man.
Mr Stone rose, and, leading me past his desk, guided me to the large double-door that was, as I now realized, the entrance to the private office of Mr Rikkard Ambrose.
Just before the door he stopped, leaned over and whispered. ‘Err… Miss? Be careful, yes? Mr Ambrose is very… um… well, just be careful.’
With that elucidating statement, he held the door open for me, and I entered, my heart hammering, knowing that the future course of my life might well depend on the man inside. Now why didn’t that make me feel very good?
His Indecent Demands
As the doors closed behind me, my eyes were drawn immediately to the dark figure standing in front of the window at the opposite end of the room. Heavy curtains half covered the large windows even this early in the morning, and the lean figure of the man was cast in shadows. I could not see his face. But I could feel his eyes on me.
Quickly, I glanced around. No landscapes on the wall. No tapestries. Not even a portrait of dear X with his wife Y their three large, hairy dogs. God, did this man have an allergy to decoration? Maybe I should have chosen the simpler of my dresses for this meeting after all. To my left, massive wooden bookshelves covered one wall, but the rest of the walls weren’t panelled wood as was customary in most offices. They weren’t even painted, but consisted of the same dark stone as the outside of the building.
Yes, I had diagnosed the decoration allergy correctly. And I didn’t even have a medical degree.
My eyes returned to the man at the window. Suddenly, he moved and sat down at the large wooden desk that, besides the bookshelves, was pretty much the only piece of furniture in the room. Light from the window fell onto his face and illuminated the hard, chiselled features of Mr Rikkard Ambrose. Again it struck me that, for a man, he didn’t look half bad - maybe not even a quarter. For some reason, my heart rate picked up as I looked at him.
‘Welcome,’ Mr Ambrose said in a cool voice. ‘Kind of you to drop by. Take a seat.’
My mouth dropped open. I had expected him to be angry. Boiling mad, even. But there he was, as cool as a cucumber.
Hesitantly I went to the visitor’s chair opposite his own. As soon as I had sat down, I regretted it. The thing was made of plain, hard wood and almost hurt to sit on. I straightened my back and it got a little better.
With agonizing slowness, Mr Rikkard Ambrose rested his elbows on the desk in front of him and steepled his fingers. Over the tops of his finely manicured hands, he regarded me with those dark, sea-coloured eyes of his. Dark eyes in which I could see something roil.
‘Well?’ he said, after two or three seconds of silence. ‘I believe I already told you that I do not appreciate time-wasters, Miss… Linton, was it?’
I nodded.
‘So what do you want?’
I swallowed, and said nothing. God, how to phrase this?
He regarded me coolly for a few more moments, then added: ‘If you are concerned about me pressing charges against you, do not worry. I have no desire to ruin a lady’s reputation, especially the reputation of a “lady” who is not right in the head.’ He looked down at his desk and studied a few papers lying there. ‘If that is all, Miss Linton…’
The dismissal was obvious in his tone of voice. But I didn’t pay attention. I was still too busy processing the ‘not-right-in-the-head’ comment. Not right in the head? Why? Because I put on a pair of trousers? Because I wanted a say in the government of my country?
I’ll give him not right in the head!
‘Actually, no,’ I blurted out, my voice coming out sharper than I had intended. ‘That wasn’t why I came. I came because you requested it. I came to take up the position of your private secretary.’
His eyes, having perused line after line of whatever document lay before him, froze. Then they snapped up to me. His face seemed not quite as expressionless as before. Silence hovered over the two of us, thick and heavy.
Finally he said: ‘But you are a girl.’
I bowed my head in what I hoped would be a demure manner. But it probably looked more sarcastic than demure.
‘How kind of you to notice, Mr Ambrose.’
His gaze travelled up and down my figure, taking in the hoop skirt, my styled hair and various parts of my anatomy pushed into the right place by my corset.
‘Not so very kind. The fact is rather hard to overlook.’
‘You were not so observant the last time we met!’
He narrowed his eyes about a millimetre. ‘The last time we met, you had taken great pains to disguise yourself, if I remember, in a manner some might call infamous and outrageous.’
I narrowed my eyes more than just a millimetre and crossed my arms defiantly.
‘I was wearing trousers! Why is that infamous? They’re just a piece of cloth and don't make me any less of a girl. If you went around dressed in a ball gown, would that make you any less of a man?’
‘I’m afraid I’ve never yet made the experiment, Miss Linton,’ he replied, frostily.
A mental image popped into my head of Mr Cold Masculinity Ambrose in a frilly off-the-shoulders ball gown with a big hoop skirt and a paper fan in his hand. I had to work hard to keep from laughing. His tone told me that that wouldn’t have been a good idea. He didn’t seem to be a person who appreciated mirth, to put it mildly.
So instead of laughing at him, I did the next best thing. I fixed him with a determined look and said: ‘We’re wandering from the subject. I didn’t come here to talk to you about fashion. I came to work.’
Shaking his head derisively, he asked: ‘So you persist in this ludicrous claim that you want to work as my secretary?’
‘I do, and it isn’t ludicrous. When can I take up my new duties?’
‘You can’t.’
‘Why not?’
‘Because I will most certainly not give you the position.’
‘Why not?’
‘I do not have to explain myself to you, Miss Linton.’
Panic started to well up inside me, and I did my best to push it back down. This was what I had feared. He wouldn’t even consider taking me on. He would throw me out. Now I had only one last chance. It all depended on one question now: was Mr Rikkard Ambrose a gentleman, or only a man?
‘You offered me the position,’ I said in a soft voice. ‘Do you break your word so easily, Sir?’
Anger flashed in his eyes, and I could see it: the wounded honour of a gentleman. Yes! I had him!
‘You dare impugn my honour, Miss?’ he demanded, his voice deadly quiet. I knew that had I been a man, he would have flung his glove at me, and I would have had to meet him the next day for a bloody satisfaction. But I was not a man, and he was trapped. The only thing he could do was break his word - or honour it.
‘Yes,’ I answered, breathless. ‘If you do not keep your word, I do.’
‘My word would not be broken,’ he said, in that quiet voice that sent a shiver down my back. ‘You deceived me.’
‘How so?’ My crossed arms tightened in front of my chest. This was going to be a heavy battle.