With a reluctant industrialist in tow, I marched down the corridors of Battlewood. The few servants we encountered quickly ducked away into alcoves and around corners for some reason. This was just a guess, of course, but maybe it had something to do with the horrifyingly murderous expression I probably had on my face at that moment.
Well, all the better. You need to have a little private chat with your husband, don't you, Lilly?
Indeed, I did. Without delay.
Which was why I abruptly stopped in front of the first convenient door and shoved it open.
Mr Ambrose cleared his throat. "Is it too much to hope that you are currently dragging me off to a private room to express your conjugal affections?"
"Ha! You wish!"
With strength I didn't quite know I had, I dragged the devious, stony son of a bachelor into the room. Slamming the door shut behind the both of us, I marched in front of the flickering fireplace so my shadow would be cast across the room in a sufficiently menacing manner and then whirled around to give Rikkard Ambrose the mother of all glares.
"Really?" I demanded, arms crossed, foot tapping the ground in that way that rightfully struck terror into all husbands' hearts. "Really? Mr Victor Linton? An exemplary employee? A capable young man? A staunch defender of the fairer sex?"
"Well," Mr Ambrose pointed out, his stony face perfectly immovable. Somehow, he didn't seem to be very afraid of my dangerously tapping foot. "You do defend yourself rather staunchly on a regular basis."
"That is not the bloody point!"
"Language, Mr Linton!"
For a moment, nothing could be heard in the room but the crackling of the fire.
"You...!" I took a step forward. The dangerous glint in my eyes was practically lighting up the room. "What did you just call me, your wife?"
Mr Ambrose shifted, clearing his throat. "Force of habit?"
"Pull the other one!"
Stalking towards him, I raised a threatening finger. I was not going to let him get away with this. I was not! Especially since, somewhere in a secret little corner of my mind, hearing him call me "Mr Linton" brought back certain...memories. Memories of stolen moments in the dark, hot and passionate and...
Ehem.
Oy, Lilly! You're angry, remember? Angry!
Right. Not the time for nostalgia. No, it was time to give my dear husband a good talking to for trying to marry me off!
"You...!" I stabbed my finger into his rock-solid chest, and nearly didn't notice the pain from almost breaking it. That was how bloody pissed off I was! "What on earth were you thinking?"
His eyes narrowed ever so slightly. "How to keep my sister out of a nightmare of a marriage?"
"And your best solution was to marry her off to your wife?"
This time, his eyes softened ever so slightly. Reaching up, he caressed my face before I could slap his hand away. "I could think of worse spouses."
I felt heat rush up to my face and swallowed as—
"No! No, no, no, Mister! You're not getting out of this by buttering me up! You're going to stay right where you are, and you're going to tell me what on earth possessed you to come up with such an idiotic ruse! What are you going to tell your father when you send a telegram south, and no Mr Victor Linton appears in response?"
"Ah, but that is the beauty of it," Mr Rikkard Ambrose told me with a glint in his eye. "Mr Victor Linton will appear."
I blinked.
I blinked again.
It was only then that the magnitude of the sheer insanity he called "plan" dawned on me.
"You...you want me to actually pose as Adaira's suitor?"
"Indeed."
Indeed? Indeed?
That was the son of a bachelor's answer to...
No.
No frigging no! I was not going to do this! I was going to put my foot down and show Mr Ambrose who wore the pants in this relationship!
All right...wrong metaphor.
I was going to show Mr Rikkard Ambrose who didn't wear the pants in this relationship! Yes! Exactly! I was going to show him who was a skirt-wearing, parasol-swinging lady!
"You listen here, Mr Rikkard Ambrose!" I moved to stab his chest again—then thought better of it and went for the air in front of his nose, which was much better for my finger bones. "I am not going to play dress up for this inane idea of yours? Do you hear? I won't!"
Mr Ambrose cocked his head. "I do not see the issue. You've never had a problem with dressing in male clothes before."
"That's because I've never had to pretend to get married before!"
"But you've gotten married once already. Do they not say practise makes perfect?"
"They do. But they normally don't in regards to monogamy!"
"Maybe not." Taking a step towards me, he leaned forward until his eyes were only inches away from mine, boring into me with icy intensity. "But do you truly consider this situation normal? This is about my sister, Mrs Ambrose. My sister."
That struck me dumb for a moment. When I finally found my voice again, words just started spilling from my mouth.
"I...I know! I want to help her, too! But...this is crazy! I mean, I can stuff socks into my trousers all I want—but, at the end of the day, I'm still a lady! I'm your wife! You can't actually...you can't really want me to..." Gesturing wildly, I tried to convey the fact that a husband should not want to pimp out his wife to his sister as a husband. Which, frankly, is not something I should have to explain in the first place, dammit!
"Don't worry." He waved my concerns away with a single sweep of his hand. "Naturally, you will not actually have to go through with it. You courting Adaira is only a temporary solution."
My fingers twitched. "And what, pray, if you don't find a more permanent solution before the wedding?"
A moment of silence.
Then...
"We'll cross that bridge when we come to it."
That son of a...!
"Now, if you'll excuse me, I'll have to go send a telegram to your brother. We wouldn't want him to arrive late, now, would we?"
"No, go ahead and—oy! I don't even have a brother!" Dammit! He'd almost gotten me with that, the slippery iceberg in human form! And now he was already halfway to the door. I leapt after him. "Stay where you are, you blaggard!"
But, by that point, he was out of the room and out of my reach. I was about to hunt him down and show him what the wrath of a lady looked like—and I would have, had I not heard a choked noise from behind the second door to the room at that very moment. Brow furrowed, I marched over to the door, pushed it open...
...and came face-to-face with Adaira.
Or at least half her face. Because her mouth was currently being covered by both hands, trying to suppress her laughter.
My eyebrows twitched. "Tell me you didn't hear anything."
In response, my dear friend Adaira collapsed on the floor and started laughing her arse off.
"This isn't funny!" I hissed.
"I d-disagree," she wheezed between giggles. "This is the funniest thing since Prince Fragrant Yellow Flower in the Happy Moonlight, heir to the Principality of Rubbish!"
"I can still arrange an engagement to him, if you prefer!"
Unfortunately, contrary to my expectations, this only caused a renewed round of giggles.
But then again, I couldn't exactly blame her. The thought of Karim's face at the news he was going to be a fake husband princeling...
My lips twitched.
"Stop!" I ordered, doing my very best to emulate my husband's stony expression. Not that I was successful. "Stop trying to make me laugh!"
"You...wahahaha...did that...haha...all on your own!"
"I said stop this! It isn't funny!" I waved my arms in the air like a windmill. A poor, innocent windmill that was about to be misused to grind cheap, imported grains. "What the heck are we supposed to do when 'Mr Linton' is actually meant to arrive?"
"Dance at your welcoming ball?"
"I...I can't dance with you!"
"Sure you can. You've danced plenty of times. It'll be fun."
"Fun? I hate dancing with men!"
"Ah, but this time you'll be the man," she was quick to point out the positives.
"And that's supposed to make it better?"
"Well, it means you can lead, and I get to trample on your toes if you do a bad job. Sounds fun, doesn't it?"
"You and I apparently have very different definitions of fun! Don't you realise that I've been crossdressing for the last few years? Not to toot my own horn, but I've gotten pretty darn good at pretending to be a chauvinistic arsehole! What happens if your father ends up liking me? What happens if, God forbid, I actually do a good enough job for him to prefer me to the vicomte?"
Adaira threw her hands into the air. "Then I'll be free! Huzzah!"
"Adaira..." I took a deep breath. Counting to ten to calm down, I reminded myself she'd lived for the last few weeks with a Damocles sword hanging over her head. Any method to get out from under it, no matter how outrageous, must seem like a godsend to her. I knew that, and I would go to great lengths to help her. But there was one problem that had to be resolved. "Adaira, what are we going to do if you actually end up in front of the altar?" A snort escaped me. "I mean, it's not like we can actually marry!"
"Well..."
The thoughtful expression on her face sent shivers down my back.
"We. Can. Not!"
"Aww, come on!" She batted her eyelashes. "It would just be for show? For a little while?"
She looked so pitiful. What she must have gone through during the last few days...I couldn't really imagine it. Maybe, if it was just pretence...
"No!" Firmly, I shook my head. "No! We! Can! Not!"
"Really?"
I swear, I would punch her, if her face didn't look so earnestly disappointed.
"Adaira! I'm a woman!"
"What a coincidence, so am I!" She gave me a sincere look. "Does that mean we're meant for each other?"
I stared at her for a long, long moment—until I finally caught it. The tiniest of twitches at one corner of her mouth.
"You're still messing with me, aren't you?"
"Thoroughly."
"Goddammit, Adaira—!"
"Now, now, Mr Linton." She gave me a reproving look. "That is no language befitting a gentleman. You will have to do better than that if you wish to win my affections."
"Wish to win your...How about if I wish to wreck your dissection instead?!"
"That would be most ungentlemanly of you. And to do it now, after I have just confessed my feelings to you!"
"You can take your feelings and stick them where the sun doesn't shine!"
"Mr Linton!" Placing a hand onto her chest, she struck a dramatic pose straight from a romance novel. "How could you say such a thing to me? Don't you understand? You are the one! You are my soulmate."
"Soulmate? Ha! Your shoe sole mate maybe, once I find the right boots to kick your arse!"
That made her look thoughtful. "We can have that as part of our wedding ceremony, if you want. It might be slightly unconventional, but..."
"Oh, frig you!"
"That will have to wait till after the marriage, my darling."
She must have seen the expression on my face, because she cleared her throat and quickly decided to change the subject.
"Ehem. In all seriousness, though, Lilly—this idea of my brother's might be slightly...eccentric, but it's the best chance I've got of at least postponing this nightmare I'm facing." She looked at me, then, her face utterly devoid of humour. "I don't want to marry that man, Lilly. The way he looks at me...it sends cold chills down my back. And I'm sister to a certain iceberg, so trust me, when I say he sends chills down my back I mean there is something bloody wrong! Something is off about that man, I tell you!"
Oh.
Oh, right. She didn't know.
I bit my lip.
"Lilly?" Adaira's eyes narrowed as she stared at me. "Lilly? Why did you just get this funny expression on your face when I said there was something wrong with him?"
"Um...about that..."
My too-darn-observant friend's eyes narrowed further. "You know something, don't you?"
"Well, I wouldn't put it like that exactly..."
"Out with it, girl!"
"Ehem...well..."
Your husband-to-be is a homicidal maniac with delusions of grandeur who tried to murder your brother, sister-in-law and unborn nephew to expand his business?
That would probably not go over well.
Just as I was desperately hunting for anything to say, it came. My salvation. My rescue. A knock on the door.
"Enter!" I shouted before Adaira could get a word out.
The door opened just wide enough for Karim to stick his turban and head into the room.
"Ah!" I beamed. "Prince Fragrant Yellow Flower in the Happy Moonlight! We were just talking about you!"
The bodyguard sent me a look that made me think he, for some reason, might not be happy to see me. Odd.
"What do you want?" Adaira demanded. "Lilly and I have important business to take care of!"
"What a coincidence," was Karim's answer as he raised a bundle of blankets in his arm, and an overpowering aroma drifted into the room. "Apparently, so does he."
-----------------------------------------
My dear Lords, Ladies and Gentlemen,
What do you think of Mr Ambrose's attempts to marry of his wife? A brilliant plan, isn't it? ;-)
Yours Truly
Sir Rob