Silence Explained #AStormOfFanfiction

Chapter 3

After Mr. Ambrose's declaration, three things happened.

William left us, Mr. Ambrose and I argued, and I lost the argument. It wasn't much of a loss in my defense. I simply screamed that he was an insufferable pig and then stormed away. But backing down wasn't much of a win, either.

So here I sat on a bed much too big for one person, the good mood that I thought no one could take away from me long gone. And it was also here that I contemplated marching right into that son of a bachelor's room, seduction plans set aside, to try and yell some sense into him. I ultimately decided against it because walking into his room would be like sealing my own doom seeing as it would turn into a steamy session of raw passion.

I couldn't go into his room. Not tonight.

I had just pulled the covers over me, my back settling fully into the feather mattress, when I heard our adjoining room open. My breath caught in my throat, preventing me from breathing, but my heart managed to speed up, pounding a staccato in my chest.

"Mr. Linton?"

My eyes widened, the automatically shut tightly, trying to avoid confrontation by pretending to be asleep. But Mr. Ambrose always had been a persistent one.

"Mr. Linton, I know you're awake." There was still no response from me, my eyes remaining glued shut.

"I don't have time for this Mr. Linton." His impatience was my resolve to keep my mouth shut, which was an extremely difficult task for one so opinionated as me to do so but it was well worth it to be able to say that I had managed to refrain myself to giving into Mr. Rikkard Ambrose.

There was silence on his part for a couple of moments and I briefly began to think he had left the room until he spoke again.

And could you even call it speaking? No. It sounded like a song, a song that consisted of only one word but needed no others to get its point across, for others to immediately get goosebumps and fall into a trance.

"Lillian."

My resolve, the one I was so sure was unbreakable, had crumpled in the presence of that single, three syllable word and the emotions that one of the stoniest men in England managed to convey in it.

He almost sounded desperate, like he had on the sinking ship in our way way back to England, but there was a hint of longing, a hint hope.

I immediately shied away from the traitorous feeling being aroused in me. Curse the bloody male species! Curse all of them to hell!

"Go away." I growled out, not really meaning any of it but hoping that he thought I did. But when could I ever lie to Mr. Ambrose?

"No." His tone was resolute and under any other circumstance I would have found it annoying but now, in this moment, I found it almost endearing.

No! No, no, no! I quickly turned on my side, back to Mr. Ambrose, and stuffed my face into the soft pillow.

"I don't want to talk to you." My voice came out muffled due to the block the pillow provided and in turn, it sounded pretty pathetic.

"I couldn't tell." I had heard Mr. Ambrose use sarcasm multiple times, I've even heard his terrible attempts at jokes, but it never seems to get old. The thought that he allows himself to show a different side with me is a little heartwarming, a little butterfly inducing.

It was silent on both ends for a long minute, the only sound in the room the occasional passerby or the sound of a slightly intoxicated person bumping into something and cursing. To be fair, it only seemed to happen once.