Silence Breaking

38. Takeover Negotiations

I sat there for a full five minutes, staring at him in silent shock, wondering if I'd heard right. Finally, Mr Ambrose pulled out his pocket watch, let it snap open and gazed at the clock face.

'Will this hibernation take long, Miss Linton? We have to get going if we want to reach the inn halfway between here and Gretna Green before sundown.'

Slowly, very slowly, I opened the mouth that didn't feel like mine right now. 'Marriage?'

The word echoed as if someone else had spoken it on another world, millions of miles away. It couldn't actually apply to this place. To us. To me.

'Matrimony, Miss Linton. Also known as wedlock. A common social custom in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, if I'm not mistaken.'

His words helped me shake off some of the shock.

'I'm not going to marry you!'

His eyes narrowed infinitesimally.

'No?'

'No, Sir! Most definitely absolutely a hundred and twenty per cent no!'

If I had expected a reply along the lines of 'Argh, argh! How could you? You have shattered my heart! I shall live the rest of my life in hermitage in the woods and pine for you among the pines!' I would have been severely disappointed. Mr Rikkard Ambrose was no Romeo or Tristan. He simply steepled his fingers and regarded me over their tips with icy concentration. When he spoke, his voice was as cool and composed as ever, and ten times as implacable.

'Wrong.'

I blinked. 'Did you just tell me that I was wrong?'

'Indeed.'

'Fascinating. So you know more about what I'm going to do than I do, Sir?'

'Likely, since the same is the case with most subjects, Miss Linton.'

My hands clenched into fists. All right...if he had been planning to get on the top ten of most ruthlessly chauvinist proposals, he was off to a good start.

'Why on earth would I want to marry you?' I growled.

Maybe because you love him, Lilly? a little voice inside suggested.

True. But he didn't know that yet. And if he stayed on this course, hell would freeze over before I'd tell him!

'Why wouldn't you?' He cocked his head quizzically, as if any woman on the street would instantly be willing to marry him.

Which was probably true. Damn!

'Well, for starters,' I ground out between clenched teeth, 'you haven't even asked me!'

'And I'm not going to.'

'What?'

Dark, sea-coloured eyes bored into me with a force that could make a king's knees buckle. 'Why ask when I already know it's going to happen?'

The bloody arrogant son of a...! How dare he! How dare he...

...be right?

No! I told my inner voice. Shut up! He's not right! He's not!

I wasn't going to marry anyone. Never! Husbands had complete power over their wives. Power the like of which tyrants only dreamed of. Images flashed through my mind of countless reports I'd read, stories I'd heard from my friends, of women being dominated, tyrannised or even beaten by the men they had bound themselves to. I clenched my teeth. Not that I believed Mr Ambrose would ever raise a hand to me. But dominate and tyrannise? Hell, yes! That was his favourite pastime!