Silence Breaking

43. Insignificant Other

'Crap, crap, crap!'

'Miss! I must protest! Your language...!'

'Oh, pardon. I meant horse dung, of course. Or do you prefer faeces?'

The sputtering shop assistant bustled away to bury her scolded ears in folds of muslin. Behind me, Adaira disguised her giggle as a cough.

'You do have a rather colourful way of expressing yourself.'

'Well, colourful is good, isn't it?' I held up the brilliant orange ball gown against my front. 'What do you think?'

'Um...I think maybe not in this case. Try that one.'

I glanced around, and was nearly blinded. Adaira was holding up a brilliantly gleaming dress that was, from neckline to hem, a shiny golden colour.

She grinned at me. 'I bet he won't be able to take his eyes off you in this.'

I returned her smile with one eyebrow raised. 'I see you know your brother well.'

'Indeed I do. So, what about it? Are you going to try it on?'

'Hmm...thanks, but I think I'll politely decline. I don't really wish to spend the entire evening with him fiddling around on an abacus, trying to figure out how much my dress is worth.'

'But you do want to spend it with him.'

I glanced down, biting my lip. Usually, I was a pretty plucky girl. I didn't easily get afraid. But when it came to answering questions like this one...

'Yes.' The word was hardly more than a whisper. 'Yes, I do.'

'Hm.' Adaira tapped her chin. 'So...you want to spend time with him. You want to be with him. But you don't want to marry him.'

'Yes.'

'That's a pretty tough conundrum.'

'Yes.'

'Especially considering the fact that my brother, for some mysterious reason, is the most eligible bachelor in the entire British Empire and there are droves of unmarried young women hunting him wherever he appears.'

'Yes.'

'It probably won't be long before one of them gets their claws into him, and she'll give him compliments, and money, and will do anything in her power to–"

'Adaira?'

'Yes?'

'Shut up and get the next dress!'

'Yes, Ma'am!'

We continued to rifle through racks of ready-made dresses, balls of cloth and other finery. It felt extremely strange. All my life I had been on the outside looking in, wondering why other girls put so much effort into dressing up and looking pretty. Now I was on a desperate quest to do exactly the same. And why? To catch the attention of a man, in the hope that he might perhaps maybe perchance possibly if I was very, very lucky dance with me.

How the mighty have fallen.

Fallen indeed.

Fallen in love.

It was a terrifying feeling, and even more terrifying was to acknowledge it. I wanted – no, needed – Mr Rikkard Ambrose. Needed him with a bone-deep intensity that surpassed even my love for solid chocolate. But I had rejected him. He was not the sort of man to take that lightly. What if, with him, it was everything or nothing? What if, now that I had refused his offer, he no longer wanted me? It was a scary thought. But even scarier: what if he still did?