Dangerous Silence

Chapter 21

  Hello there!

   "Don't call me that!" He snapped at me and I ignored him, trying to pick out his name from all the tangled threads of thoughts in my head. Amby...Ambes...Ambreese...Ambrose! Yay! See, I was not drunk! Just a little...

  -half-ratted?

   Uh...no...

    His little finger kept on moving against his side as he kept his icy glare on me and I gave a small cough, waving my hand which his hand was not holding.

  "I mean, nice to see you here, Mr... Ambrose?"

  His icy glare only lowered its...tempatre in return and I gave him a grin.

  "Soooo..." I stretched out the word, laughing at the funny sound it was making and nearly missed the sudden movement of his lips. "What are you doing here? I mean, here, on the ship to-where are we going? Ah, yes, Inda, no, India!-not like here, with me-Hey! You can give me back my hand now! I'm standing very...balancedly...myself."

   "Indeed, Mr. Linton? You do not seem very sure about your footing, or anything else, for that matter."

  "Yes, indeed!"

  He simply let go of my arm, still glaring at me and I took a step back carefully not to lose my banalce; how come I had not noticed how close we had been standing just now, and why the bloody hell was it making my head spin?

  Ignoring it, I tried to remember what had I asked him, but to no avail. Blast!

  "You distracted me! I was saying something and now because of you, I forgot it!" I scowled at him and his eyes narrowed by 0.0000374 inches.

   "Indeed? I do not remember telling you to follow me on HMS British Queen, get intoxicated in the steerage, nearly pick a fight with someone five times bigger than you and accuse me of making you forget what you were saying, do I now?" He took another step towards me, cold anger flashing in his sea blue eyes and I scrunched my nose at him. "In fact, I clearly remember telling you to do the exact opposite of what you just did!"

  "I could have definitely beat him to a pulp easily by myself!" I poked a finger at him, and his eyes narrowed by another 0.0000047 inches. "I did not need any rescuing anywhere, I am telling ya!"

  One second I was glaring at Mr. Ambrose and the other second I almost, nearly got a black eye, dodging the fist swung at me by 0.0083 inches, and at the same moment, the floor decided to attack me. Bloody hell!

  Thankfully, before the floor got to me, another hand had pulled me up by my waist. What the hell! As soon as I had located my hand, I punched him-in the arm, that is- glaring at the stone statue which was infuriatingly giving me one of its superior looks without moving a single muscle on his face. Argh!

  "I am certainly astonished to observe how easily you could have beat that man, Mr. Linton."

  "Of course I could have! I just wasn't prepared right now!" I moved in closer to him, making sure to stamp on his precious fifteen year old mint conditioned shoes as I stood on them.

  "Why can't you comprehend this, Mr. Linton?" His voice dropped down to an angry whisper, his hand on my waist pulling me unconsciously closer to him. "This is no time or place to joke around! There is danger, deceit, probably a war over the file and plenty of Dalgliesh's men around where I am heading! It is no safe place for an English lady, even if she is in trousers! You-"

  "That won't be a problem for me," I piped up with a smile,"I think I have already established that I am far from any ladylike norms, haven't I?"