Storm and Silence(174)

I was on a roll! I would have continued bewitching the masses, and no doubt started a revolution in the middle of Hyde Park that very day, but before I could continue my speech, rough, manly hands grabbed me from behind. A few of the anti-suffragists had finally grasped what I was actually saying. They started to drag me backwards, away from my audience. At least I got out a last shout of ‘Long live suffragism!’ before I was towed off the podium. Out of the corner of my eye I saw my friends whooping and waving their signs in support for the best speaker of the day.

*~*~**~*~*

The door slammed open when he kicked against it. None too gently, he pushed me into his office and strode in after me. Staggering backwards, I managed to right myself again just in time to face him as he whirled towards me.

‘You!’

Have you ever heard the phrase ‘chilling contempt’ before? Well, you don't know the full meaning of the phrase until you’ve heard a few words out of the mouth of Mr Rikkard Ambrose when he’s really cold under the collar. Burning cold.

‘You,’ he whispered, and his voice sent chills down my back. ‘You will regret this. You will regret this very much.’

I raised my chin defiantly.

‘Indeed? What will I regret? Speaking the truth?’

‘You will regret making fun of me in public. It is not something I tolerate.’

‘Making fun?’ Now my voice turned cold too. ‘I couldn’t see anything funny about the proceedings at Speaker’s Corner today. I was dead serious.’

He raised a threatening finger and, almost against my will, I took a few steps back, retreating until his desk stood between him and me. In the park, he’d had two other man grab me and drag me to the coach, and back to Empire House. Inside, he had driven me indoors and up the stairs simply by the icy force of his eyes. Only as he had reached the door to his office had he touched me, once, a sign that his walls of cold control were finally starting to crack beneath the strain.

I was afraid. Afraid what might happen if that wall broke down and the creature beyond the façade of the cool businessman broke free. And yet, I was also strangely fascinated. There was tension between him and me that made me want to grab that threatening finger he was waving in my face, pull it towards me, pull him towards me and… do what exactly?

I didn’t know! But something inside me screamed for some kind of release.

He took another step closer. He was close enough to touch now, although the desk was still between us. Somehow, I both felt safer behind it and wished for it to be gone.

‘You made a laughing stock of me in front of the entire city of London,’ he growled.

‘Indeed?’ I raised a sceptical eyebrow. ‘Several million people live in the city of London. I didn’t see that many at that silly event.’

‘You know perfectly well what I mean, Mr Linton! There were reporters there!’

Oops. Actually, I hadn’t noticed that. Oh well, I had been busy holding speech.

‘Tomorrow, the entire city will know about this disgraceful charade! Soon, it will be on the front page of The Times! Maybe there will even be a semi-humorous image of the episode in the The Spectator!’

For a moment, I imagined a comical drawing of the sinister Mr Ambrose being chased around Hyde Park by Patsy swinging her ‘VOTES FOR WOMEN NOW!’-sign appearing in London’s most widely read illustrated magazine. The image made me feel warm inside and conjured a smile on my face.

‘That sounds good.’

‘Not good for you!’ Raising his arm, he pointed to the door of his office. ‘Get out! You are dismissed from my service.’

The words fell like an axe. I stiffened. My smile was gone as quickly as it had come. ‘On what grounds?’

‘You dare to ask that? You disobeyed a direct order!’

‘I did not!’

‘You have an hour to pack your things, and then I want you go-’ His voice cut off. Only now did he seem to register that I had spoken. ‘What did you say?’

Stubbornly, I repeated: ‘I did not disobey any direct order.’

‘But you-’

‘When we stood on the podium and you leaned over to whisper into my ear, you told me to go and say something memorable. You didn’t specify what exactly it was I should say. And no matter whether or not you liked it, I’m pretty sure what I said was memorable.’

I gave him my sweetest smile. ‘But if you want, we can wait and see what The Spectator has to say on the subject.’

He moved so quickly I hardly saw him coming. In a flash he was around the desk and had grabbed me by the arms. An instant later he had pushed me back and up against the wall.

‘Do not dare to make fun of me,’ he hissed, his quiet voice colder than ever, his eyes shards of furious ice. ‘You would not like the consequences!’