I’ll give him not right in the head!
‘Actually, no,’ I blurted out, my voice coming out sharper than I had intended. ‘That wasn’t why I came. I came because you requested it. I came to take up the position of your private secretary.’
His eyes, having perused line after line of whatever document lay before him, froze. Then they snapped up to me. His face seemed not quite as expressionless as before. Silence hovered over the two of us, thick and heavy.
Finally he said: ‘But you are a girl.’
I bowed my head in what I hoped would be a demure manner. But it probably looked more sarcastic than demure.
‘How kind of you to notice, Mr Ambrose.’
His gaze travelled up and down my figure, taking in the hoop skirt, my styled hair and various parts of my anatomy pushed into the right place by my corset.
‘Not so very kind. The fact is rather hard to overlook.’
‘You were not so observant the last time we met!’
He narrowed his eyes about a millimetre. ‘The last time we met, you had taken great pains to disguise yourself, if I remember, in a manner some might call infamous and outrageous.’
I narrowed my eyes more than just a millimetre and crossed my arms defiantly.
‘I was wearing trousers! Why is that infamous? They’re just a piece of cloth and don't make me any less of a girl. If you went around dressed in a ball gown, would that make you any less of a man?’
‘I’m afraid I’ve never yet made the experiment, Miss Linton,’ he replied, frostily.
A mental image popped into my head of Mr Cold Masculinity Ambrose in a frilly off-the-shoulders ball gown with a big hoop skirt and a paper fan in his hand. I had to work hard to keep from laughing. His tone told me that that wouldn’t have been a good idea. He didn’t seem to be a person who appreciated mirth, to put it mildly.
So instead of laughing at him, I did the next best thing. I fixed him with a determined look and said: ‘We’re wandering from the subject. I didn’t come here to talk to you about fashion. I came to work.’
Shaking his head derisively, he asked: ‘So you persist in this ludicrous claim that you want to work as my secretary?’
‘I do, and it isn’t ludicrous. When can I take up my new duties?’
‘You can’t.’
‘Why not?’
‘Because I will most certainly not give you the position.’
‘Why not?’
‘I do not have to explain myself to you, Miss Linton.’
Panic started to well up inside me, and I did my best to push it back down. This was what I had feared. He wouldn’t even consider taking me on. He would throw me out. Now I had only one last chance. It all depended on one question now: was Mr Rikkard Ambrose a gentleman, or only a man?
‘You offered me the position,’ I said in a soft voice. ‘Do you break your word so easily, Sir?’
Anger flashed in his eyes, and I could see it: the wounded honour of a gentleman. Yes! I had him!
‘You dare impugn my honour, Miss?’ he demanded, his voice deadly quiet. I knew that had I been a man, he would have flung his glove at me, and I would have had to meet him the next day for a bloody satisfaction. But I was not a man, and he was trapped. The only thing he could do was break his word - or honour it.
‘Yes,’ I answered, breathless. ‘If you do not keep your word, I do.’
‘My word would not be broken,’ he said, in that quiet voice that sent a shiver down my back. ‘You deceived me.’
‘How so?’ My crossed arms tightened in front of my chest. This was going to be a heavy battle.
‘I hired you under the misapprehension that you were a man.’
‘I never said I was. In fact, I specifically told you that I wasn’t the man for the job.’
He seemed stunned for just a moment. Then, taking in a deep breath, he admitted: ‘So you did. Still, you can’t have the position.’
‘Why? Has the position already been filled?’
He hesitated for a second, then said in a slightly grudging voice: ‘No.’
‘Has anyone better qualified than I applied?’
‘Anyone would be better than you.’
My face hardened. ‘How so?’
He placed his hands on the desktop, as if trying to suck up calm from the even surface.
‘A girl working as a secretary?’ he growled. ‘It is impossible! If the city were to get wind of this it would be the biggest scandal in years! Besides, females do not have the orderly mind that is required for this kind of work.’
‘Of course they do! We have been kept down for centuries, but you’ll see, one day women will conquer their rightful place in the world! One day, there will be hundreds, maybe thousands of women working as secretaries. We will be so good at it that we will put the men out of their jobs, and just about every secretary will be female!’
He shook his head derisively.
‘That speech only shows that you have no intellect and grasp of reality. Thousands of women working as secretaries all over the world? The thought is ridiculous.’
‘All I want is the chance to prove you wrong.’
‘And I said no. You are a girl. I cannot have a girl in my office. I would be the laughing stock of the city of London, of the entire country even.’
‘I’m sure the city and country will find funnier things to laugh about than you,’ I said, regarding his stony face, not able to entirely keep the sarcasm out of my voice.
He gave me a stare from those cold, dark eyes that could have frozen lava.
‘I don't appreciate being made fun of, Miss Linton.’
‘I can see that, Mr Ambrose. And I do not appreciate my questions not being given full and honest replies.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Has anyone better qualified than I applied for the position of your private secretary?’
A few seconds hesitation again. Then: ‘No.’
‘Well then.’ Taking a deep breath, I unfolded my arms and rubbed my hands. ‘When may I begin with my new duties?’
His hostile stare intensified to a force that almost knocked me off my chair and made the muscles in my stomach tighten with fear.
‘I-need-a-man,’ he said very slowly, enunciating each word. ‘A man, Miss Linton. Not a girl who will run off screaming at the things she will see where my kind of business takes me.’