Silence.

Complete, utter, icy silence.

For quite a long time.

Then...

'Miss Linton?'

'Yes?'

'Is that...is that a–'

'Yes.'

His hand snapped shut around the little thing and crushed it.

'Hey!' I protested. 'It took me quite a while to make that!'

On the other hand, I had over thirty more, just in case. Hey, I'm an optimist, all right?

Reaching into the drawer again, I pulled out a replacement and dangled it in front of his face. I could tell he didn't particularly like the view.

'Miss Linton. Do you mean to tell me that before we engage in amorous congress, you wish me to...to...'

'...wrap up your belly-tickler? Yes, that was the idea.'

'Miss Linton!'

'What?' I raised an eyebrow, even though in the dark he probably didn't see it. 'You didn't think that I'd let you get me pregnant and then end up marrying you after all, although I don't really want to, did you?'

Silence.

Silence which, in this case, spoke volumes.

'You did! You bloody son of a bachelor! You were banking on me getting pregnant!'

'Banking has always been one of my favourite occupations.'

I thumped his chest. 'Be serious!'

'I always am, Miss Linton.'

And he was. He absolutely was. Getting me pregnant to get me to marry him – that scheme had Rikkard Ambrose written all over it.

'That's what you were trying to do?' I whispered, something tugging at my heart. 'You were really trying to get me pregnant?'

In the midnight moonlight, he met my eyes without blinking. His gaze was perfectly steady, cool and unashamed.

'Of course. It was a perfect solution for my problem.'

'Your problem?'

'You.'

'Me?'

Reaching out, he cupped my face with a tenderness that made my heart ache. 'You're everything I want. Everything I need. I have to have you. No matter what I have to do, you will be mine.'

A part of me wanted to slap the devious, chauvinistic part of a bachelor – but the problem was, the bigger part of me felt exactly the same about him. I wouldn't be able to survive without him. Besides – if he weren't a devious, chauvinistic son of a bachelor, he wouldn't be Mr Rikkard Ambrose.

Time to take the reins, Lilly!

Through the shadows, I smiled at him. 'So...you want to marry me?'

'I think that by now I have made that abundantly clear, Miss Linton.'

'And there's no other way you'd be with me tonight? No other way I could convince you?'

His face was as solid as bedrock. 'No.'

'Are you sure?'

'Absolutely.'

Reaching out, I cupped him, too – only not his face. I went a little bit lower.

'Ah!'

'Are you really, really sure?'

'Miss Linton...!'

I smiled into the darkness. 'Yes, Mr Ambrose, Sir?'

'I am the one in charge here! You cannot manip–aahh! – manipulate...oh...'

He was probably going to say more on the subject of what I could and couldn't do – but my kiss shut him up mid-sentence. Shuddering, he melted beneath my touch as I whispered words against his lips that no one but the darkness was ever meant to hear.

Well, when I say 'melted'...

Most of him did.

The most important part didn't. It remained quite solid and substantial, in fact.

'Miss Linton! I order you to dispose of that...item immediately! I will not allow – aaa...!'

'You were saying?'

'Ohh...'

'Bloody hell! Hold still, will you? How am I supposed to get it on you if you keep wiggling like that? Let's try again...'

'Aaargh! Ouch!'

'Oops! Um, sorry. I missed.'

'I noticed!'

'Well, at least I know what you told me back in South America was true. You do still have your balls.'

'Miss Linton!'

'All right, all right. I'll get a move on.'

'You do realise that people have been thrown in jail because of these things?'

I grinned into the darkness. 'Sounds great. I know a comfy police station in London where we could share a cell.'

'Miss Lin–'

I pushed down.

'–aaah!'

'There. That wasn't so bad, was it?'

'No comment.'

'Don't worry.' Leaning towards him, I pressed a light kiss on his lips. 'It'll get better from here, I promise. I'll be gentle.'

He groaned. Capturing my face between his hands, he held me fast, unwilling to let me go. 'I actually believe you. Sometimes what you do to me frightens me.'

'Likewise,' I whispered. 'Likewise, Mr Ambrose, Sir.'

The time for jokes and games was past. Gazing into the shadowy pools of his eyes, I knew that now it was time for just him and me, and what we were about to do. Wordlessly, he gathered me up in his arms, lifted me, and gently laid me in the exact centre of the bed – the same position, I could see in his eyes, that I occupied in his heart. He leaned down. I stretched up, clutching his broad shoulders.

'I'm going to have to hurt you,' he whispered.

That was Rikkard Ambrose. Straight to the point. Brutally, beautifully honest.

'I know.' I smiled. 'Don't worry. You have lots of practice. I'm sure you'll manage.'

'Miss Linton, this is no joke! I don't want to hurt–'

'I'll whack you over the head tomorrow if it makes you feel better.'

This time he kissed me to shut me up, and I let him. I let him do much more than that. Strong hands encircled my ankles, parting them as far as they would go. He leaned down until his forehead pressed against mine, and other parts of him pressed against me, too.

'Ready?' he demanded.

'For you?' My smile widened. 'Never and always.'

That night, Mr Rikkard Ambrose wasn't silent. That night, some talented person whose name I won't mention managed to make him scream.

*~*~**~*~*

When I awoke the next morning and started to blink the sleep out of my eyes, for a moment, I didn't remember where I was. My bed suddenly felt unusually hard, and during the night, it seemed to have grown two clamps that were tightly wrapped around me. Hard, warm clamps that wrapped around me tightly and felt suspiciously like the bare arms of a–

I jerked upright.

Or at least I tried to. But apparently, Mr Ambrose's slumbering arms were exactly like the rest of him awake: grabbing anything and giving away nothing for free. His arms tightened around me as if I were the key to the vaults of the Bank of England.

'Hey! I'm not a big jewel or a bag of money! You can let go.'

He gave a sleepy grunt of protest, and his grip tightened.

Blast! Even asleep that man was stubborn as a slab of rock! Pushing at his iron-hard arms, I tried to slip out of his grasp – but it only tightened farther, nearly squeezing the breath out of me. Wheezing, I used my one free arm to prod his shoulder.

'Hey! Wake up! You're strangling me.'

'I am awake,' he told me, making me jerk.

'Good God! Then why are you squeezing me half to death?'

'Because.'

'That's not an answer! Why won't you let go?'

Pressing close from behind, he placed a searing kiss against my neck that made me shiver.

'Because this is where you belong. With me. Bound forever.'

I felt heat rising to my ears. Holy Moly! Why, after everything we had done last night, would that make me blush?

Well...

Because what we had done last night had been under cover of darkness. It had been safe – my own little secret, tucked away in the shadows. Now I was wide awake. A new day was dawning. Sunlight was streaming in through the windows and falling on me and Mr Rikkard Ambrose, tangled up together in my own bed, inside his parents' home.

All right, there probably was reason to blush. But no need to let him see it.

I jabbed him in the ribs.

'Oof!'

His arms loosened, and I slipped away, throwing him a smile over my shoulder. 'Thank you.'

Giving me a cool look, he rubbed his ribs. 'Was that really necessary?'

'No, but it was fun. I might do it more often in the future.'

Grabbing a sheet and wrapping it around me, I rose from the bed to survey the room. The bed was in chaos. The drawer of the bedside table hung half-open, my severely diminished stash inside peeking out for anyone to see. A vase on a nearby table had somehow toppled over. One of the curtains, which I must have grabbed in one of the night's more energetic moments, was torn in several places. And stretched right across the bed, wearing about as much clothing as Michelangelo's David and looking a hundred times as tempting, lay Mr Rikkard Ambrose, his sea-coloured eyes gazing up at me from under his lashes.

I glanced at the clock in the corner. Hm... ten thirty am wasn't really that late, was it? Maybe I could crawl back into bed a little and we could –

'Good God! It's ten thirty already!'

Ah. Apparently, Mr Ambrose had noticed the time, too.

Half a second later, an Ambrose-shaped blur shot past me and started gathering up discarded clothes from all over the room. Deducing that the fun times were probably over for now, I started to look for clothes as well. However, my search was far less successful.

'Come on, move!' Mr Ambrose's voice came from inside his shirt as he pulled it over his head. 'What are you waiting for, Miss Linton?'

I held up a chemise which was torn from top to bottom down the front. 'For this to mend itself. But I'm afraid I'll have to wait a long time for that.'

A stone-faced head popped out at the top of the shirt. He regarded my chemise critically. 'Hm. You should really take better care of your clothing.'

'I should take better care? You tore it in half!'

'Exactly. Next time, take it off before I'm forced to resort to extreme measures.'

'Oh no, Mister! You're not getting off as easily as that!' Taking a step towards him, I waved the tattered remnants of my undergarment under his nose. 'You love me, don't you? Well, prove it! Pay for a replacement!'

He froze.

His entire body stiffened. His face stayed as stony as ever, but I could see the struggle underneath. A single muscle in jaw twitched, and his teeth were clenched. He was clearly engaged in a titanic battle with himself.

I sincerely sympathised. I really did. On the one hand – the woman he loved. On the other hand – spending money. It really was such a terribly tough decision.

'Your salary shall have to suffice.'

Oh. Not that tough, after all, apparently.

'Or you can simply sew your own new clothes,' he suggested, bending and picking up something from the floor. Rising, he dangled the crumpled, stained little object in front of my face. 'You seem to be talented at sewing.'

'Oh.' My ears turned fiery red. 'Those were kind of an exception.'

'You don't say.' Turning away, he continued to dress himself. 'Tell me, Miss Linton – where exactly did you learn about these objects? Where would you acquire such specialised knowledge?'

'In a whorehouse.'

'Pardon?' Freezing in mid-motion, he slowly turned around to spear me with icy eyes. 'What did you say?'

'Oh, not through participation. My lessons were purely theoretical.'

'For the sake of the male patrons of that establishment,' Mr Ambrose told me in a voice as cold as the heart of a glacier, 'I hope that is true.'

He looked so cold, so ruthless, so...adorable.

Before I could think better of it, I had thrown myself at him, and my arms were around him, hugging him close. Snuggling my face against his solid chest, I drank in his warmth.

'Miss Linton! We do not have time for such frivolities. Cease this immediately!'

'Yes, Sir!' I grinned up at him, and squeezed harder.

A moment of silence, then...

'You still have not let go, Miss Linton.'

'Yes, Sir!'

He gazed at me for a moment, apparently not sure what to say – and then he put his arms around me and pulled me close. In that moment, I wouldn't have exchanged places with anyone, up to and including the Queen of England.

'In my past, when someone declined a business offer of mine,' he told me, his voice so low I nearly didn't catch the words, 'I have never in my life made a second proposal, let alone a third. Never.'

'Um...yes. And?'

'Marry me.'

'Oh.'

Leaning back until I could look into his eyes, I cupped his face in my hands. 'You know my answer. You know I can't.'

His eyes were hard as bedrock at the bottom of the sea. 'And you know I can't take no for an answer. Not as long as I know that you love me.'

Taking my hands in his, he slid them from his jaw to his lips and pressed one tender kiss on each palm. Just for an instant, his face softened a tiny little bit.

'Just imagine what it would be like.'

'Oh, I have. Trust me, I have.'

'You would rather be my secretary than my wife?'

I tried to smile at him, but I only managed to lift one corner of my mouth a little. 'Well, with the former job I at least get one day off a week.'

His face hardened again – and yet, the emotion in his eyes didn't vanish. On the contrary. It burned with a cold fire bright enough to devour my soul.

'I won't give up. Not ever.'

Why didn't that surprise me?

'I'm flattered. But for now...do you think it's possible you could focus your energies on finding some clothes for me? I've already been quite impolite to our hosts by missing breakfast. I think your mother wouldn't approve if I show up to lunch wrapped in a rumpled blanket.'

'Indeed. That would be impolitic.'

'And draughty. So...' I batted my eyelashes up at him. 'My lady clothes are all stored in my other room, a long way down the corridor. Do you think you can find something for me?'

'Hm. Well, I suppose I can lend you something of mine. If you promise not to damage it.'

'Thank you, oh gracious master of the double standard.'

Giving me a look, he strode to the connecting door and disappeared into his room. I dropped the blanket back onto the bed and followed him.

'Nothing I can find among my things will probably fit you very well, Miss Linton.'

'I had deduced as much from the anatomic measurements I undertook last night, Sir.'

'Indeed?'

'Yes. I was planning to to use your clothes to go to my other room and fetch some of my men's clothes from there.'

'Adequate suggestion. Here.' He pulled a few clothes out of the wardrobe and turned. 'Take thi–'

That was when he caught sight of me.

Without the sheet.

Without anything.

'Thank you.' Doing the best curtsy you can do in your birthday suit, I pulled the clothes out of his unresisting hands. 'With a tight belt, I should be able to make these fit.'

Silence.

Well, except for the footsteps.

Wait – footsteps?

'Hello?' The knock coming from the door made me jump ten feet in the air. But it was the voice that nearly gave me heart attack. The voice of the very last person I wanted to enter this room right now. 'Hello, Ricky? Son, are you awake?'

Oh crap.