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He doesn't mean anything by it! He’s only doing this to keep you calm, to keep you from screaming, to keep you from acting as he thinks every silly girl who meddles in men’s affairs would act! Keep it together! He doesn't care about you!

I knew it was true, every part of it. Yet the longer he held me, the harder it was to believe.Advertisement

‘It won’t be long now.’ His voice at my ear was still as steady as stone - so cold and hard it sent another shiver down my back. ‘Be still for a little longer… just a little longer…’

How could his voice be so distant while his hands were so gentle? It was a mystery to me - a mystery that tore at my heart.

Suddenly, right when my heart was torn about halfway down the middle, I heard movement from outside. The soldiers still weren’t gone. Only Lord Dalgliesh had left.

Think! Distract yourself! What could they be doing? Probably they are checking the room, making sure that nothing has been disturbed, like Dalgliesh said.

‘Soon, Mr Linton, soon.’ Mr Ambrose’s voice was still just as low, just as cold as before. ‘Soon they will be gone.’

Suddenly, a voice boomed only a few feet away:

‘Ey, look! This crate ain’t shut right!’

Above me, Mr Ambrose stiffened. His hand froze at my cheek.

‘Well, then what are ye waiting for? ‘ere!’

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We heard a clinking sound. Only a second later, the crate shuddered under a series of heavy blows - the blows of the hammer that was nailing shut the lid. It took a few moments for the icy realization to flood through me: I was trapped. And, what was far worse, I was trapped with him on top of me!

The moment the soldiers had left, shutting the door behind them, Mr Ambrose’s arms unwound from around me.

‘They’re gone, Mr Linton. You have my official permission to scream hysterically, now.’

‘What?’ I stared up at him incredulously, although I was actually not able to see anything of him except a vague outline in the darkness.

‘I don't have the time to listen, though, I’m afraid,’ he continued, rising a few inches off me. ‘I have to get this lid open.’

At his words, my heart ripped the last few inches and fell apart.

You knew this was going to happen! I yelled at myself. You knew he was only trying to keep you quiet. So don't you complain now! You had better get cracking on the problem of how to crack open this infernal crate!

However, Mr Ambrose was already on it. Having lost all interest in me - if he ever had any - he had risen up with his back and was pushing against the lid of the crate. I could see him straining against it in the faint light that fell in through a crack in the crate wall. Yet space was even sparser here than light. He could hardly rise a few inches off me, let alone get any leverage.

I could feel his muscles bunch and loosen, bunch and loosen. Blimey! He didn’t look that muscled in his straight-cut black tailcoat, but he had plenty of power tucked away under that simple, smooth black cloth.

My knees screamed under the pressure he was putting on them, but I didn’t care. I was too busy trying to ignore the pressure he was putting on certain other parts of my body, parts which were much more private than knees.

‘It won’t move,’ a blizzard-like growl came from above me. ‘Brace yourself, Mr Linton. I’ll have to get a little more… forceful.’

‘You’ll shatter my kneecaps if you’re any more forceful!’ I protested. I shifted hastily, trying to get out from under him, but my elbows hit something hard on either side.

‘Don’t move!’ He commanded. ‘There’s hardly enough room for us here. If you try to get out from under me, we'll end up in a tangle and will never get out of here.’

I had a mental picture of me, eternally entangled with Mr Ambrose. I swallowed, hard.

‘V-very well, Sir. But what will we do?’

‘I’ll somehow have to get my knees past you, so they won’t press down on you when I push. Is there a little space on either side of you farther down? Test with your feet.’

‘Yes, there’s room there.’

‘Well, that solves the problem. Spread your legs for me.’

For a few moments, silence filled the small, black space inside the crate. Utter, complete silence.

‘What,’ I asked very slowly and deliberately, ‘did you say?’

‘I said “spread your legs”.’ He sounded surprised that I hadn’t understood, and slightly irked that I hadn’t immediately done as he commanded. ‘Go on, it’s not that difficult. The left leg to the left, the right leg to the right.’

‘I know what “spread your legs” means!’

‘Well, then there’s no problem, is there? Hurry up, Mr Linton, we haven’t got all night.’

Now, let me clarify: I didn’t know all too much about what went on between men and women behind locked doors. My aunt had never been very specific on the subject of sexual congress, and the one time I had asked her, she nearly bit my head off and told me ladies did not talk about such lowly matters. But I did, at least, know enough to realize that spreading your legs was not something you did for a man, especially if this man was not married to you, not interested in you, and was stuck with you in a crate full of wood wool inside a steel warship on the way to God only knows where!

And he was so close… so terribly close! If he came even closer to me now, pressed to the very centre of my body, I did not know what would happen. I was afraid a lot might happen. I was even more afraid that nothing would happen at all.

‘Mr Linton? I am waiting.’

Slowly, tortuously slowly, I slid my legs apart. I could feel his hard thighs pressing against the insides of mine, forcing their way into the opening until they rested solidly there, in my midst.

‘That feels better,’ Mr Ambrose said contentedly. ‘Now we should be able to get going.’

Switch off your imagination, Lilly! Switch off your imagination now!

A moment later, I heard a dull thud as his shoulders collided with the lid of the crate with the force of a rampaging bull. Again and again, he struck out, upward and forward, making the crate rock violently, and needless to say, myself along with it.

There followed a few moments of panting and hammering in the dark. Finally, his attacks ceased, and he collapsed on top of me, breathing hard.

‘This is quite vexing, Mr Linton. I cannot get the infernal thing to budge.’ pqdm.com