Hunting for Silence (Storm and Silence Book 5)

by Robert Thier

  ‘Well, My Lord, Messieurs, Mademoiselle…’ The king gave us all a nod and a smile. ‘I won’t go so far as to say it’s been a pleasure, but it has definitely been an interesting evening. I think I shall turn in for the night. Tomorrow is likely to be a busy day.’

  There were bows from all around, except from me, because (A) I was a woman and (B) I was still sitting on the floor. This carpet was really quite comfortable. Nobody really seemed to mind my taking it easy. With a last smile at Mr Ambrose and me, the king left the box.

  ‘I shall be retiring as well,’ Lord Dalgliesh informed us. He did not smile. ‘His Majesty is right. Tomorrow will be a busy day.’

  And with that ominous statement, he stepped into the corridor. His footsteps receded, which left Mr Ambrose and me in the company of the Minister Guizot.

  ‘Mademoiselle?’ Stepping forward, the thin Frenchman offered his hand to me.

  ‘I’m quite comfortable down here, thank you.’

  ‘Pardon?’

  ‘Well, I deserve a little break after all this excitement, don’t you?’ And I leaned back against the balustrade, crossing my arms behind my head.

  ‘Assuredly, Mademoiselle.’ The minister’s thin lips twitched in a humourless smile. ‘Unfortunately, I ‘ave a feeling that I myself will not be getting one in the near future.’

  Stepping up to the balustrade, he peered over to the other side of the room, to the box from where the shot had come.

  ‘It is not so far away.’

  Mr Ambrose and I exchanged looks.

  ‘Interesting, n’est-ce pas, that an assassin, whom you would presume to be an expert marksman, missed from such a close distance.’ He whirled around and strode over to the wall. Eyes narrowed and nose flaring like bloodhound on a scent, he began to examine the walls, the columns, any and all surfaces he could get his hands on.

  ‘Très interresant…’

  ‘Minister?’

  ‘Monsieur Ambrose, you are a man of the world, are you not? An experienced man, who has ‘andled firearms? I even believe you own a company that produces them?’

  ‘More than one, Minister.’

  ‘Excellent. Then perhaps you can help me understand.’ Turning towards us, the minister sent Mr Ambrose a penetrating stare over his hawk-beak nose. ‘Can you explain to me how an assassin could fire several bullets from a vantage point that is quite close to ‘is target, and yet not only miss, but, even more astonishingly, fail to leave leave a single bullet ‘ole be’ind?’

  Silence.

  A long, long empty silence.

  Finally, Mr Ambrose lifted one shoulder high enough for a shrug of a corpse in rigor mortis. ‘Perhaps he was a very bad assassin.’

  ‘Per’aps.’ The minister’s stare became even more intense. ‘Or perhaps he was a very smart assassin, sent ‘ere by an even smarter man.’

  ‘Or woman,’ I piped up from the floor.

  They both ignored me.

  ‘Perhaps,’ Mr Ambrose allowed.

  ‘It seems,’ the minister mused, ‘that, miraculously, the political situation has shifted to my advantage. The attack of a revolutionary will silence my critics. All those who ‘ave been railing against an alliance with England will be eager to support my efforts now, or will at least be too cautious to speak up against it.’

  ‘Indeed.’

  A smile tugged at one corner of Guizot’s thin mouth.

  ‘It occurs to me that maybe I should thank you, Monsieur Ambrose.’

  ‘Maybe you should.’

  ‘It also occurs to me that maybe I should ‘ave you arrested for meddling in state affairs.’

  The room temperature sank several degrees. ‘Indeed?’

  ‘Unfortunately, I do not ‘ave sufficient evidence for the latter.’

  Mr Ambrose’s right hand shifted slightly, coming to rest over the place where I knew, beneath his tailcoat, he kept his trusted revolver. ‘Or fortunately, depending on how you look at it.’

  ‘Quite so.’

  The two men stared at each other. On the one hand, the French Foreign Minister, a man of power, experience, and with eyes as sharp as his mind—on the other, Mr Rikkard Ambrose, cold, implacable, as immovable as the Colossus of Rhodes. Silence expanded between the two as they measured each other. Long moments passed. And some more of them. And more.

  I cleared my throat. ‘Are you quite finished?’

  Mr Ambrose’s little finger twitched. I got the feeling he would have dearly liked to give me a cool look, but he couldn’t very well do that without being the first to end the staring contest.

  ‘I believe the lady has a point,’ Monsieur Guizot said.

  Well, well, look at that. A sensible man. And I only had to travel a few hundred miles from home to find him.

  ‘I myself shall retire for the evening. I would appreciate, Monsieur Ambrose, if you were to call on me at the ministry tomorrow. I would like to discuss this matter further with you.’

  Mr Ambrose gave a curt not. ‘So would I. There are things you need to know, Minister.’

  ‘I shall look forward to hearing them. Au revoir, Monsieur Ambrose. Au revoir, Mademoiselle Linton.’

  The minister turned and walked towards the door. He was just stepping outside, when…

  ‘Monsieur Guizot?’

  At the sound of Mr Ambrose’s voice, the minister froze. ‘Yes?’

  ‘Be cautious of Dalgliesh. He is not all that he seems.’

  The minister gave a dry laugh. ‘Personne n’est, Monsieur!’ Then, with a final nod he strode out of the box.

  ‘What did he say?’

  Silence.

  ‘Mr Ambrose?’

  ‘He said: nobody is.’

  ‘Oh.’

  Smart man.

  Turning, Mr Ambrose gazed over at me.

  ‘I believe our business is finished here, Miss Linton. Agreed?’

  ‘Yes, Sir.’

  Striding over to me, he held out a hand. Without even thinking about it, I took it, and he pulled me up with an ease that might be due to the strength in his arms, but was still very good for my ego. Those strong arms of his slid around me, pulling me close.

  ‘My, my, Sir,’ I whispered, batting my eyelashes up at him. ‘Aren’t you brazen! I will have you know that I am a decent young lady who is not in the habit of compromising her reputation.’

  Dark, sea-coloured eyes glittered down at me, their depths swirling, drawing me in. ‘You’re a bad liar, Miss Linton.’

  ‘No I’m not!’

  ‘To me you are,’ he told me, one hand taking hold of my jaw, drawing me up towards him. ‘I see you. I know you. All of you.’

  Fierce heat rose inside me. Sliding my arms around his neck, I pulled him close and crushed him against me for one hard, sweet second.

  ‘Me too,’ I whispered. ‘And I’ll never look away.’

  My arms loosened at the same instant his did, but we never let go. Holding on to each other, we stepped out into the corridor. No one was left out there. The soldiers had escorted their king and minister back to the palace, and the audience had long since made themselves scarce. In silence, we descended the stairs, heading towards the exit.

  ‘Where’s Claudette?’ I asked Mr Ambrose when we reached the bottom.

  ‘Probably at home locked in a room with thick walls, laughing intensely. For some mysterious reason, she seemed to find it quite amusing to play the revolutionary assassin.’

  I grinned up at him. ‘I can imagine.’

  ‘What perturbs me, Miss Linton, is that yes, you probably can. Remind me to take your gun away before we return to England, will you?’

  ‘Ha! You just try that and see what happens.’

  We had reached the entrance by now, and I pulled open the door, giving a slight curtsy. ‘Gentlemen first.’

  He gave me a stern look, but he did step out first. Which meant that when Lord Dalgiesh’s arm lashed out of the darkness, it was not me he grabbed.

  Plots within Plots

  Mr
Ambrose reacted faster than the eye could blink. In the fraction of a second, he had twisted out of Lord Dalgliesh’s grip, and his hand was on his revolver, ready to draw. I, unfortunately, was a little bit farther behind, my hand furiously rummaging around for my weapon in the folds of my dress. Bloody hell, I should have worn trousers and damn the consequences!

  ‘No need for weapons, Lord Ambrose,’ Lord Dalgliesh said, his eyes glittering. ‘I’m not here to kill you.’

  A muscle in Mr Ambrose’s jaw twitched at the sound of the title he hated, the heritage he despised. ‘Now why do I find that difficult to believe?’

  ‘Oh, I will destroy you. Just not here. Not tonight.’

  ‘Indeed?’

  ‘Yes, indeed.’ Dalgliesh took a step closer, his steel-blue eyes gleaming in the darkness. Mr Ambrose glared back, the air between them freezing. If the staring contest between Mr Ambrose and Minister Guizot had been bad, this was on a totally different level. Mr Ambrose and the minister had merely been testing their mettle. These two were testing their hatred. And there was lots of it to go around.

  ‘I’m warning you,’ Dalgliesh whispered. ‘Leave Paris. Leave now—or you won’t like the consequences.’

  ‘You are warning me?’ Mr Ambrose’s voice was soft. Soft of as the footfalls of a Siberian tiger on fresh snow as it stalked its prey. ‘Have you forgotten who it was who sabotaged my business, who put my people at risk?’ He took a step forward. ‘I’m not going to warn you, Dalgliesh. I’ve done that before, with little result. The time for warnings is past. Now it’s time for war!’

  His hand moved in a flash. There was bang, and I jumped forward, expecting to see a bloody hole in Lord Dalgliesh’s waistcoat—but there was nothing. Mr Ambrose’s smoking revolver was pointing in a totally different direction.

  ‘Arrrh!’

  My eyes swivelled towards the noise, and I saw a dark shape drop from a roof, in the direction Mr Ambrose had aimed. It crashed onto a cart of cabbages parked in the street and writhed, cursing loudly. A rifle fell from its hand, clattering to the ground.

  ‘Do not,’ Mr Ambrose told His Lordship, his smoking revolver still out in the open, ‘try that again. Next time, I’ll shoot to kill. And not just your henchman.’ He extended his hand to me. ‘Miss Linton?’

  I quickly put my hand in his, hoping nobody would notice I’d just pulled it out of my knickers, still in search of the missing gun.

  ‘Let’s go.’

  ‘Yes.’

  We slowly moved away down the street, feeling Lord Dalgliesh’s eyes on us the whole way until, finally, the shadows swallowed us.

  The nocturnal streets were extremely lively, even by Parisian standards. Everywhere, people chattered excitedly, gesticulating with both hands, and sometimes both feet. I didn’t understand a word of what was going on, but I didn’t really need to. It was all too clear what was happening. The news of the assassination attempt was making the rounds. People were burning to know who the dangerous revolutionary was who had dared to take a shot at the king.

  Not long after, we reached Mr Ambrose’s opera house, and the door was opened by an exuberant dangerous revolutionary.

  ‘Sat was the most fun I’ve ‘ad in years!’ Claudette exclaimed, tearing the revolutionary hat with the tricolour[35] from her head. ‘Sacre bleu! I should ‘ave done somesin’ like sis ages ago.’

  I nodded gravely. ‘Yes, because killing kings is so much fun. Particularly the executions afterward are said to be fascinating.’

  ‘Oh, shut up and come ‘ere, you!’ Grabbing me, she pulled me in for a crushing hug. ‘Everysin’ went all right, oui? That detestable man who owns se oser opera ‘ouse got his comeuppance?’

  ‘Yes, he did. But how do you know he’s detestable?’

  ‘’e did not ‘ire me, of course. Sat’s ‘ow.’ She gave me a look as if that should have been obvious. ‘Instead, ‘e ‘ired that dreadful Louise Blanche. I can shatter glasses with my beautiful voice. She only shatters eardrums with ‘ers. Pfoui! Someone wis such bad taste does not deserve to own a temple of se arts. I wish I ‘ad aimed at ‘im.’

  ‘You do know that the gun wasn’t actually loaded, right? There was just gunpowder inside.’

  Grinning, she slid a hand into her pocket and, when she pulled it out again, displayed several shiny metal objects. It took me a moment to realize what they were.

  ‘Claudette!’

  ‘A lady should always be prepared, n’est-ce pas?’ She patted my shoulder. ‘No need to worry, ma petite. I did not use sem.’

  ‘I did sort of deduce that from the live king I just said goodbye to.’

  ‘Are you quite finished?’ came a familiar voice from behind me. When I first met him, his impatient tone would have riled me to snap back. But now I only could think about what he might be impatient for. Of what was still awaiting me tonight. A smile tugged at the corners of my lips.

  ‘Yes, Sir!’

  ‘Adequate. Claudette, I shall await a full report in the morning.’

  And with that, he took me by the arm and swept past the prima donna turned hobby assassin, towards the stairs. Stairs that led up to my room.

  ‘You know,’ I sighed, leaning against him, ‘it was fun, but I’m glad it’s over.’

  It wasn’t until we were halfway up the stairs that he replied.

  ‘I’m not sure it is.’

  I stiffened. ‘What? What do you mean?’

  ‘Remember how Dalgliesh warned us away?’

  ‘It would be hard to forget.’

  ‘Why would he do that? If his plans had all failed and his business in Paris was finished, why would he want us out of the way?’

  His words sent a shiver down my back. They made far too much sense for my liking. I would have to think about them.

  But not tonight. Tonight was for reserved for other matters. I had decided it was past time I had a little chat with Mr Rikkard Ambrose. There were things we needed to talk about.

  Pushing open the door, he stepped into the room, me at his side. The moonlight fell in through the big windows and illuminated the little cot that had been my nocturnal nest ever since my arrival in Paris. In silent agreement we approached and sank onto the mattress. For a long time we just sat like that, leaning into each other and gazing out across the moonlit city of Paris. Finally, our eyes met.

  My mouth felt dry. How on earth was I going to say what I had to say? How?

  I cleared my throat. ‘We make a pretty good team, don’t we?’

  ‘Indeed we do, Miss Linton.’

  Cautiously my hand reached out to touch his, and I licked my lips.

  ‘And with that in mind…’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘I’ve thought some more about what you said. You know, about finding a compromise?’

  His left little finger twitched.

  Ah. So he has thought about it, too. Onward, Lilly! Do it! Tell him!

  Taking a deep breath, I turned towards fully, raised my chin and said:

  ‘I’ll marry you.’

  His mouth dropped open.

  ‘Y-you will?’

  It was the first time I had ever heard Rikkard Ambrose stutter. The first and probably the last. He reached out towards me—but then his hands stopped in mid-air, and his eyes narrowed infinitesimally. ‘Wait a moment. This is what you consider a “compromise”? Not that I object, mind you, but what about your misgivings in regard to certain parts of the marriage vow? If we marry, you will have to swear to obey me in front of a priest and an entire church full of witnesses. There is no way around that.’

  ‘Oh, I know.’ I beamed. ‘I’ve found a solution.’

  ‘You have?’

  I nodded proudly. ‘I’ll swear to always obey your orders,’ I promised, ‘if you swear to never to give me any.’

  He stared at me for a long, hard moment of utter silence. It was impossible to read the emotion in his dark eyes.

  ‘You’re serious, aren’t you?’

  ‘Of course. Why not?’ />
  Another moment of silence.

  Then he suddenly grabbed me. Before I knew what was happening, he had pulled me into a vice-tight embrace.

  ‘You’re mad!’ he growled, crushing me against him.

  ‘I know,’ I wheezed.

  ‘I love you.’

  One corner of my mouth curled up in perfect bliss. ‘I know that, too. So…do we have a deal?’

  His grip tightened until I couldn’t breathe, and didn’t mind a bit.

  ‘My little ifrit,’ he murmured. ‘Mine. Forever.’

  That was answer enough for me.

  *~*~**~*~*

  The French Ministry of Foreign Affairs was located in a rather cramped, drab little building for such a lofty institution. Mr Ambrose, Karim and I—in my male persona, with my gun in easy reach, just in case—approached the door, and as soon as he spotted us, the uniformed man at the door saluted and indicated that we should follow him.

  ‘Be careful,’ Mr Ambrose warned in a low tone. ‘I do not believe Guizot considers us a threat, but he is a powerful man, and if he does…’

  He didn’t finish the sentence. Probably because he realized he’d just committed the grievous sin of admitting out loud in the presence of witnesses that he cared. Inside, I was beaming. Outwardly, I simply squeezed his hand.

  ‘Don’t worry. I certainly don’t.’

  And I didn’t. I didn’t care about Guizot. I didn’t care about Dalgliesh. I wouldn’t have cared if there were fifty powerful maniacs out to get us. Something had shifted. Something had changed. I was no longer alone. Alone, I’d taken on the world. Together, we’d take the world. Together, there was nothing we couldn’t accomplish.

  Besides, I thought with a smile at the sound of familiar heavy footsteps behind me, I doubt anybody is really dangerous in comparison as long as a certain bearded someone is around.

  ‘Monsieur Ambrose? Suivez-moi, s’il vous plaît.’

  The uniformed doorman handed us over to a servant in livery, who led us through a labyrinth of narrow corridors until we finally reached a dark wooden door with Guizot’s name on it. The servant knocked.