Flowered Storm | a Strom and Silence Fanfiction

Digging Forks and Gentle Touches

I woke up feeling much better and completely rested.

When I went downstairs, Mr. Ambrose, Mr. Pierce and Karim were already seated at the table, having breakfast.

'Good morning Miss Linton, how do you feel?' Mr. Pierce asked, smiling from across of the table.

'Good morning Mr. Pierce, I feel much better, thank you. Lady Abbott's soup makes miracles.'

'Legend says that soup cures any illness and heals every hound.' The man laughed and greeted Lady Abbott with a nod as she entered the room.

'I most certainly believe it!'

'Thank you dear, but the credit is all yours. A very strong woman you found yourself, Mr. Ambrose. You should keep her.'

The old lady's words made Mr. Ambrose, who was peacefully drinking his coffee, almost spill everything.

Mr. Ambrose felt an emotion!

'Oh no, no, no, she's just a...a... business partner.'

Both Mr. Pierce and Lady Abbott eyed me with curiosity, Karim for his part kept on eating, unbothered, even though I saw a little smirk.

'Yes, indeed. I'm... uhh- his speech writer! Because, you know, Mr. Ambrose is such a busy man he can't just waste his valuable time writing speeches. He thinks I'm very opinionated and very talented, that's why he choose me.'

He didn't say anything, but he didn't had to. His eyes closed infinitesimally and his jaw twitched, I knew he had already thought of about nine different ways to kill me in the last five seconds.

'That shouldn't make you his employee?' Lady Abbott questioned eyeing me and Mr. Ambrose.

'Uh, yes. But she's more important than that. You see, she doesn't have to do this, she does it out of the goodness of her heart. Plus I would never employ a woman.'

Mr. Ambrose explained, although it seemed to me more like a justification or whatever he was trying to blurt out for them not to even suspect he employed a woman.

That would be such a stroke in his reputation.

I enjoyed his filtered explanation, though, because I could imagine the one without filters: Yes, she is. I've done everything at my power to push her away but she insists on haunting me. She's doing it for the pure pleasure of pissing me off and I don't think I'll get rid of her anytime soon. I've tried everything, nothing worked. I considered killing her but decided against it because that's against my morals. I would never kill such a fragile, defenceless being. She's a royal pain in the ass and a little demon from Hell. And she's taking my money.

His jaw twitched again with my smile.

'I see, very well Miss Linton, you should sit and eat, you must be starving.'

We ate, Mr. Ambrose was tense by my left side and never even once he looked at me. Lady Abbott, who also sat with us, was way too committed with matchmaking for a feminist woman, constantly dropping comments about how beautiful and amazing I was and how I was a such an intelligent, strong woman and how Mr. Ambrose shouldn't let a woman like me escape through his fingers. Of course he wasn't the only one she fired at, to me she said how a man like him wasn't found everywhere and how great of a husband and a father he would be and that I too shouldn't let him go.

All in all, it didn't sound to me like a feminist speech at all.

Then, at some point, after Mr. Pierce and Karim left to the stables, leaving Mr. Ambrose behind because he was having such a meaningful conversation with Lady Abbott, she got very quiet, eyeing both of us for a long instant.