It took a moment for the penny to drop. I had gotten so used to my disguise, to pretending that I was a man, that I hadn’t even thought of the meaning of those words. Women first. I was a woman. I could get a place on one of the lifeboats.
I can survive this.
My eyes, which had reached out into the far distance, snapped back to Mr Ambrose.
But he can’t.
He seemed to read the thought on my face.
‘Mr Linton,’ he said, his voice colder than I had ever heard it, ‘you will be on one of those lifeboats. No discussion. This is an order.’
‘You can order as much as you want,’ I whispered. ‘I don't have any girl’s clothes. Nobody will believe I’m a woman.’
‘They will! I will make them believe!’
‘Why do you care anyway?’ My voice suddenly sounded hoarse. Was I catching a cold? Well, on the bright side, it wouldn’t really matter, because I would be dead soon. ‘Why do you care if I survive? If I drown, at least you’d be rid of me at last!’
He took a step closer. His dark eyes, burning with cold fire, didn’t leave mine for a second. ‘Maybe I don't want to be rid of you.’
I had to swallow. It was hard. ‘And maybe I don't want to leave you behind.’
He went rigid, as if suddenly paralysed by some hellish poison - or a heavenly one.
‘Mr Linton, I…’
Suddenly, the ship, hit by another wave, gave a violent lurch, and I was hurled forward, towards Mr Ambrose. His arms came up reflexively to catch me and, just as reflexively, his lips parted. There I hung, limply, in his arms. The force of the wave was spent. I was no longer being forced forward, and yet I was, by another wave, a wave of unknown emotions welling up inside me, keeping me moving, until his face and mine were just inches apart.
I stared into his fathomless, sea-coloured eyes and saw in them volumes of unspoken words. For just the briefest of moments I thought I felt a gentle caress of his lips on mine - then, another wave hit, and I was thrown back, away from him.
Crying out, I reached for something, anything to hold me upright and grabbed a coat hook on the wall. With my other hand I reached up to brush my lips. God almighty…!
Mr Ambrose, too, had grabbed a coat hook to hold onto. He let go of it now, and fixed his eyes on me. The shock of the second wave seemed to have shaken him out of his momentary paralysis.
He grabbed my hand.
‘What are you doing?’ I demanded, my voice breathy.
His hand tightened around mine. ‘I’m going to see to it that you survive this night!’
‘I said I didn’t want to leave you!’
The fire in his eyes sparked in a way that was both infinitely hot and infinitely cold. ‘Is that so? Well, you are just going to have to, Mr Linton.’
‘You can’t make me!’
‘There you’re wrong.’
Before I could say or do anything, strong arms took hold of me and I lost my footing. It took a moment to realize: Mr Ambrose had swept me off my feet! I was so stunned, I didn’t even contemplate my natural response, which would be bash his head in with a parasol.
But since I didn’t have a parasol, that wasn’t really an option, anyway, was it?
Crash!
Dazed, I watched him kick open the door and march forward. He was moving as if I weighed no more than a feather, and in a heartbeat we were outside again. If anything, the chaos had increased. The waves were twice as high as before - high enough to easily reach over the railing and roll over the ship’s wooden deck as if it were already part of the ocean. The passengers were all crammed together in one corner beside two flimsy-looking boats, secured to the deck by ropes. Each and every one tried to jostle forward, to get into one of those fragile promises of safety.
Nobody paid attention to what we were doing - and that was a good thing. With me slung unceremoniously over his back, Mr Ambrose marched right up to the door of the cabin next to mine and drew back his foot. It came forward again in a lightning-fast movement and connected with the door with a thunderous crash that nobody noticed over the roar of the wind and the sea.
‘Mr Ambrose!’ I protested. ‘That’s Lady Timberlake’s cabin!’
‘Exactly,’ he said, and drew his foot back again. ‘That’s why I’m kicking the door down.’
Once more, his foot shot forward.
Crack!
The door burst inward, splinters of wood from around the lock flying everywhere. Not waiting for me to protest again, Mr Ambrose marched inside and slammed the door behind us. For a moment, we were in darkness. Unlike my cabin, where I had left a lamp burning, Lady Timberlake’s cabin was not illuminated, and even though there was a window, no light came out of the dark storm outside. The clouds had long blocked out the moon and the stars. They were gathering to cast the world into shadow, to use it as the dark anvil for the bright hammer of lightning.
Suddenly, Mr Ambrose slid me off his back and more or less shoved me away. Panicking, I tried to grab him, but caught only empty air.
‘Mr Ambrose?’ I turned my head left and right, but could see only black. I didn’t want to be alone! Not in this dreadful chaos of death that was coming down on us. ‘Mr Ambrose? Where are you, Sir?’
Silence.
‘Where are you, darn it?’
Without warning, a light flickered to life in the corner of the room, and I had to shield my eyes from the bright invasion. Mr Ambrose stood there, holding a safety lamp, next to a large trunk that stood open beside Lady Timberlake’s bunk bed. As I watched, he bent down and pulled out something enormous, pink and frilly, which glittered in the lamplight. He held it out to me.
‘Put this on!’ There was no doubt in his voice, no room for hesitation or argument. It was a command. And I didn’t care.
I crossed my arms in front of my chest.
‘Never!’ I didn’t want to leave his side. I couldn’t. Besides, I, unlike poor old Lady Timberlake, actually had some dress sense.
He took a step forward, the dangerous glint in his eyes intensified a thousandfold by the light of the lamp he held up. The flickering flame shone on his face and gave it a whole new appearance, the sharp angles thrown into clearer contrast, the hardness now more clearly visible than ever before.
‘You are going to change into female attire this minute, Mr Linton, or I swear, by all the banknotes of the Bank of England, I will rip your clothes of and stuff you into a skirt myself! Do you understand?’