Page 48 of Storm of Bells
Then he told her. Lady Samantha’s face wentwhite as a ghost, then red, then slightly green.
‘Rikkard Ambrose! You cannot seriously intendto—’
‘I do.’
‘But…but…this is yourwedding!’
‘For some reason, everyone seems to feel theneed to repeat that fact to me. I’m well aware of it, mother.’
‘But Rikkard…the East End…!’
‘Its vicars have impressively acceptablefees.’
‘So do its thieves and murderers!’
‘A minor detraction.’
Desperation in her eyes, Lady Samanthawhirled around, wringing her hands. Pleading baby-blue eyes wentfrom one of us to the next.
‘Please! Can’t any of you do anything?’
Ella shook her head dejectedly. ‘I alreadytried.’
Lady Samantha’s pleading gaze landed on Eve.My friend gave her an apologetic smile. ‘I think I know better bynow.’
And then, it came. Crap. I had known this wasgoing to happen.
Lady Samantha’s big, blue, motherly eyeslanded on me.
Crap, crap, crap!
‘Lilly…we can’t…you can’t…’
A big double load of stinking crap! This wasunfair! I had been so determined to lean back and enjoy the weddingchaos from afar. I honestly didn’t care one way or the other. Wecould get married by a rooster on the roof of a hay barn, and Iwould be deliriously happy. But that look in Lady Samantha’s eyes…It made me want things. Things I hadn’t even known I wanted. In hermotherly eyes, I saw hopes reflected, images of white dresses, andpretty flowers, cheering friends and family…
Crap.
There was no way around it, was there?
‘All right.’ Patting Lady Samantha on theshoulder, I stepped past her. ‘Don’t you worry, Your Ladyship. Iknow someone who can take care of this.’
‘Y-you do?’
‘Yes?’ Lips curling into a smile, I marchedtowards Mr Ambrose and took a firm hold of his arm. ‘Me.’
And with that, I pulled the startled businessmagnate through the connecting door, and kicked it shut behindus.
Bringing out the BigGuns
As soon as the doorclosed behind us, Mr Ambrose turned towards me. While his faceremained as expressionless as ever, there was a partly quizzical,partly intrigued, and most of all challenging look in those dark,sea-coloured eyes of his.
‘You really think you can convince me tospend exorbitant amounts of money on this event? To pay for a bigchurch, and flowers, and Mammon only knows what else your sisterhas cooked up in that pink, fluffy brain of hers?’
I waved his words away. ‘Oh, I didn’t pullyou in here to talk about that.’
He blinked. ‘You didn’t? But…after what yousaid to my mother…’
‘Forget about your mother. She doesn’t knowwhat’s really important. After all, what does it matter if you makeher cry on the day of her son’s wedding, just so long as you save afew pennies here and there?’
