So the oneshot requested by two people was Chapter 69, Seeing Stars (a.k.a. the first kiss!), from Storm and Silence in Rikkard Ambrose's POV. I had planned to write that chapter, yet I wound up starting from chapter 68, with the showering scenes. And I wrote so much from that chapter and thought it'd be too long if I included both chapters in one; so I ended up deciding I'd write both chapter 68 AND 69. Chapter 68, is, of course, called "Looking for Truffles and Butterflies", and is in book 1 of the S & S trilogy. Note that all of the dialogue used comes exactly from the real Chapter 68 by Rob Their; I only take credit for my interpretation of Rikkard's thought process here. I hope you enjoy it :D

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She was drunk.

He couldn't believe it. He had left her alone for all of ten minutes, and she had proceeded to disobey his every order to a point. She had, once again, put a wrench in his plans, and he had no choice but to clean up her mistakes.

The carriage ride had been less eventful than their narrow escape from the stupid men who had tried to attack them outside the tavern. The girl had fallen asleep quickly and he had had a few blissful moments of silence to himself.

He deliberately chose to ignore the memory of her soft skin when he had stroked her cheek gently for the duration of the ride to Empire House. Now was not the time for such distractions.

Rikkard sighed as he waited for Lilly to emerge from the shower--his shower, to be exact, although he was also considering ignoring that too based on what had happened earlier. He mentally kicked himself as the image of her body sprang forth in his mind; shoved his thoughts away before they could linger too long in his head.

He concentrated on his pocket watch instead, watching the minute-hand spin merrily around the clock-face as time passed. Ten minutes went by. He waited, tapping his foot absentmindedly. The sound of the shower echoed outside his bathroom. Rikkard allowed himself a fleeting glance at the bathroom door, then began to pace, stuffing his watch inside the pocket of his trousers.

Knowing his secretary, she would be a while. And in this state...well, it was safe to say she would not finish showering anytime soon. With an irritated sigh, he resigned himself to a long wait, silently bemoaning the loss of his precious time.

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When the sound of the shower finally stopped, Rikkard glanced immediately to the bathroom, wondering what the inebriated girl would try to do once she came out. His watch kept ticking away, and he gripped the smooth surface of the timepiece, running his thumb over the cover. Slowly, he stood and walked near the bathroom, pausing a few feet away.

There was a moment of rustling clothes and muffled exclamations from within the door in front of him, and then all of a sudden the door tore open and out stumbled his secretary, dressed in a shirt and trousers, her wet hair dripping down her back.

Something jolted within him at the sight of her without her usual attire, yet he restrained himself from revealing anything that affected him. She gazed up at him in slight befuddlement, and he frowned as he noted her continued drunkenness.

"What exactly did you do in there, Mr Linton?" Rikkard demanded, flipping open his watch. "You spent thirty-one minutes, four and a half seconds under the shower. The average time people require to take a shower is eight to fifteen minutes."

She blinked at him. "How do you know the average time people need to make a shower? Do you spy through people's windows through a telescope?"

He didn't know how to answer that, so he told her, "I only require three and a half minutes."

"I'm sure you do, Sir."

"People are too lazy."  The watch snapped shut in his palm, and he came to a decision. Striding past the girl, he made for the bathroom door. "This room is now occupied, and since there is no lock on the door, you had better remember not to come in," he said without looking back. He didn't wait for a reply before slipping inside the bathroom and slamming it closed behind him.

Rikkard allowed himself five seconds to lean against the door, eyes closed. Once he heard the sound of her small feet ambling unsteadily across the floor, he peeled himself away from the door and threw himself into action. His clothes hit the floor with an unearthly speed and as soon as the water was running, he stepped under the icy blast, his mind recalling the girl's short scream only half an hour before as the cold deluge had hit her skin.

The water was a welcome respite from his thoughts. He had always preferred the cold; it offered him something other to focus on, rather than his business and his enemies and his employees and the fact that the girl had been here only moments before, undressing and stepping into his personal shower--

He threw himself into the water, the water rushing off his body, streaming down his skin, running off his hair and splattering his face. He had to stop thinking about her, about the glimpse he'd seen of her, how she'd leaned into him during that damned carriage ride. He seized the bar of soap to his left and scrubbed desperately at his skin, trying to erase her touch from his body. He could not afford to be attached to her, could not keep thinking about her, could not have any part of her traced back to him.

Yet he kept scrubbing, and the water kept pouring, and still she would not leave; her scent seemed to be permanently mixed with his, her phantom touch imprinted on his arms, her head a solid weight on his chest. He could not remove her. Something had changed between them tonight, and now she was affixed to him in a way she had never been before.

Because before she had never been quite so vulnerable. Before, Lilly had been a thorn in his side, pricking him daily, and he had ruthlessly tried to pull away, to sever any connection between them. But now? The thorn had revealed itself to be a rose; a rose covering herself with thorns to protect herself from the world, and he found himself trying to protect the rose from being plucked, from her petals falling and withering as her dreams died before her.

The rose had never meant to be a thorn, because for her, there had been no other option. And Rikkard was finding himself drawn to this thorn, this feisty, annoying, lion-hearted thorn, because he knew what it was like to be a thorn, and what people thought of thorns, and was determined to turn his thorn into a fearless, beautiful rose.

And as his blood chilled beneath the icy streams of the shower, Rikkard looked down at himself and knew there was no going back from where he had been before, on who he had been and what he was about to do.

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"Here, let me."  He felt her jump at his touch on her hands as he gently unwound the towel from her neck, shaking his head at her antics. He pulled the towel over her hair and set to work.

"Hold still a moment." His fingers flew swiftly over her hair, wrapping it up in the towel to form a knot at the nape of her neck. He tried to ignore how smooth her hair was, how it felt to run his hands through the wet strands and brush over the back of her neck. "Now you can sit down," he told her. "When the towel has soaked up most of the water from your hair, get a fresh towel and dry your hair again. Don't even think of starting to rub, just take a bit of hair at a time and pat it dry from both sides."

He led her over to a chair, letting her sit before him, her expression one of surprise. "How do you know how to towel-dry long hair?" she asked. "Don't tell me you used to work as a hairdresser's assistant."

"No." He snorted in disdain. "The explanation is somewhat simpler than that. I used to have long hair, once."

"You?" Her mouth dropped open in shock, and her gaze shot straight to his hairline. "You had long hair?"

He cocked his head. "Indeed."

"Why?"

"Because I did not have enough money for a knife or scissors to cut it with." He turned on his heel, not willing to offer more on the subject, leaving a bewildered secretary in his wake. It wasn't the full reason, of course, but it would satisfy her curiosity, in her drunken state. For now, he needed to escape.

Just for a few minutes. To avoid any confrontation over his past, he would vanish, and he would not let her see how much of a thorn he had been, how he had been just like her, long ago, as a nobody, armed only with a dream and an iron will.

How he had used to loathe himself. Sometimes his past seemed so far away, the memories so distant it was as if they had never happened. If he closed his eyes, he could almost pretend he had always been the same person he was now.

His feet had carried him out into the empty hallway. It was in the silence that he had always been able to find himself, to return to the present as a man with a plan. He was Rikkard Ambrose. He was always on a mission, unstoppable, determined to get what he wanted in whatever way possible.

Except this time he didn't know what he wanted.

There was a girl in his office, drunk out of her mind, and he didn't know what to do. Did he want to steer clear of her and take her home safely, at once, without a second thought? Or did he want to wait for her to sober up, and lecture her on the danger she had placed them all in?

And there was still another option, a tiny, coaxing voice in the back of his brain, asking if he wanted to care for her, to make sure she didn't harm herself, to let her sleep off the alcohol in her system and be there for her when she woke up.

He pivoted, staring hard at the door to his office, thinking.

His body made the decision for him, carrying him right back to the girl in the chair.

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He found her asleep.

Her body was slumped in the chair, head at an angle, chest rising and falling as she breathed deeply. Her face was so peaceful; serene and content, free of the angry and accusing expressions he often received from her on a daily basis.

A half-smile flickered across his face before he could stop it. Heading to the bathroom, he grabbed a fresh towel, and returned to wake her up.

"Mr Linton?" She didn't stir as he called her quietly. "Mr Linton, you have to remove that damp towel."

She shifted, waking slowly, blinking back the tiredness from her eyes.

"W-what?"

"Here. Take this." He held the new towel out for her to take.

"But you said to wait," she protested weakly.

"You have been waiting. Sleeping, to be exact. But five minutes is long enough. My office is no home for passing drunkards." He moved to unwind the damp towel from her hair, and watched as she proceeded to vigorously rub her hair with the new towel.

"I said pat your hair dry," he reminded her. "Pat. Gently. Not rub like you want to rip it out of your head."

"Why don't you go write a brochure on hair care?" she grumbled. "I can dry my hair however I want, thank you very much."  It was a typical Lilly response. He chose not to reply, turning instead to the window behind her, staring at the glimmer of the city lights.

There was a pause, then a frustrated sigh. "I can't get it really dry with this," she complained. "You wouldn't happen to have a hairbrush, would you?"

He frowned at the question. "Why would I possess such a useless item? Use your fingers. That's perfectly good enough."

"I liked you better in your hunting costume," she muttered.

"What did you say?" He didn't own a hunting costume. What on earth was she talking about?

"Forget it." It was just as well. He would attribute it to her inebriated brain.

For a while, silence reigned between them both. His mind began to wander. There was work to be done, he knew, yet he couldn't bring himself to do it just yet. His secretary's presence was somehow calming, now that they weren't arguing over anything important, now that she was here with him in a way that was different than before.

This girl...she was something else entirely. He'd never met anyone like her. She was determined to drive him insane with her reckless behavior, especially with all that she'd done today, and yet he couldn't bring himself to be angry with her. She was infuriating, stubborn, wild, and full of determination--not only to keep her job, but to make her mark on the world.

He thought about this girl, at the life she had lived, and wondered why she'd done it, why she had relentlessly pursued him and hounded him to fight for this position at his side. He wasn't sure he understood her or her motivation, for what was a paycheck worth in exchange for a bullet barely missing her brain? Her logic was surely misconstrued.

"Mr Linton?" The name slipped out before he could take it back.

"You still persist in calling me that? Even after what you've seen?" Her voice held a note of exasperation, tinged with a hint of mischievousness.

Unbidden, images of her body sprang full force into the forefront of his mind; images he had so far been successfully able to block. His ears burned as he answered, "Especially after all I've seen, Mr Linton." Then, remembering himself, he added too quickly, "Not that I actually saw anything. I turned away and closed my eyes very quickly. I saw nothing at all."

"Mr Ambrose, Sir?"

"Yes?"

"Don't lie."

"Mr Linton!" He began to turn to persuade her otherwise, then felt his reddening cheeks and thought it would be better to remain as he was. Folding his arms over his chest, he stared out at the city, willing his pounding heart to slow down at once and to will his embarrassment away. For she was right--he had glimpsed more than he'd ever meant to see, in the milliseconds it had taken to open that bathroom door. And even though he had closed his eyes immediately...what he'd seen was not leaving his brain anytime soon.

It took a few minutes for him to regain his senses, and to stop his mind from lingering on the portrait of her body.

"I wanted to ask you something, Mr. Linton," he finally admitted, grateful that his voice betrayed nothing of his embarrassment.

"Well, why didn't you?"

"You distracted me."

"I'm quite skilled at that." She sounded proud.

"Yes, you are." He hadn't realized that he meant it in more ways than one.

"So ask now."

He didn't know what he was waiting for. To continue this path, this delicate conversation that he wasn't even sure he wanted the answers to...it seemed dangerous, in a way. Yet he remembered his realization that there was no going back to the man he had been before--that this thorn was his responsibility, and he had made a choice to help her. So he spoke.

"Why do you do it, Mr Linton? Why work for me? Why insist on doing work that is meant for men? You saw that it is dangerous. If you didn't believe me before, you cannot doubt it after tonight. Why do you do it?" It was a question he had long contemplated when he was around her; yet tonight he demanded the truth. If he was to help her, this girl, than he needed to understand her.

The answer was not one he expected.

"I want to be free."

Rikkard whirled around to face her. It was a simple statement, yet it didn't add up. His eyes flashed as he took a step towards her, knowing there had to be a different reason. "That is it?" he asked. "That is all? You are free. England is a free country. Nobody can hold you against your will!"

"Once I'm married, my husband can," she hissed in reply. "I must work to make a living. The only other choice is to give myself to a so-called 'eligible' man, Mr Ambrose, Sir. For life."

The words hit him like a ton of bricks. Of course. Of course she felt this way. She had harbored this prejudice against men, against the life most women led, and let it fill her, until it drove her very actions and all that she stood for. This was the freedom she so desired--not the freedom of liberty, but of life. To make her own choices, to do what she wanted, to have no one and nothing stand in her way. No one--including him. She would have nothing to do with him, given the choice.

The thought somehow made him angry. In three steps he was suddenly in front of her, looking straight down into her warm brown eyes. "And would that be so detestable? To belong to a man?"

He didn't know that he was subconsciously seeking her approval, to have her confirm that he was needed in her life.

She shot up to meet his stormy gaze, her mouth a thin line as she proudly declared, "I'd rather die!"

Something twisted painfully inside him. A muscle in his face twitched, the only outward sign of his aggravation that was quickly spiraling into something like desperation.

"Even if the man...harbored feelings for you?" He wasn't even sure how that question had managed to slip past his lips into the open air. His heart was a drum, roaring in his ears, beating a mile a minute. Rikkard searched her face. For what, he didn't know. He wasn't sure he knew anything anymore.

Lilly scoffed. "And how likely is that?"

More likely than you think, his brain answered.  He didn't know what to say to her. He didn't know what he was doing, standing so close to her, trying to convince her of her own worth, seeking a way to bring to the surface the rose behind the thorn.

"How should I know?" he finally managed to get out. "I am certainly no expert on bridegroom choice. Still, it would seem a safer option to marry than to do what you are doing." He nearly bit his tongue as the words tumbled out. Wrong answer, wrong answer, wrong answer, his mind sang.

"Life is not about living the safer option," she replied. "Life is about a life worth living."

He cracked.

"You won't get to live a life worth living, or any life, if you go on like this!" He grabbed her arms, pushing her against the wall, seized with sudden emotion that he had never experienced in his life. "Don't you understand, Mr Linton? You could have died out there tonight! Died!"

He was shaking her. There was real anger in him now, anger at her for being so reckless, anger at himself for not looking after her properly.There was so much anger in him, straining to be unleashed, along with a multitude of other feelings he did not even begin to comprehend.

"You could have died," he said again, holding her, looking closely at her, watching her every move.

"I know," she said softly. "I know I could have died, but so could you. So could any of the men who were there, fighting."

"But you are not like them, Mr Linton."

He saw the way his words were interpreted, as her chin lifted defiantly in the air and she told him, "I can be like them, in all the things that matter."

She was so close. He swept his gaze slowly down her body, his chest tightening as he did so.

"No," he told her.

He was beginning to piece everything together.

This was Lilly. His secretary, his brave little Ifrit, his fierce companion that was so vulnerable in her drunken state. She wanted freedom, a life of her own decisions, her own dreams.

There was something surging inside him, a demand that he had never felt before. He needed her to know, this girl, that he would never let go, even if she would have nothing to do with him, even if she hated him until the end of time. He would be there for her, and he would see her happy one day, as a rose before all the thorns of the world.

"You could never be," he whispered.

He found he did not care who he was and who he had been as he leaned forward  to close any remaining distance between them.

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I wrote this on a whim, in one day, not even knowing I was going to publish it once I was finished. But I figured since its been months and months of no updates, I owed you all something, so this is it.

I am so, so sorry for lack of updating. This isn't even my best work and I feel like it's choppy and rushed and doesn't even make complete sense in some parts, but it's something, at least. Sorry for lack of edits (I might redo some parts in the future) and the subpar material :( The next chapter should be better!

I am planning to write Rikkard's POV of chapter 69, their first kiss, as stated at the beginning of the chapter. As of now I'm not certain when it'll be up, but chapter 69 isn't that long in the book so hopefully soon.

Thank you so much for the mindblowing read count of 33K and for 1K votes; I'm so grateful for all of you readers and commenters just for taking a look at my work. It means so much to me! :)

Questions? Concerns? Feel free to point out any errors you see and/or make any suggestions to improve this chapter.

Make sure to VOTE or COMMENT to support the story and make my day! ;)