Ethan laughs.
‘Remind yourself that you can go to Paris whenever you want,’ he says. ‘And don’t let this wedding ruin your birthday – you will celebrate it, even if it’s late.’
‘It’s not that I think my birthday is more important than Seph’s wedding – even though it’s obvious she thinks her wedding is more important than my birthday – it’s just the fact that it’s a milestone birthday, and milestones are supposed to show how far you’ve come, and what do I have to show for my thirty years?’
‘We could all say that,’ he insists. ‘Think about it – when we sit with the others, no one from our generation is married. Tiggy, Eleanor – even your lord.’
‘Earl,’ I correct him. ‘But it’s not just that, it’s everything – maybe it’s anything. I don’t have anything.’
‘And I’m guessing marrying an earl is your best shot at ticking some boxes in life?’ he says, with a hint of a tone, but one I can’t quite decipher.
‘I’ve got as much of a chance as anyone,’ I point out firmly.
Ethan doesn’t say a word, he just plays the laugh track again.
Dick.
33
Everything about this wedding is so very clearly eye-wateringly expensive – except the entertainment, because that’s seemingly free.
It’s unofficial entertainment, of course, but it’s entertaining nonetheless.
My family – with the exception of me, of course – is one of those families that takes sports and board games far too seriously. Everyone is so competitive to the point where it isn’t actually fun to play with them. In fact, the last time I spent Christmas with them, I went to bed during a late-night game of Monopoly and woke up the next morning to find some of them were still playing!
So, today’s unofficial entertainment is… fencing, because of course it is.
‘Get him, Chester,’ Seph calls out.
‘He’s no match for Beau,’ Tiggy tells her.
They’ve got quite the little crowd around them, in the back garden, and they fight it out. In any other scenario it would be surprising to find out people just had fencing gear to handbut, no, not with this lot. They could have been playing polo on horseback and I wouldn’t have been all that shocked.
Beau lunges as Chester parries – it’s funny, they almost look like they’re dancing. It’s surprisingly elegant, considering they’re trying to stab one another.
Their blades clink a little longer before Beau lands the hit that ends the match.
Chester pulls off his mask before playfully staggering around, holding his stomach, as though he’s been fatally wounded. Seph runs to his side and kisses him on the cheek.
‘You’re still my hero,’ she tells him.
Cringe.
‘And I’m still unbeaten,’ Beau announces as he takes his mask off. ‘There is no man on this entire island who can beat me.’
‘Oh, please,’ Tiggy says with a roll of her eyes. ‘I could beat you – if I had a baseball bat.’
‘Touché,’ Beau replies.
‘I’ll give it a go,’ Ethan announces.
I whip my head around to look at him so quickly it almost gives me whiplash. Did he really just say that?
‘Have you ever fenced before?’ Beau asks him, his eyebrow raised curiously.
‘No, but how hard can it be?’ Ethan replies as he picks up Chester’s sword.
A wave of laughter passes through the group.
