“Oh, I thought it was Attenborough.”
Petey punched me playfully in the arm.
The voice-over continued: “But Buckford Hall carries a secret.”
I looked at Petey, a tad confused. “What is this?”
“You’ll see.”
The screen filled with various broken and battered bits of the house—leaky taps, buckets catching drips, caution tape on the cellar door.
“Who put that there?”
“It’s for effect.”
“It’s a Halloween decoration.”
“Listen.”
The voice-over lowered in pitch. “After centuries as a great glory of England, Buckford Hall has run out of money. It’s up to one man to save it.”
It was like a boot to the solar plexus.
I appeared on screen in full armour, doing battle with Horatio Blunt.
“William Winters is the seventeenth Baron Buckford,” the voice-over said. “And he’ll do anything to save his family’s home. Literally anything. No matter how outrageous.”
What followed was a montage of the events of the weekend, with cameos from my mother, Aunty Karma, Bramley, and even Sir Edward. There was footage of Peggy dancing on the kitchen table, leading volunteers in a chorus of “Knees Up Mother Brown.”
I frowned at the angle and realised the footage had been taken from one of the fixed cameras in the ceiling.
“Are they still on?”
Petey looked sheepish. “I turned them back on. Only for the weekend. The footage was too incredible to lose.”
The air in the room turned cold.
“So, they didn’t know they were on camera?”
“Everyone signed a release form?—”
“For the promotional video. Not for whatever this is.”
The video cut to Aunty Karma on the staircase with her arm around Derek, who was bawling his eyes out into her shoulder. I whacked the space bar on my computer so hard the video not only stopped, it cowered in the corner.
“That’s a private conversation,” I said. “A counselling session with an unwell man.” Petey’s eyes flicked away, unable to meet mine. “What have you done?”
He retreated to the end of the couch.
“What else is in this video?”
“Nothing! I’m sorry.”
But I could tell from his eyes he was lying. I restarted the video. The footage cut to me fighting with Petey’s father.
“Really? You put that in there?”
“William, I’m sorry.” His eyes were wet. “I know it was private, but… no one has ever stood up for me like that. You look amazing. Like a real hero.”
