Tackle the hard stuff.
I straightened. “Bramley, I need you to pack me a bag.”
“Very good, my lord. Shall I let Mr Topham know our intended time of arrival?”
“Yes.No!Let’s surprise him.” And as I looked at the wise old bird, an idea struck. “And get the horse trailer ready, will you?”
A few minutes later, in the kitchen of the house my family had called home for more than five hundred years, I picked up the phone and dialled a number I had never dreamt I’d call.
“Horatio? It’s William.”
Later that evening, I was standing in Jonty’s back garden in suburban North London, while Bramley made himself at home in the Boche family kitchen with Lola, and Achilles nibbled on Jonty’s mother’s marigolds.
“And the reason you brought the horse?” he said, holding a bottle of champagne and two glasses, with a concerned look on his face.
“He’s part of my big romantic gesture—my plan to win Petey back.”
“Horse crucial to the whole show, is it?”
“It’s romantic.”
“It’s ruining the lawn.”
“Sorry, old chum. But, you see, the day Petey and I properly got together, it was after I’d swooped in on Achilles, in my suit of armour, to rescue him from the gutter press.” I remembered too late that Jonty’s family owned a newspaper empire. “Sorry.”
“Don’t mention it.”
“Then I was in all my armour the day I slew the dragon that is Petey’s father. Thought I cut rather a dashing figure. So thought it’d be romantic, you know, to do it again.”
Jonty looked stunned.
“Don’t you think three times is a bit much? Why not do something else. For a bit of variety. You know, tone it down a bit.”
If Jonty, of all people, is telling you to tone something down, then you jolly well know it needs toning down.
“You think I should forget the armour?”
Jonty nodded. “It’s a start.”
We sat on the patio of Jonty’s summer house—his little bachelor pad in the rear of his parents’ garden—knocking back the champagne. It was one of those orange-red dusks, and the first few stars were peeking through the polluted London sky. I shuddered, unable to quite shuck the belief I was tempting fate by being here.
“Well, not that it’s not wonderful to see you, Dub-Dub, and in the capital, no less. But not to put too fine a point on it, why are you here? Andwhydo you need to make a big romantic gesture?”
I spilt all. I told Jonty about the promo video, aboutSaving the Love Manor, about the secret filming, about telling Petey I was disappointed in him, about him leaving without saying goodbye.
“You said you were disappointed in him?”
“I know.”
“You’ve met his parents?”
“I know.”
“No wonder you got the old smoke bomb exit. Golly. You’ve heard nothing since?”
I shook my head. Jonty clucked and tut-tutted.
“Well, of course, you know what I’m thinking now?”
