With my gran there too? Sure, I’d miss London and I’d miss my friends, but they would visit. This was a chance to make my career, to really be someone in television. It was a chance to be with William. I nodded. It was more than enough. It was everything.
William smiled. “Then I’m sure we can sell another painting.”
“Wait,” I said, looking back at Indira. “If I makeThe Love Manor, doesn’t that still put the wrong kind of energy out into the world?”
She shrugged. “Two hundred grand is two hundred grand. I have a nephew who needs a lot of care.”
I turned back to William. He rolled his bottom lip through his teeth. “So, which future shall we take? Are you coming up to Buckford or am I coming down to London? It’s your choice.”
I had thought everything I wanted in the world was in London, but the future I really wanted was now waiting for me at Buckford Hall. I shook my head in disbelief. “What do you think?”
I kissed him then. Thoroughly, deeply, passionately. I kissed him like it was the first kiss of the rest of our lives. I kissed him in love and gratitude and awe. I kissed him like my whole family weren’t watching.
“Well, this is uncomfortable,” my brother said.
“Anyone for a cup of tea?” my mother asked.
William and I pulled apart.
“Can’t stay, I’m afraid,” William said. “I need to telephone Horatio Blunt and tell him it’s all off.”
I laughed. “I want to be there when you make that call.”
“Then I have to see a bloke about a horse. A dozen of them, actually. I’m buying the Cleveland Bay mares. For the riding school.”
Achilles whinnied in what I swear was delight. William untied the white stallion from the rowan tree in my parents’ front yard and mounted him.
“Sorry about the garden,” he said, wincing as he took in the damage.
Then he reached down, giving me his hand and one stirrup, and swung me up into the saddle behind him.
“But we can have tea next time,” William said. “At our place.”
At.Our. Place.
I wrapped my arms around his waist, leaning my cheek against the bare skin of his shoulder, and breathed him in.
“You could always come up in the Jag,” William added. Then he pulled on Achilles’s reins, and we turned towards home.
Chapter 56
William
The morning sun streamed in through the folly windows, warming my face. I blinked into the light, and my heart skipped to see the gentle sweeping curve of Petey’s bare back and the round of his buttocks in the bed beside me. I folded an arm over and pulled him towards me. He woke and stretched, rolling over to face me, kicking a leg across my thigh to pull himself closer. Slowly, his eyes opened.
“Good morning, beautiful,” I said.
He smiled. “Am I still dreaming? I can’t believe I’m here.”
The stench hit me like a lorry. I tried not to breathe it in. Petey noticed.
“Morning breath?”
I grimaced apologetically.
“Hang on, I have a trick to fix that.”
Petey rolled on top of me. He began kissing my nipples, then slowly worked his way down my body until suddenly the warmth of his mouth was around me.
