As sentences that can silence a room go, it had to be one of the shortest in the English language. I stood there, staring at Petey Boy, unsure if he was angry or embarrassed or both, and completely unsure how I was meant to respond. Apparently, the squirrel part of my brain, the part that gets distracted easily, thought this was a good time to take over.
“Did… the plumbing hold up OK? There’s a plunger in th?—”
“I should go to bed,” Petey Boy said. His face was unreadable. He spun around and started down the stairs. “I’m sorry. I didn’t… I thought… I’m sorry.”
“Goodnight!” I called after him. I stood there, staring at the top of the stairs for a minute, as if he might reappear, until the light from downstairs was doused and I heard Petey Boy climbing into my creaky old bed. Disappointed, confused, I grabbed my copy ofThe Broken Crownoff the coffee table, turned the light out, and schlepped my way up to my new bedroom in the belvedere, wondering where it all went so wrong.
Chapter 17
Petey
The blast of a fox horn pierced the cool morning air in Buckford Hall’s carriage court. Our run of good luck with the weather had ended. The day was grey and threatening to rain. To my left, Armando—dressed in a bright red hunting jacket—put his foot in a stirrup and expertly launched himself into the saddle. To my right, a pack of ten beagles was being loved to death by a dozen members of the cast—including Lola Q, who was following the dogs around with an itchy Instagram finger, and Jonty, who I noticed was following Lola Q like a puppy. The horn blasted again, and I nearly jumped out of my skin. Tom, the hot farm boy, was getting trumpet lessons from the show’s historical consultant—learning the different calls traditionally made during a hunt. My headset squawked.
“Dorinda’s almost ready. Five minutes.”
I checked my watch. Ten thirty a.m.
Despite Ellie’s rebellion, we’d managed to get five of the cast to agree to the mock hunt. Tom was so enthusiastic there was a chance he might actually kill a fox if the opportunity arose. Tom was… troublingly intense. Armando was on theItalian national polo team and would have agreed to anything to be on horseback, and I was reasonably certain how good he looked on horseback was exactly why Indira had us here. Fitness influencer Cristina, Theo the carpenter from Luton, and Ridhi the Bookstagrammer had also been willing to take part.
Tom blew on the trumpet again, and a moment later, I heard shouting across the carriage court.
“No! No! NO! Ab-so-lutely not!” It was William’s voice. But I couldn’t see him. I’d snuck out quietly that morning, desperate not to wake him, unable to face him after the night before. His voice came again. “Stop this at once! Are you mad?” My ears found the direction of his voice, and I looked up to see him shirtless and hanging out a window at the top of his tower.
“Pardon?” I called up, heart in my throat.
A well-muscled arm thrust from the window, pointed finger jabbing in my direction.
“Stay. Right. There,” William yelled. Then he disappeared inside the tower, pulling the window closed behind him. Then opening it again. Then closing it. Then opening and closing it several times in quick succession. I think he was struggling with it. He opened it wide again and hung out of it a ridiculously long way. “Don’t you dare move, Peter Topham.” He slid back inside, slamming the window shut, but it seemed to bounce open again. He continued opening and closing it for a moment before it swung wide open and, given he didn’t reappear, I assumed he’d abandoned it. Forty seconds later, he was striding across the carriage court in bare feet, wearing nothing but his tiny red satin boxer shorts and the gold chain bouncing around his neck. His face was as full of thunder as the skies overhead. Every pair of eyes in the carriage court was fixed on him. Even the duck stopped to watch.
“What didn’t you understand about what I said last night?” he demanded.
My breath caught in my throat. He had to be kidding. He wanted to do this here? Now? In front of the entire cast and crew?
“Uh-oh, trouble in paradise!” That was Jonty, obviously. Although I wanted to throttle him, it did remind me William and I were meant to be madly in love.
I grabbed the ridiculous aristocrat by his bicep, ignoring the sexy way it tensed under my touch, and turned him back towards the house.
“Not in front of the children, darling,” I said, letting my nails sink in as I dragged him away. “Shall we talk about this inside?”
In fact, a few moments later we’d marched all the way through the house to the lake on the other side. William’s face looked like it had been boiled in a bag. I was fuming.
“Neverevershow me up in front of my cast and crew like that again,” I barked.
“I can’t believe you,” William said. He was pacing around on the gravel, shaking his head. “That’s what you’re worried about?”
“My job requires me to maintain a level of respect and authority,” I said.
“So does mine!” I could literally see the veins on either side of his neck pulsing. “And I clearly have neither your respect nor any authority, because if I did, I wouldn’t have been woken up by a hunting horn.”
“Wait, is that what this is about? We woke you up? Do you still keep Regency hours? Were you up gaming all night at your club?” I couldn’t believe my ears. “William, I thought this was about last night.”
“Thisisabout last night. I could not have made myself clearer last night.”
I wasn’t having it. “Oh, mate, you absolutely could have made yourself clearer last night. In fact, I really wish you had. BecauseI made an idiot of myself. Ihatethat I now have to live in a freaking tower with you, that I have to pretend that I’m in love with you, that I’m going to marry you, when in fact all I want to do is never see your stupid, perfect, posh-twat face ever again.”
William stopped pacing and spun around to face me, his eyes wide. “You think this is about the kiss?”
“What else could it be about?” I’d barely thought about anything other than my appallingly misjudged workplace assault since it happened. I’d barely slept all night, worrying what to do about it. My only reprieve had been my alarm going off and throwing myself into my work.
