“Which one is she?”
“The short one. Black hair. Face of a goddess. Extremely popular make-up tutorial channel. You must have watched it. Come on! Father from Seoul. Mother from Cockermouth. Accent direct from Cheltenham Ladies’ College. Adorable little ears. You can’t miss her.”
Jonty is tedious when he’s not in love. Jonty believing himself in love could be weaponised by MI6.
“So, what are you doing here, telling me about her, instead of being out there with her?”
“Because we’re both servants, and under the rules of the game no one can know about our affair or we’ll both be dismissed. I couldn’t bear it, Dub-Dub. This forced proximity, it’s incredibly special. We can’t go home to our day jobs and Tube journeys and squeezing each other in at the weekends.”
“Jonty, you don’t have a day job.”
“You know what I mean, Dub-Dub. She lives in Chelsea. That’s a forty-five-minute cab ride, at least. Here, she’s in the next room. I can practically hear her sleeping. Do you have any idea how incredible that is?”
Actually, I thought I did. I recognised myself in Jonty’s madness. This seemed like the perfect opportunity to ask a few pertinent questions.
“How do you know it’s love?”
“Of course it’s love, man. She’s shut down all my brain function. All I can think about is her. She’s commandeered all my senses. I can’t smell anything but her perfume, hear anything but her voice, see anything but her face, taste anything but her earwax.”
“Probably didn’t need quite so much detail,” I said. But I understood, because I should have been making some more calls and rustling up a spare £4.3 million but I’d achieved nothing all day because of exactly that.
“Every cell in my body aches for her. She has bewitched me. Do you know what that does to a man?”
If you’d asked me two weeks earlier, I’d have said no. But now, I thought perhaps I did. If that’s what love felt like for Jonty, then maybe that meant I was in love too?
Petey was clearly working late, so I had gone to the Dower House for dinner with Mum. Bramley was drizzling custard onto my slice of apple pie so slowly, he must have made it the same consistency as his pee.
“Good God, stop holding back, man. A chap could starve under these conditions.”
“It is your third piece, my lord.”
“Who died and made you Weight Watchers team leader?”
Mum clattered her espresso cup down into her saucer with finality. “Right, who’s for Scrabble?”
I hadn’t told her about the £4.3 million. There was no need to worry her. I didn’t feel like talking about it, anyway.
“Actually, Mum, I wondered if I could ask you something kind of personal?”
Mother reached out and grabbed my hand. “Anything darling, you know that. Is it piles? Because I have an ointm?—”
“Not that kind of personal, Mum.” I snatched my hand away, wary of where those fingers had been. “Never that kind of personal.”
I shovelled a heaped dessertspoon into my mouth, plucking up courage. Mum sat back in her chair, steepling her hands.
“William, the great goddess has sent you a gift. Exactly as she said she would. What’s the matter, darling, don’t you know how to unwrap it?”
I spluttered in shock and a piece of apple pie shot across the room, splattering against the window.
“How… how on earth did you—” I coughed and slugged at my water. “I hate it when you do your witchy stuff.”
“It doesn’t take witchy stuff to see you’re completely besotted by that tall streak of bacon in the boiler suit you’re pretending to be engaged to. You’re almost as bad as Achilles at hiding your attraction.”
“Fine, yes. You’re right.”
Mum’s arms flew out wide, and she reached across the table.
“My darling, that’s wonderful! How can Mummy help?”
