“I shall not fail you, my liege,” he said—and I tried not to roll my eyes. Then he slipped his feet into some flip-flops, grabbed a flashlight off a hook by the door, and slid his hand into mine.
“I thought there was only oneZin a Scrabble set?” I said as we dashed out into the night.
“There is,” William said. “But Mum doesn’t really do rules. Not unless they suit her.”
We were making a beeline across the Great Lawn for the hedge maze. The grass was damp and slippery and glistening in the moonlight.
“Wait, don’t you need a map or something?” I asked.
“A map? I’ve been trimming those hedges since I was fifteen. I could find my way around them with my eyelids stapled shut.”
“That’s… vivid.”
It took William less than ten minutes to extract all the cast and crew from the maze. The medics were on standby, giving everyone water and checking for cuts, bruises, insect bites, and stray badgers masquerading as fashionable haircuts.
“Is that everything you need?” William asked.
I said it was and thanked him.
“No problem. I’ll see you back at the folly.” He kissed me on the cheek. “Best keep up the pretence we’re in love,” he whispered. He winked, and I felt my knees go. Then I watched his magnificent arse disappear into the darkness—like two watermelons wrapped in red satin, bouncing off into the distance on the back of a well-sprung wagon.
My headset crackled in my ear.
“Find out if they fucking kissed,” Indira barked. I waved at the crew, pointing them towards the gaggle of relieved cast members. Then I whispered an instruction into Jonty’s ear. He repeated his lines like a lamb.
“Come on then, give us the gossip. How was the old tonsil tête-à-tête? I bet he gets the tongue right in there, hey Ridhi? He looks the sort to go ferreting after your lunch.”
Ridhi looked straight down the barrel of the camera. “Can we get an interpreter over here, please?”
Cristina rolled her eyes. “Did you snog, babes?”
Armando raised a palm, gesturing widely. “A gentleman never?—”
“Snog?” Ridhi wasn’t having it. She was straight-backed, palms in the air. “My father’s going to watch this. We’re not married. Of course I didn’t bloody kiss him.”
“It doesn’t really matter, does it?” Zoë the travel blogger said.
Ridhi and Armando turned to look at her, each with their eyebrows furrowed.
“You spent six hours alone in the hedge maze.”
Jonty cleared his throat. “She’s right, I’m afraid. Whether Armando slipped you a tongue, a trouser flute, or a few lines of Tennyson, it hardly matters. The fact is, you’ve been most dreadfully compromised. You’ve got no choice. You’ve got to marry him.”
Indira’s voice in my headphones shouted, “Fuck yes!” At least, I think it was in my headphones. It might have drifted over on the wind from the Old Coach House.
Chapter 24
William
Iput a calendar up on the wall in my father’s study and crossed off the date. I’d numbered every day until Halloween. In the morning, I’d have a hundred and sixty-three days to save the estate. I picked up my copy ofOathkeeperand slid it onto the shelf betweenThe Knight’s VowandTo Betray a King, the first book in Fanshaw’s secondKnights-Erranttrilogy. My hand hovered over it, finger poised to tip the spine towards me. Adventure awaited inside. Petey’s words echoed through my mind.
“No,” I said to myself, to the room, the ghost of my father. “It’ll be waiting for you in a hundred and sixty-three days—and not a minute sooner.”
Then the lights flickered off.
It was gone midnight when I heard Petey arrive home at the folly. I was sat up in bed in the belvedere, surrounded by candles, my notes for saving the estate strewn all around me. I’d been unable to go to sleep until I’d seen him—needing to explain away my mother’s incredibly unhelpful contributions to my love life. I was stacking up my papers when Petey’s head popped up in the stairwell.
“Why are you sitting up here only lit by candles?” he said. Even through the soft glow, I could see he looked shattered.
