* * *
I wore a path in the old rug between the wardrobe and the window, phone in my hand like a talisman that refused to work.I’d rung Bryce twice; both calls slid straight to voicemail.Sensible, of course—if it was truly urgent, he’d be surrounded by staff and security.
I felt absurdly like a teenager: keyed up, impatient, too aware of my own pulse.It wasn’t like me.I didn’t do this—this hovering at the edge of whatever this was after a single afternoon.
I set my phone on the duvet.Picked it up again, then set it down.
A soft knock—then Mummy let herself in without waiting.“Are you staying for supper?”she asked, as if inquiring about the weather.
I opened my mouth to say no—I usually fled back to my flat rather than be trapped in Strathmore’s gentle nostalgia—but the thought of being alone with my thoughts (and my phone) made something in me recoil.“Yes,” I said.“I am.”
She lifted an eyebrow.She had not sent Benson; she had come herself.That meant she wanted to see my face when I answered.“Very good,” she said.“It will be casual.Just the two of us.Steven’s in Glasgow for the British Eventing Foundation dinner.”A faint sniff.“Rubber chicken and speeches.He adores it.”She checked the clock on the mantel.“It’s time now.”
“Give me a few minutes,” I said.“I’ll be right down.”
She turned to go.The door was half-closed when the question leapt out of me, unplanned.“Mummy—would you mind if I spent the night?”
She paused, hand on the latch, and looked back.For a moment she said nothing, only took me in: jacket still on, cheeks too bright, the phone sitting like a sulk on the coverlet.The smallest smile touched her mouth.
“Not in the least.”
* * *
I opened my eyes to a choir of feathered alarm clocks outside the window and immediately thought uncharitable thoughts about all of them.I never woke this early.It was the room, of course.In this house everyone rose at dawn as if the sun had personally invited them to a bloody committee meeting.
I yawned, stretched until my shoulders popped, and Bryce’s face flickered through my mind—sunlight on dark hair, and the hint of a smile that promised trouble of the best kind.I groped for my phone on the nightstand, thumbed it awake, and prayed for at least a text.
Nothing.
I set it down.Picked it up.Considered throwing it at the wall, which would be both satisfying and expensive.
A small knock, then the door opened and Mummy came in carrying the morning paper as if she’d been cast in the role of Maternal Figure.I propped myself on an elbow, tilted my head, and stared.Since when did she bring newspapers upstairs?
She perched on the edge of the bed, crisp as always, and turned the front page toward me.A photograph of runway lights and police tape; a bold headline stretched like a trumpet blast:SUSPECTED RUSSIAN DRONES HALT OPS AT US AIRBASE.The subhead mentioned RAF Fairford, Gloucestershire.
“I knew it had to be important,” Mummy said.“Americans are usually so anxious to be around us”—I rolled my eyes—“that it takes something very important indeed to rush one away.”
“Mm,” I said, eloquent as a doorstop.
“Breakfast?”she asked.
“Yes.I’ll be down in a few.”
She smiled—actually smiled—and stood.“Good.”She paused at the door, glanced back, seemed to approve of something in my face that I couldn’t identify, and left.
I picked up the paper and skimmed: precautionary lockdown; RAF Police and Gloucestershire Constabulary; investigation ongoing; no injuries; attribution premature.I tossed it to the floor and sighed.
“Damn those Russians,” I muttered.“They bloody ruin everything.”
But even as I said it, something inside of me calmed down.Of course he hadn’t rung.If he’d been anywhere near the centre of it, he would have been surrounded by staff, ushered into secure rooms, and handed statements.Bryce had excellent reasons not to call.The thought—ridiculous as it was—warmed me.Maybe yesterday wasn’t a figment of my imagination conjured by horses and too much sun.
“Oh do stop,” I told myself, climbing out of bed.“You are acting like a complete fool.”
In the bathroom, the mirror returned a candid opinion: dark circles, hair like a hedgerow, and the faint crease between my brows that arrived whenever I stayed up arguing with my own thoughts.I splashed water on my face and told my reflection to behave.After breakfast I’d drive back to London, crawl into my own bed—far more civilised than this mattress from the reign of George V—and hide behind a book until the world remembered how to be dull.
I was towel-drying my face when my phone buzzed somewhere near the bed.I bolted—bare feet on old boards, heartbeat tripping—and snatched it up, already braced for a calendar alert or, worse, nothing.
A text from Bryce:
