Chapter 22
William
How do you know if you’re falling in love, and how do you know if what you’re actually doing is going insane?
I couldn’t concentrate all the following day.
I’d managed to leave a message for my accountant, but between my money worries and thinking about Petey, my brain was mush.
Petey was working late, but by early evening I was already sitting in my father’s armchair, counting the hours for him to come home.
I drummed my fingers against the unopened copy of Oathkeeper—the final book in the original Knights-Errant trilogy—in my lap.
Petey Boy was all I could think about. I kept going up to the belvedere to stare out the windows, hoping to catch a glimpse of him.
I kept burying my face in the bed sheets, hoping to catch the scent of him.
I’d tried to start reading at least a hundred times, but my thoughts drifted—to the way his body fit so perfectly into mine, to the way his nose crinkled up when he laughed.
To the way he didn’t even bat an eyelid when he found out what a mess I was in.
So how did you tell if this was actual, full-blown, shout-it-from-the-belvedere love, or the kind of medically diagnosable, legally inadvisable obsession that gets people put on a register?
The door downstairs burst open.
“Dub-Dub, I’m in love!”
“Jesus, Jonty, could you have knocked? I nearly shat my boxer shorts.”
I put my hand to the seat of them to check. I was cautiously sniffing my palm when Jonty came bounding up the stairs, his black curls in a tangle.
“You can’t be in here,” I bleated.
“You have to meet her, Dub-Dub. She’s so beautiful, busloads of supermodels are giving up the catwalk and wolfing down Big Macs to make up for lost time.
You should see her! Her little ears, Dub-Dub!
They’re… gah… you’ve never seen ears like them.
They’re perfect. It’s literally like someone designed those ears specifically for her. ”
“Jonty, you need to leave.” I was thinking of Indira’s fines and how much I needed the cash.
But I was also thinking of my oath to Petey Boy.
Aiding and abetting a lovesick Jonty in going AWOL was not good boy behaviour.
I tried to usher him back down the stairs, but he was bouncing around like a toddler on red cordial.
“Her laugh, Dub-Dub! It tumbles out of her like church bells. The sound, I swear, it’s…
a religious experience. I find myself making goofy little jokes to hear that intoxicating peal.
It goes straight to the old beef bayonet, Dub-Dub.
In an instant, the plucky little chap’s protruding from the gun port, ready to fire hot lead right into her sides. ”
The cuckoo clock sang for six o’clock. Thank goodness. Cocktail hour. Clearly, I wasn’t going to get rid of him, so I poured us a drink while he blathered away about this woman’s incredible brain and business acumen. I sat in my father’s armchair.
“Jonty, who the devil are you talking about?”
“Isn’t it obvious?”
“Well, no. You haven’t said her name even once.”
“Lola, of course. Who else’s ears could I possibly be talking about?”
“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?”
This was mortifying enough as it was. Why did she have to be like this? But I did actually need her help. I asked a starter question for ten points.
“How did you know you were in love with Dad?”
Mum’s eyes glazed. She squeezed my hand.
“It was a night like this. Moonlit. I’d come up from university to visit him for the weekend.
Your father took me for a walk down by the Long Water.
We talked about our hopes and dreams. When we stopped to cross Lady Caroline’s Bridge, his hand slid gently onto my cheek.
I turned towards him, and his lips found mine.
It was a gentle kiss, soft as the flutter of a butterfly’s wings.
But it caused an earthquake inside me, and thirty-three years later, I’m still riding those vibrations. ”
Hard to know the appropriate thing to say to that.
“So, my father was basically chaos theory in meat form.” I nodded. “Yep, that checks out.”
Mum laughed. “No, darling, love is chaos theory in meat form.”
“So, you think I should kiss him?”
“Yes, William, of course you should kiss him! Go make wild, passionate love to him on every corner of the estate, if it’s what your heart tells you is right.”
“But what does love feel like?” I asked. “Not the sticky bit. I mean the other bit.”
Mum smiled. “It feels like a key sliding into a lock. If it fits, you know you belong together. That you wouldn’t work without each other.”
Bramley reappeared with a damp cloth and a bucket, ready to attack the window.
“Sorry, old chap,” I said.
“Think nothing of it, my lord.”
Over Bramley’s shoulder, I saw a light go on in the distant porthole window of the folly. I stood abruptly, made my apologies, and dashed out of the room.
“That’s it, my darling,” Mother called after me. “You ride those vibrations.”
Running across the Great Lawn, the cool night air prickling against my skin, I couldn’t help but notice it was a glorious evening.
Almost romantic. Perfect for a walk and a life-altering first kiss on Lady Caroline’s Bridge.
I burst through the folly door and bolted up the stairs to find Petey sitting at my father’s desk, jotting at a notepad.
“You’re home early,” I said, catching my breath.
Petey could barely contain his laughter as he looked me up and down.
“Where the hell have you come from, dressed like that?”
“Dinner.”
His eyes popped. “You went to dinner in your boxer shorts?”
I shrugged. “It was only family.”
“I thought the aristocracy dressed for dinner.”
“I dress for important things.”
“I refuse to believe you don’t think dinner is important.”
“It’s one of the eight most important meals of the day,” I confirmed.
“William, do you know your feet are covered in grass clippings?”
“Had to dash across the Great Lawn.”
“Why?”
“Because you came home. Early.”
Petey smirked. “You rushed home because I was at home? Do you still think I’m planning to steal the silver?”