Chapter 23
Petey
“Drone up! Get the bloody drone up!” Indira shouted. “They’re going to shag in the hedge maze.”
We were in the production office in the Old Coach House, watching the footage from the fixed cameras in the house.
Ridhi and Armando had been getting closer for days, but Armando had made a special trip to the dining room to raid the punchbowl full of condoms, and he and Ridhi were now hightailing it across the Great Lawn to the yew hedge maze.
Indira was bouncing on her feet, pumping her fists.
“Has anyone in the cast clocked it?”
“I don’t think so,” I said. “Now Tom’s gone, Armando’s lost his little buddy to confess to.”
“Damn. Is there anyone we can tip off? I want that fucking wedding.”
Ridhi and Armando were both aristocrats.
Under the rules of the game, if they got caught in a compromising position, then Armando could choose either to banish Ridhi from the show or to wed her.
Not a real marriage, of course. But a spectacular fake Regency fake wedding, with all the fake trimmings.
We were three-quarters of the way through filming.
The footage we were capturing now was notionally for episode nine of twelve.
We had a ball to film tonight, and two new contestants joining the cast, but it was the perfect spot in the season for a wedding.
“Cristina and Ridhi are too tight, she won’t say a word even if she knows,” I said. “I miss Ellie and Kiki. They wouldn’t have thought twice about sticking their oar in.”
Indira lit two cigarettes and sucked on them both.
Out of the corner of my eye I saw movement in the yard through the window.
William, in his riding gear, headed for the stables.
My God, he was fit. But now I was getting to know him, I found myself noticing the depth behind the posh, beefy lughead exterior—his kindness, his passion, his ridiculous but adorable moral code.
He caught me staring at him through the window and, from across the yard, waggled a finger at me in the universal gesture for Come here.
I looked over at Indira, who was shouting orders into a walkie-talkie, and indicated with my thumb I was popping out.
“Are you going to tell me you’ve come up with fifty-two grand’s worth of cash?” I asked, closing the gap between William and me.
“Fifty-two? What happened to twenty-six?”
“You didn’t come up with anything yesterday.”
“Goodness, all right, Madam Lash. As a matter of fact, I’ve been on the phone to Wetherby’s Auction House all morning.
Someone’s coming up from London to value the artwork after filming’s finished.
May as well get rid of all of the spookier portraits.
The ones that make the house feel like a creepy museum. ”
“But how will you fill all those gaping holes?”
(Yes, I know. It flew right over his head. I really missed the Brent Boys at times like this.)
“Mum’s got some wonderful Kazimierczuks in the Dower House.
Paintings of hedgerows and wildflower meadows and, you know, stuff people actually like to look at.
I thought I’d commission the artist to paint a few more Buckford scenes to replace all the creepy bestockinged children by Reynolds.
Should raise a couple of million and lift the spirits. ”
That put my story about eight pence on a kilo of carrots into perspective.
“You’ve been busy,” I said. “I’m proud of you.”
“Everyone is putting their shoulder to the wheel. Bramley’s selling his underwear on the internet.”
“Bramley makes underwear?”
“No.”
I tried not to process that news. “That reminds me, we need to get you on TikTok.”
Achilles neighed.
“All right boy, I’m coming.”
I followed William into the stables. He disappeared into the tack room and came out with his saddle.
“How about you, young master Topham, did you have any luck with your phone calls this morning?”
I’d almost forgotten.
“It’s a mixed bag. Father said no. I’m sorry.
” In fact, we’d had a blazing row on the phone.
It had taken two coffees to summon the energy to call him, and he could not have been more contemptuous or dismissive.
“Said he didn’t think the Love Manor was an appropriate venue to host his beloved car club. ”
“Well, a pox on him!” William flipped the saddle up onto Achilles’s back and started fiddling with the leather straps.
“But Sunny and Ludo said yes. They’ll come up after filming has finished to have a look at the place. They said it sounds like the ideal venue for their wedding. Sunny’s chuffed to bits. He’s very proud of his Leicestershire heritage.”
“Oi, Romeo!” Indira shouted across the yard. “Where the fuck art thou, Romeo?”
“I have to go,” I said. “But good work on the art.”
William nodded. “Good work on the phone calls.”
William’s face moved towards mine, and I thought he was going to peck me on the cheek, so I turned—and he kissed me on the ear.
“Petey Boy, we have a fucking wedding to organise!” Indira shouted.
“Coming!”
That evening, I raced around looking for William. He wasn’t in the folly or the stables, so I found myself out of breath and knocking on the Dower House door in desperation. Bramley opened it.
“I’m afraid His Lordship is in the midst of losing a game of Scrabb—”
“Petey?” William appeared behind Bramley—naked, as always, except for his red satin boxer shorts. “What’s up?”
“We need your help,” I puffed.
“Anything at all.” He ushered me past Bramley and into the vestibule, his arm looping around my shoulder. “You look like you’ve had a fright. Is everything OK?”
“I’ve been running. I think working with Indira has killed my lung capacity.”
Bunny’s voice echoed through from another room. “Who is it, darling? Is it my future son-in-law?”
“Oh God,” William said. “Look, I apologise in advance—”
“William, this is urgent,” I pleaded. “I don’t have ti—”
Bunny Winters appeared in the doorway in a diaphanous blue dress, gently greying hair piled up on top of her head. There were now rather a lot of us in a vestibule no larger than a lift.
“Do you know, William, I don’t think your lover and I have been formally introduced.”
Lover?
Bunny looked at me, and at her son—her face quizzical. William looked at me, and at his mother. I stood there, looking at them both. Bramley was pretending to polish the doorframe. I didn’t have time for this.
I extended a hand. “Lady Buckford, it is a pleasure to meet you. Sorry I can’t stay to chat. I have an emergency, and I need William’s help—”
She batted that away with her hand. “William tells me he tried to take you up the Long Water last night.”
“Mum!”
“I’m sorry?” I looked at my watch. Indira was going to kill me.
“It’s my fault,” Bunny went on. “I’d been filling his head with stories about what a wonderful lover his father had been—”
“You had not!” William protested.
“William was hoping to recreate a little of our magic and kiss you, but he chickened out—” She turned to William. “Didn’t you, darling?”
William was as white as a ghost. I wasn’t far off it myself.
“Be patient with him, Peter.” Bunny’s hand found my chin, her arctic-blue eyes staring directly into mine. “William was a late developer, and he’s always swerved life’s more powerful emotions. But he’s also an incurable romantic at heart. He’ll get there in the end.”
And with that, she drifted away, leaving me totally speechless.
“I am so sorry,” William said.
Bramley was still polishing the same bit of doorframe with his cloth. My walkie-talkie squeaked into life, screaming at me in Scottish.
“Forget it. I need your help,” I said, springing back into action. “Ridhi and Armando have been lost in the hedge maze for the last six hours.”
“That’s awful,” William said.
“Depends how you look at it. Assuming Armando isn’t a total dog, we’re having a wedding tomorrow.
Indira’s delighted. But we need you to find them and get them out.
Plus five other members of the cast. Plus six of the crew.
In fact, everyone who tried to rescue them is still in the maze.
We’re meant to be filming a ball in an hour, and there’s practically no one left. ”
Bunny’s voice echoed through from the other room. “It’s your turn, William. I’ve just played JAZZIEST on two triple word scores for four hundred and thirty-seven points.”
William’s face set with the grit and determination of a storybook hero. He bowed slightly, as if accepting his mission.
“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 one Z in 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?” Zoe 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.