Chapter 48 #2
Matthew looked like he was about to cry.
“Excellent slaughtering today, young Matthew,” I called out to him. “You did your family proud.”
The boy smiled. “Fanks, William!”
“Go find Bramley and tell him I said to crack out the good chocolate. If he doesn’t believe you, the password is gusset.”
“Fanks, William!”
Matthew gave me a toothless grin and two big thumbs up. I turned back to Sir Edward.
“Greasy fingerprints polish out,” I said. He didn’t appear to hear me.
“Listen, we can settle this between us—like gentlemen. What will it cost for you to reconsider? Name your price.”
“Are you trying to bribe me into marrying your son?”
Edward’s eyes bulged. “That’s an ugly word. Think of it as a wedding present.”
“Jesus Christ, it’s a dowry. You’re offering me a dowry to take Petey off your hands.”
“I wouldn’t put it like that. I know you need the money—”
“I’m not interested in your money.” The words came out harder than I intended, but I’d been richly insulted. “And I don’t need a financial incentive to be with Petey.”
“You said you care for him—”
“Care for him?” I was outraged now. “I love him. I am madly, completely, utterly in love with him. Do you have any idea who your son is? He’s the most spectacularly talented, creative, funny, smart, and beautiful man I have ever clapped my eyes on.
I wake up every day astounded someone so objectively and demonstrably brilliant could fall in love with someone like me. ”
“Don’t be ridiculous, you’re a baron!”
I stood there, flabbergasted. It took me a moment to speak.
“Is that who I am?”
“Of course it is.” Edward waved a hand in the air, apparently indicating the house, the estate.
I shook my head.
“Sir Edward, I’m a twenty-five-year-old former fly half for a semi-professional Welsh rugby team you’ve definitely never heard of.
That was my career before all this. Did you know?
I’m also a fantasy-reading geek who can empty a pub with his opinions on the works of D.
R. R. Fanshaw. And don’t even get me started on Brandon Osmond’s A Kingdom of Vipers and Valour series because you’ll regret that you did.
I’m also a level six human paladin with an oath of devotion.
These are my passions, by the way. Oh, and let’s not forget, I’m a common or garden-variety himbo on horseback.
I’m a son and a brother, an uncle and a godson, and I’m a lover.
To your son, as it happens. I am all of these things before I am a baron.
Petey understands that. He sees me, not a title—which is how we prefer things around here. ”
I paused to give that time to sink in, but Sir Edward appeared unmoved—which was annoying because I thought I’d been jolly eloquent. So I put the metaphorical gloves back on and delivered the blow I knew would land.
“The fact you think a title matters more than the soul of a person, the fact you think it would take a financial incentive to make your son worth loving, Sir Edward, says more about you than it does about him.”
Sir Edward’s face went as red as a shiny new cricket ball. “How dare you—”
I held up a hand. “I’m not telling you how to be a father. That’s between the two of you. But I won’t stand here and let you talk about Petey like he’s a burden, or a problem to be solved, or something you need to pay someone to take off your hands. He deserves better than that.”
Peggy stepped out from behind Sir Edward’s back. I hadn’t seen her approach, had no idea how long she’d been listening.
“It’s true, Teddy,” she said. “You’re my son and I love you, but you’re an arsehole to that boy.”
The heat was now visibly rising from beneath Sir Edward’s collar. His blood was bubbling away like raspberry jam on a stovetop.
“As if I would take parenting advice from you, Mother,” he sneered. Then he stopped, and squinted at her. “Dear God, are you high?”
This was not a conversation I needed to be a part of. I turned to make my exit, only to be greeted by a wall of feathers and flapping wings. Derek’s duck was scrambling across the lawn, flying over Jaguars—with my mother, still dressed like a geriatric nymph, in hot pursuit.
“Someone help me grab this duck,” she wailed—and a horde of men in Tudor battledress rallied to the cause, descending on Gerald and the water’s edge.
One man in the burgundy-and-blue livery of the Duke of Gloucester made a leap for him, but the duck flapped high into the air and landed on the other side of a car.
There were three roadsters with their roofs down in a row, and the duck scrambled through the first, my mother leaping over the door and across the seats trying to nab the bird.
Gerald flapped his wings and flew over to the next Jaguar, and my mother—with an esprit that defied her years and how stoned she was—followed along doggedly, arms outstretched.
Men were falling all over themselves to keep up and to catch the duck, which leapt into the belly of the next car.
“Not on my leather seats!” Sir Edward cried. At which point my mother looked up, got her leg caught in her muslin dress, stumbled, pitched forward into Sir Edward’s Jag, and struggled to pick herself up. She stood and fell, and stood, and tumbled out of the car onto the lawn, and stood again.
“I’m all right!” she said—as Gerald finally managed to take flight and make his bid for freedom. “I’m all right!”
And everyone watched in disbelief as, behind her, Sir Edward’s beloved 1967 Series 1 E-Type Jaguar roadster rolled silently into the Long Water.