Chapter 54
William
The bluebells had long since died off. I walked up to the stone circle to look out over the estate.
My naked feet were claggy with mud. I’d wanted to feel close to the earth, but in reality, it meant playing hopscotch around the shit Achilles had festooned along the bridle trail.
The day was overcast, and the breeze was cool against the bare skin of my chest and legs.
My face was damp from tears that hadn’t stopped in days.
The estate always looked so beautiful from here: the Long Water reflecting the sky, the house nestled between the two hills like a shiny new coin between a pair of glorious buttocks.
I turned my back on all of it and looked east to the family mausoleum.
I closed my eyes, sucking the fresh air deep into my lungs, and—when I had summoned the courage—scrambled down the rocks and through the forest.
I sat there for ages, on the floor, in the mortuary chapel above the crypt, letting the weight of my ancestors’ judgement press me into the stone. I needed to confess to the dead that I was contemplating the unthinkable.
“I know you’ll think I’ve failed,” I said, as if they could hear me. “But Mum is right. Living is for the living. Why am I living for the dead?”
Mum had been here, too, it seemed. There was a glass jar filled with foxgloves and ox-eye daisies.
My fingers traced the names of my father and my brother, carved by the stonemason into the memorial plaque so recently it looked as if it had been finished yesterday.
Their deaths felt as fresh as yesterday yet somehow also a lifetime ago.
“You would have been so much better at this than me,” I told my brother.
“And you”—I tapped my father’s name with my finger—“you have a lot to answer for. It’s as if you’d never heard of a savings account.
Or tax. Or living within one’s means. But I’m proud to be your son.
I love you, Dad. I miss you every day. And if, if, I sell the estate, I know you would understand. Because I’d be doing it for love.”
Petey’s face flashed through my mind. His laugh.
His cheeky grin. The way his hip bones were sharp enough to slice through the elastic of his briefs and how right they felt in my hands whenever I pulled him towards me.
The look on his face when I’d told him I was disappointed.
That note: I don’t know what the future holds for us, William.
But I know I love you. I had to try, surely?
Even if it all came to nothing or he didn’t want me anymore, I had to try.
When I emerged, it was starting to drizzle and I was beginning to regret my lack of clothing.
There was no buzzer in the mausoleum to summon help (probably because it would have scared the shit out of the staff if it ever rung—and believe me, as someone who was once a teenage boy, my brother and I would have been ringing it all the time) so I had to make the best of it.
I trekked along the river path until I reached the Long Water.
As the heavens opened up, I took shelter in Lady Caroline’s Bridge and pressed the button to summon Bramley.
As I sat there, looking back at the house, waiting for my trusty chief operating officer to appear, my eye was caught by a movement on the water.
It was Derek’s duck. He was followed by a mallard and a dozen ducklings.
My heart filled with joy, and tears sprang from my eyes again.
No wonder he didn’t want to get caught. He had too many reasons to stay.
“Good for you, mate,” I said. “You’re an ecological disaster, but good for you.”
A few minutes later, Bramley arrived with a towel, an umbrella, and a hip flask.
“Thank you, Brammers,” I said, wrapping myself in the towel.
“A pleasure, my lord.” I took a swig of the brandy and felt liquid fire all the way down to my gut. Derek’s duck was standing by the water’s edge, supervising his babies scrambling up the bank—as if he was counting each precious soul to safety.
Love. It was a future worth fighting for. And realising that, logically everything else fell into place. I had clarity. But I was also terrified.
“How would you feel about moving to London, Bramley?”
The old man smiled. “Sounds like an adventure, my lord.”
I blinked, astonished. “You wouldn’t mind?”
“I adore London, my lord. Great things always happen in London.”
No, they didn’t. I snatched the flask and sniffed it. “How much of this have you had? That city is cursed, man.”
Bramley’s eyebrows went up. “If I might speak plainly, my lord?”
I nodded, urging him to explain himself.
“You’re the fourth baron I’ve had the privilege to serve—”
“If you’re going to compare me to my forefathers, I’m not sure I can bear to hear it.”
“The first was your great-grandfather, who went to London a freshly minted lord and rose to hold two of the great offices of state. A confidant of Churchill, he was a towering statesman who brought much credit and lustre to this house. The second was your grandfather, who came back from London with investments that saw this house safely through a period when many great houses were sold off. The third was your father, who came back from London with your mother—who is the best thing that has happened to this estate all my fifty years here. Oh yes, very good things happen to this family when the baron goes to London, my lord.”
“Golly.” That was quite the speech. I took a swig of the brandy. Then another. And one more for luck. “So you don’t think the place is cursed?”
“No, my lord.”
Holy shit, I was going to do this, wasn’t I?
“And you’d come with me, wouldn’t you, if I moved to London.”
The man bowed slightly, smiling broadly. “Of course, my lord.”
I hit the bottle one last time and sucked in a deep breath.
Tackle the hard stuff.
I straightened. “Bramley, I need you to pack me a bag.”
“Very good, my lord. Shall I let Mr Topham know our intended time of arrival?”
“Yes. No! Let’s surprise him.” And as I looked at the wise old bird, an idea struck. “And get the horse trailer ready, will you?”
A few minutes later, in the kitchen of the house my family had called home for more than five hundred years, I picked up the phone and dialled a number I had never dreamt I’d call.
“Horatio? It’s William.”
Later that evening, I was standing in Jonty’s back garden in suburban North London, while Bramley made himself at home in the Boche family kitchen with Lola, and Achilles nibbled on Jonty’s mother’s marigolds.
“And the reason you brought the horse?” he said, holding a bottle of champagne and two glasses, with a concerned look on his face.
“He’s part of my big romantic gesture—my plan to win Petey back.”
“Horse crucial to the whole show, is it?”
“It’s romantic.”
“It’s ruining the lawn.”
“Sorry, old chum. But, you see, the day Petey and I properly got together, it was after I’d swooped in on Achilles, in my suit of armour, to rescue him from the gutter press.” I remembered too late that Jonty’s family owned a newspaper empire. “Sorry.”
“Don’t mention it.”
“Then I was in all my armour the day I slew the dragon that is Petey’s father. Thought I cut rather a dashing figure. So thought it’d be romantic, you know, to do it again.”
Jonty looked stunned.
“Don’t you think three times is a bit much? Why not do something else. For a bit of variety. You know, tone it down a bit.”
If Jonty, of all people, is telling you to tone something down, then you jolly well know it needs toning down.
“You think I should forget the armour?”
Jonty nodded. “It’s a start.”
We sat on the patio of Jonty’s summer house—his little bachelor pad in the rear of his parents’ garden—knocking back the champagne.
It was one of those orange-red dusks, and the first few stars were peeking through the polluted London sky.
I shuddered, unable to quite shuck the belief I was tempting fate by being here.
“Well, not that it’s not wonderful to see you, Dub-Dub, and in the capital, no less. But not to put too fine a point on it, why are you here? And why do you need to make a big romantic gesture?”
I spilt all. I told Jonty about the promo video, about Saving the Love Manor, about the secret filming, about telling Petey I was disappointed in him, about him leaving without saying goodbye.
“You said you were disappointed in him?”
“I know.”
“You’ve met his parents?”
“I know.”
“No wonder you got the old smoke bomb exit. Golly. You’ve heard nothing since?”
I shook my head. Jonty clucked and tut-tutted.
“Well, of course, you know what I’m thinking now?”
Honestly, how could anyone ever guess what Jonty was thinking?
“Show me the bloody video, man.”
I pulled out my new mobile phone. Jonty nearly dropped his champagne. “What. The. Actual—”
“I know, got it this afternoon,” I said. “I’m making a few changes.”
I pulled up the email with the video and played it, Jonty’s eyes widening with every new frame. When it was finished, he stood up, face astonished.
“Dub-Dub, this is bloody fantastic. This is a sure-fire hit. The public will lap it up. You said no to this?”
“He violated everyone’s privacy.”
“We can work around that. It’s only a pitch.” Jonty cupped a hand to his mouth. “Lolz, baby. I need you. Come quickly.”
Lola slid open the kitchen window. “I need you, too, baby!”
“Come quickly, baby. Bring your laptop. Dub-Dub needs you to edit something.”
“Give me a minute, baby.” She slid the window shut. The pair of them were ridiculous.
“What are you up to?”
“Saving your arse. Seriously, Dub-Dub, are you as batty as your grandfather? This is your chance to save the estate, earn pots of money, and become a household name into the bargain.”
“I don’t want to become a household name. Besides, I’m selling the estate.”
Jonty actually dropped his champagne glass.
“Why?”
“To be with Petey. Here. In London.”
Jonty was wide-eyed in horror, arms outstretched. “You’re out of your sodding tree. Sell the estate? To move to London? You hate London. I had to check the calendar to make sure it wasn’t April Fool’s Day when you rang the old Boche family doorbell.”
“I can come to terms with London if it means Petey and I can be together.”
Jonty yanked my phone out of my hand and bashed a finger into the screen. “No, this is how you can be together. You can have everything you want. Petey. Buckford. A jolly good dose of shagger’s knob that’ll last the rest of your life. All you have to do is say yes.”
“What about the press intrusion—”
“I am the press! We can help you with the press. It is an eminently solvable problem. Everyone from Beyoncé to Emma Thompson to that Jonas Brother with the weird teeth deals with the media. I’m an online influencer.
This is what I do. Plus, Lola is a genius.
Who do you think came up with our strategy for winning The Love Manor? Why didn’t you ask for help?”
I opened my mouth. Closed it. I had no answer. It had never occurred to me.
Achilles took a shit on the lawn.
“Sorry,” I said. “I’ll clear that up in the morning.”
“It’s OK, my parents are in Cannes.”
Lola appeared on the patio with her laptop. “What’s up, baby?”
Three bottles of champagne later, the video had been reedited to remove the offending material and the two of them had knuckled out a media strategy.
They had a new plan. But it meant being very brave indeed.
And though I’d been brave enough to risk London, I wasn’t sure I was courageous enough for what Jonty and Lola had cooked up.