Chapter 55
Petey
The Bulletin had photographed me going into Crucifix on Friday night, and by Sunday it was all over the gossip pages.
The mood at my parent’s house was funereal.
Or would have been, if funerals involved my father shouting.
The whole Topham clan was sitting around the living room—my awful parents, my odious brother, his odious wife, my all-right-on-her-day sister, her even-more-odious husband, and my gran.
I was still so hungover, every time my tongue moved in my mouth it was like a cactus being dragged across another cactus.
I wished for death to take me, if only for the peace and quiet.
“What were you thinking, Peter, visiting a place like that?” my father bellowed. “You’re marrying a member of the aristocracy.”
Everyone else had their faces buried in their phones, reading about my disgrace. Everyone except Gran, whose hand was on my knee.
“We’re not engaged. We were never engaged. How many times?”
My parents were struggling to process that fact.
“A minor detail. It’s obvious you care for each other. So why would you visit this… this… house of ill repute? What do you think Buckford is going to say when he sees this report?”
It was a good question. I had no idea, and it was churning my guts up.
Yet I only had myself to blame. If I’d listened to Sunny’s advice, if I’d got an injunction as insurance against The Bulletin’s threats, I wouldn’t be in this situation.
Frustrated with myself and my pride, I did what any sensible son would do and took my impotent rage out on my father.
“For a lawyer you’re very quick to convict,” I said, looking up at him. “Nothing happened. I went to a club and I danced with my friends. End of.”
“It’s a sex club!”
“It’s a nightclub.”
“Where people have sex!” my mother wailed. “Animals. Disgusting.”
Now was not the time to admit I had usually been one of those animals and I had loved every disgusting minute of it.
“Nothing happened!” I shouted. The sound of it reverberated around my head like it was bouncing around a canyon, and I thought I would throw up. “Nothing was ever going to happen. All I did was dance with my friends.”
My father was stabbing a finger into his phone. “The paper says otherwise.”
“The paper is lying.”
“Then we sue for defamation, Pete,” my sister Kathy said.
“Yes,” Mother said, eyes brightening. “Let’s take them to the cleaners.”
I shook my head. “And make myself an even bigger target? No, thank you.”
My father had one arm resting authoritatively on the mantelpiece. “Peter, wrapping them up in years of expensive legal disputes is precisely how we make them go away.”
“I don’t want your help.” The words came out in a sneer, accurately capturing my contempt.
“You have to fight them, Peter,” Mother said. “Show some mettle. Or you’re going to lose your fiancé.”
“For fuck’s sake, he’s not my fiancé. He never was.”
“But he’s good for you,” she said.
“He’s put a stop to you talking like a barrow boy,” my father chimed in. “And he clearly cares for you—”
“He’s not going to want to marry you now, anyway,” my brother said. “You’ve been ruined.”
Rage was bubbling up inside me. I couldn’t take it anymore. “Can any of you hear yourselves? You’re a bunch of judgemental pricks. Why do I have to fit into this tiny heteronormative box? Why aren’t I good enough for you as I am?”
They might have always been outwardly OK with me being gay, but it felt like they were demanding I be a certain kind of gay.
My mother threw her hands up. “Look where your lifestyle has got you, Peter.”
Father shook his head. “And now you need our help getting yourself out of the mess you’ve got yourself in.”
“I don’t want your help.”
“You need it!”
“It’s a bit bloody late to get a superinjunction now, anyway,” I railed. “I’m all over the paper already.”
“Superinjunction?” my brother scoffed. “Was that your plan? Pathetic.”
I turned to face him, my anger white hot. “And maybe if my family didn’t always treat me like this, I could have come to one of you and asked for help.”
“It wouldn’t have worked,” my sister Kathy said, matter-of-factly. “You’d need to show not only a major breach of privacy but an immediate risk of harm—”
“And what is this but a major breach of privacy?”
My brother laughed, loud and mocking. “That ship sailed the second your boyfriend made his little public declaration.”
“Sunny said—”
My brother’s laugh split the air again. “Maybe you shouldn’t take legal advice from a journalist?”
I slumped into the sofa, utterly defeated. It was pointless, hopeless. Gran squeezed my knee. If I looked at her, I’d cry.
“Let me help,” Kathy said, sitting forward on the sofa.
“It’s too late to do anything anyway, apparently,” I huffed.
She shook her head. “We can still tie them up in litigation. If you won’t accept Dad’s help, let me handle the legal side. Please, Pete.”
Her eyes were pleading. She seemed to actually care about me, and not the family name or the idea of being related to a baron or making sure I live by the rules.
Gran tapped my leg. Finally, I looked at her—and her eyes were filled with the supportive, loving, steely determination I had relied on my whole life.
“Let your sister help,” she said. “As old Reggie Kray used to say, ‘save yourself a headache tomorrow and shoot the fucker in the head today.’”
I laughed despite myself.
My sister-in-law looked up from her phone. “Can anyone hear a horse?”
Everyone’s heads tilted towards the window. Sure enough, I could hear the click-clack of horseshoes on bitumen in the distance.
“Funeral?” Kathy suggested.
“They’re too early, I’m still alive,” Gran said.
“It’s only one horse,” my brother said. “Not a full hearse.”
I ran to the front door in time to see Achilles rounding the corner into my parent’s driveway. William was astride, high in the saddle, bare-chested, wearing nothing but his red satin boxer shorts.
Behind me, my mother gasped. “Good God.”
“What are you doing here?” I said, heart thudding in my chest. My family piled out onto the porch.
“I called Horatio Blunt,” he said. “I agreed to sell everything. Well, not the village. The tenants still get the village.”
There was a collective sharp intake of breath behind me.
“You did what?”
William hopped down. His feet were bare. He held the reins out, and Kathy stepped forward to take them. William cupped my arms, his eyes burning with a passionate intensity.
“All that matters is you,” he said. He was shaking. “I want to be with you.”
“But Buckford means everything to you.”
“No, you mean everything to me.”
My knees buckled. Only William’s grip held me up. He was willing to give up everything for me?
My mother muttered something.
“He obviously hasn’t seen it yet,” my father replied under his breath.
Oh God. They were right. He can’t have heard.
“William, The Bulletin. They’re saying I… listen, it’s not true, you have to believe me—”
William pulled me into him, cradling me. “I don’t care what the papers say. I know you. I know your heart. I know the papers. I know who I believe. I will always believe you.”
Relief washed through me. I nuzzled into William’s neck. William pulled me tight against his bare chest. I could feel his heart hammering.
“You’d really give it all up, for me?”
“Every square inch. I’m moving to London to be with you. If you’ll have me?”
I pulled away so I could see his eyes. He meant what he said, but I could see the grief, the sacrifice. He could never be happy in London. Buckford would always be calling to him, to the iron in his blood, and it would be too late.
“I… don’t want you to sell,” I said. The words slipped out so quickly I hadn’t thought about them, but I meant them with my whole heart. “Not for me. Do it for you, if you want to. But I can’t… I couldn’t… please don’t put that on my shoulders.”
William frowned. He studied me for a moment, as if he was considering something. “Jonty said you’d say that.”
“You’ve seen Jonty?”
“Stayed with him last night.”
William was still frowning. “He and Lola did suggest a plan B.”
“A plan for what?” I wasn’t sure I trusted any plan devised by Jonty. Although Lola was a smart cookie.
“You’ll see.” William’s hand dived into Achilles’s saddlebag, and he pulled out a mobile phone.
“When did you get that?”
“Yesterday,” he said, painstakingly tapping out a message. “Thought I might need it in London. Not that the reception is any better here than at Buckford.”
The wait was killing me. “What’s plan B?”
“Be patient. You’ll see.” He slipped the phone back into the bag.
“Is there a reason you brought Achilles?”
William’s head bobbed around. “It seemed romantic.”
I pointed at his boxer shorts. “And these?”
He shrugged. “My suit of armour is back at Jonty’s place.”
I laughed. “Of course. You didn’t think maybe your riding gear, or a shirt and chinos—”
Gran cackled. “Your dangly bits fell out when you jumped off your horse.”
William grimaced. “So sorry, Peggy.”
“Don’t be, son. Very nice it was too.”
We ignored my mother’s sharp intake of air and my father’s sigh of frustration.
Gran turned to my sister. “More meat than a butcher’s window.” Then she turned back to my parents. “Are we having lunch or what?”
A couple of hours later, after the most awkward meal of my life, a black Range Rover pulled up in the road outside the house.
William peeked through the net curtains, then raced to the front door.
Having refused my mother’s offer of a robe, he was still in his boxers.
It had kept everyone uncomfortable the entire meal, and I loved him for that.
I followed him outside. When the car door opened, Indira Murray stepped out.
What the hell was she doing here? Indira was wearing yoga pants and trainers and shifted her sunglasses on top of her head to better eyeball William in his boxer shorts.
As she walked up the drive, she circled a finger at Achilles, who had destroyed my parents’ front garden.
“This is so over the top, William. We’ll make a TV producer out of you yet.”
I couldn’t quite believe my eyes. “Why are you here?”
“Saving the Love Manor,” she said. “It’s brilliant, Petey. I want to make it.”
I looked at William. I was shocked and confused.
“So, second confession for the day,” he said. “I may have sent Indira your pitch for Saving the Love Manor. When I sent that message earlier. That’s our plan B. I’m sorry, perhaps I should have asked. You’re not angry, are you?”
Should I be angry? Words didn’t come. My body was numb.
“But what about the privacy issues?”
“Lola reedited it,” William said. “It’s fine now. And it’s absolutely amazing, Petey.”
The rest of the household had now followed us outside and were standing on the porch.
“I came straight here so I could tell you to your face,” Indira said. “I want you to executive produce it. As we agreed. If you still want to?”
I spluttered. “Yes. Yes, of course I still want to. But I thought you didn’t want to make this type of TV anymore?”
“Petey Boy, there’s enough compelling drama going on at that house without needing to exploit anybody for entertainment. This is exactly the kind of TV show I want to be making. I do have one condition, though.”
My heart stopped.
She turned to look at my gran. “Peggy. I want you in the show. You’re television gold. We’d need you at Buckford during filming.”
My parents gasped. There was muttering behind me.
William looked at me, then at Gran. “In that case, Peggy, would you like to come live at Buckford full-time? The place doesn’t feel right without you.”
“You’re busting me out of prison?” Gran clapped her hands together in prayer. “If Petey Boy’s going, I’m going too! You know, my husband always said I had the legs of a film star.”
“You cannot be seriously considering this?” my father moaned.
“You watch me, Teddy.”
My mother inhaled sharply. “What will people say?”
“There’s something else,” Indira said. “The Love Manor. I’m willing to sell you two the format rights. If you want to make it?”
The clattering sound of my jaw hitting the pavement could be heard several streets away.
“Really?”
“Of course.”
“But…” I looked at William. “We can’t afford that, can we?”
William seemed thoughtful. “Would making two shows from Buckford be enough to keep you in Leicestershire full-time?”
With my gran there too? Sure, I’d miss London and I’d miss my friends, but they would visit. This was a chance to make my career, to really be someone in television. It was a chance to be with William. I nodded. It was more than enough. It was everything.
William smiled. “Then I’m sure we can sell another painting.”
“Wait,” I said, looking back at Indira. “If I make The Love Manor, doesn’t that still put the wrong kind of energy out into the world?”
She shrugged. “Two hundred grand is two hundred grand. I have a nephew who needs a lot of care.”
I turned back to William. He rolled his bottom lip through his teeth. “So, which future shall we take? Are you coming up to Buckford or am I coming down to London? It’s your choice.”
I had thought everything I wanted in the world was in London, but the future I really wanted was now waiting for me at Buckford Hall. I shook my head in disbelief. “What do you think?”
I kissed him then. Thoroughly, deeply, passionately. I kissed him like it was the first kiss of the rest of our lives. I kissed him in love and gratitude and awe. I kissed him like my whole family weren’t watching.
“Well, this is uncomfortable,” my brother said.
“Anyone for a cup of tea?” my mother asked.
William and I pulled apart.
“Can’t stay, I’m afraid,” William said. “I need to telephone Horatio Blunt and tell him it’s all off.”
I laughed. “I want to be there when you make that call.”
“Then I have to see a bloke about a horse. A dozen of them, actually. I’m buying the Cleveland Bay mares. For the riding school.”
Achilles whinnied in what I swear was delight. William untied the white stallion from the rowan tree in my parents’ front yard and mounted him.
“Sorry about the garden,” he said, wincing as he took in the damage.
Then he reached down, giving me his hand and one stirrup, and swung me up into the saddle behind him.
“But we can have tea next time,” William said. “At our place.”
At. Our. Place.
I wrapped my arms around his waist, leaning my cheek against the bare skin of his shoulder, and breathed him in.
“You could always come up in the Jag,” William added. Then he pulled on Achilles’s reins, and we turned towards home.