Chapter 1 #2
I nod, thinking about Veronica Ward’s events, which my family regularly gets invited to.
Val’s family lives a forty-five-minute drive from my parents’ house.
Our dads play golf together any time they don’t have to partner our mums to some business dinner or other.
Val’s mum is a big shot in property, while mine runs an art gallery, supplying high society with paintings worth about as much as a nice detached family house.
They often work together. You scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours, you could say.
But the truth is that everyone in our circles likes to stay in their familiar cliques.
So I’ve known the Wards since I was a wean, and it’s the exact same with Val and the Belhaven-Wynfords.
Clearly, we were always going to end up at school together too, because Dunbridge Academy is the obvious choice in this neck of the woods for posh kids to get a posh education.
We’re actually the same age because Dunbridge occasionally offers its pupils the chance to retake a year or to start a year later if you were one of those kids born over the summer or whatever.
Basically, for the right kind of money, more or less anything goes, and the school is keen to give as much flexibility as it can to its students, their rich parents, and their often-unusual circumstances.
If you were being unkind, you could say such a system saves our parents the bother of bringing us up, but I can’t tell—this is all I’ve ever known.
If I were a character in one of my novels, I’d probably hate life in this elite bubble on principle, but I genuinely appreciate the opportunities Mum and Dad are giving William and me here.
It would be ungrateful not to, even if I sometimes feel the weight of my family’s social standing like a burden on my shoulders.
And apart from my brother, Val’s the only person I can talk to about it.
Most of the time, I’m glad my friends aren’t in this world.
OK, so they all have rich parents, but their families’ lifestyles are so different from mine.
“We could leave,” I suggest. My faint hope is extinguished as Val shakes his head. Yeah, it was too much to wish for, a chance to take off these killer heels.
“No, it’s fine,” he says. “Besides, you’re looking too hot to bail out just now. I want everyone else to feel jealous a bit longer.”
I flush. Everyone else . . . Sinclair, then. Not that I believe my best pal would actually be jealous of Val. After all, I’m not fussed that Sinclair’s into Eleanor in the upper sixth. Not in the least. “If you like,” I say.
Val smiles, which isn’t a sight I get to see very often.
Normally, his face is as hard as the expression in his brown eyes.
His bone structure’s out of this world. Valentine Ward, cheekbones, cheekbones, cheekbones, and a classical nose that makes him look like one of those proud Greek gods.
He’s just damn hot, especially when he’s wearing a perfectly fitting suit, like he is now, one that emphasizes his broad shoulders. Valentine Ward is tall and athletic.
He puts his hand on the small of my back. “I hear you’re coming for dinner next weekend,” he says as we walk in.
“Well, that’s news to me,” I say. “It’s the first I’ve heard of it.”
“My mum wants me to be there. I thought you might like to join your parents too. It would make the evening a bit less dire.”
I hesitate. It’s not like my parents are unaware that Val and I are becoming “good friends,” as my mum likes to put it, but it would be the first time we’d seen them as a couple.
If we are a couple, that is . . . I really don’t know, and I don’t want to rush anything.
He’s my date for the New Year Ball, and that could mean everything or nothing.
When Val asked me before the Christmas holidays if I’d go with him, my first thought was of Sinclair.
I couldn’t be pleased at first. But then Val really put in an effort.
He browsed around Ebrington Tales with me, even though he finds reading deathly boring, and then we had a hot chocolate in the Blue Room Café, and he finally asked me.
It was absolutely right to say yes, even though I lay awake half the night imagining the look on my best friend’s face when he heard.
“I’ll ask them,” I say hastily. “Is Pippa coming?”
Val’s face hardens, and he shakes his head.
It’s always tricky, mentioning his sister.
Philippa Ward left four years ago with straight As throughout her school career, including her A levels, which we do here, like quite a few posh Scottish schools, rather than Highers.
Philippa is now reading law at Oxford. She’s the epitome of a highflier, the Wards’ pride and joy.
It’s not that Val’s parents aren’t proud of him too, but they’re very focused on their children’s academic achievements.
And Val isn’t exactly a star pupil. Now that he doesn’t have his uncle at the school to coach him a bit, he seems to be struggling even more in class.
“No, she’s busy,” he says briefly, pulling back his hand.
Great. Every time he shuts down like that instead of showing his emotions, it’s a sharp stab in the chest. I kid myself that it’s because he never learned how.
Veronica and Augustus Ward aren’t cold people precisely, but on the other hand, I can’t remember them exactly overflowing with the milk of human kindness.
“Wait here a moment,” says Val, glancing rapidly from side to side, then striding firmly toward the cloakroom set up on one side of the foyer. I spot Cillian in a relatively hidden corner, bending over a table. I shiver as I realize what they’re up to.
There have always been rumors that the upper sixth are secretly doing coke, but I’d never believed them.
Apparently, that was naive of me. I stop as Val walks over.
A few third-formers come out of the hall and glance skeptically at us.
I hope no teacher spots us. I bite my bottom lip gently as I glance around.
“Tori?” Val’s voice is questioning. When I look over, he raises an eyebrow invitingly.
I hastily shake my head. “No, thanks.”
Thanks . . . Could you get any dumber?
“Oh, come on.” Cillian looks up.
“I don’t want to,” I say as firmly as I can manage just now.
“Who are you kidding? You’re a Belhaven-Wynford! Rude not to, among you toffs, isn’t it?”
“Give it a rest.” To my surprise, Val springs to my defense. There’s a threat in his tone, and Cillian instantly shuts up, but he gives me a scornful look as he turns away.
“Sorry,” Val says in my general direction. “I don’t normally, but the last couple of weeks have been seriously shit.”
I just nod in the weird silence that suddenly prevails as Val leans over the table and puts one finger to his nose.
It doesn’t exactly look like he’s doing this for the first time.
And I don’t like that. I don’t like it at all.
It’s bad enough the way everybody’s drinking, although maybe I’m oversensitive there.
I can kind of see where Val’s coming from.
Things haven’t been so easy for him since his uncle had to leave Dunbridge.
The upper sixth start their A-level exams in about four months’ time, and well, maybe he was counting on his help.
I’m not exactly a try-hard, but my grades are reasonably solid.
But last time I suggested to Val that we could revise together, he took it the wrong way.
It ended up in an argument, and he spent the afternoon in the fitness center alone with the weights and the rowing machine. I decided not to get involved.
Val straightens up. He wipes his nose with his hand and puts his head back for a moment. His nostrils quiver as he breathes in.
“Everything OK?” I ask quietly as he puts his arm around me.
He nods but doesn’t look at me. “Want to dance?”
If I’m honest, I’d rather join Sinclair, Emma, and the others. It’s the first New Year Ball that I haven’t spent with my friends. But it’s also the first that I’ve had a proper date. Which is what I wanted. I force myself to smile.
“Love to.”
Val swigs from the gin bottle that Cillian hands him, and my stomach clenches slightly. I shake my head when he holds it out to me.
“Maybe later.”
Liar.
Val doesn’t say anything, but he rolls his eyes as he lifts the bottle back to his lips. Or maybe I only imagined that.
As we walk through the large double doors toward the ballroom, loud music hits us.
I recognize the song from the intro: “Thinking Bout You” by Ariana Grande.
The dance floor is full. Sequins and crystal chandeliers glitter in the light.
My stomach gives a little hop as Val holds out his arm to me as we walk down the few steps on the broad stone staircase from the entrance.
When I glance up at him, he’s looking more conciliatory.
The light falls onto his face, casts shadows over his sharp features.
I’m at the New Year Ball with Valentine Ward. It’s really true.
And everyone’s staring at us. I feel the eyes on me as we arrive. Val doesn’t pull his arm away. He leads me into the center of the hall, past the people standing chatting at little tables around the edge of the dance floor. Younger pupils nudge one another and sneak little glances at us.