Chapter Twenty Three The Morning
Snow was falling on Hartington Hall.
It had started sometime in the early hours, fat flakes drifting down from a steel-grey sky and by morning the grounds were covered in a pristine white blanket that made the estate look like something from a Victorian Christmas card.
The lake had a thin crust of ice around the edges.
The ice swan was floating jauntily and had acquired a dusting of real snow that made it look almost intentional.
Elizabeth Ashworth-Pemberton was furious.
‘I booked snow machines,’ she said, for the fifteenth time that morning.
‘Professional snow machines. The kind they use in films. Perfectly controlled, perfectly distributed, perfect white snow that would fall at precisely the right moment during the photographs. And now...’ She gestured at the window with the air of a woman confronting a personal betrayal.
‘Now there’s actual snow. Everywhere. Uncontrolled. Messy. Getting into everything.’
‘It is rather pretty, dear,’ Gerald ventured from behind his newspaper.
‘Pretty is not the point, Gerald. The point is consistency. The point is control. The point is...’ She stopped. Stared out the window. ‘Is that the ice sculpture? In the lake?’
‘Ah,’ said Gerald. ‘Yes. About that.’
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In the Dower House, Anastasia woke to weak winter light filtering through the curtains and the sound of someone moving quietly in the corridor outside.
She lay still for a moment, orienting herself. Wedding day. The words felt strange, disconnected from reality. In a few hours, she would walk down an aisle and marry James Ashworth-Pemberton. She would become his wife. She would promise to love and cherish him for the rest of her life.
And somewhere between the vows and the cake cutting, Viktor would try to kill him.
She reached for her phone. One message, received at 6:47 a.m.:
Today we finish this. Smile for the photographs.
She read it twice. Then she deleted it and sat on the edge of the bed for a long moment, breathing slowly, letting her training take over.
The mission: keep one man alive. The complication: she was in love with him.
A knock at the door. Mei entered with a cup of coffee and a smile.
‘Good morning! Happy wedding day! I brought you coffee and also...’ She produced a small package wrapped in tissue paper.
‘I know it’s silly, but there’s this English tradition.
Something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue.
Your dress is new and beautiful, so the girls thought they could help with the others. ’
Anastasia unwrapped the package. Inside was a blue silk garter, delicate and clearly expensive.
‘It’s actually new,’ Mei said, slightly embarrassed, ‘and we don’t want it back, so the borrowed part is a bit of a cheat. But it counts for the rhyme, doesn’t it?’
‘It’s lovely,’ Anastasia said. ‘Thank you.’
After she left, Anastasia examined the garter thoughtfully. Then she went to her bag, the one she had packed herself, the one that contained things she had hoped she would never need again and retrieved a slim stiletto knife with a four-inch blade.
Something old.
She flipped it once in the air, caught it by the handle and slid it into the garter. It fit perfectly, the blade flat against her thigh, it would be invisible beneath a wedding dress.
The woman who looked back from the mirror wasn’t a bride. She was an operative preparing for a mission.
Ready for anything.
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In the main house, breakfast was a chaotic affair.
The family and close friends who had stayed the night before were gathered in the dining room, working their way through a traditional English spread: eggs, bacon, sausages, black pudding, toast and enough Bloody Marys to constitute a medical emergency.
James sat at the head of the table, looking slightly green around the edges but determinedly cheerful.
‘More coffee, sir?’ The butler hovered with a silver pot.
‘God, yes. Keep it coming. And maybe some toast. Plain toast. Nothing complicated.’
Freddie appeared in the doorway, grinning in a way that suggested either extreme happiness or impending chaos. With Freddie, it was often both.
‘Morning, everyone! Beautiful day for a wedding! James, you look terrible.’
‘Thank you, Freddie. That’s exactly what I needed to hear.’
‘Don’t worry, you’ll perk up. I have something that’ll cheer you right up.’ Freddie’s grin widened. ‘The lads and I have been busy.’
‘Busy how?’
‘It wouldn’t be a surprise if I told you, you’ll just have to wait and see.’
James opened his mouth to ask, but then closed it again. With Freddie, you didn’t always want to know. A smile was tugging at the corners of his lips despite himself.
‘You’re all lunatics,’ he said finally. ‘Complete lunatics. And I love you.’
‘That’s the spirit! Now eat your toast: you’ve got a wedding to get through.’
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Elizabeth’s discovery of James’s changes happened in stages, each one more horrifying than the last.
First, the ice sculpture. She had noticed it floating in the lake and shrieked at Gerald: ‘Is that a swan? In the water? Gerald, did someone throw my swan in the lake?’ She had spent ten minutes trying to convince herself it was a different swan, a real swan, anything other than the three-thousand-pound ice sculpture she had commissioned from an artist in Milan.
Then, the chocolate fountain. She found it in the entrance hall, where the ice sculpture should have been, bubbling gently and filling the air with the smell of melted chocolate.
‘What,’ she said, very quietly, ‘is that.’
‘It’s a chocolate fountain, madam,’ the butler said, with the neutral tone of a man who had learned that expressing opinions was rarely wise. ‘Mr. James arranged it.’
Then, the ballroom. She pushed open the doors to find a woman in dungarees and combat boots running cables across the floor, surrounded by speakers the size of small refrigerators and a lighting rig that looked like it belonged at a rock concert.
‘Morning!’ the woman said cheerfully. ‘You must be the mum. Don’t worry, I’ll have this set up in no time. Your boy said to make it loud. I’m going to make it LOUD.’
Elizabeth turned to the butler. Her voice was very controlled.
‘There is a DISC JOCKEY in my ballroom.’
‘I believe they prefer ‘DJ,’ madam.’
‘I don’t CARE what they prefer. Where is the string quartet?’
‘Mr. James cancelled them, madam. Sent them home with full payment.’
Elizabeth stood very still. Fortnum and Mason, sensing danger, pressed close to her ankles in perfect formation.
‘Where,’ she said, ‘is my son.’
???
She found him in his room, already dressed in his morning suit, looking genuinely terrified but holding his ground.
‘James. What have you done.’
It wasn’t a question. It was an accusation, a judgement, a pronouncement of doom all wrapped into four words.
‘I’ve made some changes, Mummy.’
‘CHANGES?’ Her voice rose in a way James had rarely heard, genuine emotion breaking through the careful control.
‘You’ve turned my wedding into a FESTIVAL.
There’s a woman in the ballroom who looks like she’s setting up for Glastonbury.
There’s chocolate bubbling in the entrance hall.
There’s a swan, MY swan, my beautiful Italian swan, floating in the lake like some kind of frozen duck.
And apparently...’ she took a breath ‘ ...apparently you’ve replaced my carefully planned menu with a BARBECUE. ’
‘A magnificent barbecue,’ James confirmed. ‘And all the trimmings. It’s going to be delicious.’
‘It’s going to be a TRAVESTY.’
‘It’s going to be our wedding, Mummy. Mine and Anastasia’s. Not yours.’
Elizabeth stared at him. For a moment, something flickered in her expression: surprise, hurt, something that might have been respect.
‘Anastasia doesn’t want ice sculptures,’ James continued, his voice steadier now.
‘She doesn’t want string quartets. She doesn’t want formal receiving lines where she’s separated from me like she’s not good enough to stand at my side.
She wants to dance. She wants to laugh. She wants a wedding that feels like a celebration, not a performance for your friends. ’
‘What she WANTS is your money, James. That’s what she wants.’
‘No, Mummy.’ His jaw set. ‘She wants me. Just me. And I’m going to give her the wedding she actually deserves, not the one you’ve planned to impress people who don’t matter to us.’
It was the first time he had ever stood up to her like this. Truly stood up, without backing down, without apologising, without running away or finding a compromise that let everyone pretend the conflict had never happened.
Elizabeth was so shocked she actually stopped talking.
Gerald, hovering in the doorway, gave James a subtle thumbs up.
‘Well,’ Elizabeth said finally, her voice very quiet. ‘I suppose we’ll see.’
She turned and left, Fortnum and Mason trotting behind her in perfect formation. But at the door, she paused.
‘The snow is rather pretty,’ she said, without turning around. ‘I’ll give you that much.’
And then she was gone.
James sat down heavily on the bed, his legs suddenly unsteady.
‘That was terrifying,’ he said.
‘That was magnificent,’ Gerald said, stepping into the room. ‘I’ve been waiting decades for someone to stand up to her and it was never going to be me. Well done, my boy. Well done indeed.’
‘She’s going to make my life hell for, well forever.’
‘Probably. But you’ll have Anastasia and she’s worth it.’ Gerald clapped him on the shoulder. ‘Now, I believe you have a wedding to prepare for’.
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