No Ordinary Gentleman

“You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

I’ve tried—I have fucking tried.

“I hear it’s likely she’ll return to London. I could look her up when she gets here. You know, when she slips through your fingertips.”

I say nothing because I’ve just decided she won’t be moving back to London, not even if I have to bribe someone in the immigration department to cancel her visa. If I’m not good enough for Holland, there is no way on God’s green earth Van is.

“I can be her shoulder to cry on. Did I ever tell you I have a thing for crying girls?”

I press my forehead against the cool glass as I try to ignore the goading of my degenerate friend. My mind takes that inopportune moment to remind me of how Holland looks, though not when she’s crying. How she looks breathless with laughter, her head thrown back, thoroughly immersed in the moment. Or perhaps it’s the reminder isn’t so much about how joyful she looks but rather how it made me feel, knowing her joy was my responsibility. That I had made her feel that way.

As for her tears, I never want to see her cry because of something I’ve done. I never want to look at her face and see tears of recrimination.

But that is inevitable if she’s ever to become mine.

I find for the first time, I really don’t give a damn.

Because the truth never stays buried forever. Like all rotten things, it eventually bloats and comes bobbing to the surface.

HOLLY

“He is such a pussy,” Hugh mutters, kicking a patch of longer grass at the edge of the path.

“I am going to pretend I didn’t hear that.” Mostly because I’ve had enough of men this afternoon—big and small men. “But, I promise, if I hear anything like that from your mouth ever again, I’m gonna tell Chrissy. I hear she has a special soap for washing potty mouths.”

Oh, man, my head aches, and it’s not the aftereffects of the champagne.

“It’s not fair. Archie wasn’t supposed to hit him in the nuts. I thought he might’ve hit him on the butt!”

Well, he didn’t. And now Griffin is back at the castle with two ibuprofen and a cold compress between his legs, which, if he’s to be believed, should be on his throat because that’s where his testicles are currently lodged. What’s more, I almost had to carry him back there myself. No wonder my arms ache as I struggle back to the castle like a pack mule balancing the majority of the picnic stuff, including the basket and the empty bottle of champagne.

I should probably chastise Hugh for using nuts in that context. To heck with it, I choose not to pick this as one of my battles right now. Bad enough that I had to lump that great oaf back with a tearful Archie tagging along behind us, but then I had to explain the whole thing to Isla, and then go back to the scene of the crime and lug back all this stuff!

“Archie is six,” I say, swinging to face the kid, almost dropping the cricket bat in the process. “You shouldn’t have told him to hit Griffin with the cricket bat, and then you wouldn’t be complaining because there would be no punishment. And anyway, why am I carrying the weapon? Here!” I thrust it at him. “You carry it.”

“It still sucks.”

“If you do the crime, you’ve got to be prepared to do the time.”

“But I didn’t mean—”

“It was your idea, Hugh.”

And the punishment was their mother’s. Archie is currently banished to his room “to think on his behaviour and summon a suitable apology”. Hugh, meanwhile, has been sentenced to an afternoon digging over Chrissy’s weed-plagued vegetable patch.

It was Hugh’s idea, wasn’t it? Only he doesn’t look so contrite. Aside from the Oreo prank, which I thought was very funny myself, Hugh is pretty upstanding for a kid.

“You did say you told Archie to hit him, right?”

“No. I mean, yes. But Uncle Sandy said—” The kid’s mouth clamps immediately closed. Then with a superior look I’ve seen adopted by a much older inhabitant of this castle, he hikes both cricket bat and picnic blanket higher in his arms and picks up his pace, speeding past me.

“Uncle Sandy said what?” I say, hurrying after him.

“Nothing. I misspoke.”

“I wonder if Chrissy has soap for little liars, too.”

“Uncle Sandy didn’t do anything. I told Archie to hit Griffin.”

“You brought up his name, not me,” I say, getting in front of him. “Did he tell you to hurt Griffin?”

“No!” Hugh comes to a sudden stop, the indignation in his tone telling me that this is probably the truth.

“What about the Oreos? Whose idea was that?”

“Mine.” He tilts his chin higher, like the little lordling he is. “I saw it on YouTube. And he deserved it. He’s nothing but mean to Uncle Sandy.”