Right Number, Wrong Girl

I dropped onto the sofa and buried my head in my hands.

I was so screwed. I needed a moment to breathe and collect my thoughts because they were absolutely all over the place. I didn’t want to think about what would happen if Camilla couldn’t get back for whatever reason.

I needed her to get back.

I didn’t want to still be here when the duchess returned.

Hell, I didn’t want to be here when Nancy returned from the hairdresser, never mind anything else.

I pulled my phone out of my bag and opened the chat app with Camilla.

ME: I need you to get your butts home. They never got your email and the duchess wouldn’t let me get a word in edgeway. I tried to tell her like 10 times before she cut the meeting short. Fancy Nancy realised there was something I wasn’t saying and said I need to be gone by the time the duchess gets back from London and you need to be here.

ME: Oh, and I also chewed out their eldest son last night when I thought he was hitting on me so there’s that

ME: I TOLD YOU NOT TO SEND ME HERE CAMILLA

ME: I’m never forgiving you for this

ME: These people are absolutely fucking terrifying

“Are you all right?”

I jumped at the voice. That didn’t look like Hugo.

Was it his brother? Henry?

“Here.” He brought a bottle of water over and put it on the table next to the planner book, then looked at me. “I won’t bite. You can talk to me.”

“I’m sorry, Lord Henry. I—”

“Henry,” he said with a smile. “Lord Henry is my uncle.”

A light laugh escaped me, and I picked up the water when he pushed it towards me. “Thank you.” It was cold, and strangely, it did help to calm me down a little bit.

“Are you all right?”

“I don’t know,” I replied slowly.

“Well, you could start by telling us what your real name is,” Hugo said.

I turned to see him standing in the doorway.

Goodness, he was handsome.

“Hugo,” Henry said firmly.

“Relax, nobody else is here. Nancy went with Mum, Dad and Grandma left, and Rupert is cataloguing the wines in the cellar.” He walked into the drawing room and sat down opposite me. He rested one ankle on his knee, leaned an arm across the back of the sofa, and smirked at me. “Is it Miss Hopkins or is it Sophie?”

“If you’re going to be cocky about it, it’ll be Miss Smith.”

“Suits me fine. You can call me Lord Hugo.”

I smiled. “I’d rather not talk to you at all, to be perfectly honest.”

The smirk dropped from his face.

Henry coughed next to me, and I was almost certain it was to hide a laugh. “So if you are Sophie, how on Earth did you end up here, pretending to be Camilla?”