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  ‘No,’ I said. ‘It doesn’t hurt. It’s just …’

  ‘Yes?’ he prompted gently.

  ‘It’s Ty,’ I said, letting out a long breath. ‘I keep thinking of her, back at Longcross, without any of us. It just feels like we are ditching her.’

  ‘We’re not,’ said Nel. ‘Don’t worry.’

  But I did worry. It felt like she was up there, fighting the good fight against the Order of the Stag, and we were going to Nel’s to swim in the pool, and watch movies in the cinema room, and go Christmas shopping in Chester. I wasn’t sure I could enjoy all that while Ty was at the mercy of the de Warlencourts. I still wasn’t certain in my own mind if the twins were goodies or baddies (to Cass I gave the benefit of the doubt; Louis, well – the jury was still out), but I was more worried about the creepy uber-Order who had tried and branded me. Moodily I stared out of the window, watching the road signs flash past. One of them said CHESTER.

  I sat bolt upright. ‘You missed it!’

  ‘Missed what?’ Nel didn’t take her eyes off the road.

  ‘The turn-off. To Chester.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘Aren’t we going to Chester?’

  ‘No. I mean, yes, but not yet.’

  ‘Where are we going then?’

  I saw her eyes meet Shafeen’s in the mirror, saw him give a tiny nod.

  ‘We’re going to another Place.’

  I knew from the way she said it. She managed, just by some strange trick of speech, to put a capital on that last word.

  We were going where Ty had told me to go.

  We were going to de Warlencourt HQ.

  We were going to Cumberland Place.

  3

  Cumberland Place just about knocked my eyes out of my head.

  The house was beautiful, just beautiful and so … grand. It was quite different to Longcross, but in its own way just as imposing.

  We took a collective deep breath. Since Nel had taken the road south, we’d had seven hours and two service-station McDonald’s to come up with a plan. And we had, of sorts. Or rather, we hadn’t. It wasn’t so much a plan as the only option open to us. We were going to walk right up to the front door, say we were friends of Henry’s and see what happened.

  So, at four o’clock that afternoon, having negotiated the London roads with the grudging help of Nel’s satnav and parked in a nearby mews, the three of us stood looking up at the house, mouths open.

  It was set in its own gardens behind a wrought-iron fence, with neatly clipped hedges and stark winter trees. It was flanked on either side by impossibly grand houses, but Cumberland Place was the grandest of all. It was white, as white as the snow that iced it like a Christmas cake, and it had these grand pillars holding up a triangular portico. It had huge sash windows and two identical wings, giving the house an elegant symmetry.

  It was set back from a quiet road winding through an immense snowy park, which looked so countrified that if it wasn’t for the distinctive London skyscrapers in the distance, you could have been in the middle of nowhere. I’d only been to London twice, once on a school trip and once when my dad was getting a wildlife award, but Nel, who seemed to know it like the back of her handbag, reliably informed me this was Regent’s Park. I guessed that Cumberland Place, although much smaller than Longcross, was probably worth just as much – a house standing slap in the middle of London and on the edge of Regent’s Park must be worth squillions.

  I felt a bit like my namesake, Greer Garson, in the Pride and Prejudice film, when she gets her gob well and truly smacked by the grandeur and elegance of Pemberley. And because Cumberland Place was a white house that looked just like, well, the White House, it was hard to believe that it could be, as Ty had suggested, the HQ of the Dark Order of the Grand Stag.

  Nel was the first to pull it together. ‘So,’ she said, ‘we knock. We say hi. We see who’s home.’

  ‘And what happens when they look at us like we are dog shit?’ I asked.

  ‘Then we go to Durrant’s Hotel in Marylebone and check in. It’s just round the corner and they know my dad.’

  ‘What are we going to pay for that with?’ I said. ’Magic beans?’

  At that, Nel, without taking her eyes off the white facade, fished out her purse and put it in my hand. I opened it and it was like a gambler’s deck – there were, like, fifty-two plastic cards in there. I swear I saw a black Amex – the Ace of Spades of credit cards.

  ‘I’m on all of Dad’s accounts,’ Nel said.

  ‘Of course you are.’

  ‘So. We ready?’

  ‘OK,’ said Shafeen.

  ‘OK … I guess,’ I said, much more doubtfully. That doubt, that niggling misgiving in the pit of my stomach, had a name.

  It was Henry.

  The one thing I hadn’t mentioned in the car, during all their questions about the trial, and the Abbot, and the brand, and Leon Morgan, was my strange meeting with Henry in the hospital. I had told Shafeen about it, in an unguarded moment, as he’d come to my room right after my spectral visitor. But I hadn’t brought it up since, even to him.

  Especially to him.

  Firstly, I didn’t want to piss him off by placing him in this weird Bella/Edward/Jacob love triangle, and secondly, seeing ghosts meant that I belonged in a cuckoo farm, didn’t it? No. I had to face it: Henry was dead as a doornail.

  But if that was the case, and Henry was dead as a doornail, then why, as we walked up to the doorway of Cumberland Place, was I wishing above all else that I looked a bit more put together, as if he was going to be there to fling open the door himself? Why was something, some visual cue just out of reach of mind and memory, nagging me that I had really seen him, that he must really be alive?

  But, of course, the door was opened by … a butler.

  He was dressed in the full rig: black tailcoat, white tie and shoes so shiny you could see your face in them. His own face was long and stretched, with a domed forehead and slicked-back greying hair. He looked like Richard E. Grant in, well … anything.

  He regarded us with absolutely no surprise, but to be fair he didn’t seem like a dude who would ever show surprise. Or, in fact, any emotion. But in his first utterance that lack of surprise was explained.

  ‘Her ladyship is expecting you.’

  Really? We looked at each other, nonplussed, but before we could say anything else he turned to lead us into the house. There was nothing to do but follow.

  The first thing we saw was a beautiful light atrium. A grand staircase curved away to the upper floors – a much more ornate affair than the great stone one at Longcross, which you could practically ride a horse up. High above was a domed frescoed ceiling and underfoot a vast Turkish rug. Curved double doors opened off the round space and the butler opened one set of them in a practised both-at-once way. We entered a grand drawing room, with pale gold walls and gilded furniture to match. Enormous windows gave out onto the park, and a fire burned in the elegant fireplace – there was a great garland of red-berried holly fixed along the mantelpiece. An enormous Christmas tree stood on one side of the fireplace, beautifully decorated with white candles and red rocking horses and golden bells – all the ornaments looked vintage, just like the ones at Longcross, and there was not a tacky coloured light or a gaudy strand of tinsel to be seen. I was so busy looking at the tree that it took me a second to see the woman sitting next to it.

  She was perched on a rose velvet chaise longue, tall and well dressed, her long legs tucked neatly beneath her. I will never forget my first sighting of Caroline de Warlencourt, the Countess of Longcross. Although you could tell she used to be a stone-cold ten when she was younger, she looked ruined and utterly desolate. She was staring into the fire with unseeing blue eyes, pleating the material of her skirt with nervous fingers and mouthing something quietly to herself. She looked unhinged.

  The butler led us right into the middle of the room and announced us, as if we were going to that ball in My Fair Lady. And I did feel a little bit Eliza Doolittle as I stood there in that fabulous room with my lank hair and faded jeans. But Lady de Warlencourt got up and actually clapped her hands. She expressed her joy in the most English way possible. ‘Bates, more tea!’ she cried. She was transformed, as if a light had been switched on within her.

  Shafeen, the only one who was equal to this social situation, took her hand. Whatever his private feelings, etiquette prevailed. ‘Countess,’ he said stiffly, with a little bow of the head.

  ‘Oh, my dears. Call me Caro.’ She dropped his hand at once and came straight up to me, ignoring the other two as much as bone-bred good manners would allow.

  ‘Now, don’t tell me –’ she placed one manicured fingertip under my chin – ‘you must be Greer.’

  She regarded me and I regarded her. The coiffured blonde hair. The pearls at ears and throat. The fine lines around blue eyes so like Henry’s but paler, older and shadowed by unimaginable pain. It was good in a way that her finger was clamping my jaw shut because I wouldn’t have known what to say to her. How do you greet a woman whose son fell off a waterfall to his death right in front of you? Luckily she spoke first.

  ‘He said you were beautiful.’

  ‘He?’

  ‘Henry. He told me you were coming.’

  The lank hair crisped on my scalp. ‘He’s alive?’

  ‘Dear me, yes!’ she trilled. ‘Why wouldn’t he be?’

  The glorious room spun around me and I sat down hard on the sofa, unbidden, before I fell down. Before I fell down. How could Henry have survived that fall? And how could I survive the fact that he had? My body was having this huge reaction – my skin felt like it was on fire, my pulse beat in my ears and my joyful, Judas heart just about burst out of my chest. I gripped my branded thumb with the ot
her hand and looked fixedly at the pattern of the pale rug, pouring all my energy into controlling my emotions. I didn’t dare look at the others, but I could hear Shafeen’s sharp intake of breath.

  ‘Why don’t we all sit,’ said Lady de Warlencourt graciously, as if she’d made nothing more than a bland comment about the weather. Nel was the first to recover from the shock and spoke for the first time.

  ‘Where did you see him? Henry, I mean.’

  Lady de Warlencourt picked up her teacup. ‘At Longcross, of course. His ancestral home.’

  ‘Where is he now?’

  ‘Still there, I expect. We were all there for Louis’s birthday. And Cassandra’s, of course.’ And even in the midst of that mental turmoil, I thought, Poor Cass, always the afterthought.

  I found my voice at last. ‘You saw him there?’

  ‘Of course. He was keeping a low profile, but he was there.’ She lifted her cup to her lips and her hand shook a little, but her voice was breezy.

  ‘He’ll be here by and by. He always turns up when you least expect him.’

  You can say that again, I thought.

  ‘He’ll be delighted to see you. You simply must stay. Your rooms are all ready.’

  We looked at each other, startled and horrified. ‘Oh …’ said Shafeen. ‘I think … I mean to say … there must be some misunderstanding. We aren’t staying. We just came to visit.’

  Her smile didn’t slip. ‘Nonsense. You can’t just have tea and drive north again now. Where else would you go? Some dreadful little hotel?’

  ‘Well,’ said Nel, ‘the Durrant, actually …’

  It was as if she hadn’t spoken. ‘But, my dears,’ said Lady de Warlencourt, a tiny frown furrowing her brow, ‘it’s all settled. It’s Henry, you see. Henry said.’

  Before we could reply, the butler burst into the room, looking quite hurried and flustered – a complete contrast to the otter-smooth guy who’d opened the door to us. Then I’d thought he would never show any emotion. Now I revised that opinion. He just about skidded to a halt a foot from her ladyship and bent slightly in a bow, clearly trying to get his shit together. Lady de Warlencourt looked up from her teacup with mild surprise. ’What is it, Bates?’

  The butler didn’t seem sure. But then he said, as if he’d just thought of it, ‘Just to say, your ladyship, that Lady Whitehaven is on the telephone.’

  I exchanged a look with Nel and Shafeen. From the way the butler had looked when he’d come in, I’d expected the announcement of World War Three at least, not a phone call from some random friend. Even her ladyship raised her pale eyebrows. ‘Thank you, Bates,’ she said, sounding faintly astonished. ‘Lady Whitehaven is my mother,’ she said to us by way of explanation. ’She’s over eighty now so one likes to keep in daily contact.’

  Bates followed Lady de Warlencourt out of the room and for a moment we were alone. Needless to say, we didn’t waste any time.

  ‘Jesus,’ Shafeen hissed. ‘What do we do now?’

  ‘Pretty awks,’ agreed Nel.

  But I had an answer. ‘What if we just stay?’

  ‘What?’ Nel’s volume turned right the way up. She toned it down again. ‘She’s clearly a bit loopy. And the Durrant’s really nice. It’s just round the corner and it doesn’t have – oh, I don’t know – crazy people in it.’

  ‘Yes, but think about it,’ I said, low-voiced and hurried. ‘If we accept that Ty discovered that Cumberland Place is the HQ of the Dark Order of the Grand Stag, we need to take a good look around. We’re not going to learn much from one half-hour afternoon tea. If we stay, we’re exactly where we need to be.’

  Footsteps approached. There wasn’t much time.

  Shafeen whispered, ‘But why would we stay in the tiger’s lair?’

  I looked at them both in turn. ‘Because Ty is doing it,’ I said.

  Lady de Warlencourt came back into the room looking a little flustered. ‘The queerest thing. There was no one there.’ Then her expression cleared and she smiled again. Bates came back into the room and started faffing around with the tea trays. I watched him through narrowed eyes. Something wasn’t right. I met the butler’s eyes as he handed me my cup and then I twigged. There wasn’t any phone call. He’d come in at that point, and in that manner, expressly to stop Henry’s mother talking about Henry. Lady de Warlencourt followed my gaze.

  ‘Bates has been with us for thirty years,’ she said fondly, ‘both here and at Longcross.’

  Bates was obviously a package deal who travelled with the elder de Warlencourts, because I’d never seen him at Longcross. ‘Isn’t that right, Bates?’

  He nodded to his mistress, keeping his pale eyes on the floor, back to his former smooth demeanour. ‘Thirty-one years in January, your ladyship.’

  I couldn’t imagine him as a child. I bet he never ran around or played or shouted or anything like that.

  ‘So if there is anything you require during your stay, he’s your man.’

  This was the moment. We had to commit, one way or the other. We had to head to the hotel or accept her invitation. I spoke for us all. ‘Thank you,’ I said. ‘You’re very kind.’ And that was it. We were staying.

  Lady W neatly set down her teacup, but her hand was still shaking enough to make the bone china rattle in the saucer, with a sound eerily reminiscent of that scene in Get Out. ‘I hope you’ll be comfortable here, my dears. This part of the house was built in Georgian times, but the foundations are much older.’

  I remembered then that Cass had said that Nazereth de Warlencourt had lived here. I was a bit sketchy about when exactly the Georgian period was, if I’m honest, but I knew if Nazereth had lived here, the house, or at least its foundations, must have been here at the end of the sixteenth century. It gave me a shiver to think of Nazereth occupying the same space we sat in now. And then another thought occurred – had Ben Jonson, his sometime friend and eventual assassin, been here too?

  ‘So it’s a little more modern than Longcross,’ Lady de Warlencourt went on. ‘And much less isolated. So much for you children to do in town, you know. Speaking of which, I’m sure you don’t want to be chattering to me all afternoon. Let’s have Bates show you your rooms, my dears. I am sure you’d like the opportunity to freshen up after such a long journey. We dress for dinner here, of course.’

  Thanks to my Longcross weekends, I now knew what ‘dressing for dinner’ meant. It meant changing out of the clothes you had on and putting on much smarter clothes in order to eat dinner in them. I could see, now, a pattern emerging when you stayed at a fancy house. You got there, you got shown to your room, you ‘freshened up’ and then you ate dinner. And dinner, from my experience, was the theatre of war. That was when battle commenced. In posh houses the dinner gong was the bugle’s call.

  For the moment though, it was all pleasantries.

  ‘You have a little time,’ said Lady W graciously. ‘Perhaps you’d like to take a turn around Regent’s Park. It’s quite lovely in the snow. Rollo is at the House, so he won’t be back until at least seven.’

  No need to ask who Rollo was. We’d seen his name, etched unforgettably in funeral black, in the game book from 1969, along with the Grand Master and all the other guilty friars. Rollo was Henry’s father. I wasn’t sure what House his wife was referring to, but luckily Nel asked the question. ‘I thought this was Lord de Warlencourt’s house?’

  ‘He’s not Lord de Warlencourt, he’s the Earl of Longcross, my dear. Until his death.’ It was odd to hear her husband’s demise spoken of so matter-of-factly. ‘I know, the titles can be jolly confusing. Lord de Warlencourt is the title of –’ she looked at Bates somewhat nervously – ‘Rollo’s heir.’ Rollo’s heir. We’d thought that, as of 17th December, Louis was the heir to Longcross. Now, if – incredibly – Henry was alive, I supposed it was still him. My tell-tale heart started to thud again.

  ‘But the House I was referring to is the House of Lords. There’s a sitting today. But he’ll be back for dinner, never fear.’