was fixed on Lizzie and again she felt the depth of his disapproval, all the more powerful for not being articulated.
‘Miss Kingdom,’ he said formally. ‘I’m Arthur Robsart, Johnny’s half-brother. We met once before?’ he continued as though indifferent as to whether or not she remembered. ‘I wanted to apologise on Johnny’s behalf. He shouldn’t have accosted you like that.’
‘He’s upset,’ Lizzie said. She felt simultaneously relieved that Arthur wasn’t going to have a go at her and protective of Johnny. ‘I understand how he feels,’ she said. ‘He – you – must all be going through a horrible time.’
Arthur Robsart’s mouth flattened with dislike. Evidently she wasn’t entitled to offer sympathy to Amelia’s family. ‘Nevertheless,’ he said, ‘Johnny won’t trouble you again.’
‘He only wanted to talk to me,’ Lizzie said. ‘I’m sorry we didn’t get the chance…’ She waved a vague hand around. Under Arthur’s objective scrutiny she felt embarrassed. The security guards were still standing nearby in a watchful silence, arms crossed. They were paid to protect her and they had been doing their job but it didn’t feel like a good excuse.
‘As I said,’ Arthur repeated, ‘he won’t trouble you again.’ His expression was cold. He turned to go.
‘Wait.’ Lizzie caught his sleeve.
She felt a burn of sensation against her fingers immediately. It was exactly like the feeling she had when she touched her mother’s possessions, or read other objects, and yet at the same time it was completely different. She had never experienced any sort of telepathic response when touching people before. Yet now it was as though she had stepped directly into Arthur Robsart’s mind.
The emotional connection was sharp, immediate and shocking. There was a buzzing in her ears like static and her mind was flooded with Arthur’s feelings. She sensed his fierce love and concern for Johnny and beneath that a welter of other emotions: impatience, anger, determination and dislike, all directed towards her, alongside a strong attraction, all the more disturbing for being twinned with such animosity.
Lizzie looked up at him and saw the flare of disbelief in his eyes before he shut all emotion down. The connection between them died abruptly like a slammed door cutting off sound. She knew Arthur had felt it too, though. She would have known even if she hadn’t seen his reaction.
She felt completely shaken. She hadn’t even realised she could read people’s thoughts. It had never happened before. It wasn’t the same as reading objects; that was crazy enough and she kept it to herself like a guilty secret, half believing, half fearing that it was a phenomenon conjured up by her imagination from a desperate desire to connect to her past. She had always assumed, or tried to tell herself, that it only happened because of her sense of closeness to some members of her family which meant that she associated strong memories or emotions with them. This experience with Arthur Robsart was a whole different thing. She didn’t want to go there. She wasn’t flaky or into spiritual stuff; she’d never wanted to contact her mother’s spirit through a medium or anything like that. The thought made her shudder.
‘Lizzie?’ Kat prompted her, and she realised she was still holding Arthur’s sleeve. ‘Are you OK, babes?’
Lizzie let go. ‘Sorry,’ she said, a little weakly, not daring to look at Arthur again. ‘I… I only wanted to say…’ She risked a quick glance up at him. ‘I mean… Johnny will get help, won’t he? He seemed so upset—’
‘We’ll look after him,’ Arthur said. Without another word he turned and walked away.
‘Well!’ Kat said, staring after him. ‘That was…’
‘Weird,’ Lizzie said, ‘totally weird.’ She realised that she was physically shaking.
‘You seemed…’ Kat paused delicately. ‘Smitten?’
‘Not exactly,’ Lizzie said. ‘I don’t think he likes me much.’
‘Well,’ Kat said vaguely, ‘he probably thinks that you spent too much time with Dudley—’
‘Whatever,’ Lizzie cut her off. She made a show of checking her watch. She didn’t want to talk about it. ‘We’d better go,’ she said. ‘I’ve wasted enough time.’ She set off across the foyer to the door. Her car was waiting. The press and the crowds of onlookers turned back towards her, pushing phones and microphones close.
‘Lizzie, any comment?’
‘What is your connection to Johnny Robsart?’
‘Have you been interviewed by the police about Amelia’s death?’
Questions, questions, over and over, a cacophony beating down on her and Lizzie, like the professional she had been from the age of five, with a smile fixed on her lips: