should be orf, but thank you, Dundees, for a terrific dinner.’
I stood with Octavia and murmured goodbyes like a robot.
‘So lovely to see you again, Florence, and see you in London, I’m sure,’ she said, with another smile. Unbelievable. The woman would take gold in every category of the Smirking Olympics.
Rory, his parents and I stood in the porch to wave them down the drive.
‘That was bloody marvellous, and delicious pie, darling,’ Mortimer told his wife as we went back inside.
Suddenly, I felt so tired I could barely stand.
‘Rory, take poor Florence upstairs, she looks exhausted,’ instructed Elizabeth.
‘Knackered, I’ll bet,’ added Mortimer.
‘Yes, Mummy,’ said Rory, ‘but are you all right, darling? You look awfully pale.’
‘Mmm, fine,’ I said faintly.
‘I’ll run you a bath,’ he said. ‘How about that?’
I nodded silently before we said goodnight to his parents and walked up the curved staircase. What to say? How to say it? Was that what I was? A box marked ‘wife’ for him to tick? A project?
I decided I’d have a bath and broach the subject in the morning. I was too shattered now. The combination of red wine and coffee was making me both drowsy and jittery. Obviously there was almost no hot water in this arctic house so I lay in the tepid, avocado-coloured bath and counted the flowers up and down the curtains. And by the time I tiptoed back down the corridor in a scratchy towel to our bedroom, Rory was already asleep.
I woke the next morning with a cold nose. Our bedroom was freezing. At around 3 a.m., when I wondered if I’d survive the night, I’d scrabbled in the dark for two jumpers and a pair of socks. I’d considered putting several pairs of knickers over my head as a hat before deciding that it might alarm Rory. I exhaled with my mouth open and saw my breath hang in the air, then pinched my thumb and my forefinger around my nose to try and warm it.
‘What are you doing?’ said Rory, opening his eyes.
‘By dose is cold,’ I said.
‘What?’
I removed my hand. ‘My nose is cold.’ Then I sniffed and smelled fish. ‘What’s that?’ I asked, fearing that I might have to eat whatever Elizabeth had murdered in the kitchen.
‘Kippers. Daddy always has kippers on a Sunday morning,’ he said, leaping out of bed, flashing his bottom at me. But not even that could cheer me up. The conversation with Octavia had been the first thought that wormed its way into my brain when I woke, making me feel deflated before I’d even opened my eyes.
He’d already pulled on a pair of trousers and was buttoning a shirt at the foot of the bed. I couldn’t bear to extend an inch of bare flesh from under the blanket.
‘Come on, lazybones,’ he said, pulling the bottom corner of the blanket and whipping it off. The sudden cold made me shriek and curl into a ball on the mattress. ‘RORY! I hate you, that’s so mean.’
He laughed as he headed for the door. ‘As if you could hate me. I’m heading to the kitchen but come down whenever you’re ready.’
I sat up and looked around the bedroom for my bag. My mouth still tasted of baked rat. I needed to brush my teeth, get dressed, go down to the kitchen and forage for a piece of toast. They must have toast. You couldn’t screw up toast.
Twenty minutes later, I followed the fishy stench back down the long corridor, the stairs and into the kitchen.
‘Morning!’ cried Elizabeth, standing over the Aga. Rory and his father were sitting at one end of the kitchen table, the cats stretched across the other.
‘Morning, Florence, I trust you slept well?’ asked Mortimer. He was clearly an advanced-level pervert since even this sounded like an innuendo.
‘Yes, thank you,’ I fibbed.
‘Have a seat,’ said Elizabeth. ‘Would you like a kipper? I’ve saved you one.’
I waved my hands quickly at her. ‘No! I mean, no thank you. Just a piece of toast would be great.’ I pulled out the chair next to Rory, sat and felt Merlin’s wet nose push at my forearm. I patted him lightly on the head in case the others were watching, then twisted my body away.
‘I’m afraid I’ve received a boring email from the office,’ said Rory, putting a hand on my leg. ‘There’s a developing situation in Algeria which means I need to go back up after breakfast. Do you mind?’
‘Oh no! That means no riding,’ said Elizabeth. ‘What