Cruel Shame (Knights of Templar Academy #3) - Sofia Daniel Page 0,43
hear Mr. Burgh appearing at my side.
I turned to him and scowled. “You should be back in the living room.”
His features darkened. “If you think I’ll hide in the shadows while my granddaughter opens the door to whoever’s out there, you don’t know Duncan Burgh.”
“It’s probably reporters,” I said. “Do you have a door wedge?”
“What?”
“The moment we open the door, whoever’s out there is going to storm inside. We need a piece of slanted wood to block it.”
His face went slack with shock, and he looked about to ask why I thought this but shook his head. Maybe he’d worked out that angry fuckers at the door were a weekly occurrence where I lived. We’d sort of met in a similar situation.
Mr. Burgh disappeared into the living room and reappeared with exactly what I wanted. He wedged it in the middle an inch away from the wood so it would only open a handspan. Enough space for the asshole still ringing the bell to say what they wanted and fuck off.
He raised his hand to turn the latch, but I scooted in front of him. “What if it’s reporters?”
“Then they will get pictures of me, not you,” he said over the continuous banging and ringing.
“I’m not the one people are accusing.” I placed my hand on the latch. “Let me tell these people to bugger off, and I’ll make us a cup of tea.”
His shoulders sagged, and he took a step back. All his life, he had protected young people. Now, I was protecting him. It was hard for me to muster up the words to explain how much he had meant to me, hard to pour out my heart without tearing up and opening the door with red eyes. Instead, I gave Mr. Burgh a sharp nod and cracked open the front door.
A middle-aged woman stood on the doorstep, dressed in a tweed coat that stretched over her ample bust. Her boxy funeral hat with a turned-up brim sat on her oversized head. Beside her stood a gaunt-looking priest, and on her other side, a red-faced man who looked like he was auditioning for the part of Vernon Dursley in Harry Potter.
I narrowed my eyes at a second mousy-looking woman standing at the very end of the doorstep, who released her finger from the bell and gave me an apologetic wince.
Behind the quartet, over fifty people in dark coats gathered on the stairs leading up to our doorstep.
“No, thank you,” I said. “We do our charity donations via direct debit.”
The woman in front’s nostrils flared, and she swept her gaze down my sweatshirt and jeans. “And who might you be?”
“You’re the one knocking,” I snapped. “What do you want?”
“I expect you’re the incest child, protecting your father,” she muttered.
“If you came all this way to slander an innocent man, you’re wasting your time. Good evening.”
She shoved at the door. It opened a few more inches before getting caught in the wedge. “Where is he?”
The Vernon lookalike fumbled in his pocket and raised his smartphone. I ducked behind the door. If he wanted to take pictures, he should have developed better reflexes.
“Show yourself, Man,” he bellowed.
Mr. Burgh and I closed the door.
“The mobs have already started.” He shook his head. “These people won’t give me a moment’s peace until I leave the grounds.”
Chapter Nineteen
The ringing and banging carried on for another ten minutes until Mr. Burgh called the police, and a squad car arrived, complete with a siren and flashing lights that lit up the darkened courtyard. We stood at the living room window, watching a pair of policemen step through the tall gates and approach the crowd with notebooks.
I guess they were taking names, but with so many people standing around and making a nuisance of themselves, why weren’t they calling for backup? “Templar Academy and its grounds are private property, aren’t they?”
Mr. Burgh grunted. “These people are trespassing.”
“Wankers, more like,” I muttered.
He glanced down at me but didn’t say a word about my language. Because he probably agreed with my assessment or had an even more colorful insult.
The officers went from person to person, seeming to jot down their details. Once they’d spoken to each gatherer, the police ushered them out through the gate. It took several minutes for the crowd to dissipate, and a white minivan pulled in on the other side of Mr. Burgh’s fence to pick them up.
I leaned against the cool glass to get a better look at the wording on the vehicle’s side.