sight that greeted her was alarming – he was sitting fully dressed on the bed, the bed so expertly made with hospital corners that either Måns had already been in and made it, or Linus hadn’t slept in it. But she had tucked him in herself last night.
Linus was staring at the floor. She cast an apprehensive gaze around the room and, in the pristine simplicity, easily caught sight of the remains of the Lego truck he had been working on after arriving here yesterday, now smashed into hundreds of pieces against their dividing wall.
She stepped into the room and shut the door behind her. She ruffled his hair as she sat on the bed beside him. ‘What’s up, dude? Bad night?’
He shook his head. His eyes weren’t puffy, and he didn’t look pale.
‘How come you’re dressed already? I was just about to come and wake you. Are you that hungry for breakfast already?’
‘I’ve already had breakfast.’
‘Oh.’ Bell was taken aback. ‘Oh. Well, you should have woken me, then. We could have gone down toge—’
‘He told me not to tell you.’
She frowned, puzzled. ‘Who did?’
‘Emil. He woke me up early and said it was our secret.’
‘. . . What?’
‘We went out on his boat for breakfast and—’
‘You went on a boat with him? Just him? My God, are you okay?’ Now she was on her knees, kneeling in front of him and looking him over as though scanning for signs of injury.
He nodded, but he was visibly upset.
‘What did he do? What did he say?’ Her voice was frantic, heart clattering and making the blood roar through her ears so that she could barely hear his responses anyway. ‘Linus, tell me. What happened?’
‘He said . . .’ A sob escaped him, one bitter tear squeezing itself out and wending a defiant trail down his cheek. ‘He said Pappa and Elise and Tilde aren’t my real family.’
Bell rocked back on her heels, scarcely able to believe this was happening. She’d been awake all of five minutes, emerging from one nightmare straight into another. ‘He said that to you?’ she whispered, feeling the adrenaline pump.
Linus nodded.
She was up again. ‘Wait here,’ she said grimly.
‘Where are you going?’ he cried as she ran to the door.
‘Stay right here, Linus, and don’t leave this room. I’ll come straight back.’
‘But –’
She tore down the hall, past the closed bedroom doors and watchful eyes of dark portraits, her bare feet almost silent on the worn boards as her hair streamed behind her. The polished, ebonized banister glided seamlessly beneath her hand as she took the stairs two at a time, and began charging from one room to the next.
Where was he? Where the hell was he?
She ran to the snug first, but he wasn’t there. She looked into the kitchen too, startling the cook, who nearly dropped a dish at the sight of her. She darted out again, lightning fast, cheeks flushed.
‘Miss Bell?’
She whipped round to see Måns walking towards her, coming from the direction of the drawing room and looking alarmed by her fluster.
‘Where is he?’ she demanded, her head still flashing left and right as she passed by open doorways. One to her right led onto the terrace, the round table and chairs at the top of the steps conspicuously empty.
‘Where is who?’
She had no time for mannered games and procrastination right now. ‘You know who.’
‘The boy is in his room, Miss Bell.’
‘Not –’ She ran straight past him, towards the drawing room. The double doors were open and it was like running into a daydream: the hemp and silk cushions on the settle plumped, fresh white ranunculus roses arranged in a heaped dome on the low coffee table; sunlight pouring through the tall windows like it was painting the room a fresh new colour, and everything smelling of cut grass.
The doors leading off to the left, to the dining room as she recalled, were closed and she was about to turn away – why would he be in there, alone in a room to seat thirty? – when the low timbre of a male voice made her stop in her tracks.
‘Miss Bell –’ Måns said, reaching the threshold of the drawing room.
But she wouldn’t be stopped. She flew across the space like she was on strings and flung the door open with a burst of indignation and rage, so hard it banged against the walls. ‘How dare you!’
Emil stared back at her with a look of utter astonishment. ‘Bell—’