Peter scrubbed a hand over his face. “Freddie…I don’t know what to say.”
“What is there to say?” I asked, giggling. “It will be amazing, won’t it?”
He shook his head. “No, because I’m not going.”
I deflated like a party balloon, all the adrenaline and excitement draining from me. “You don’t want to go?”
Peter sat up straighter. “It’s a foolish dream, Freddie. One for children. We aren’t children anymore.”
“How can you say that?” I whispered. “It doesn’t have to be a dream— What’s stopping us?”
“Everything,” Peter said with a humourless laugh. “We have responsibilities.”
“I’m sick of responsibilities!” I cried, rising from the bed. “All I ever hear is how I have to be responsible! How my brother and sister need me as their responsible example for someone to look up to. How I have to be responsible and knuckle down at school so I get good grades. How going to St Finbars is the responsible thing to do!”
Peter moved to the side of the bed and pulled on his trousers from the night before. “This is the real world, Freddie! Like I said, you aren’t a child anymore. You can’t act like a flake and expect people to think it’s cute. You’re an adult, now. Act like it.”
I reared back as though he had struck me.
He sighed and reached for me. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean for it to come out like that. But, bloody hell, Freddie… I’m speechless right now.”
Swiping away a stray tear, I took a step towards him. “Please, please consider it, Peter. It would be amazing, we would be amazing. And it’s not like we wouldn’t come back. It’s only one year.”
Peter shook his head. “I have a plan, Freddie. And messing around for a year isn’t part of it. Look, why don’t we go get ready and have some breakfast? We can talk about planning it for after uni, maybe.”
Another tear slid down my cheek. “No.”
“No? No to what—no to breakfast?” he asked, puzzled. Peter scanned my face, and I felt myself break apart piece by piece.
“No to after uni. I know how these things work, Peter. If you keep saying ‘one day’ then one day never comes. It’s like chasing the end of a rainbow.”
Peter took a step back. “What exactly are you saying, Freddie?”
I sucked in a deep breath. “I’m saying that if you don’t come with me…I’ll go alone.”
The breath rushed out of Peter. Shock was all over his face, pain lanced his fierce green eyes. “Are you serious? You would just leave? But, what about us at St Finbars together? What about…Christ, what about us?”
“Please understand, this is something I feel like I have to do. Otherwise I’ll always wonder.” I took a step towards him. “All my life I’ve tried to make my family proud. I’ve always been the good girl. I’ve always done exactly what was expected of me. But now it’s time to do something for myself. Daddy dying last year has only made me believe in that even more. Life is short, no matter what age you live to. And I don’t want to look back on my life and wish I had done things differently.”
“Like me, you mean?” Peter asked in a cold voice. “You don’t want to look back and wish you had faffed around the world instead of going with me?”
I shook my head as more tears rolled down my face. “No, you aren’t listening to me. Peter, I—I love you. I love you so much that this is killing me right now. But I can’t stay for you.”
“That’s great, it really is,” he muttered. “So what was last night? Your special goodbye?” he asked, flinging his hand in the direction of the bed. “How considerate of you, Freddie.”
I gasped and flew my hand to my mouth. “How can you even think that?”
“I don’t know what to think anymore!” Peter bellowed. “Last night, I thought I knew everything and it turns out I was nothing more than a delusional, romantic idiot! I thought last night was perfect, from the ball to coming back here. I fell asleep with you in my arms last night, and I actually thought that I was the luckiest man in the world because I was holding you. I couldn’t believe you chose me, out of every person on the planet, that we were together and we wouldn’t be separated next year.” Peter laughed ruefully. “Little did I know you’ve been thinking about how you can’t wait to get away from me.”
“Peter, please,” I whispered. “Please understand that this has nothing to do with you.”
“Yeah, I’m beginning to get that.”
“Are you forgetting that I asked you to come with me? I don’t want us to be apart!”
Peter shook his head. “Admit it, Freddie. You knew I would say no.”
“I hoped you would say yes.”
“Well, I didn’t, and I won’t. So here we are.”
I wrapped my arms around my waist to hold myself together. “Here we are.”
We didn’t go for breakfast.
I gathered my things together as Peter finished getting dressed. He drove me back to Mapleton Manor with both of us in silence. Peter pulled in at the gatehouse so I could walk up the drive to school.
Neither of us was particularly concerned with getting caught. I was leaving the next day. I doubted the Mrs Macpherson would make me scrub the red staircase in Hemston.
Peter let the engine idle. He stared out of the front windscreen. “I’m sorry it ended this way,” he said quietly.
“So am I,” I whispered. A thick lump lodged in my throat. “We said a lot of things in the heat of the moment.”
“We did.”
I cleared my throat. “I’m going to leave this open, Peter. If you decide you want to see me, then I will always say yes. A weekend, half term, anything. Wherever I am.”
There was a heavy pause before Peter answered. “I…I’m sorry, Freddie, but I don’t think I can. This year has been hard enough only seeing you at weekends. How can you expect me to go months at a time without seeing you? It will be too hard.”
A tear streaked down my face and I scrubbed it away. “I understand. But the offer is always there. Always.”
Peter nodded.
“I’ll be off then.”
He looked down but made no further move.
I could delay the inevitable no longer. It took all my strength to wrench open the car door and climb out. I closed it behind me and started the long walk up the drive. A few minutes later, I heard the squeal of the car as Peter threw it along the road.
I hugged myself and didn’t bother to wipe away the tears running rivulets down my face.
All I could think about was that I had lost the best thing that had ever happened to me.
And he hadn’t told me he loved me back.
Masters House was quiet.
The usual shrieking, banging, heavy footsteps running across the floorboards and complaints of missing tuck box items were all absent. All the doors were flung open, letting in a flood of bright sunlight across the silent halls.
I stood in my room, peering round at the blank, empty walls that only yesterday had held so much life. Clothes had been packed, posters taken down from the walls and wristbands carefully stowed away in my trunk.
On my return to Masters, Annie and Athena had been waiting in my room, eager for the juicy details on my night with Peter.
I’d taken one look at their familiar faces, faces I wouldn’t be able to see every day anymore, and had burst into body-wracking sobs. I mourned the loss of Peter, but in that moment, the loss of my friends had been a hundred times fiercer.
We’d spent the rest of the day lounging around, half-heartedly packing up our rooms and eating the scraps at the bottom of our tuck boxes. I’d found a multipack of Fruit Pastilles in a shoe, so we’d torn into them and made another pledge to never forget about each other.
They’d listened as I’d poured my heart out about the argument with Peter. They’d offered their condolences, but then they’d whooped and cheered me on for making such a difficult decision. Both of them had made me swear that I would either fly them out to whereve
r I was, or that I would drop in and visit them at university.
A year was simply far too long a time to go without seeing your friends, we’d decided.
For our last night in Mapleton Manor, all of us—Athena, Jemima, Harriet, Cassandra, Alicia and myself—had bunked down in Annie’s room. We’d lain on our quilts, cramped together on the floor as we’d giggled and cried until the sun had come up.
I pressed my hand to the doorframe as I took one last look around my empty room. Masters, and Crosby before it, was as much my home as our house in Monaco.
Picking up my heavy trunk and light tuck box, I carried them down the familiar stairs.
I was leaving a different girl than the one who had arrived. I wasn’t the gangly mischief-maker that had first walked these halls. I was a confident, beautiful young woman about to embark on the next stage of my life.
I had broken bones here. I had climbed trees and scraped my knees and torn so many uniforms that Mummy had threatened to make me wear them with patches. I’d got into trouble, and scrubbed the red staircase more times than I could count.
I had made the best friends in the world here.
I had grown up here.
“Freddie dear, thank goodness I caught you,” Housemistress said as I met her at the bottom of the stairs.
“What’s the matter?” I asked her.
“This was delivered for you this morning. I was dreadfully afraid I wouldn’t find you to give it to you. The young man who brought it said it was most important,” Housemistress said.
My heart pounded as I accepted the letter from her with a shaking hand.
“Are you all set?” she asked.
I nodded.
Housemistress sighed and pulled me in for a quick hug. “I’m so proud of you, Freddie. You’ve turned into a remarkable young woman. I can’t wait to see what you become.”
With a wobbly grin, I thanked her and stepped outside into the warm July day.
The Mapleton Manor grounds were alive with people. Girls ran about, shrieking and giggling. I passed more than a few groups of friends who sobbed in each other’s arms. Parents tried to herd their children into cars, but failed in the face of someone else they just had to say goodbye to.
Jessica, my shadow from last year, stood with a large group of her friends, talking and gesturing animatedly. She had come so far in just two years, and was now a far cry from the shy young girl I had met on her first day of school.
She caught my eye and gave me a huge wave, a massive smile on her pretty face. I waved back and felt a rush of pride that she was now having the time of her life—just like I had promised.
I stood on the steps of the main house to keep an eye out for the car that had been sent for me to take me to their airport. The letter that I knew was from Peter burned a hole in my pocket.
As I reached to pull it out, Athena and Annie spotted me and rushed over.
“We’re just about to leave,” Athena said in a rush. She threw her arms around me. “I wanted one last goodbye.”
We had been having ‘one last goodbye’ all morning.
Annie hugged me next, then Cassandra and Harriet also arrived.
Athena rubbed her eyes and I stilled her hand. “No more tears, girls. This isn’t goodbye. Not really.”
“Not for us at least,” Cassandra said with a wink.
I grinned at her. After returning from the hotel, I’d sought out Cassandra and we’d starting planning. I would spend one week at home in Monaco so I could see my family, then I was flying out to California to stay with Cassandra for a week or two before we decided where to visit first.
“You’re right,” Annie said, grabbing my hand. “This is definitely not goodbye.”
“Exactly. We’re all far too fabulous not to be in each other’s lives,” Athena said with a laugh. She groaned as her mother called her again. Athena kissed my cheek then vaulted down the steps.
One by one, my friends left Mapleton Manor, taking with them pieces of the school that would live with them forever.
We’d each smuggled a brick from one of the more crumbly buildings on the grounds.
When I was alone again, I finally pulled the letter out of my pocket. My hands shook as I opened it and inched it free of the envelope.
Dear Freddie,
To my mad, adventurous and brave Lady…I want to say I’m sorry for the harsh things I said. I didn’t mean them. Call it shock…injured pride…hurt that you would be leaving me.
I understand now why you have to leave. You aren’t meant to be tied down, least of all to a person. So this is me ‘letting you go’, and hoping and praying that you one day come back to me.
Be safe, have fun and don’t forget me.
I love you.
Peter
A vehicle drew up in front of the steps where I stood, and a driver got out of the black town car. He gave me a nod and moved around the car to open the boot.
A smile touched my face and I carefully tucked Peter’s letter back into my pocket. I would add it to my substantial collection of others later.
I picked up my trunk and tuck box and squared my shoulders. Taking my last deep breath of crisp Mapleton Manor air, I took my first steps towards the greatest adventure of my life.
About the Author
Lady Victoria Hervey is known for being a model, socialite and aristocrat. Daughter of the 6th Marquess of Bristol, Lady Victoria led a privileged life until she chose to pursue her dream of becoming a model. In her career, she notably modelled for Christian Dior. Lady Victoria was the author of the popular party animal diary column, ‘Victoria’s Secrets’ in The Sunday Times, which gave readers an insight into the life of a London socialite.
2016 sees Lady Victoria releasing her first fiction novel and embracing a new direction in her career as an author.
Lady Victoria loves to hear from readers. You can find her contact information, website and author biography at http://www.finch-books.com.
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