Page 28 of Pride and Privilege

“So,” he said, taking off his coat. “I’ll show you around. Then you take a car to your place to get your stuff. I’ll tidy up here and pack my things while you’re gone. Then when you get back here, I’ll take the car back to yours. Sound like a plan?”

“Sure. Is there a late-night health clinic here? You could get a tetanus booster. Maybe cholera, diphtheria…”

He gave her a withering look. “You’re allowed to make those jokes. I will not.”

He waved a hand around at the large, mostly grey space, with all its glass and featureless shining surfaces. “This is the living room,” he said unnecessarily. There was an ebony box on the enormous coffee table. He opened it and took out the TV and sound system remote controls. “If you’ve ever had training at NASA you might figure out how these work. Let me know if you do.”

She laughed, and then he showed her the kitchen with its adjoining dining room and entertaining space, then the guest bathroom, the office, the storage space, the balcony, the two spare bedrooms, and when he couldn’t put it off anymore—why was he even putting it off?—he opened the door to the master bedroom. “And this will be your room. Bathroom is through that door. The other door is the walk-in closet.”

“Everything’s so neat,” she said, looking around the room with the same expression as she’d looked at the rest of the place. Lips pressed shut, a shimmering sort of amusement in her eyes, as though everything she saw was a joke he didn’t quite understand. “It’s like a hotel. Where’s all yourstuff?There’s not even a stray sock, or a book…or a protein shake lying around.”

“Ah, yes, whey protein. The natural diet of the city boy.” He shut the door behind them and headed back to the kitchen. “There’s a daily cleaner. And like I said, I barely live here. I spend sixteen hours a day at work most days.”

And the rest of the time he was at his real flat. But of course he couldn’t tell her that. It was too awkward to admit to now. And possibly he was embarrassed at having two flats. But his other flat was his sanctuary, and at the end of his very long days he was desperately in need of that sanctuary. He didn’t want Poppy to roll her eyes and laugh when he admitted to its existence.

When she left in the car, he called the concierge and explained about his guest. “And can you order some groceries, a week’s worth, and household essentials. Make it the nice stuff.”

By the time she got back nearly three hours later—it was a long drive to Basildon in London traffic—he was just putting the last of the shopping away in the kitchen. “This is your key—it’s electronic. And this is the one for the communal areas. The gym and pool et cetera.”

He picked up his overnight bag and laptop case while she looked at him frowningly, toying with the key fob. “Are you sure, Roscoe?”

“Yes.” Because she was here, safe, in comfort and what came as close to luxury as his money could currently afford. And the fridge and the cupboards were full of food. She would be able to eat like a queen.

“I’m completely sure,” he said. “Enjoy my life.”

She smiled. “Thank you. Try to survive mine.”

“I’ll do my best.”

He winked. Which was embarrassing. Why did he do that? Then he shifted his bag on his shoulder and left the flat, bound for the wilds of Basildon and the company of a man known as Lecherous Dave.

He could have just gone to his other flat. But he had to do this properly. He genuinely did want to understand Poppy Fields. She was such a strange combination of spiky, soft, open, closed, bolshy, shy, combative, timid… And she’d already made him question himself. She’d already completely turned his life upside down.

“Back to the last address, please,” he told the driver, then settled back against the seat to do some work on his phone.

But it was hard to concentrate. Images kept floating through his mind. Poppy falling to the floor, Poppy pale, crying. Poppy in his arms. Poppy in his flat. Poppy looking at him as he walked out the door, a question in her eyes…

God. Just what had he agreed to? Keeping secrets, making ridiculous plans, performing grand gestures just to change the opinion of one girl… He thought ruefully of his brother Hugo and his current troubles. Roscoe had never really understood how Hugo managed to get himself into the ridiculous situations he so often did. But maybe they were more similar than he’d thought. It was a sobering reflection.

Maybe, at the end of the day, he was doing all this because he was a Blackton, and they generally did whatever they wanted to.

Maybe, if they had a Latin motto, it wasamantes amentes.

Lovers are lunatics.

FOURTEEN

Oh my God, ohmy God, oh my God…

If Poppy Fields did a little squeal as she turned in a circle, taking in the black-granite and brushed-concrete enormity of Roscoe Blackton’s kitchen, and the twinkling city lights that the flat quite literally lookeddownon through a wall of glass, and the pristine saucepans hanging over the kitchen island, and the enormous bowl of fresh fruit… Well, who could blame her?

“And to think,” she whispered to herself as she walked dazedly into the living room, to that spot where she had almost,almostkissed Roscoe Blackton. “Of this place, I might have been mistress.”

Then she giggled like a crazy person. But again, who could blame her? This wasabsurd.

How had she let him talk her into this? How had he even come up with this idea in the first place? Just what kind of lunaticwashe?

Was this the sort of thing rich people did on a whim? Completely upend their own lives and the lives of anyone else inthe vicinity without five minutes’ thought? Pluck starving girls out of penury and move them around London as though they were pieces on a chessboard—aMonopolyboard: Old Kent Road to Mayfair with barely a toss of the dice? Was it normal to hand over the keys to a multi-million-pound penthouse without a backward glance? And he wanted to go and live in a crummy little flat and survive on pennies because he wascurious?

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