Page 42 of The Grosvenor's Ghost
So I tell him, that right from when Arthur left up until today, someone has been sending me bunches of baby’s breath. The more I go on, the more confused or worried he looks. It’s hard to tell with him. He’s like a robot, only ever showing the default feelings of happiness, anger, shock and amusement. It’s so rare to see him show anything else. Never seen him cry or frightened or upset. I wonder what that would be like. I wonder if he feels those things at all. I wonder if I spent a minute inside of his brain that I’d feel all of those things so intensely that I’d understand why they don’t show on his face.
“Okay,” he nods once I come up for air. “Okay.”
But whatever is showing on his face right now doesn’t have a label. His eyes are squinted, his mouth is set in a straight line and his eyebrows have formed into a faint frown—nothing too dramatic but still, I know he was sitting there, taking in every single word that left my mouth.
“You’ll be able to find them?”
His mouth opens, he runs a hand down his face, sinks his teeth into his bottom lip. “I don’t know.”
I get up to leave. He’s still staring at me like he’s itching to say something. I’ve calmed down a lot but the way he’s looking at me is only boiling my blood more.
“Do you know?” I ask in a tiny voice. “Do you know who it is?”
He buries his head into his hands, elbows on the desk. I give him a second before I say it again, louder this time. “George, if you know who it is, you have to tell me.”
He doesn’t move.
“This is my safety we’re talking about.”
“Get out.” He tells me in such a low and sinister voice that I do exactly that.
Part of me wished he’d turn around, laugh, say it was Arthur even though I knew it wasn’t.
He knows who it is.
He knows and he won’t tell me which only frightens me more.
Chapter Ten
Lady Phoebe
I come downstairs after my shower to find Evangeline sitting at the kitchen table eating a cheese toastie.
“Hello?”
“Oh, yes,” Mum waltzes in. “Evangeline popped round.”
Ev wipes her mouth, hands my mum her empty plate. “I’ve come to raid your wardrobe actually.”
I scrunch my face up. “Why are you in uniform? It’s a Saturday.”
“Don’t question what she’s wearing,” Mum tells me, eyeing me up. “Why are you wandering the house in nothing but a towel, darling? Your father could walk in any minute.”
I open the fridge to fetch a bottle of water. “The humidity dries me out.”
I nod for Evangeline to follow me upstairs into my bedroom—my childhood bedroom because I haven’t left my house in about two days after Flower Gate. My family home is the only place where something hasn’t turned up. Here and Hampshire. I’m trying not to think too much about it. If I read into it, it becomes the only thing on my mind and then I can’t sleep, eat or concentrate on anything else.
Digby doesn’t know about it. Told him I needed to go home for a bit so I could work on my next collection. He didn’t think twice about it. He’s come over for dinner, my parents like him—my dad loves him. Think he wants us to get married just so he can have the security of knowing Arthur won’t come back into the picture. Mum’s just happy that I’m pretending to be happy so to her it looks like I’m fine.
He hasn’t questioned why I’ve been here or why I don’t let him stay the night which I think is odd because if your girlfriend is coming up with excuses every time you ask to sleep in her bed, you’d think that’s weird, no? I know Arthur would. But there’s something about having Digby in my bed here. I can’t do it. I can’t have him coming in here, painting over Arthur.
Arthur’s a mural on the wall, no amount of paint can cover up the mark he’s made in this room. I’ve been stuck in the darkness for so long that everytime I come in here, it’s like peeking through a curtain. When I’m in here, it’s us again, how we used to be—even if that was toxic and unhealthy and codependent and whatever else Dr.Kane says. It was us and I was used to it and I grew to love him in whatever form we were in. Time has stopped in this room and there’s a comfort no one else would understand in that.
“…The detention wasn’t even my fault,” Ev says. I blink a few times, realise I’ve been staring at my wall for the last three or so minutes. “Phoebe?” She waves her hand in front of my face. “Are you listening to me?”
“Yeah,” I clear my throat, walking into my bathroom. “Something about detention.”
“Yeah,” Evangeline nods, follows me into the bathroom and sits up on my counter. “And it wasn’t even my fault.”
